A funny, specific look at Japanese habits and city choices that keep following people beyond Japan.
Chris Broad and Riosaro turn a list of ways Japan changes people into a relaxed conversation about the habits that linger after someone leaves.

Japan talk with the detours left in.
Abroad in Japan is a chatty, sideways travel show about life in and returning to Japan. Chris Broad and Pete Donaldson use headlines, listener stories, hotel rooms, snack choices, flight routes, and awkward habits as fuel for fast, dry, highly specific banter.
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Abroad in Japan is built around the funny, inconvenient texture of actually knowing Japan rather than politely admiring it from a safe distance. It has advice, news, culture, and travel talk, but the route is rarely straight. A discussion of hotel prices can turn into Kyoto bins, tourist taxes, pickled cucumbers, geisha etiquette, and the fantasy logistics of a giant municipal fire. A flight back to Japan becomes a nervous inspection of war-adjacent air routes over Azerbaijan and Georgia. A Tokyo Skytree elevator failure becomes less a news item than a full-body reaction to being high up, needing food, and being asked to cross a narrow panel between lifts. The show likes practical detail. It also likes making practical detail ridiculous. Chris Broad brings the lived-in Japan perspective, especially around returning after time away, working on a book, trying to get fit, speaking Japanese, and noticing how local habits sneak into life elsewhere. Pete Donaldson gives the show its counterweight: curious, interruptive, cheerfully exasperated, and ready to pull any stray phrase into a joke. Ryotaro Sakurai's appearances add another perspective without sanding off the show's rough edges. The tone is blunt but observant. It can talk about language learning one minute and hotel-room fast food fumes the next, with no apology for the swerve. Recent episodes circle travel stress, tourism pressure, regional food, classroom behaviour, trains, elevators, jet lag, and the strange personal changes that come from spending years around Japanese rhythms. It suits listeners who want Japan with jokes, not lacquer. It is not a serene temple-garden audio postcard. It is more like being stuck at a table with people who know the country well enough to complain about it lovingly, then somehow leave the listener with useful information anyway.
Made for: For listeners who want Japan travel and life in Japan filtered through sharp banter, specific stories, and practical mess. Best for people who enjoy cultural detail when it arrives with interruptions, tangents, and dry comic disbelief.
What sets it apart: Many Japan shows tidy the country into tips and highlights; Abroad in Japan keeps the crumbs, delays, bad snacks, strange habits, and travel irritations in frame. Its value is the mix of lived familiarity and comic derailment.
Independent filmmaker Chris Broad brings you his multi-award winning YouTube channel Abroad In Japan in podcast form. Aided by broadcaster Pete Donaldson, they bring you a taste of life in the most unique country in the world, from great cuisine to capsule hotels, current events and tips on how to spend your time there. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Based on 6 episodes we listened to · September 2026
Chris Broad and Pete Donaldson connect Japan's travel headlines to the street-level details that determine how a visit actually feels.
Abroad in Japan turns everyday life and travel in Japan into a running conversation between Chris Broad and Pete Donaldson. Tourism pressures, transport mishaps and changing visitor costs sit alongside meals, convenience stores and personal travel stories.
A stalled Skytree elevator becomes an onigiri emergency, if that's your kind of travel talk.
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Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.
A funny, specific look at Japanese habits and city choices that keep following people beyond Japan.
Chris Broad and Riosaro turn a list of ways Japan changes people into a relaxed conversation about the habits that linger after someone leaves.
A loose Japan travel chat that keeps turning bins, tourists, and monkey lore into the joke.
Abroad in Japan settles into easy travel-and-tourism banter, moving through a new running order, Chris leaving his book aside, Pete's Moldova trip, a flight back to Japan, and a mock-serious pass at world events.
A chatty detour from a haircut gripe into schoolroom frustration and supermarket talk.
The episode starts with a haircut complaint and drifts into a loose stretch about an Irish woman who cut his hair, why he likes Irish people, and old memories of teaching in Japan.
A Skytree elevator failure becomes a dry, detail-rich story of batteries, sushi, and one awful metal bridge.
A Skytree elevator failure turns a tourist stop into a tight little confinement story: 20 people trapped in a lift, others stranded 634 metres up, and everyone suddenly aware of how thin the margin is between sightseeing and ordeal.
A canceled cherry blossom festival turns seasonal travel excitement into a warning about bad visitor behavior.
Abroad in Japan frames cherry blossom season through a drier, more awkward story: a city known for spring crowds canceling the party before it begins.
Fast-food fumes, flight routes, and a Shiretoko bear shape a loose hotel-room chat about travel in Japan.
A hotel-room reunion with Ryotaro Sakurai settles into a loose, personable circuit of travel habits and routes in Japan. The host's plan to get fit once and for all is undercut almost immediately by Ryotaro's oily packet of McDonald's, and that small comic detail sets the tone.
A food-first Seoul and Japan comparison, with Coolish quietly stealing the episode.
Seoul and Japan come through in the practical things a hungry traveler notices first: food that may take a little decoding, meals remembered as top notch, and streets where familiar chains either crowd the view or make space for more independent places.






Chris Broad and Ryotaro Sakurai reunite in a hotel room to catch up on life in Japan.
Hosts Chris Broad and Pete Donaldson compare their recent trips to Seoul and Tokyo, revisiting a 2018 episode from the podcast archives.
Chris Broad and Pete Donaldson recount a UK book tour where one event drew 19 complaints about swearing.
Chris Broad and Ryotaro spend the episode comparing 12 ways Japan changed them, from the "sucking noise" and Aizuchi back-channeling to public-bath nudity and train punctuality.
Chris and Ryotaro catch up in a hotel room in Japan, discussing fitness goals, diet struggles, and an upcoming cycling trip.
This episode of the Abroad in Japan podcast, hosted by Chris Broad, introduces a cycling adventure across Japan, starting with sponsor ads for Olive & June and Apple Card.
Chris returns to Japan after a long absence and discusses his jet lag and flight route near Iran with co-host Pete Dawson on the Abroad Japan podcast.
The hosts Chris Broad and Pete Donaldson discuss life in Japan while humorously bantering about radio presenters and nicknames.
It opens in full self-mockery.
A haircut complaint starts the whole thing.
Chris Broad opens the show, then Pete Darlson begins with spring cleaning and trousers turning up in entirely the wrong colour.
JP's Shinjuku encounter with a "bump man" ends with the man falling over.
The hosts of the Abroad in Japan podcast discuss whether learning Japanese in Tokyo is effective while sharing casual banter about Christmas decorations and holiday spirit.
The hosts Chris Broad and Pete Dawson casually discuss their Halloween weekend and hangovers in a lighthearted conversation on the Abroad in Japan podcast.
This episode shares interesting facts about Japan, originally recorded in 2018, as a substitute while the hosts take a week off due to illness.
This is an emergency archive episode from 2019 where hosts Chris Broad and Pete Donaldson record while walking around Shibuya and visiting Don Quixote in Tokyo.
This episode discusses Japan breaking a record with nearly 100,000 people aged over 100, highlighting the country's aging population and societal implications.