Welcome to The Avocado’s weekly discussion of Japanese pop culture! If you like trains, or you’re interested in learning about various Japanese communities, then you might want to check out Japan Hour! Specifically, there are episodes that feature two celebrities riding a local train line with the goal of finding lesser-known places to visit. As far as I understand, Japan Hour is a weekly (?) show that features a variety of subjects, so it’s not just travel-focused features. But sometimes, the show featured these local train line adventures. It took a couple episodes for me to fully understand the concept, but what happens is two celebrities meet up and are tasked with the following: Ride the entire train line in two days. They can only use public transportation, so they can’t travel too far from each station because they walk most places (bikes are also allowed, if they’re available). Before the deadline on the second day, they need to find 10 “entries” that must be recommended by locals. So, at each station, they ask people what special places they should visit while they’re there. It can be anything! A park, a breathtaking view, an interesting museum, a shrine, and of course, local food specialties (they eat a lot). They also have to find a place to stay the night (sometimes the place they stay qualifies as an entry, but not always). They also have to actually visit the place and get permission to film each location, so if they don’t get permission, it can’t be an entry. So a lot of the show is them asking if they can film everywhere they go. Anyway, it’s a lot of fun, and luckily you can find a handful of episodes on YouTube and various other places online (just search “Japan Hour”). For an introduction, here’s the first one I watched:

And, as always…

What have you been watching/reading/playing/eating/listening to lately?

Happy Wednesday! 🙂