I had some free time this afternoon so I asked you guys

on my Facebook page if there are any questions you wanted to ask me

um about myself or Japan or just whatever.

Um I haven't done many of these Q+A videos so

I get lots of Youtube emails that I don't have time to reply to

so hopefully I can answer some of those questions in this video

What is your favourite Japanese snack of all time?

This is very difficult there are so many good ones to choose from

but my absolute favourite would probably be Black Thunder

What's your favourite Pokémon?

Um this is so hard to choose too

I really like Raichu

Um... I like Paras

which is a really weird choice

I'm sure you're all thinking

Um I just really like its voice I think. I think it's really cute

Where is your favourite place to eat in Tokyo?

I went to a really delicious vegan place the other day actually

I think it was called Journey in English

Um...

The rest of the name is really weird

I will put it right here

Cause I can't remember what it was called

But that place was so yummy

even if you're not vegan I think you would love it

Um I had a hayashi rice dish

which is kind of like a stew I guess with rice

and their pancakes were so good

they had like a cream and a fruit topping

oh it was so yummy

Which city in Japan do you like the most and why?

Hmm...

I used to live up in Northern Japan in a city called Morioka

It's in Iwate Prefecture

Um I really liked it there,

I think um the main reason is because it's very similar to my hometown, Victoria, in Canada

Lots of nature, um a little bit cooler weather than you'll find in Tokyo since it's pretty far up north

and... less people

definitely less crowded

but it wasn't like a super countryside town it was kinda a nice balance between city and countryside

Um I'm gonna say so far my favourite place would probably be Morioka

Other than the Kanto Region where do you want to take a trip to in Japan

Um well actually I have never been off of the main island of Honshu

So I would love to visit Hokkaido or Shikoku or Kyushu

Um anywhere

actually

I've done lots of traveling all up and down the main island

But so yeah I haven't been off of it

so I would definitely love to visit any of the other islands

I think that would be really cool

Hi Sharla what is your favourite thing about living in Japan and why?

Ah... This is really hard to pick just one and I'm just gonna say the first thing that comes to my head

I really like how people in Japan kind of just let you do your own thing

so if you're walking down the street you won't get lots of people yelling at you or coming up and talking to you

um unless they wanna practice their English

I do get that sometimes

but um what I mean is kind of like in Canada I'll walk down the street here and I'll have guys yelling something at me

or um if you're sitting at the bus stop strangers will start talking to you

and sometimes that's cool, like sometimes you know you're in the mood to talk to people

but other times you just like wanna be by yourself and you don't wanna you know you're not in the mood to talk with random people

and that doesn't happen often in Japan

so I really like that

it's always very um people just mind their own business and they let you do your own thing

and i just feel a lot more comfortable going outside in Japan because I know that many people won't bother me

What is your favourite Japanese store?

I'm assuming they're meaning like clothes for shopping

in that case I would say probably Spins or Wego

I can't choose one they're very similar

um they're both in Harajuku they have very like cute street fashion and I just love both of them

Do you plan to stay in Japan for as long as you can?

Also, what sparked your wish to study and get into the Japanese world?

It would be interesting to hear

Um... Hmm...

That's kind- I- hm...

I do plan on staying in Japan for a while

I don't know how long that will be, I'm pretty... random

If all of a sudden I feel like moving to another country one day

I will do that so I can't really decide on my long term plans yet

um at the moment I'm really enjoying living in Japan

I have a job which I will talk about in the future

Um I wanna make like a proper video about it

but um long term wise, I'm not sure yet

And what sparked my wish to study and get into the Japanese world... hm...

Er... I first started studying Japanese when I was I think 13

Um I think I mentioned this in a really crappy video that I made a long time ago about like how I started studying Japanese and stuff

but that video like sucks I don't even want you guys to go watch it

so um I will say it again

But I... In Canada you have to choose a third? Third language I guess it is

We study French

Um it's mandatory to study French up until grade 8

and then in grade 9 you can choose another language to study

you can either continue on with your French or you can choose another one

And I thought I already have like a basis of French down so I'll move on to another one

and we had I think Russian, Spanish, er... Japanese

um German? There might have been German

No, maybe not

um anyways we had like 3 or 4 languages to choose from and I just thought Japanese sounded cool

so I picked it randomly

And um as I started studying it I really fell in love with the culture and the language was fun to learn

I wasn't much of a book studier so I got pretty bad grades

in my Japanese classes actually

er in high school

but I still really enjoyed the language and I made lots of Japanese friends

through um like a Japanese club we that had at school and I just yeah I guess I just fell in love with the culture and the people so

that's why I stuck with it

Now this is an interesting one

Do you wear a mask like a lot of people in Japan do?

Like in flu season etc? I've never seen you in one

Um well the reason you haven't seen me in one is because um if I wore one

in my videos you wouldn't be able to hear me talking cause it really muffles your speech

but yes I definitely do wear a mask

There are actually several different reasons that I would wear one

I wear one when I'm sick um I wear one when I'm going to like a crowded area say like hm... if I'm gonna go to like maybe Shinjuku Eki

and I go shopping there all day I might wear a mask just so that I don't catch a cold from someone

And I'll also sometimes wear a mask if I'm not wearing makeup

I know that's silly but um that's a thing in Japan

People will wear the masks if they don't have time to do their makeup in the morning and they feel awkward out in public without makeup

Um which I do because lots of people look at me because I'm different looking I have blonde hair now

which makes me stand out even a little more than I used to

so I feel very awkward when I'm out in public and I'm not like, I don't have all my makeup on

so sometimes I'll wear a mask for that

How do body mods go over in Japan? Do people look down on them or do people not really care?

Um... It really depends like what you're doing

If you work in the fashion scene then you can totally get away with having tonnes of piercings and tattoos and crazy hair colours

it wouldn't matter at all you see lots of that when you go into like say Harajuku or um even areas in Shibuya

It depends what you're doing like it's some of the store workers will have tonnes of piercings and tattoos

and er it doesn't matter because that that's fine for their job

Um but in general yes they do look down on piercings

which is why I don't have mine anymore

I used to have um three in each ear

ear piercings aren't like err looked down on at all here actually so don't worry if you have tonnes of ear piercings

that should be fine but I-I ended up taking those out anyways

I had my tragus and my nose and my lip

and yes I took them all out because I wanted to get jobs in Japan and it's really hard to do that um when you have piercings

it just really limits your choice of jobs so that is why I took those out

I find that really sad because I love piercings and I really want them back

My job now is very... very... how can I say, not Japanese

they don't really care what I look like, what I wear, and I don't think they would mind if I had piercings

so maybe I will put them back in the future