00:02:00 John Daub: Hello everybody, greetings from Iwakuni in Yamaguchi Prefecture. It's just south of Hiroshima. I'm now at the Kintai-kyō (錦帯橋，five-arch bridge). I'm looking at it right now, and I'm going to turn it around. You can see it too. It's absolutely beautiful. This is my favorite bridge, and you can see the sun just at the top of the hill there, giving like a diamond look to it.

00:42:00 John Daub: Across the river is a cherry blossom celebration that's going on for the next two weeks. They haven't quite bloomed yet here in Iwakuni. It's about 20%, but that's okay because we got the bridge, and this bridge is awesome. And you know what we're going to do? We're going to walk across it. The DJI Osmo, the iPhone 7 Plus, me and you are going to walk across it because it has to be done. I've been here, this is maybe my fourth or fifth time to the bridge, actually. So I've done it before, but maybe you haven't, so I think it's a good thing to do.

01:34:00 John Daub: I've already bought the ticket. The great thing about this bridge is that you can buy a ticket once, and all day you can cross it as many times as you want. And that's what it looks like at night. It's just as beautiful at night, if not more so. Now I'm going to stick around until that time, so I'll have some shots. Without further ado, I think it's time that we do this.

02:10:00 John Daub: We're going to cross Kintai-kyō Bridge. Kintai-kyō was a few hundred years old. This has been renewed, rebuilt a little bit, but it's still absolutely stunning. Here's the entrance to Kintai-kyō. You can see all the setup for the matsuri (festival), the lanterns. No food or drinks, but nothing about selfie sticks. We're going to walk across it together.

03:22:00 John Daub: So this is the easy arch. The three in the middle are much harder. One thing you have to do is definitely watch your step, because when you get to the top of the arch, when you come down, you forget that there are steps. This isn't a ramp. It's beautiful, isn't it? Here's a view from the first arch. That's my next challenge. It's not that hard to climb, but it does make you huff and puff if you've been not exercising.

04:04:00 John Daub: Because this hitchhiking trip, I'm mostly just standing there and riding a car or walking around. I haven't been exercising enough. So this is going to be something of a challenge. And the other side looks so much fun. On the top is the castle, Iwakuni Castle. It's not very big, maybe it's because it's far away, but it's a beautiful castle too. I've seen so many of them. I'm not a Japanese castle type of guy. Let's do this.

04:53:00 Passerby: Sorry, are you John from Only in Japan?

04:56:00 John Daub: Yeah, I'm right now streaming on the Go channel.

04:58:00 Passerby: Oh, wait, okay.

05:00:00 John Daub: Alright. Hey guys, hi from Iwakuni. Nice to meet you. Alright, where are you from?

05:04:00 Passerby: I'm from the UK, from London.

05:05:00 John Daub: Alright, okay. That's pretty weird. Nice to meet you anyway. I saw you on the bus too. Oh, there you go. We're friends on the bus as well. Happy days. Look at this beautiful bridge right in front of us.

05:14:00 Passerby: I know, isn't it crazy? Cool, nice to see you.

05:22:00 John Daub: That was awesome. Alright. Here's the next challenge. Here we go. Kintai-kyō bridge. Still hopping and popping. Alright, watch your step. I think this was built in 1673. Apparently, they built the five arches because they wanted to make this bridge flood proof. We're now in the middle. What a beautiful view of the valley.

06:55:00 John Daub: It's such a natural place. I love Iwakuni. The last time I was here, it was, believe it or not, for the Japanese Sake Brewery Tour in Japan. I think it was the 2004 episode. The brewery is only about 15 kilometers down the road. Dassai. Nihonshu, the Japanese sake maker. And I thought about giving them a call, but I just kind of popped in. That wouldn't be polite to just call them and say, hey, guess what? Let's drink some sake. It's such a beautiful natural area.

07:24:00 John Daub: Look, that's the town behind us. And now we still got some more steps to go. If you haven't seen the Japanese Sake Brewery Tour, I'm going to put a card right here so you can click the link and go to it. I'm tired from these little steps. That little kid can do it. I can do it too. Oh, that looks fun too. So there you go. We've made it to the other side. There's one more arch to go, but you guys get the point.

09:20:00 John Daub: It's a beautiful river. In about a week, I'd say this weekend, this is going to be absolutely stunning. I mean, like breathtakingly stunning with white flowers on the trees. They're just not bloomed yet. In Japan right now, the cherry blossoms in 2017, they are 10 days late just about everywhere. Kagoshima didn't have them. Kumamoto didn't have them. Fukuoka didn't have them. Hiroshima was just getting there and Yamaguchi is about 20%. So Tokyo is the only place in Japan with cherry blossoms right now, which is weird.

10:07:00 John Daub: Here's the exit. I got a day pass, which is a ticket. Again, it's 300 yen to get in here. Let's take a quick look around the park. Look at the cherry blossoms. They're so pretty. No smell. I always wonder if cherry blossoms have a smell. Sort of. It's not anything extraordinary. These trees over here that you can see, they're just budding. Maybe this weekend, absolutely turn white.

13:23:00 John Daub: There's a boat that crosses the river too. I think it's a boat. I don't know if they have this all the time, but it's pretty short ride. Before they had the bridge, I guess they crossed the river this way. It's a historical thing. It was sort of similar with the boat they crossed in Shibamata in Tokyo. They still have the boat crossing. To me, this bridge is the most stunning bridge in Japan. And the first time I saw it, I remember it left a really big impression on me. And even today, it's still amazing to me. It's still my favorite bridge. If only the cherry blossoms were out. You really know how to build a bridge.

14:41:00 John Daub: So I'm going to take a quick look at some of the food here in the festival. Then I'm going to cut the stream short. I hope you're liking this format. It's all live. But I'm going to save that until the end because once I start answering comments, it turns into a Q&A show, not a walk around this lovely area.

15:30:00 John Daub: Hayai soba (fast soba). Oishisō (looks delicious). Arigatō. Mata kuru (see you again). Onegaishimasu (please). Oh cool, look. There's a place where you can eat. You put your shoes here and you can go inside and eat. It's convenient. Isn't that a cherry blossom tree? That's great. If you don't want to pay an arm and a leg for a drink, you can just go to the vending machine. And usually at the festivals, they jack up the price. But not here. They have vending machines. That's super cool.

16:28:00 John Daub: And this is like a ramen here. Udon and ramen. Potatoes, there's more karaage (fried chicken). Oh, it looks good. Oh, I had this today at Miyajima. These are nigiri-ten. Nigiri-ten is like deep fried fish cakes wrapped in bacon. This is a good one. This is how you do hanami (cherry blossom viewing). This is awesome. I love the feeling. It's not so crowded. The thing with Tokyo is that it's so crowded. Look at this. You can get a space outside and sit on the platform off of the ground. It's so nice. And just chillax with a beer. Oh my god, I want to do that right now. The heck with the live stream. I'm going to just cut it off and just enjoy myself.

17:43:00 John Daub: And they have a shop over here. Wow. Cool. This is so nice. I gotta hand it to Iwakuni. They know how to celebrate cherry blossoms. This one is blooming pretty good. You can see some people. You don't need to go to the table or do that. What you do is you get a blue sheet or a piece of plastic. And you just sit under a tree with friends. That's hanami. And then there's the crowd over there. They have tables and chairs. They're pros. Nice. I'm digging it. I'm really liking this. Oh, this is a beautiful tree as well. I'll give you one more look at the bridge. And then I'm going to walk back and maybe do a little Q&A up at the bridge.

19:54:00 John Daub: So, there you go. Kintai-kyō in Iwakuni. I hope you liked the walk across and the tour around during the cherry blossoms. A little bit of an update on the hitchhiking. So, I filmed a little bit more in Miyajima and I ran out of time. It was around 2:30 p.m. And I'm going across to the Sea of Japan and there's not enough daylight in order to get a ride over there. And people said it was going to be hard. So, I came to Iwakuni because of this. Because I wanted to see this bridge. And it was so close. And I said it's just a 20-minute ride over here. So, I came to the cherry blossoms and the bridge. And it's awesome. And I'm glad I did.

20:43:00 John Daub: So, I see some questions on that. I'm using Docomo's 4G right now. I have 30 gigabytes for a plan to stream live. And I don't know if it's streaming at 720 or 480p. But it looks like it's coming out okay. I didn't walk all the way here. I took the train. It's just too late. I have both Softbank and Docomo. But I use Docomo because away from the big cities, they have the best network. 30 gigabytes a month. So, if this should be streaming live. I'm doing it at 720p. If it's not, it's probably because of YouTube.

21:40:00 John Daub: They haven't. This is so new to them. Mobile streaming. That they're behind some other platforms, I think. I've had some difficulties with it. But you know what? They're doing their best. And it's a new platform. And I'm glad to have it. So, thank you, YouTube. It just takes some time for the technology to catch up. Thanks everybody for tuning in to this live stream. I didn't really plan to be here until about two hours ago. And I'm glad. I'm really glad that I came to Iwakuni. I'm really glad that I'm here. And I'm glad that you're here with me, too.

22:33:00 John Daub: So, click the subscribe button to the Only in Japan Go! channel. If you like these videos, the best way to support it is by clicking the subscribe button. Because we need to work on that. And I'll keep bringing you videos live like this from all over Japan. And with that, I'm going to leave you. So, thank you everybody. See you on the road.