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Hello, everyone, and welcome to bonus episode
number 154, 1-5-4 of the Culips English Podcast.
How's it going? My name's Andrew. I'll be your
host and your English study buddy for today. As
always here, what I do in our bonus episodes is I
tell you some stories from my everyday life. I'm
a Canadian guy, but I live abroad in Seoul, South
Korea, and I help you build your English fluency
by sharing some adventures from my life with you.
To accompany this episode, there's a free
interactive transcript and vocabulary glossary
that you can get just by clicking the link in the
description for this episode. Plus, if you are a
Culips member, and thank you to all of our members
out there who support us. Guys, we really, really,
really appreciate you. If you are a Culips member,
then you will also get a comprehension quiz for
this episode so you can test and see how much you
are able to understand after you finish listening
to the episode. If you'd like to learn more about
Culips membership, maybe sign up yourself and get
access to all of the great tools and benefits and
bonuses that we give to our members, then just
visit our website, Culips.com, and you can sign up
and become a member today for an affordable price.
OK, let's get into this week's story, guys. I'm
going to tell you about my trip to Japan. I
just got back from Japan. I spent one day in
Osaka and four nights in Sapporo. And I traveled
there with my buddy, Luke. We had a great time.
It was an awesome adventure. And it was just
really, really fun. 10 out of 10 experience.
So, I'm going to tell you about the first leg of
the trip. It's interesting. We use that word "leg"
to talk about a part of the trip. So really, I
had two legs to my journey. The first leg was
in Osaka, the second leg was in Sapporo. So, this
week I'll tell you about that first leg in Osaka,
and then next week I'll tell you about my
adventure in Sapporo. So, without any further ado,
let's get to the story. I hope you enjoy it, and
I hope you're able to build your English fluency
by listening to it. Here we go. Enjoy.
OK, let me tell you about my one day,
very quick pit stop in Osaka. Do you guys know
this expression, a "pit stop"? It actually comes
from car racing. You know, think of like a Formula
One car or a NASCAR, they do those races around a
circuit, right? Well, they're going so fast
and working so hard that sometimes they need
to stop and get their tires changed or refuel
the car. And that kind of quick stop we call
a pit stop. The area where they go to get their
car serviced is called “the pit.” So, a pit stop
is like just a quick stopover. And that's what we
can call this kind of thing in English. So, I did
a quick pit stop in Osaka on my way to Sapporo.
And I did this really for two reasons. The two
reasons that I stopped in Osaka were, number one,
it's an awesome city. I love Osaka. And it's got
a great record store scene. In my opinion, maybe
one of the best record store cities in the world.
There are tons of great independent record stores,
and it's just like a really good community of
record stores. I think they're all friendly with
each other. When you go to one record store,
they actually have like a map, and they
recommend other record stores to you. So,
you know, if you're looking for something and they
don't have it, they're really willing to say, oh,
try this other record store and they'll point you
to another business to go there. And I love that.
It's cool to see a small business community like
that working together. They're not just trying
to keep their competitors from getting business
from customers. They're actively recommending that
you go here, check that out. And there are just,
yeah, great record stores in Osaka. And of course,
as a music lover and an LP collector,
I wanted to go there to do some record
shopping. So that was one of the reasons.
And then the second reason is price. It's
a lot cheaper to fly from Seoul to Osaka and then
Osaka to Sapporo, which was my final destination,
than it is to go direct. It's not like a
lot cheaper, maybe $100 or $150 cheaper,
but hey, I'll save that money when I can. So,
I decided to save some money and maybe put that
money that I saved on my plane ticket towards
some records in Osaka. And so that was my plan.
Now, in order to maximize the time that I could
spend in Osaka, I decided to fly there as early
as I could in the morning. So, I booked the
first plane, which I think was around 7:30 in
the morning that we left. And it's a quick flight
from Seoul to Osaka, it’s just an hour and a half
or something. So, I figured, in my head, this was
my rough calculation. OK. I'll go to the airport,
7:30. I’ll fly and I'll arrive in Osaka, let's
say 9:00 AM, 9:30 AM, somewhere in there. And
then by the time I get through immigration, and I
get onto the airport train, and I actually arrive
in the central district of Osaka, well, then it
will probably be like 11 a.m., 11:30? And then my
second flight to go from Osaka to Sapporo was at 6
p.m. So, I thought, OK, I'll have like a good four
hours maybe before I have to hightail it back to
the airport to get that flight to go to Sapporo.
"Hightail it" means to go very quickly. So...
And now that I'm thinking about this,
for whatever reason, it seems like I had more
time than I really do. When I'm thinking about
this and saying it out loud, this plan kind of
seems not so great. And in reality, it was cool.
It was cool to spend some time in Osaka, but I
was really rushed, and I didn't get to do all
of the things that I wanted to do. And maybe you
can see why now that I'm talking about the time.
But anyways, let me tell you about my day in
Osaka. So, as I said, I took the airplane early
in the morning, 7:30 a.m. departure time, which
means really, I had to wake up, I think I woke
up before 4:00 a.m. Maybe like 3:45 or something
in the morning. Ridiculous! A time that nobody
should have to wake up, and quickly got ready and
took the airport bus to the airport because at
that time in the morning, even the subways aren't
operating. So, it's a little bit uncomfortable to
get to the airport that early in the morning.
You have to take the bus. And luckily, we have
great airport shuttles here in Seoul, but they're
a little bit expensive, much more expensive than
taking the subway. So, subway is ideal to get
to the airport, but obviously couldn't do that
because it was too early in the morning.
So, I woke up at that ungodly hour,
took the shuttle bus to the airport, checked into
my flight. Everything was cool. The flight over
to Osaka was cool. And I should say, this is kind
of a key point, that I traveled very light because
I booked a budget airline ticket. And as part of
that budget airline ticket, I wasn't able to bring
any luggage with me. There was no luggage included
in the ticket fee, just my one carry-on bag.
Actually, I was allowed one carry-on bag and one
personal item. And they both, totaling together,
had to be under seven kilograms. And that was also
the case for my flight to Sapporo as well. It was
on the same airline. It was kind of part of the
same ticket. I just had that long layover, right?
So, because I wanted to do record shopping in
Osaka, I figured that if I bought some records,
maybe let's say I have a really good day
of digging and I find a lot of stuff that
I want to buy, maybe I would buy eight
or 10 records, if I really did a shopping
spree. I had to calculate how much that would
weigh. And one record, I weighed it actually,
usually weighs between 250 to 300 grams. So, I
had to keep that in the back of my mind. OK, let's
say one record on average weighs 300 grams and I
wanna buy 10. Well, that's three kilograms. So,
I have to have a bag that's like four kilograms
maximum, or else I would have to pay a really
insane luggage fee. The cost of going over and
having to purchase extra luggage on these budget
airlines can sometimes actually not be budget at
all. It's quite expensive. So, I really packed
light for this trip. I just had one small bag and
I was only going to Sapporo for like four days,
right? So, I didn't have to pack too much stuff.
I just kept it really, really light, just the bare
essentials. And yeah, I think my bag was exactly
at around just over four kilograms, maybe 4.1
or 4.2 kilograms. So, I did a good job there
and I was really mindful about my bag weight.
So, I get to Osaka. The flight was great.
I think I slept the whole way. I was pretty
sleepy from waking up at 3:45 in the morning for
the flight. Arrived in Osaka, everything was cool.
Went through immigration, everything was cool.
And yeah, by this time it was around maybe 9:45
in the morning. So, everything was on schedule.
And when you arrive in Osaka, you have to take
a shuttle bus, or at least I did, from where my
plane landed in that terminal to the main terminal
where you can catch the train to get into the
city itself. So, I was waiting for that shuttle
bus to come and take me to the main terminal.
And at that moment, everybody's phone beeped at
the same time. It was kind of like beeeeep, that
kind of warning alert sound. And so, I took out my
phone, I took a look at it, and there was a pop-up
that was entirely in Japanese saying something.
And, I figured in my mind at that time, I figured
it was probably a heat-alert warning. Because here
in Korea, when it's a heat wave and we have
really high temperatures, the government will
sometimes push out alerts warning people and
to, you know, not spend too much time outside,
or to go into an air conditioned place, or to look
out for elderly people who might be suffering in
the heat, these kinds of warnings. And I thought,
hey, probably we're getting a heat-wave warning
because it was so hot in Osaka. It was boiling hot
already by 9:45 in the morning. It was really hot
and humid. And so that was in my mind. I figured,
OK, of course I can't read it. It's in Japanese,
right? Entirely in Japanese. So, I
figured it's a heat wave warning.
And all of the other people in the line, they were
also foreigners. I think mostly Koreans that we
just got off the same plane together, right? So,
I don't know if they were able to understand it,
but I think most people just sort of closed
the alert and we got on the shuttle bus and
went to the terminal, and I didn't really
think too much of it other than that.
So, get to the terminal and I found a locker.
I stored my bag in the locker because I didn't
want to carry that 4.2 kilograms around with me
all day. And then I bought my ticket to get the
shuttle train to the shopping area that I wanted
to visit. I had my path and my route all mapped
out, so I knew where I was going to go first,
which record stores I was going to hit. And
here "hit" when I say I want to hit a record
store, doesn't mean that I want to punch it,
it just means I want to visit it, so sometimes
we use that word "hit" to mean visit.
So, I had all of the locations marked that I
wanted to hit. And my priorities were to go to
record shopping first and then I also wanted to
try some coffee because I know from my previous
visit to Osaka that there's really good coffee in
the city and I wanted to hit up a cafe that I know
does a really good cup of brew. So, I wanted to
have a cup of coffee. And then my third and final
priority was lunch. And I had some restaurants
pinned that I thought could be good for lunch. If
I had time. Lunch, I was willing to sacrifice. But
I really wanted to try and make an effort to go to
the record stores and to get some coffee. And if I
had to skip lunch, well, hey, it's probably OK for
my waistline to do that every once in a while.
So, I got onto the express train. I splurged
and bought the express ticket, which would get
me to the area I wanted to go to just a little
bit faster. And the train was actually really
beautiful. I took a picture of the train and
I'll put that on social media so you guys can see
it. Or if you're watching the YouTube version of
this video, you'll be able to see it now as I'm
talking about the train. But I took the express
train to get to the city a little bit faster.
And then it was time to go record shopping.
And unfortunately, where I got off, on the
train stop to the record store that I wanted
to visit first, was a bit of a hike. And it was
a little confusing to get there because when I
was looking on Google maps, it looked like
a pretty direct route, but then in reality,
the route wasn't so direct because there were
some train lines in the way. So, I thought I
could just walk in like a straight line. But
then in reality, the road that I needed to
cross was blocked by a train. So, I had to take a
little shortcut and that took a little bit longer
than I wanted to actually find this record store.
But eventually I got there. And now by this time,
it was already around noon or so. So, it
had taken me like a lot longer than I was
expecting. I was expecting to be ready to get
coffee and maybe even lunch by this time. But I
was just arriving at the first record store.
And record stores in Japan are really great
because they have a huge selection of Japanese
music and Japanese music is really good and
super high-quality music, lots of interesting and
great stuff that comes out of Japan, of course.
But also, they have a really extensive collection
of Western music and music from all genres, and
everything is in good condition. I think Japanese
people, at least from my experience here, shopping
in their used record stores, really take good care
of their products so that when you do buy a used
record in Japan, the quality is really good.
And so, yeah, once I got to the first store,
it was digging time, time to search. And there's
so much good stuff to look at, even in the first
store, I was just, you know, browsing everywhere
and looking everywhere and it was great, but this
takes a lot of time. And suddenly I looked at my
watch and already an hour had gone by. I was like,
"Oh my gosh, I don't have too much time
before I have to get back to the airport."
So, I was in the record store and suddenly I
got a message from my mom. And my mom said,
"Andrew, did you hear the news? There was an
earthquake in Russia, a huge earthquake. And
now there's a big tsunami alert for all of
Japan." She was quite worried. She was like,
"Where are you? Are you OK? Get to high ground."
Now, luckily, the building that I was actually in
at the time, I think it was on the ninth floor.
So, I wasn't really too worried about a tsunami
coming up to the ninth floor. And, you know, moms
tend to worry a lot, right? So, when your mom
sends you a message and she's like, "And there's
a tsunami, get to high ground," and she's back
in Canada watching the news. I'm like, I didn't
really take it very seriously, right? I'm like,
"Yeah, mom, everything's OK." Like, I think
if there were a real tsunami alert in Osaka,
probably people would be acting differently. Maybe
there would be a siren going off or something. I
think there would be more signals. Even though I
can't speak Japanese, I think probably I would be
able to notice that something's going on.
And so, I wasn't too worried about that,
but she kept sending me messages and
her tone was pretty serious saying,
"At least Google it and see what's going on." You
know, I was just in the record store, and there
were lots of other customers there. And the staff
were just going about their daily business. Nobody
seemed concerned about a tsunami or anything
like that. So, I wasn't too worried at all.
But I finished my shopping. I bought four records
at the first store. And then I thought, OK, let's
see what my mom was talking about. So, I found a
little rest area and I had a seat and I Googled
and searched on Reddit, which is maybe a better
source of information for real time updates. And
yeah, I noticed that there was a massive, massive
earthquake on one of these islands in northern
Russia. And there was a big tsunami alert for
many parts of Japan, but also for parts of Hawaii,
and I think even maybe into Alaska and
North America, the West Coast as well. So,
everybody was on alert about the tsunami.
And reading on Reddit, people were just
expecting the tsunami to come in. And there
were predictions that it could be between just
10 centimeters to up to a meter and maybe even
higher. And for Osaka, there was some concern.
Like it showed on the map, the areas that
were affected and Osaka was under an alert
and was affected. But I was more concerned about
Sapporo because I had to take a flight to Sapporo
in just a few short hours from that moment.
So, I was trying frantically to find some
information about this because there were three
colors that they used. I think there was a yellow,
red, and purple. And yellow was the mild alert.
That's where Osaka was. It was under a yellow
alert. The red was a more serious alert and
then a purple was a strong warning. You know,
the area that I was going to in Sapporo, that
had the red alert. So, I was trying to see like,
how close is our hotel to the ocean? How far is
Sapporo, the city center to the ocean? I didn't
know any of this information. I'd never been
there before. I know it's not like a coastal city,
but I wasn't sure. Like, how far is it really
exactly from the ocean to the city center?
What's the elevation like? And information
like this. So, I was Googling and trying to
figure out like, is it safe to fly in right now?
Because it turned out that this earthquake was an
8.6 on the Richter scale, which was the sixth
strongest earthquake in history, apparently
recorded history. So, a massive, massive
earthquake. And of course, with earthquakes,
it's not just the initial earthquake, but also
the aftershocks, right? Some strong aftershocks
could happen. And so, I think when you have
a tsunami warning like this, it's not just
the initial quake that can cause concern, but
also aftershocks. And maybe it will take a few
days to know if the tsunami hits or doesn't hit.
And so, I had a decision to make in that moment.
I was like, I don't know really what to do. Is it
going to be safe to go to Sapporo? What happens if
I go there and then there's a tsunami? How stupid
would that be? You know, If I'm sitting in a safe
place in Osaka on the ninth floor of a building
and then I take a flight to Sapporo and then
I get affected by a tsunami, that would just be
so stupid. So, I was trying to find information.
And I couldn't really find anything, but I noticed
that the phrasing that was used in the weather app
was “alert,” not “warning.” And I couldn't find
anything about a travel advisory. And when I
looked at the website for my airline, I noticed
that they had canceled quite a few flights going
to northern areas of Hokkaido. And Hokkaido is the
island where Sapporo is on the northernmost island
in Japan. So, I noticed that some of those
flights going to northern Hokkaido, which is
closer to the epicenter of the earthquake, and I
think more open to a tsunami from that direction,
all of those flights had been canceled, but my
flight to Sapporo was still scheduled. And so,
I thought, OK, what I'll do is I'll just
leave it into the hands of fate. And if
the airline cancels the flight and there's a
travel warning at the airport, or maybe I can
talk to somebody at the airport, then I won't
go. But if the flight is on, then I'm going.
Another thing that I had to think about also was
my buddy Luke was flying at that time from Canada
en route to Sapporo. So, he was in the middle
of that flight and it's not like I could text
him to communicate with him. He would be arriving
in Sapporo, and he would be expecting to meet me
there. And so, I had that to consider as well.
So, I thought I'm going to leave it into the
hands of fate and go to the airport just like
everything is normal. If the flight's canceled,
that's a big sign not to go. Or if the airline
staff say it's dangerous, you shouldn't be going,
maybe only people who live in the city or
something are allowed to take the flight,
then I wouldn't take the flight. But
yeah, I decided, OK, that's my game plan.
And then I looked at my watch and I was getting
close to two o'clock, 2 p.m. by the time I had
finished with the Googling, and the research,
and the thinking about what I should do. And
then I was like, I don't think I have time to do
anything else. I visited one record store and when
I thought about the path that I would have to take
to get back to the subway station, and then take
the subway to get back to the airport train, and
then airport train to the airport, and then check
in for my flight and all of this, I was like,
I'm not going to have time to do anything else.
So yeah, my time in Osaka was great. I
enjoyed the one record store that I visited,
but also it was a little bit disappointing
because I had several record stores that I
wanted to visit. I had a cafe that I wanted
to try the coffee at. I had some restaurants
pinned on my map that I wanted to check out. And
I realized at that moment that I wasn't going to
be able to do any of those things. And I just
had to make my way back to the subway station,
back to the airport express train, and then
back to the airport. And so that's what I did.
I got to the airport. I collected my bag
from the locker. And when I added the four
LPs that I bought at that record store to the
bag and then I weighed it again. It came in at
exactly 6.8 kilograms. So, I was just under,
and I don't know where that extra weight came
from. Maybe I hadn't really weighed it very
accurately before. I'm not sure, but my bag was
just under the limit and a really good thing
too because when I flew from Seoul to Osaka,
they were pretty loosey-goosey with the weight
regulations, and they didn't really check my bags
at all. They just sort of said, go ahead. But when
I checked in for my flight from Osaka to Sapporo,
they were very, very diligent about checking
the weight and making sure I was under. I got
stopped twice and was asked to check the weight
in front of the agent to make sure that I was
underweight. So yeah, just by the skin of my
teeth, just barely got through with the weight
restriction and yeah, flew from Osaka to Sapporo.
In the end, guys, nothing materialized with the
tsunami. Thank God everything was OK, and Japan
wasn't really affected too much this time. I
think there were some areas where there
were some tsunami waves of up to a meter,
but nothing that I heard about, no big
damage, nothing like what we've seen
in Japan in previous years. So that was really
good. That was really fortunate. And I was able
to meet my friend in Sapporo with no problems.
But I'll save the details about our Sapporo
trip and the fun and adventures we got up to in
Sapporo for next time. I think I've been rambling
on here long enough, everyone. So, if you made
it all the way to the end, thank you so much for
listening. Thank you so much for spending some
time with me studying English today. Remember,
this is what you need to do to build your fluency.
You need to get the language into your head. You
need to spend some time listening to it. And
you did that here today. So great job. Keep
up the good work. And I think that's going to
bring us to the end. So please take care. Have
a great week of English studying up ahead. And
I'll catch you in the next episode. Bye-bye.
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