Japanese TV: Travel shows

Right now it is Golden Week in Japan and lots of people are going on holidays, so travel shows are perhaps more common than they are ordinarily. Some observations about travel shows:

• As with all other Japanese television, travel shows seem to be 85% about food. The remaining 15% is about buying souvenirs (most of which are edible).
• The way they exhibit this food is pretty weird. They typically go to a hotel or restaurant, and have a table laden with an absurd number of dishes, and then the presenter will speak to the chef/server briefly (presumably about the meal). Then they will show some close-ups of the food. I feel like this is where an Australian broadcast would end, and they would just tell you how to go there and how much it costs etc. But in Japan they then show the presenter eating the food for a minute or two and then expressing how delicious the food is, all the while the chef is just standing over her shoulder watching her eat. I can't tell if this is a trope of television or just what happens at very fancy eating places. As such I am pretty scared to go to one!
• The closeups of food are also pretty weird. They typically have a portion of meat on a fork or in chopsticks and do a closeup of it, but then for some reason they jiggle the fork slightly so that it is quivering in the closeup. I'm not sure if this is meant to make the meat look more appetising but it is the creepiest thing.
• The other night we watched a variety show that had a segment about travelling to New Zealand. Here are the quintessential New Zealand things they did:
• Bungeed off the Sky Tower
• Went luging in Rotorua
• Took a mud spa at Hells Gate which consisted of them shovelling mud down one another's pants
• Dressed up as Maori warriors and learned how to do the haka (this segment seemed a little culturally insensitive but who am I to point fingers, this blog is about making superficial observations of cultures I don't understand on the basis of a cursory visit)
• Attempted to catch a rugby ball which had been kicked by some random New Zealander on some random high school field
• Ate worms

In conclusion Japanese travel shows are super great.