I Hosted a Travel TV Show on Channel 7! BTS of Going Solo in Japan: The Wonders of Kyushu!

so when i was a little kid i used to

love watching travel shows on australian

tv

i think i even remember at one point

pointing at the tv

and telling my parents that's what i

want to do when i grew up

and as an adult i think i i always kind

of had that dream but it was is like a

pipe dream like something i

i didn't really think that would happen

but it'd be cool if it did

and it always just remained as that in

my head until

i got an email from a production company

working with channel 7 in australia

i've just arrived in oita prefecture

here in kyushu and i'm

already blown away by the scenery here

it's my first time here but i've heard

incredible things about it

so i can't wait to show you what we've

got still

so the two episodes of going solo in

japan the wonders of kyushu

have actually already aired on tv in

australia but don't worry they're still

available to view

on the seven plus streaming app but

since most of my viewers

are from countries outside of australia

even though i'm pretty sure you can just

use a vpn

i thought that i would take this

opportunity to tell you a little bit

about the trip show a bit more of behind

the scenes and

what went into making these two episodes

[Music]

so

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so everything that you would have seen

on the show is actually filmed very much

out of order but chronologically over

the five days this is what we did

so day one we actually only had one

shooting location which was

very good because i was crazy nervous

this area is so beautiful the police

that we visited was called towel hill

which is part of the asokujo national

park and we were here to watch some kind

of

taiko drumming performance it's very

traditional in japan and it was

awesome

[Music]

that is amazing

yeah it was really cool i got to talk to

some of the performers afterwards and

ask them about their work schedule

and i got to try some of the drumming

myself which i can't say i was very good

at

and then lean back yes

[Music]

and then we finished the day with some

tea and dessert ready to start bright

and early the next morning

so day two i woke up at around 3 30 a.m

i down some dopio espresso and then we

drove to beppu bay for the first scene

of the day which is at around

6 30 a.m right now and we're about to

get on to a fishing boat cruise

let's go it was about a 30-minute trip

across the bay and it was

really beautiful weather they let me

drive the boat for a bit full speed

is that a thing people say on boats i

don't know

[Music]

i don't know who trusted me to be in

this room but now

[Music]

we continued our cruise to the orga fish

market to see a fish

auction live in person and to be honest

i really thought it'd be fishier like

smelling than this it doesn't smell like

fish at all

i don't know how they do it to be honest

so after having some fish for breakfast

very crunchy we're headed off to a

sake brewery brewery

brewery and we're going to take a little

behind the scenes tour to see how it's

made

and hopefully we'll get to try some

[Music]

so one thing that i found really

interesting about this particular

brewery is that

they play mozart at all times in the

warehouse just to like

like enhance the quality of the final

product yeah it just kind of just

reminded me of like

parents that play classical music for

babies because they

want to make them smarter

because leading experts say mozart makes

baby smarter

oh oh damn

wow that's actually really hard to do

perfect

all right i've got a new job in case

youtube doesn't work out for me

so the really cool thing about chia

beijing sake is that

during the brewing process it actually

turns like this bright pink

color and it was really cool i've never

seen pink sake before this is

really pink it's very cool very excited

to try

so after drinking probably a little bit

more sake than was necessary for the

shoot

we headed off to matama beach which is

actually one of the top 100

best sunset spots in japan

they actually ended up using some of my

drone shots for this shoot which was

really cool so

i feel like i should add professional

drone flyer to my resume or something

so on the third day we drove a few hours

north to sonata farm in the kinosaki

peninsula

and this is where they grow shiitake

mushrooms and it's so

cool i've never seen i had no idea how

they made them yeah it's awesome

someone's flying a drone i want to fly

my drone

[Music]

pressure is on you only get one take of

this i say that but then i go and pick

like 12 more mushrooms

this is actually a really cool

experience because i really do

love shiitake mushrooms and i have no

idea how they were grown so

now every time i use them in my cooking

i feel like i have a whole new

appreciation for them which is really

cool

[Music]

wow that is so good so the next place

that we headed to was called nakatsu

a castle town of oita prefecture famous

for its traditional japanese paper

umbrellas

or wagasa

is one of the artisans who keep this 300

year old tradition alive

and it's one of the only two remaining

in kyushu oh wow

oh thank you so this is another one of

those experiences that

taught me so much and it made me just

appreciate the art even more

like i had no idea it takes two months

to make one of these umbrellas

all in all a very fun experience

day four was a big day of shooting

because we had

four or five different locations to

shoot at and a very tight schedule

luckily the sun came out because the

first place we went to visit was a yuzu

farm

yuzu are a bit of a cross between a

lemon and a lime

oh these gloves are so big okay

okay okay after that we got to visit the

factory where the yuzu assorted and

zested

that smell is crazy i'm actually a

pretty big fan of users so this was

legitimately a really cool experience to

see how it was produced

i just wish that i could like bottle up

the smell that that factory had and just

take it with me everywhere because it

smells like heaven

so the next stop was kokonoe yume

otsurihashi

and even though this was day four of

filming this was actually where we ended

up shooting the opening shot

for the whole show so the pressure is on

for me to do a good introduction

because it's the first thing people will

see um

still don't really know what i'm

supposed to be saying i guess we'll

figure it out as we go

i have no idea what i'm doing

[Music]

not bad good size

so i've just arrived in oita prefecture

i took about six or seven takes

alternating between me holding my camera

me

vlogging to my camera me holding the

camera but then looking at the main

camera

and me rhyming accidentally area and

i've never seen it before

so i can't wait to show you what we've

got in store before we finally got a

shot that everyone was happy with

so the pressure's off we filmed the

opening i'm happy with it i'm happy with

how it looks

it's so much pressure for the opening

because it's the first thing people see

what if they hate me

so with that out of the way we could

finally move on to the next location

which is the village

onsen glamping which is exactly as the

name suggests

onsen which means japanese hot spring

and then glamping which is glamorous

camping

both of these sound wonderful to me so

i'm really excited to see what it's like

let's go

[Music]

this is actually a really cool

accommodation option in the area

we got to use all of their facilities

like the onsen that they had

where i got to wear this like plastic

modesty dress in the onsen because

obviously can't be naked on national tv

so that was the

first time wearing that we got to do a

little bit of barbecuing

with some live entertainment and overall

it was just a really lovely evening

but we couldn't get too comfortable

because we still had one more location

to shoot at

which was at an iaido dojo this is a

place where i get a traditional samurai

experience

i've got no idea what that means but i'm

really excited to check it out

let's go ah

[Music]

you can speak in english if you like ah

thank goodness

so it was here that i got to learn from

nathan bastian and azuma sensei

and he was the coolest man ever

he's so cool i don't know how to explain

but like he just like

looks like he's got like wisdom you know

like all the wisdom of like a thousand

years of knowledge or something

he's so cool i don't know he had this

kind of like zen

about him i don't know how to describe

it but like like

his aura was just so calm but you could

just tell there was like

bottled fire or something like that like

he's had so much experience and so much

training

in this samurai sword fighting so the

sword that i had was fake

but at one point he let me hold his

sword which was real and

very very sharp and very heavy and even

his student who's been with him for like

14 years he'd never held it before

he doesn't even let me hold it oh really

oh i feel so special right now

it's honestly it felt a little dangerous

i just felt like i i don't know i

i just felt like i shouldn't be holding

it but it was

such a cool experience it was really

really incredible the sword was so sharp

that when you kind of just drop it

through the air or like slice it down

it makes like it like you can hear it

like cutting through the air it was

really

really cool i think out of everything

that i did on our trip

uh this was my favorite favorite

experience of the whole thing it was

amazing

day five day five marks the final day of

shooting

i think it's only like two locations

today so far it's been really fun

it's really fun experience to like see

how everything works and

like how all the shots are set up and

feel like i'm learning a lot on set and

learning a lot from

my own mistakes oh my god there's been

so many mistakes i've pretty much made a

fool of myself at least once every

single day

of the shoot so far which is fine with

me

i do that enough on youtube anyway so i

don't mind if they use them in the

in the final edit i actually kind of

hope that they do it's it's quite funny

some of them

also you noticing these little like red

dots on my face i had great skin all

week

leading up to this shoot and then the

night before the shoot

a mosquito flew into my room and bit my

face

five times so that's great

just love that for me ah

the joys of being in front of the camera

obviously i don't mind if i look

terrible in front of this camera because

it's youtube and you'll know what i look

like anyway but in front of tv i don't

know

there's a certain standard of of

appearance that you've got to adhere to

i feel like i don't know

maybe we need more ugly people on on the

internet on on

television maybe that'd be good for

everyone

so just with the way the schedule worked

out i actually ended up having wagyu

beef for breakfast

and to be honest i was actually kind of

nervous for this part because

uh if you've watched my videos before

you know that i don't normally eat meat

and i

haven't had beef for probably about like

three or four years

i was nervous because i didn't know what

my reaction was going to be i didn't

know if it was gonna make me feel sick

and i didn't know how my viewers on

youtube and instagram and stuff would

think about it so

i posted a story on instagram with like

a long

explanation of why it was that i decided

to eat meat for this shoot

basically to break it down i made a

video a long time ago

saying that i decided to be a lot more

flexible with my diet for

for many reasons but the main reason

being that on a lot of these jobs and

tourism promotional jobs even for

youtube

they often want you to include the local

specialty in the area or to talk about

japanese food and that kind of thing

in japan most of them contain some kind

of animal product

so in my day-to-day life 99.999

of the time i have a predominantly vegan

vegetarian diet but on these shoots and

very very occasionally

i make an exception for it it's not my

favorite decision that i've ever made in

my life but it's one that i felt that i

needed to make for my career because

i had kind of lost a lot of jobs in the

past because of

a very restrictive diet and that kind of

thing but anyway i posted that to

instagram

and uh everyone was you guys are just so

supportive really nice really

really kind words of support to me

probably my least favorite thing in the

world is

is gatekeeping and there's probably only

like one or two people

that felt that way so thank you guys so

much for being really cool and

supportive that was

that was really really great and very

reassuring to hear so

you guys are cool it actually was very

interesting to see

how it was prepared and served and uh

and yeah it tasted good as i expected i

ate what was necessary for the shot and

then i chopped up the rest of it and

gave it to the

the rest of the crew because they were

all looking at it with hungry eyes

but yeah if you do eat beef and you want

to try some high quality wagyu

then oita is where it's at how was your

beef very good

very very good come to oidan

to oitala to

with you so the final thing that we did

on this shoot

was we caught a bus to a little town

called yufu in

and got some b-roll of me walking around

town and enjoying the autumn leaves and

the lake

and it was really lovely afternoon and

then we got my closing statement and

final thoughts

on the whole trip uh we actually ended

up filming it here but it was

so windy my hair was just going wild

that they ended up not using the video

and they just used the audio from it it

was actually surprisingly emotional to

finish the shoot i think because

everyone on the crew went on the same

kind of emotional

rollercoaster like you start off and

everyone's kind of new not everyone

knows

each other and everyone's a bit nervous

everyone has to wake up and go to bed at

the same time and

we're all really tired we're all

sleeping in the car on the way to the

next location

and everyone's working so hard towards

this final goal

and then by the end everyone's a lot

more comfortable with each other we

could just

play practical jokes on each other and

everything and then it all kind of just

comes to an end

so yeah it was all very bittersweet

having finished

such a large project and feeling very

accomplished but also sad to say goodbye

to everyone because

they really were such an amazing team to

work with i was

so nervous starting this like i've

hosted

little events before and like little

live shows and stuff like that but

i've never hosted for national tv before

especially something

as big as this it really was because

because of the team and the crew that

was

on set with me they made me feel so

comfortable and they were so supportive

of me

the whole way and very encouraging which

is exactly what i needed to calm down my

nerves a little more

they really just made my job so much

easier so i'm

so incredibly thankful for such a great

team

[Applause]

so that's it five days of shooting to

create two 20-minute episodes

of going solo in japan the wonders of

kyushu

available now on sevenplus streaming app

um i got a lot of questions on instagram

about it so let's answer the

most frequently asked questions how did

you get the job

i just randomly got an email out of the

blue from the production company in

charge of it

they said that they'd seen some of my

youtube videos and they needed a host

that was already living in japan

and that was me really really so out of

the blue and

not at all expected did they have any

catering on set

uh no because we're moving to so many

different locations for the the whole

shooting process

sometimes we would get to stop along the

way at a restaurant or something if we

had time but

most of the time it was just like

someone would run into the convenience

store buy like

a lot of like snacks and onigiri and

sandwiches and stuff and then we just

like eat in the car

on the way to the next location it was

very very unglamorous

did you get to pick your own clothes and

makeup or did someone do it for you

uh now all of the clothes and makeup was

up to me

so yeah going into it i tried to choose

outfits that i thought would look good

on tv

things that would be flattering on me

and then every morning i would wake up

an hour and a half before we'd get

started so that i could do my makeup and

curl my hair and stuff like that

um yeah i think it looked okay it

actually ended up being a lot warmer

than i thought it was going to be so

in a lot of the shots i'm actually like

sweating underneath all of my layers

were there any embarrassing moments and

do you have any bloopers

unfortunately i don't have the other

footage that didn't make it into the

show that's that's all with them i

didn't get to touch

it but there were definitely definitely

some embarrassing moments

off the top of my head in one of the

scenes and i was just like walking

through the town

i was walking this really long staircase

to get to the bottom and then back up

again

and just as i was walking down it was

like this beautiful like cinematic scene

uh my ankle just like buckled underneath

me and i just like rolled my ankle and

nearly fell over

luckily my ankle was fine but it was

very funny

was the show scripted did you have a

teleprompter did you make it up on the

spot

no the show was not scripted at all like

as in the words the things that i said

on set

were not scripted at all it was all just

consort which was the word of the the

word of the shirt they're like hannah

you're gonna take this go over here and

then

consort which just means give your

thoughts on the topic

all of it was just improvised my natural

reaction as as natural reaction as it

could have been what was the hardest

part of the shooting

honestly the hardest part of shooting

was

when we get to locations i kept on

seeing the thing that i was supposed to

react to

i kept seeing it beforehand which was

kind of annoying because then i would go

in to shoot my reaction to the scene and

and then it wouldn't feel as genuine as

the first time

and then sometimes we'd have to shoot

the same reaction again and again again

and i'm trying to act as if it's the

first time i've seen it but then it just

like

like my face starts to get a little more

like frozen and then all of a sudden i'm

having this like

existential crisis where i'm like who am

i what do i even sound like it was

really tough to remain

genuine but to still put on a good

show it was it was very different very

very different to youtube

how was it working on tv versus youtube

i got this question

a lot and honestly it was like like

apples and oranges they're

they're both so so so different like the

main reason being that

i'm not in charge of the shoots i'm not

in charge of the edits

i'm not in charge of the content that

goes into it the only thing i'm in

charge of is my reaction to things

i would just have to do the very very

best that i could and then i just cross

my fingers and hope that they chose the

best take

and yeah the the biggest difference is

that i didn't have to edit it

which was kind of great it was really

nice to have finished the five-day shoot

and then to be like

i'm done i finished i've done my work

will you do it again

is there talks of a new season or is

this just a one-time

thing once again this is kind of out of

my hands if

they were to make a second season or go

into a different area of japan and they

wanted me to host it again i would love

to do that i had so much fun just kind

of like dipping my toes into it a little

bit

if channel 7 would like to film another

series

uh you know who to call but yeah it was

it was a really great experience and i

would love to do more of it

and that is it for my first ever

travel tv hosting experience it's

honestly

something that i never thought that i

would get to do and the only reason that

it was made possible was because

of youtube and because of you guys

watching my videos and supporting and

that kind of thing so

thank you so much if you've showed me

any kind of support in the past four

years that i've been making videos on

youtube

i say it all the time but i really do

appreciate you guys you're really cool

really supportive really chill

thank you channel seven thank you oab

thank you doq

uh thank you to you guys uh for your

support

and for believing in me and trusting me

to be

a host of a tv show in australia on

channel seven which is still kind of

mind-blowing to me a little bit

but anyway i'm gonna stop talking thank

you so much for watching

thanks for your patience as well i

haven't put a video out in like a month

which is

another it's a whole nother thing um

i've got extra videos on patreon i've

got

things on instagram so go and check that

out if you want to

and then i will see you next time

bye uh they've actually already um

[Music]

and this is where they grow suck it she

take it mushroom's not where the gross

is okay

during the blue brewing ready to start

brightening all it lila bratton ollie

broughton all in the next morning so

let's get started so let's get started

so let's get started so let's get

started let's get started so let's get

started so let's get started

let's get started on the seven plus

streaming demand app

which was that nickname an eido dojo

is it better with an australian accent

or like full japanese pronunciation

i just feel like a wanker if i'm like

iaido dojo

just say it like a normal person okay