Marielle’s Instagram account

Interview Video

Interviews

Shunsuke Ochiai
Hi, I’m Shusuke Ochi, and this is World Insight Interview. Today, we have Mariel joining us today. So welcome, Marial.

Marielle
Okay hello, hello hello. Thank you so much for having me, and I am very excited to have this interview with you, and thank you for your time.

Shunsuke Ochiai
Yes, so did I pronounce your name correctly in first place?

Marielle
Yes, yes. And

Marielle
is fine. It’s really all right. Yeah. Thank you so much. Yeah,

Shunsuke Ochiai

Marielle
So right now, I’m living here in Okayama, which is quite far from Tokyo. But this city is really peaceful. And we have a lot of we are really rich when it comes to Japanese culture. And in fact, I know that there are very few tourists who know about the city.

Marielle
So, I definitely invite everyone to visit and explore and escape the crowded cities that is, you know, especially this spring. Yeah.

Shunsuke Ochiai
And Okayama is very, I think, in my knowledge, if people like, you know, Japanese old history, that’s where I, think that the area where Musashi Miyamoto, Miyamoto Musashi is from. Yeah, yeah,

Marielle
and Okayama, is also probably known for the Momo Taro. So, like if you visit Okayama and you get off the Okayama station, Momo Taro statue is going to greet you and welcome in the city.

Shunsuke Ochiai
And so,

Marielle
, you are currently traveling all over Japan and, you know, introducing our culture through your blog, website, Instagram. So, tell us what you do.

Marielle
Okay, so right now, I teach English on my regular day. So yeah, it is English from Tuesday to Saturday. And then on my day off, Saturday, sorry, Sunday, and Monday and on my holidays, I would often visit around and explore especially those seasonal stuff.

Marielle
And I often travel around solo, so I will bring my camera and my tripod. And, you know, find something different and hopefully inspire everyone to explore lesser-known places in Japan, especially now.

Marielle
The over tourism is a big problem. So, hopefully, I would share a lot of that on my socials.

Shunsuke Ochiai
Okay. So, when did you start doing this? When did you start like having taking interest?

Marielle
Oh, okay. So, my family really likes to travel around ever since we’ve moved here in Japan. So I’ve been living in Japan for 15 years this year, so it’s quite long. but when I actually started traveling was around by the time when I graduated so I finished my studies in Japan and then i started travelling exploring around and I actually started exploring Starbucks branches exploring Starbucks around Japan yeah so I was like I was so into Starbucks.

Marielle
I was like, yeah, I’m going to visit every stores. Then I think it’s because of the pandemic. Like we couldn’t go out. We couldn’t really go anywhere. And then that’s when I, you know, kind of realized like one day I s like yeah.

Marielle
So, we cannot really go anywhere we can really explore around. So, I realized that I have been to quite a lot of prefectures already. Then I started revisiting them and then hitting the places that I had never been too.

Marielle
And then last year around December, I finally finished all 47.

Shunsuke Ochiai
47 prefectures. So, what was the span like three to four years? How long?

Marielle
Um, yeah, like, um, for example, last, it’s really difficult to say like how long it took me to conquer all prefectures, but like just like in a year, the previous year I went to like 35 prefectures.

Shunsuke Ochiai
Wow.

Marielle
Yeah. So basically, if I have, if I’m not working full time, I could have done it in like a year or like. a year and a half. Yeah, yeah.

Shunsuke Ochiai
What was your, like most, it’s probably really hard to say. So, like, could you name like several parts of Japan that you want to, you really want to like introduce or recommend?

Marielle
Oh, okay. So, one of those, I would definitely recommend is Aomori. Aomori is in the northern part of Japan and you might be surprised, the visitors might surprise that dialogue is pretty different. So, when I went there for the first time, I was really shocked, like I couldn’t understand anything.

Marielle
I could not pick up any words.

Shunsuke Ochiai
Oh, their dialogues.

Marielle
Dialects, yeah, like their way to speak and then, but I really appreciate their hospitality there like the locals were very nice, they’re very open to help you out and that is one of the things that I love about Aomori, aside from their seafood and apples.

Marielle
Oh yeah, I loved their apples!

Shunsuke Ochiai
So yeah, Aomori is very well known for their seafood, apples, and I believe garlic as well, and yeah and many Japanese sake.

Marielle
Yeah, sake, yeah. And in summer they’re also very popular with Nebuta, so which is one of the great to tell people about other places in Japan, I would definitely recommend visiting Okayama, of course.

Marielle
I don’t know if it’s really peaceful and as well as Kagawa, where I grew up, yes.

Shunsuke Ochiai
Oh Kagaw, you grew in Kagawa. Kagawa is very well known for having very good Udon.

Marielle
Yes, Udon. We have a lot of Udons, so definitely if you’re going to ask me if I’m going to choose ramen or Udon, it’s definitely Udon.

Shunsuke Ochiai
Udon in Kagawa, yeah.

Marielle
Have you ever been to Kagawa?

Shunsuke Ochiai
I’ve been in Kagawa like once, you know, Takamatsu, like very long time ago, but yeah, and also, so people would love to know how you started to get all the followers, you have many followers on your Instagram, and when did that start taking off?

Marielle
Oh, so I think it started taking off probably around two years ago now. So, it was really tricky and difficult at first because you also have to find your niche and what you’re good at and started talking off last year, sorry, two years ago, around spring.

Marielle
So, I was traveling around Japan and sharing these Sakura content like what you could do, like the cafes that you can hit and like, let’s say known Sakura places. And then at the time, I only have like 1200 followers and it, it blew up to like 20k followers, which was like yeah, it was a mind blowing at the time.

Marielle
And then, yeah, like, even now, I would say like it was one of the biggest, or like the biggest moment that happened on my Instagram account. Yeah, of course, right now there’s a lot of, there’re a lot, I wouldn’t say a journey in every content creator.

Marielle
And I would say, yeah, it’s still different and memorable to me.

Shunsuke Ochiai
Wow. So, you started to pick up the places where the secret Sakura places. And the Sakura season is about to begin. Yeah, do you have one that you really want to recommend to our viewers?

Marielle
So, of course, if I could recommend something, especially if you’re around in Tokyo, I definitely recommend going around Gunma.

Shunsuke Ochiai
Gunma? Okay.

Marielle
Yeah. And it has a really nice place where you can enjoy Sakura and then you don’t really have to worry about the crowds. And another place is in Saitama. Saitama? a lot of places to visit when it comes to um this season.

Shunsuke Ochiai
Wow okay nice. Gunma and Saitama, they’re both um accessible from Tokyo um it’s about hour and a half maybe two to go to Gunma by train. Um some areas they do have bullet train running to Saitama and Gunma so yeah that’s a Very good place to go and

Marielle
, you travel you also travel around the world as well Like I saw on your and um, yeah, where are where were the places that you went?

Marielle
Okay, so my Instagram journey actually started from traveling to Southeast Asia as a solo female traveler and I started traveling so I decided to have this goal to finish South East Asia first. So, I have been to Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Thailand.

Marielle
And I’ve also been other Asian countries such as South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong. And then, yeah, unfortunately, it stopped there because of the pandemic.

Shunsuke Ochiai
Hmm, okay.

Marielle
Wow.

Shunsuke Ochiai
So, um, so you’ve been traveling solo, and both in Japan and Southeast Asia. What’s the difference? You know, do you feel like, is Japan’s probably easier to do it?

Marielle
Um, what is the different? Of course, I would say when it comes to safety, Japan is one of the safest place that every travelers or even for solo female travelers could explore around because you don’t really have to worry about your things, losing your things or you also don t have worry of missing your train and like everybody like even like go somewhere there’s definitely a place to ask a help for in Japan that when you’re in other countries and other like Southeast Asian countries that I have been so far it still make me think how crazy I was on my early 20s for traveling solo with my tripod and camera and just putting it somewhere in the road and take my own photo like thinking about now that is very unsafe to consider which I definitely don’t recommend now but in Japan like of course in Japan we do have to be more considerate when it when it comes to taking photos because you know Japanese are very considerate when it comes to taking photos and they’re very worried about causing travel or like taking too much time on a certain place.

Marielle
So most of the Japanese people definitely want to do their business efficiently, quickly and finish the job they want to there and then move to the different place but I would see some travelers would definitely take their time to you know get their content or like the photo that they want which is completely fine but especially if there’s no crowd but of course some locals especially could definitely get annoyed about it especially in some bigger places or like public places, or temples, especially around Kyoto, there are places there that they don’t really allow putting tripods.

Marielle
Oh yeah,

Shunsuke Ochiai
yeah definitely.

Marielle
Yeah, I think it is one of the things that we have to consider or check beforehand, so we definitely have to, you know, we want everyone to enjoy their visits, especially this coming Sakura season.

Shunsuke Ochiai
Yeah, that’s a very good tip to give out to the Instagrammers or influencers who are coming into Japan. What about like, there could be like by traveling around the world or maybe somebody might have like misunderstanding of our culture.

Shunsuke Ochiai
Have you ever encountered that while you were traveling abroad?

Marielle
Oh yeah, so one of the things that I have experienced and then they would often ask me like, oh is it difficult to travel around Japan, especially if you don’t know Japanese, especially you know the language barrier and often they have the image that Japanese cannot really speak English.

Marielle
It is completely, I would say, not true. I would see that there are a lot of Japanese people who are very happy to help around, especially if you’re around in the bigger cities, three places like Osaka, Tokyo, and Kyoto.

Marielle
I will say that they’re a lot Japanese people and locals, who would be happily to help you or even show you around like and recommend and like take you to places actually and even in like places like glacial places or like in a countryside even here in Okayama there are definitely a lot of locals or Japanese people who try their best even though they cannot speak in fluent English they will try their best to help you around and use the words of vocabulary they know and give you the best hospitality and the best experience or memory that you can have here in Japan.

Marielle
So, I would say it’s definitely not a major problem when traveling

Shunsuke Ochiai
Japan, yeah. Yeah, true. Well, thank you. Thank you very much. Lastly, what is your goal that you want to achieve that now that traveled all 47 prefectures, what’s your next journey going to be like?

Marielle
Yeah, my next journeys. So, my journey is to get to know these places, the cities, the local cultures. I know we are in the same country, but I would say that comparing Northern Japan to like southern Japan and like other regions, I would say that they are different culture.

Marielle
And I will definitely want to know more about the locals, the local food, especially the festivals. And I would also say like, I will want to explore more about the local destinations that we could go to those places.

Marielle
And, you know, I would want to stick to introducing more places or like activities that we could enjoy in Japan and invite those people who are interested to Japanese culture to explore lesser-known places.

Marielle
And yeah, hopefully.

Shunsuke Ochiai
I guess to put it in really simple words, to introduce the “other side.”

Marielle
side of Japan. Definitely, definitely. Yeah.

Shunsuke Ochiai
Okay, cool. Yeah, yeah, I wish you all the best and you know, I’ve I followed you on Instagram and, you know. I’ll keep watching your journey. So, thank you very much. Are there anything that you want to like inform our viewers about you at last?

Marielle
I’m sorry.

Shunsuke Ochiai
are there any information that you would like to share?

Marielle
So um anything that I would like share so definitely um oh so okay so especially this upcoming season definitely I want everyone to check um the uh Sakura forecast very carefully because these Sakura forecasts are not really reliable and especially those forecasts that are appearing online is definitely about this certain Sakura called Somei Yoshino but there are different and other kinds of Sakura that definitely that you can see around Japan but if you’re coming around April like late March and in early April.

Marielle
I definitely recommend downloading this app called Sakura Navi which actually helps you to navigate the blooming or like the current situation of that area. So, it will definitely help you and save you time when traveling Japan during this season.

Marielle
Yeah.

Shunsuke Ochiai
Okay thank you very much I’m going to stop recording now.

Marielle
Okay, thank you so much.