Brand New Abroad in Japan Website Officially Live! | Check it out!
Added 2020-02-27 10:41:16 +0000 UTCI've waited along time for this day to arrive.
Today rounds off what's been a spectacular month and a great start to 2020 so far.
When the Sapporo Snow Festival video is released we'll have had five new videos this month, including our first ever public live show in Sapporo's Odori Park - which was a success, the Abroad Perspective channel has passed 100k subscribers and now FINALLY the Abroad in Japan website is live after months of planning and painstaking hard work.
A heck of a lot has changed and been added since the site preview I shared with you all back in December. The Trip Idea generator now has over 200+ unique ideas for your trip to Japan, the Soundboard has over 40+ hilarious clips to freely listen and download, the Japan Guide Map is easier to use and there's also a dedicated "Stories" section, where I've written 12 new articles discussing my favourite memories travelling Japan, to celebrate the launch of the website.
Before I announce it across social media over the weekend, I'd love to share it with you first and hear your thoughts and feedback - especially as your feedback last month made all the difference.
It's an amazing feeling to finally have a website I'm truly proud of. As I scroll over the map and see all the places we've been and explored, I feel immensely grateful to all of you for making it possible.
Before I came to Japan, outside of outdated guidebooks filled with endless paragraphs of text, there wasn't a great deal of resources online related to travelling Japan. Especially Tohoku in the north, which made up just one paltry paragraph in most guide books.
Somewhere at the back of my mind, I always wanted to build a platform that could fill that space and stuff it with a ton of original content to give travellers a new way to get fired up before their trip.
This website will hopefully inspire, excite and encourage folks to go off the beaten path, explore the country, and carve out their own unique adventures while travelling Japan.
Anyway that's enough talking from me.
Get exploring:
https://www.abroadinjapan.com/
Chris
Comments
Thanks for pointing it out Stefan, we’ll get it fixed today!
Abroad in Japan
2020-03-02 02:41:37 +0000 UTCAmazing looking website. Love the trip generator. 10/10 would recommend. I noticed a spelling mistake (that’sll) if you wanna fix it: “Well, why not visit a bar in Tokyo that'sll blow your mind and make you scared?”
2020-03-01 09:49:13 +0000 UTCEverything looks so slick. Love the map idea! My only suggestion would be to have the locations you visited listed under the video as well (like you have for YT video descriptions), for people who don't want to leave the website.
2020-02-29 19:12:47 +0000 UTCThis is awesome, Chris. Such a great website!
2020-02-29 16:29:17 +0000 UTCThis is a STUNNING website - i mean you smashed it out of the park! When people now ask me where they should go in Japan I can just show then the website! You should be mega proud man!
2020-02-29 03:58:48 +0000 UTCNoice.
2020-02-28 10:43:41 +0000 UTCI must say, I expected the website to be just a showcase of your already rich content, but you've gone SO MUCH further than that. The trip idea generator knocks it out of the park. It's the meticulous tagging that does the trick and makes sure that it's ACTUALLY, genuinely useful to people wanting to visit Japan. Must've been a right b*tch tagging it all up, but there's no other way around making sure content is discoverable and people find what they're looking for. The map is a fantastic bonus as well, and even the categorisation of menu points actually makes SENSE. Very rare. Not gonna lie, as an ex digital project manager, I was expecting many things, but NOT this.
2020-02-28 10:26:38 +0000 UTCAwesome site, have a friend going over to Japan next month and linked him the site immediately!
2020-02-28 09:51:48 +0000 UTCHoly CRAP!! The website is INCREDIBLE!! I love how extensive and detailed each page is, none of that generic "sights to see" nonsense on other travel websites. My sister is planning a trip to Japan this fall and I will send her the link. This was definitely worth the wait Chris!
Eyyy J
2020-02-28 06:35:43 +0000 UTCI’m planning on redoing the store soon so that was deliberate for now! We’ve sorted the website - the merch is next.
Abroad in Japan
2020-02-28 01:53:49 +0000 UTCThe website looks awesome! I like how organized it is and how the videos and podcasts are linked/tagged. One query/comment, I couldn't find the link to your store on your website.
2020-02-27 22:49:31 +0000 UTCHonestly Chris the website is bloody amazing!! I’ve only taken a 15 minute gander while on my break at work, but it looks like there’s a ton of info and fun stuff, I can only imagine how excited I’d be if I had found this when I first became Japan obsessed. Can’t wait to dive in later and see more!
2020-02-27 20:13:17 +0000 UTCThe website looks awesome Chris! Congrats man, I am really looking forward to spending a lot of time exploring it as I plan my Japan for the end of the year (and also while I procrastinate on my college work)!
Lucca Saraiva
2020-02-27 19:49:02 +0000 UTCHi Chris, that’s a great looking site.
Aiken
2020-02-27 19:38:11 +0000 UTCOkay, I have more to say, you may want to add a juicy subscribe / sign up / call-to-action above the fold on the homepage. And in the footer links to your social media and podcast. You'll want easy ways people can get access to more creepy, more weird, more wonderful, more magic :)
Shannon Sweetser
2020-02-27 19:02:24 +0000 UTCLooks super fly! Congrats, Chris!
Shannon Sweetser
2020-02-27 18:58:38 +0000 UTCAside from the lack of ‘like a magic’ the website looks brilliant! It has the right amount of text, the photos are clear, it’s really well laid out, no spelling mistakes from what I saw, the interactive areas work seamlessly, it’s doesn’t lag - in fact if I could describe it in one word, I would say ‘magical’!
Becks
2020-02-27 18:46:50 +0000 UTCAww man! I watched the banner going round and I’m disappointed not to see ‘show me something like a magic’...
Becks
2020-02-27 18:38:17 +0000 UTCHaha, we really do need a dedicated Donaldson soundboard
Abroad in Japan
2020-02-27 17:33:12 +0000 UTCThe website is way cool, very interactive and creative, and it really looks like it includes every aspect of the channel. It's really well done. Kinda surprised, not gonna lie lol
2020-02-27 17:13:10 +0000 UTCSo much has already been said about the site in the comments here Chris... It's fantastic, my only criticism is that we don't have Pete yelling SHIIIBOOOYAAAA SHINAGAWAAA
Adam Penner
2020-02-27 15:52:20 +0000 UTCAlso your servers caching for static files isn't on. that will be a big help too
2020-02-27 14:51:24 +0000 UTCLooks great Chris! Just thought I'd give some feedback. The main menu is a bit funky on Chrome 80. It seems to have a weird hover tracking of some kind flashing of and on when you thy and open the menu. Also, the site performance doesn't have a great score! You need to enable Gzip as that's having a massive effect on the performance for load time. Also, deferring some of you're CSS and JS and minifying/removing some of the dead code from it. Bundling the JS together will help and maybe only including parts of libraries. Hope this helps (I can answer questions if you have any)
2020-02-27 14:50:47 +0000 UTClooks amazing, im loving the photo section! keep up the excellent work
2020-02-27 14:27:29 +0000 UTCI’m so in love with the map.
Lady Long Limbs
2020-02-27 14:26:58 +0000 UTCGreat looking site. Looking forward to the inevitable 90s-style prank calls with the soundboards.
2020-02-27 14:11:57 +0000 UTCwebsite looks nice and clean. easy to navigate so congrats Chris! Things to perhaps consider are: 1) Map - maybe add city/location names when you click on the red markers? It isn't always clear by the video title 2) Could be interesting if you allowed user generated content on niche areas of Japan you might not get to. Like places in Central Japan which are quite cool. Then you can add them to the map with different looking icons 3) The top menu bar seems to cover most of the "reset bearing to north" button on the map page Great website and well done to everyone that worked on it
Farah
2020-02-27 13:02:18 +0000 UTCCongrats, Chris!
2020-02-27 12:50:49 +0000 UTCThanks for letting me know Jonathan - we only finished the soundboard on mobile yesterday so I'm not surprised that it's being glitchy! We'll get it sorted now.
Abroad in Japan
2020-02-27 12:41:29 +0000 UTCAlso the "Tokyo's Tastiest Souvenir" page (https://www.abroadinjapan.com/content-23-tokyos-tastiest-souvenir) for me just stays at a black screen with pulsing white dot; other pages seem fine.
Darren Hague
2020-02-27 12:34:04 +0000 UTCHaha Pete will certainly get a soundboard soon. Thanks for the feedback!
Abroad in Japan
2020-02-27 12:30:38 +0000 UTCFantastic work on the site, Chris! It's better than ever. One thing though. I'm not sure if I'm using the soundboard wrong somehow, but on mobile, clicking the speakers only worked once for me . For the rest, I had to download the file to listen to it.
Argus9 (Jonathan)
2020-02-27 12:27:40 +0000 UTCLooking good! Looks like Ryotaro's Story (https://www.abroadinjapan.com/ryotaro) has a couple of minor typos: 1. "... Ryotaro and Chris’ friendship gets progressively worse each other, ..." 2. a weird "L SEP" glyph at the end of paras 2 & 3
Darren Hague
2020-02-27 12:19:07 +0000 UTCLooks fantastic! Some quick-fire feedback: in your timeline you mention the North Korean missile video but there's no mention of the fact that you actually got an award for it. Why not add a link to that vlog you made about it? It's still one of my favourite videos of yours: https://youtu.be/rSkk3RocnY0 Also, Pete doesn't get his own soundboard after all these weeks regaling us with the quote button? :P
Eels
2020-02-27 12:16:55 +0000 UTCThanks to everyone for the feedback so far - keep it coming! From now until the weekend, we'll be continuously working on the site to update it and polish it. Your comments are making all the difference.
Abroad in Japan
2020-02-27 12:10:38 +0000 UTCThanks for letting me know! We're still adding to the idea generator and clearly that one needs a bit more work! Hopefully we can have another 50+ added across the board by the weekend :)
Abroad in Japan
2020-02-27 12:08:58 +0000 UTCYou can change the pitch of the map and get a 2D view by holding right mouse button.
2020-02-27 11:25:27 +0000 UTCHey Chris, congratulations on launching the website, it looks great! I love the idea generator and it seems to work very well, apart from the "Japanese Culture" button which only returns videos about learning Japanese (at least for me it does).
2020-02-27 11:20:31 +0000 UTCGreat design all around. The only thing I would like to see changed is an option to switch to a 2d map.
2020-02-27 11:07:45 +0000 UTCBloody hell, it work a lot faster then the last time. I just dowload one of Natsuki's soundboard.. hehehe...
Niken Larasati
2020-02-27 11:02:10 +0000 UTCHey Chris, great website so far. But! how to zoom out of the map with mouse and keyboard? O.o Thats it.. comment is too short. So great website again. I like it! :)
2020-02-27 10:58:29 +0000 UTCCongratulations on all of your success so far. Great job on all the mile stones too. The website's looking really good at a glance but I'll have a proper look tonight and see if I can give you any feedback.
Michael Taylor
2020-02-27 10:53:50 +0000 UTCFantastic stuff. I've actually been using the map over the last few weeks to re-watch videos in places I'll be travelling through this year. Super informative and fun way to trip plan!
2020-02-27 10:51:36 +0000 UTCYou're right! It's slipped the net. We'll get it added right away!
Abroad in Japan
2020-02-27 10:50:39 +0000 UTCI LOVE it. Easy to use and click through. Amusing, fun, eye catching. I hope to have a better look at it later tomorrow and explore it a bit more but my first impression is pleased!
2020-02-27 10:50:00 +0000 UTCI have to say it: the Gallery section (https://www.abroadinjapan.com/gallery) is gorgeous One more thing: i couldn't find the Ebisu video in the website. I tried searching for "ebisu", but nothing came back. I couldn't locate it in the map either
2020-02-27 10:45:48 +0000 UTCAnd straight to the sound board I go. A post-suggestions-suggestion. Maybe some of the samples could include a more tightly cut version, similar to the podcast jingles?
Dykam
2020-02-27 10:45:45 +0000 UTC
