00:02 John Daub: Greetings from Nayoro. So I was hitchhiking from Shibetsu, a small town known for sheep and lamb. Just basically animals with lots of fur. And I left that place and was picked up by three nice guys who live in this town, the next town over from Shibetsu, Nayoro. Now, I was saying a bunch of stuff like, oh, there's no highway or low way and every road comes this way. I was wrong. Apparently there's a bypass and the bypass goes around the towns and everyone going straight to Wakkanai is taking the bypass. I missed that. Shoot.

00:49 John Daub: So tomorrow morning, because I'm not going to make it. These roads are just long, straight, and empty. It's pretty impressive in a way. Like Wyoming or South Dakota in the United States. Just really long, square roads. You can see the sun is setting over there. I can't hitchhike anymore, unfortunately. I'm staying in a place called the Grand Hotel. And thankfully it doesn't have a very grand price. It's fairly affordable.

01:30 John Daub: Hey, Ms. Clark. Jason Sellers is back. Vaughn, how you doing? Lynx is in the house. Yuki, how you doing? Mello, hi. I do like this town. And I really wanted to stop in a small town on the way to Wakkanai, somewhere that nobody stops. And I found that town. And it's Nayoro. With very, very long, straight, and empty roads.

02:43 John Daub: And the iPhone stabilizer doesn't work on YouTube apparently. Oh, Apple and YouTube, they hate each other. Can't we all just get along? So there's the White Tree House. Oh, Shirokiya! That's a chain—ah, Hokkaido bugs. Alright, here comes a yakiimo (roasted sweet potato) truck. Ishii Yakiimo. Yay. So you can see in the back of the truck, he's grilling sweet potatoes. And the truck's open. If somebody flags him down, he stops, whips out the sweet potatoes and sells it to them. He's now grilling them on hot stones. That's pretty cool. You don't see that a lot anymore. That's like the old society. Now you can get yakiimo at Don Quixote and department stores right on the street. It's not the same.

04:13 John Daub: So I just wanted—I don't want to make a really long video. I wanted to make a really long feed because my Only in Japan Go episodes seem to go on for like 80 minutes. Last night was a marathon session. I left you guys, those that were watching the live feed, in limbo and I didn't want to do that. I'm doing okay. I learned a couple of things. First, 7-Eleven is not good for you. They make really delicious looking food. But apparently even the vegetables have chemicals. Because three days later they don't rot. And a lot of people in Hokkaido have been telling me don't go to 7-Eleven. So sorry. Go there for cardboard but maybe not eat the sandwiches and the onigiri. Because they all have chemicals so they last longer and they don't smell. They said to go to Seico Mart. And Seico Mart is the Hokkaido version of 7-Eleven. It's a convenience store from Hokkaido. And they make homemade bentos. They have a little kitchen in each of them. In each convenience store. And they make the bentos in the shop. Said if you're going to get a bento or food, don't get it at 7-Eleven. Get it at Seico Mart. So that was good information I got over the last couple of days from hitchhiking. From people who picked me up.

05:35 John Daub: Sign that says Nayoro. Post office is 350 meters that way. Um, maybe not that way but pretty close. I just think it's pretty cool. That these roads go on forever. And I'm—gosh I can't do anything about the shakiness. I'm sorry. That's a pet peeve of mine. People who don't stabilize the video. But maybe I can do that with YouTube later on. They have a little stabilizer. So I'm sorry about this. It was either not show you anything or give you shaky video for 5 or 10 minutes. It's impressive how straight and wide and square this town is. And there's a Seico Mart in the distance. You see this one here? That's Seico Mart. That's only Hokkaido. Wide, straight roads. This is route 40. And the speed limit is 40. So it sort of makes sense. Straight roads that lead basically nowhere. Ah, Yamazaki does as well.

06:54 John Daub: So I'm—I got a message in here saying Yamazaki has a—

07:00 John (Local): Hey! Good, how are you? Wow. I'm just live streaming here from Nayoro. He knows me. That's pretty cool.

07:19 John (Local): I've got a friend who lives in Shibetsu where you just were. Oh, really? And he—I guess they—I didn't know about what you do on YouTube. But anyway, he's followed you, I guess, for a little while. Yeah. And he just happened to see that you were in town. And he went down to where you were standing. Oh, really? And he missed by about five minutes. Oh! And he's a friend of mine and we live here in Nayoro. Oh, okay. And he said, hey, he's coming your way. I don't know if he's going to keep going farther north today or if he's stopping or what. Oh, yeah, yeah. And so I drove around trying to see if I'd spot you. And then he got me and he said, he's back on live right now. He's walking downtown in Nayoro. So I guess you got a place to stay for the night.

08:01 John Daub: Yeah, I did. Everything was booked and the three guys that picked me up, they live here in the town. They sent me over at the Grand Hotel over there. Fujikawa over there. Yeah, for the night. Yeah. Yeah. So I was just walking around town while there's still daylight so I could take a look around. This is an interesting place to me. Everything, long streets that go on forever. Yeah, yeah. It's pretty cool.

08:24 John (Local): So listen, you're from Kagoshima?

08:26 John Daub: No, I'm from Tokyo. Okay. But I started the hitchhiking from Kagoshima, yeah.

08:29 John (Local): Wow. How long ago? Wow. So you're heading all the way to Wakkanai?

08:35 John Daub: If I can. I thought I would make it today then I realized it's really 180. It's three more hours from here. Yeah. We got friends that live in Wakkanai. Yeah. And I could tell you who they are and where they are and they might even be able to help you out once you get there if you're going to do it. Okay, yeah.

08:50 John (Local): If you get that far, you ought to get yourself out to Soya Misaki which is the northern point. Right.

08:55 John Daub: You can't go any farther than being, you know, I said to everybody who wants to go, you want to go north. That's where I'm going because I made a promise to jump into the sea. I don't know if I can do it there but I have to jump into the sea.

09:05 John (Local): Why?

09:06 John Daub: Because this is a crowdfunded trip so. Okay, okay. I have no choice.

09:09 John (Local): Well, can I help you with anything? I mean, do you need to get anywhere to get a bite to eat or are you all set up to go to a hotel or?

09:15 John Daub: Yeah, I got all my stuff at the hotel but everyone says to go eat some lamb and meat or something. So, if you know a place to eat, I was walking around sort of looking for that. I could eat at the hotel but.

09:26 John (Local): I can show you. There's like a yakiniku (grilled meat) place downtown. I might use it myself but there's two or three places like that that, you know, where you can do like that kind of a thing. And I'd have you come out to our place but I just, right now, the timing is not good. Oh, that's fine. But I'd be glad to take you and show you a couple spots and if they look good to you and I could show you. They're not that far. In fact, there's one you walked almost right past that there's a place right just a couple blocks away from the hotel.

09:51 John Daub: Oh, wow. And so, I could show you where it's at if it looks like something you want to do. Yeah, you know what? I don't know. I'm actually not that hungry. I had to eat a lot of ramen and Asahi something for video. Okay. That's an episode that's coming up. But yeah, if you know. I wouldn't mind since you have a car. You want to drive around a little bit and take a look around town?

10:08 John (Local): Sure. That'd be fun.

10:11 John Daub: So, I'm John. Good to meet you, John. Nice to meet you, John. How long have you been in Japan?

10:14 John (Local): Almost 20 years. Wow. How about yourself?

10:19 John Daub: We came to Japan in 1990. Wow. Okay. So, this year will be 27. Right. Yeah, you predate me by almost a decade.

10:28 John (Local): Well, a little bit. Yeah, we're Baptist missionaries. Okay. And we, in fact, we started in Japan. We started in Wakkanai where you're headed.

10:37 John Daub: I met a missionary to Japan who lived in Wakkanai years ago. His daughter and son-in-law live there now, have a church work there. But he came, it was really unique.

10:45 John (Local): I lived in Minnesota. Right. You're from America? Right. Whereabouts? New Jersey, Ohio. Okay. All right. Yeah. So, I was born in Southern Illinois and raised in Indiana until my dad transferred with IBM up to Minnesota, met my wife there. And anyway, long story, but we were in a small church up in Minneapolis area. And our church supported a missionary to Japan that I had never met. But he came back to the States with a group of about 25 Japanese people. Right. To visit America. His daughter was getting married and some things were taking place. They, some of them stayed in our home. And for the next week, anyway, right here is where you're staying, correct?

11:17 John Daub: Oh, that's right. Yeah, that's the hotel. Okay.

11:23 John (Local): So, if we just go this way, back to the main street here. Oh, wow. This is right back to where we were. Oh, okay. I mean, we were just up there a little bit. Yeah, I hung a left here and was wandering around. Anyway, there's a place right there.

11:36 John Daub: Oh, wow. It's got all kinds of, you know, I mean. Amataro. Yeah, you may not be hungry, you know, but it's got all kinds of yakiniku type stuff like that. Oh, yeah. You know, yakitori. Oh, yeah, I know Amataro. They're popular in Tokyo, too. Okay.

11:54 John (Local): So anyway, we, long story short was that that missionary and that group, they had a bus lined up and a bus driver to take them around for about a week in that area of Minnesota, Wisconsin. And right at the last minute before they arrived, the bus driver couldn't drive. And I had a license to drive, and so my pastor called me up and said, hey, I've got a real problem. I've got a missionary and 25 Japanese folks showing up in a couple days. Oh, no. And I don't have a driver. So I just, I took my son, he was about four, five years old at that time. I took him with me, and we just were going to help out. And I took that group around, and during that week, God began to deal with my heart. And I met Japanese people and began to get to know them and realized that so many of them have never even heard who Jesus Christ is, let alone read a Bible or anything. Oh, yeah, yeah. And so it was a long, it was, that was in the fall of 89. And in an amazing way, God allowed us to come to Japan. And we had support of a few churches, and we had my wife and three little children. And we came to Wakkanai in September of 1990. Wow. Spent two years there working with that missionary. Wow. And trying to get on our feet with the language and stuff. That's incredible. And we came down here and we looked at your...