00:02 John Daub: Good evening everybody and welcome to Noboribetsu, an onsen (hot spring) town here in Hokkaido. Hokkaido wraps around like this and it's in between Hakodate and Sapporo, which is where I'm going tomorrow. I thought I would take a chance to show you Noboribetsu. This town is a little bit unusual in the sense that there are demons everywhere. This is the demon's club, a real artifact outside of a gift shop. Another one of Noboribetsu's demons. Streets pretty much deserted. Most people come to Noboribetsu, they stay in a ryokan (Japanese inn) and the ryokans are quite expensive here. The cheapest one I could find was about $200 a night. Usually that's for two people, but since I'm by myself, I'd still have to pay $200 for the room I think.

01:22 John Daub: I got a bunch of stories to tell you. One of them is let's start about 14 years ago. I hitchhiked, as many of you know, from Wakkanai to Kagoshima. I came back to Noboribetsu not just to go to the onsen, but also here's a picture. Boop. All right. Do you see that? This is a picture from 14 years ago. I'm standing in front of this thing and now I'm gonna turn the camera around so you get an idea. There it is and it's just about the same. This guy he's holding his club. He protects the onsen and the water coming out of here is a very very unique white and it's all natural like this. This is the way it comes out because it comes from the ground and you take this water and you throw it on him and I did this last time I visited.

02:47 John Daub: A lot of people have asked me on this trip, where do you take a bath? Where do you stay clean if you're staying in a tent? The answer is that everywhere in Japan there is like a public bath just about everywhere. In onsen towns like this, they're onsen, right? The onsen is the hot spring. But in cities you have something called a sento (public bath) and a sento is a public bath that is just hot water, but they put a little mural of Mount Fuji in the background. It's open to the public so you can take a bath. It's about three to four hundred yen depending on the place and they're usually open between 5 p.m. and 11 p.m.

03:42 John Daub: So I just came out of the bath here, this is the entrance to the public onsen here in Noboribetsu. This is Yume no Yu (Dream Bath) and Sagiri Yu. That's the name of this place, Sagiri Yu (Mist Bath) and Sagiri Yu is public. It's open to everybody. It's 420 yen for anybody to go to the onsen and take a bath here and the onsen water has all of these natural minerals that you see in the water there. It's really good for your skin. It makes you look younger like me, right? Look at that. That's an onsen smile.

04:31 John Daub: I noticed the difference between now and 14 years ago is that there's a lot of people from China visiting a lot. I'm gonna walk up and take a quick look around this place. Me and my own onsen smile are gonna go up the road. As I said the price of the ryokan. Okay, before I go I'm gonna take a quick picture for memory of me and the oni (demon). The same photo that I took 14 years ago standing in front of the oni. Click. There you go for me. That's just a good memory. I'm still pretty warm because I just got out of the bath but the temperature is not too warm out here and I'm gonna be camping. I have another story. I'll tell you that in a couple of minutes. It's a good story.

05:35 John Daub: Last time I left you I left you in limbo because I was on the side of the road in a horrible place to hitchhike. I knew no one was gonna stop so I started walking towards Route 5 which is where a lot of the traffic is coming. There's another demon. What is that? That looks like a restaurant. You know, you just walk around you start finding stuff. Sun Bay. It's called Sun Bay. Wow, it's really popular a lot of taxis coming in and of course, there's another demon. This town is full of demons with clubs which makes me kind of nervous about camping here. That's right. I can't afford any of these hotels and it's now the Japanese holiday, so I have to camp. The guy who drove me here he showed me some places. He's a local he showed me some places where I could pitch my tent. That isn't a parking lot. It's gonna be cold tonight. I think I could kind of see my breath.

06:40 John Daub: Behind me is Seiko Mart. That is a Hokkaido only chain of convenience stores. They still have 7-Eleven and Lawson's here, but Seiko Mart is a local one and they got some good stuff. Can you hear that? All right, Charlotte. I'm loving living vicariously three years from Scotland. Thank you so much Charlotte. That's my beer money. Thank you so much. If you can hear I'm showing you this gutter for a reason, okay. You're all that water running. That's all the onsen water running up through the city and that sound is everywhere right now. Just the sound of running water and that's what an onsen town is. Up there there's a park where it's the park is cool. It's just all steam coming out like and that's why the demons are here because you know, there's a Jigoku Dani (Hell Valley) here.

07:47 John Daub: Jigoku Dani meaning like a hell valley and the hell valley. Yeah, it's pretty much like hell because they have bubbling water coming out of the ground. We don't even know where the heck the bubbling water is coming from but it's just bubbling out and exploding with hotness. Calm down Chinese tourists. He's in e how it's about bit of a hell. So I'm gonna walk up to Hell Valley, Jigoku Dani and actually, I haven't been up there it's the first time for me. The guy brought me here. He drove me around the town a little bit to show me the lay of the land before I started filming which is really nice of him.

09:05 John Daub: So it's almost 8 o'clock. Oh look at this store. It looks like time stood still in the 1970s. It's like a mix between the 1870s and the 1970s between Germany and an overzealous designer. Daniel Keen, thank you very much. I'm gonna need that round to keep me warm. Go for that. You can see my breath already to go for the hard stuff my tent my sleeping bag's rated for zero so yeah, I should be warm. The onsen opens up at 7 o'clock in the morning once again. So I'm gonna take a bath before I get back on the road and go to Sapporo and as soon as I get up here I'm gonna tell you a story of what happened today about the rides that picked me up. Oh, man. I got lucky. I got lucky today and the people who picked me up oh I wonder if they're gonna be open later. Oh, it's beer and sake in the window. That's gotta be good stuff.

10:26 John Daub: I'll be back. I see beer in a window and I stopped. I forget what I was talking about. Oh, I got lucky today. I got some really fantastic rides hitchhiking out of Hakodate. That's the thing you keep going you keep going you keep going and you find stuff things happen to you. What the heck? Whoa demon king. Wow look at these demons don't even have faces sometimes. Creepy wow, I just walked around the corner. I didn't see this and there's like some demon shrine. I'm camping out here by myself in the woods. I'm not liking it either. I like how they put strobe lights for effect lightning. You should add sound effects.

11:40 John Daub: I'm sorry. I really don't know a lot of the history to this. Don't know a lot of the history but Onsen Shinto? Adidas? People are so friendly here. Oh the ramen place. Yeah, the thing is though that like all these places will end up closing right around now. Do you think ramen would be open till midnight? But let me see. It's empty. I don't even know if there's anybody inside. And there's the onsen shrine. Very cool. This is one of the big hotels that I can't afford. Well, it's not even a question of whether or not I can afford it. They just don't have anything available because it's the Japanese holiday. You see this is a nice hotel. It's got a place for the taxi kick every nice hotel has to have a place where the taxi can drive in to drop off people and this disqualifies as a nice hotel. You don't see too many. It's even got its own demon with club.

13:24 John Daub: Everything's starting to close up because it's nine o'clock. Pulling down the drapes. All right. There's the you know, I saw on the Google map I was gonna camp on this part because on the Google map, this is a place of green. Okay, this there's grass here. So I was like, oh I'm gonna camp here. Oh, yeah, right this there's like steam coming out of everything in this park. What am I gonna do camp in between the devil clubs? Who knows what happens at midnight between these clubs. Anyone who stands in the middle of these clubs like it's teleported to hell. You can see in the distance right in the middle here like just steam popping out of the ground oozing out of the cracks out of the cellars of that place that the demon lives. Wow that's an onsen town and smells like sulfur. It smells like rotten eggs everywhere.

14:38 John Daub: Onsen towns real ones and towns have a sulfuric stink because I'm used to it. It smells but to me it smells like an onsen you can see behind me steam. So sometimes there's a haze over the city haze of the demons because this is demon onsen town. We got some more demons but the sign here says Hell Valley. I'm walking to it over here, and there's more demons lit up. Honestly, I should have titled this Hell Valley Onsen something like that and people will watch it. That's not clickbait because it really is it says it really does say Hell Valley. I mean in Japanese Jigoku means hell and dani is valley. Hell Valley, here's the sign. There's proof. I'm gonna change the title Hell Valley Onsen Jigoku Dani.

15:51 John Daub: Behind here is another demon there's even a walkway to go and greet him. This guy looks like his club is steaming from pounding people into well, I didn't see that guy there. Alright, I don't know if I can camp here. This is really creepy and he's all beat up. I don't know if that's from battle or from just fungus and mold and age I didn't do it. He's still up in the air.

16:31 Toby (crow): You have been the one responsible for the quality of the videos being for IDP. You will be judged John on your performance on this trip it has been hideous.

16:37 John Daub: No, really Toby did it shut up silence.

16:42 Toby (crow): You have been the one responsible for the quality of the videos being for IDP. You can't even produce high-definition anymore.

16:49 John Daub: Honestly, it's not my fault YouTube did it silence see this club? I shall thrash you. Well, you're just a statue. You can't even move. Shut it. Silence. I'm backing away now. Obviously, this video is not going to be one of the more popular ones. Yeah, it's not my fault. I don't have to name any names anymore.

17:33 John Daub: So, we have here a sign. Do I leave my bag behind the bushes? Okay, I'm going to leave my bag with camera and equipment behind the bushes here. Alright. I'm just going to leave it there. I figured no one's going to see it because they're going to be blinded by the light. Just for a couple of minutes. It's actually really heavy. My bag is really heavy. This is the shrine of the onsen. Yuzawa Jinja (Bath Source Shrine). And yu meaning bath. You see that kanji that means bath. I don't know if I can go in here after night. It's kind of dark. You know. After seeing the devils up there and the night. I don't even know. Can I go up here? Can I do that? Is it going to be okay?

18:30 John Daub: Alright, I'm going to go up. If something happens, call the cops. Not the one in your country. Call the one in this country, okay? It smells more of sulfur up here than it does down there. I guess because the stuff rising from the park nearby is like getting trapped up here in the atmosphere 20 meters up. Oh. Oh my. Get the feeling that I probably should not be here. It's pitch black. There's not a light here. You can see behind me there's a right there is a shrine. And I can't see anything. It's really dark. I'm getting out of here. I shouldn't be here. I need to go back to the street. Spider web. That means nobody's been up here today. It must be a spider web. There must be a reason for it. My mouth was open. Is there vitamins in spider web? Maybe it's not as bad for you as you I think it is.

20:41 John Daub: Let's go get my bag from Hell Valley and get the heck out of here. Because let's face it, you know, there's nothing nothing good can happen in Hell Valley. Oh man, I think there's like a spider on my bag. It's like Halloween gone wrong. Well, that was interesting, wasn't it? The gates of hell. Okay. So I'm going to make the roundabout and then try to find some food. Which is probably going to be convenience store food. But look at this town. It's totally deserted except for that car. The manhole covers are they don't have any decent manhole covers here. Which is a shame. When I travel to unique places like this, I always look for the manhole covers. But there's nothing special about the ones in Noboribetsu.

21:54 John Daub: Look at that. You think it's a fire? No. That'd be steam. Natural steam coming out of the ground. And it smells like rotten eggs. Dare you go into the steam. Gross. It's like a mouthful of sulfur. It's like I ate an egg. So I've ate egg steam and a spider web today. What did you eat? I ate I washed it down with a nice strong something. Tonight. Now I'm walking back around this onsen town. It's not very big. Noboribetsu Onsen. The town. That's the thing a lot of people don't understand. When I say onsen, I mean the area. Not just the bath. The onsen word in Japanese means the location and the ryokan. When I say let's go to Noboribetsu Onsen, that means this area. Not just the bath. And I'm only telling you this because I made an onsen video. And a lot of people who don't know what they're talking about were commenting about how they knew this stuff better than me. I gotta tell you something. They probably do. I don't know everything. I learn a lot of stuff from the comments. Actually, I'm not always right. In fact, I'm wrong sometimes. Even with research. Thank you, internet.

23:51 John Daub: I like how this hotel they make a lot of money because of the atmosphere. And this hotel is the lens still steamed up? The other lens has gone rogue. Oh, there you go. You see how the hotel has Will McGee, thank you so much. Thank you, Will. That's very nice of you. Behind this hotel, you can see they've illuminated the trees behind. And that sort of adds a contrast in depth to the hotel. I know that they thought about that sort of thing before they put the lights in. That means, I bet you, in the back of this hotel is a beautiful, beautiful bath. In fact, I think this is the hotel. There was one hotel on the internet for this area. Yeah, that is the hotel. It's $600 per person to stay there for the night. So, yeah. I don't think anyone's gonna come outside ever from that hotel. They're gonna spend every single minute of their life while they can inside that hotel. $600 US a night for this one. I think it's called Noguchi Ryokan. It looks beautiful. I mean, I bet you the electric bill to light up the background is probably pretty high. Just that alone makes it a good value.

25:23 John Daub: Oh, yeah. And this one also was a little bit pricey. What does this one say? Maharuba (True Great Vast Bath). Japanese very great big heaven bath or something. It's a beautiful looking hotel. Very nice looking hotel, but you know what? I can't afford it. And even if I could, and I sort of could, there's no rooms for me because it's a Japanese holiday. This is the start of Golden Week. This is the Saturday. Because people some people have to work Monday, Tuesday next week, but many people get off and they just spend the whole week they have two full weeks of vacationing. Spring holiday. Which is why I didn't want to keep hitchhiking during the holiday. Because it's gonna be hard to find a hotel that doesn't triple its price or is available. Because everybody from Tokyo, all the like 30 million people. Yeah! They're out here.

26:42 John Daub: Okay, there's a Seiko Mart. Another convenience store. That's it. There's another hotel in the corner there. There you go. Onsen tour. Onsen town tour. Without I went inside the bath and I asked the manager if I could film in there. And he says everything has to be approved by the second floor. And they're closed for the weekend and come back on the weekday. Yeah, next time. It's hard to okay, I'm going backpacker mode. There's beast mode. That's when Toby chimes in. And then there's backpacker mode. That's when the luggage gets heavy. And I've been carrying this sign around. And that sign is gonna go underneath my tent as sort of a mattress.

27:32 John Daub: Oh, I haven't been down this road. Oh, ice cream. This is their milk tea ice cream. Soft cream from milk. Milky High. It's called. All right. Should I get a beer? Come on. Yeah, why not? 7-Eleven or Seiko Mart? I love to go to an izakaya (pub). I like to eat in restaurants. I don't like to be by myself. It's pretty it kind of stinks. That's one reason why I'm live streaming because I don't feel like I'm here alone. I'm with you guys. Oh, look. And while I talk about unity and being together, we have some devil love here. Oh. Aww. Isn't that sweet? I wonder what their children are going to look like. Aww. It's kind of creepy.

28:48 John Daub: Oh, hey. Ramen? Anybody? Ramen? Um, I've been eating ramen like a maniac. I had it last night for dinner. I don't know. Should I go for ramen again? This is the Ramen Izakaya. Wait! It's a ramen shop and an izakaya? Can you be both? This is Ramen Izakaya. It's open and there's like nobody in there. It's sort of oh, she's staring at me. I gotta run. Run! Run away! Why don't I just do that? Oh, there's that place again. I'm trying one of the viewers tried to tell me people from Taiwan and people from China are different in a sense. Well, you can tell because Taiwanese are a lot quieter. Because I've been speaking and people from China are louder. I'm not sure.

30:01 John Daub: This one says Blue Night. Oh, this is a club. Bao Kei. Oh, wow. Some sort of like karaoke singing going on or something. I don't know. Blue Night. It says in there. Alright, somebody said go to the club. I'm just gonna go and walk a little closer. You don't know what's gonna happen when you walk closer to something. If you walk closer, you know, something might happen. Anything oh, no. Jeez. Okay, no. This is actually a restaurant. And it's all Chinese, I can hear. I'm not going in there. I don't fit in. And this one is a all-you-can-drink club with karaoke for 60 minutes for 2,200 yen and 90 minutes for 3,300 yen and you get free karaoke. Karaoke is included. The drinks include sake, whiskey, oolong tea, and orange juice. Yeah, I'll pass on Blue Night. I'm sorry. I'm just not into that kind of fun. Yeah. You know, I can sing. I can sing without having to go into a club. To sing in the streets. That's free. I'm not gonna do it for you right now. I might.

31:34 John Daub: Let's see what they got in the Seiko Mart for your drink. And this is for these drinks are let's see here. So, Will, Daniel, and Charlotte. These drinks are all because of you. So I'm gonna go into the Seiko Mart and get a drink. Thanks to those three really nice people. I'm gonna put my bag outside. I don't think anyone's gonna take my bag out here. I mean, first of all, it's really heavy. And that means they have to somebody has to carry it. Oh, this feels so good. Oh, man. That's way too much luggage for a trip like this. Way too much. What was I thinking? I honestly don't know. Okay, I'm gonna go. Gonna go and get some booze. What should I get to drink? Where should I go and get to drink? Oh, there's like hard liquor in the corner there. I think that might be too hard. All right, let's go see what they have.

33:17 John Daub: Laughing Man. That looks good. This is a lemon sour. I'll look like that if I drink it, though. Draft One. This is a Sapporo Classic. They have a green one, which looks interesting. I was hoping that they would have more craft beer or something. Nothing. All right. You know what? There's a 7-Eleven. There's a 7-Eleven up the street. Let's go see what they have. Let's go to the 7-Eleven. I'll take it. I'll take it. All right, my bags are right here. There's a 7-Eleven. I'm just gonna leave my bags there. No one's gonna take it. There's a 7-Eleven 20 meters away. If someone takes my bag, tell me. You can see it right now. The dude's gonna touch it. If you can't, you can I don't know. I can wash the dirty clothes in the bag too. Actually, I washed all my laundry last night at the coin laundry in Hakodate.

35:22 John Daub: All right. Let's go into 7-Eleven. Daydream believer. Okay, here's a premium beer. This one has a devil on it. I'm glad I came. All right. I'm getting this for you guys. All right. This one is Red Ale and Pilsner. I'm getting this for you guys. Red Ale or Pilsner. I'm gonna go with the red one because it looks like the devil. Look at that. It says premium. That means it's good stuff, right? Hokkaido. All right. What snacks should I get? Cheese. Cheese squid. Looks good. Oh, look at that. A sandwich. I'm just gonna get the beer for now. Oh, wait. They have the premium beer in a bottle. That's so much better. Okay, I'm putting this one back. Hold on a second. What's this one called? Oh, that's a pale ale. I'm still getting that. It's 86 yen.

37:53 John Daub: Oh, you have 1 yen? Yes. 1 yen. Yes. Thank you for 1 yen. Thank you. Thank you. Done. I got booze. We're gonna take this booze back to my bag because at the moment I bought it, I remembered I don't have a bottle opener. I have a bottle opener on me, but I do in my bag, which happens to be there. Look, I don't want to say I've never had anything stolen in Japan, but people just don't take other people's personal belongings in this country. If somebody took it, it would be a tourist, which when I come to think of it is 90% of the people in this town right now. Oh, well. I thought I could drink here, but I'm gonna put it on top of the Seiko Mart trash can. Boom. Now, Japan, you don't have to put your booze in a brown paper bag. You can just drink it on the street. There's no law against drinking alcohol outside. I like that.

39:40 John Daub: Just stay there for a second, okay? I have the bottle opener down here, just in my bag. Boom. All right. This is a premium demon beer. It doesn't say demon beer. It says Kinoni Pale Ale. So for those who gave the super chat, this is for you. Kanpai. Oh. I feel like a man when you drink outside the convenience store, especially one where you didn't buy the booze at. You know, loitering. Yeah. I'm the only one that doesn't have a hotel room to go back to. It's not like I got a choice. That's what I'll tell the cops when they ask me why I'm loitering here. Yeah. I'm talking to you. So that's not weird at all. It's like we're eye level. I'm talking to the trash can right now. People don't know that. What are you going to do? You know, we're sitting here sharing a beer together, probably morning where you are. It's after 9 p.m. here. Not bad. It's not. It's slightly under premium.

41:55 John Daub: All right. So we're at like $22,000 in the Kickstarter. I have to thank everybody who has been supporting me. Everybody who has been supporting the Kickstarter project. It's gone beyond my wildest dreams of what we've done with that. So I made it to Noboribetsu. That was my sign. Nihon-go ke (Hitchhiking to Nihongo?). And tomorrow I'm going to camp here and then tomorrow I'm going to hitchhike from the interchange at Noboribetsu and make my way towards Sapporo. The person who picked me up, two people did. One of them was a school teacher. He took me from that crappy place and he took me to the interchange. I got a ride 10 minutes later from the interchange to here. On the way, a beautiful couple from Sapporo stopped and they said that when I come to Sapporo, I got their phone number. They said when I come to Sapporo to give them a call and to stay. They weren't just saying that because I said I'm going to stay at your place. You understand. You invited me. I'm going to go to your place. They said I understand. Are you sure? I said yeah. I'm going to call him. He's the president of a mochi company, a company that makes mochi. That's pretty cool.

43:11 John Daub: He said if I wake up early enough, he'll take me and show me what he does, show me his company which is pretty cool. When you hitchhike, you don't know who's going to pick you up and who you're going to meet but it's amazing the people that I've met on this trip. What I've been able to introduce to you as a result of me doing this trip and what I've been able to introduce myself. Because a lot of these places I would never have gone to in a train or in a bus because I didn't know they existed. So tomorrow I make my way to Sapporo after I leave here. Hopefully I can get a good night's sleep. It is pretty cold but the beer is going to help. And hope for a good day tomorrow. I'm going to take a bath one more time in Noboribetsu before I make my way to Sapporo. So wish me luck.

44:02 John Daub: I'm going to get some food. Maybe get that ramen. Ramen izakaya bar. Yeah, right there. I mean, why not, right? I try to support local businesses. So thanks again one more time for watching this livestream and for watching the whole series. I really appreciate it. I hope if you do want to buy a DVD of this trip, do so in the next 15 hours because that's when it runs out. That's when the Kickstarter is over. And I'm going to work my butt off to complete every order. I'm going to get some food. And then after that's done, I'll consider selling more of the DVDs. The DVD is a Kickstarter project that I'm doing to fund this trip. I'm livestreaming which gives you a taste of what's on this disc. But the reason why I want to do a DVD is because I want to make a longer version of Only in Japan which I can't do because I just wouldn't make enough. It's just too costly to do something like this. And this is going to be like a two hour amazing video. I'm going to fly the drone here tomorrow morning as well. So get some aerial footage. I have the microphone. I have the DJI Mavic Pro which has been doing pretty good. So if you want to get the DVD, you have 15 hours to buy it on Kickstarter. And I'll put the link into the feed or somebody watching will put the link in a comment. And I appreciate that very much.

45:23 John Daub: Tomorrow is Sapporo. And then I'm just this, on the map, I'm this far away from my goal. This far away. I've gone this far and I'm this far away. It feels good to be almost done with this. Knock on wood. So. Good night. Good morning. Good night. Good evening. Wherever you are. Thank you so much for watching this live stream. See you on the road tomorrow. Have a nice night. And I'll give you the last 20 seconds. Flip this around of a beautiful onsen town. And the possible place where I'll be eating my ramen tonight. Have a good night.