00:00:00 John Daub: All right, we're live again. Hello, everybody. I cut off the live stream because it was unlisted. And once you go live, you can't turn it back to listed. And now I'm on a new livestream here in the hotel in beautiful downtown Wakkanai, which is the northernmost city in Japan. So, Nick Kuma, I saw your comment that it was a lonely place. It certainly was because I couldn't get on. Just problems with the YouTube app because I don't have this problem with Facebook Live or with Instagram Live. So I'll get on the horn and notify YouTube that there's just multiple problems sometimes including the 480p, because even if when I use the Wi-Fi, I don't get it. So. Okay, great. We have 150 people watching now, and it's going up pretty quick. Yeah, so this is. Yeah, a little bit more than 4. So for people who are joining me right now, I'm taking live questions via Skype for everyone who is a Patreon supporter. So if you're over on Patreon and you're in one of the higher levels, I think $5 or more, you have access to my Skype, probably that's information going to get out, but for now, yeah. Guess who's online. Toby. All right, Toby's in the house. Hey, Toby. I see Toby. Toby, you should call in. I don't know how you call in, but. Hold on a second. Cody, I'll be right back. I'll see if I can get Toby. I'll be right back. All right, let's see here. Toby's in the house. Let me just write here. So I'm now live streaming from the hotel. And I started the live stream. It was unlisted and nobody was watching. I go, what happened? And it was because it was unlisted, but now it's listed. So there you are. I'm sending Toby a message through Facebook. There you go, dude. Okay. All right. So I'm very sorry to keep you waiting. I'm taking. This is Cory. Cory's been waiting really patiently as I went through these difficulties with streaming. But here we are. This is Corey. How you doing? So, Cory, where are you from?

00:02:33 Corey: It was nice to chat.

00:02:34 John Daub: Oh, good. We've been listening to this elevator music for like the last five, ten minutes. So where are you from, Corey?

00:02:41 Corey: I'm from Montreal, Canada.

00:02:43 John Daub: Ah, Montreal. So what's your question?

00:02:48 Corey: What is the biggest difference that you've noticed or had happened to you on this trip as opposed to the one 14 years ago?

00:02:55 John Daub: Okay, that's a great question. 14 years ago. Well, the difference with me is that I didn't know Japanese very well 14 years ago. So my ability to communicate was very limited. Meaning I could get by okay, but the conversations were painful in the car. Sometimes the people that stopped then, I think they were more curious about foreigners, meaning they were like wondering what the heck he was doing. Now hitchhiking has been on Japanese TV a lot and I found that people are stopping because they. For different reasons. In a way, I didn't get any trucks to stop, any big like tractor trailers to stop. Which is weird because last time I'd say 40% of the people who stopped were in trucks. And then this time it was yeah. And this time it was cars. And I think maybe it was because truck drivers have now rules not to pick up hitchhikers. And back then they didn't.

00:03:54 Corey: Oh, do they?

00:03:55 John Daub: Yeah. I'm not sure. All I know is that a lot of them waved and smiled and they looked like they wanted to stop, but. But it seemed like there are rules or policies. I've also noticed since 14 years ago how much the country has changed. A lot of these places, including here in Wakkanai. I'm looking at the station right now. Japan has not had the biggest financial success over the last 14 years. Inflation is like zero. Money is like so. So. But the economy was tepid. But the. They really have been keeping the infrastructure up. So the amount of like stuff that was. That's new compared to 14 years ago is amazing. Including just the highway. I thought from Asahikawa there was no highway going to Wakkanai, but there was one. So I kept making. I kept hitchhiking in the wrong spot because I didn't realize that it had changed. Yeah, but Japan in general, I can't believe how good the infrastructure is here. It got better. It's more high tech at the service areas. And there's always a place for people. 14 years ago it was sort of the same. But there's always a place for people to like to refresh off of the highway. There's service areas which they have in every country. But the ones in Japan are super high tech. And it's probably going to be an episode I do for only in Japan in the future because they're so cool, the service areas. And as well as these Michi no Eki, which is like a roadside stops, they have these along the highway and major roadways. And it's a place where you can just refuel your jets, just chill out for a while. They're all over the place. And I found that those are good places to also hitchhike from because you could approach people. They didn't have those 14 years ago, not like they do today. That was a big difference. Life on the road is better now than it was 14 years ago. Does that answer your question?

00:05:50 Corey: Yeah. Yeah, that was a perfect answer.

00:05:52 John Daub: Thank you. All right. Okay. Thanks so much for calling in, Corey, and sorry to keep you waiting.

00:05:57 Corey: Oh, that's okay.

00:05:58 John Daub: Thank you very much. All right, cheers. Bye bye. All right, cool. This is fun. I like taking the calls from everybody. Let's see here. John, John, we had problem in the first live stream. He's reinstalled Skype. So here we go. John, I'm gonna. I tried to call you again right now. John's been waiting, waiting pretty patiently. All right, it's working. It's ringing. It's on. It's John. How you doing? It's actually working. It's working. Hello? Hello, everybody. So this is John. Thanks for calling in.

00:06:39 John (Austin, TX): Hello.

00:06:40 John Daub: Where are you calling from? I am calling from Austin, Texas. Austin, Texas. Cool.

00:06:47 John (Austin, TX): Yeah.

00:06:48 John Daub: All right. So what's your question? John?

00:06:49 John (Austin, TX): Your hotel is, like, really nice.

00:06:52 John Daub: It's not as expensive as you think, I guess, because this is the Japanese holiday. But there aren't a lot of people here because most of the people who come to this area of Japan are coming back to visit family, not for vacation. So the hotel is quite empty. So I got a pretty good deal. Yeah.

00:07:11 John (Austin, TX): Wow, that's pretty cool.

00:07:12 John Daub: It's very, very cool. It wasn't that much more expensive than, like, some of the, like, rougher hotels. Like, why not just spend. Spend like 20 bucks more for three nights and stay here? It's sort of worth it. The breakfast is a little bit pricey, but it's a nice place. No free continental breakfast. It's not continental. It's all you can eat. And. And it has everything. Yeah. Any place that has a big stairwell like this and elevator music in the lobby, you know, it's a high class place. So what's your question? All right, so my question is you don't get much sleep at night, so

00:07:52 John (Austin, TX): do you take long naps during the day?

00:07:55 John Daub: Do you get any naps at all? That's a good question. Do I get any naps at all? I don't get any naps on this trip. I didn't. Yeah. From the time I woke up, I didn't sleep until I went back to bed again. And sometimes I would go to bed, I would enter the tent at 9pm this is the first two weeks. I would start going to sleep around 9pm Sorry. I would get ready for bed and I would start editing the videos. So I was editing the videos until like one in the morning sometimes and I've. And it was so slow on. On my Dell laptop that I just gave up editing the videos and I just started doing live streams because I couldn't do both and continue with the trip. Wasn't until about three weeks in, then I started getting it like at least six to eight hours of sleep a day. And now it's not as bad. It could be better.

00:08:49 John (Austin, TX): Eight hours isn't so bad.

00:08:50 John Daub: Yeah, I was, I was pretty tired. But you know, once I woke up and got on the road, I got stoked and I was excited. It's just my eyes looked like really bad. Bag. Bag. I'm doing fine now and I'm sort of used to this waking up at like 5 in the morning and getting out on the road early. But yeah, adjusting back to normal life is going to be hard in Tokyo, I bet. Yeah. Yeah. This, this trip went on for about 10 days longer than I thought it would. So it's like, oh, wow, okay. I didn't know that. Yeah, I. The reason why I wanted to end this in Hakodate and not go all the way up to here to Wakkanai was because of the Japanese holiday and there's no hotels or no places to stay. But the more people were contributing via Kickstarter, the more I got like pressured to do the whole thing and then just sort of makes sense. I just said, ah, the heck with it, it's just a couple more days. But I probably could use two more days here. I don't know. You weren't. Unless if you saw the beginning when I was in the Wave Dome. This is one of the windiest parts of the country, if not the world. It's just super windy. There's windmills all over the place. And I can't go out to the islands today, which is a shame. Rayboon island is a super nice place, but it's just. Yeah, I'm stuck here. Insane earlier. Yeah, I've sort of given up on my hair. People and stop doing. People are giving me super chats to get a haircut. Like what? I'll get a haircut. But I have no time really. And I trust my barber. I've been going to the same guy for the last six, seven years. Who's, who's from a town near here. I'm thinking of stopping in his town just to say hi to. Hi to the station or something. I don't know. Contact his family. I don't know how to do. But, yeah, that's the first thing I do when I get home and I get a haircut. It's pretty insane. Awesome. Well, thank you very much for taking my Skype call. Not at all. Thanks for calling in, man. And thanks so much for supporting over the last, gosh, like, five, six weeks now. Oh, yeah, absolutely. It's been amazing. Oh, cool. I'm happy to hear that. Yeah. All right. All right. Thanks, John. All right, cool. This is fun. So for those who are joining in, I'm taking Skype calls from everybody who is a Patreon supporter. And I have Wi-Fi in this really, really nice hotel. I don't know how many stars the Ana Crown Plaza has, but it's more than. It's more than. More than two and less than five. Somewhere in between there. All right, okay, I have. I have Toby here. Toby. I don't. I don't. I don't know what to say. You know, I don't know what to say. I don't know. I have Toby here. He just added onto the Skype. Do you have any. So, Pino G, thank you so much for the super chat. Congrats, John. Thank you. All right, I want everybody to Skype in questions for Toby, okay? Skype in questions for Toby. And be nice, okay? This is the end of the trip. Be nice. Super chat from EPW389, John. Congrats, man. Much love from Brendan. PW, my bro. All right, And I, we're having some drinks to honor the completion of the journey. Cool. Kanpai. I should have gotten a beer. It's still am here, but I should have gotten a beer. All right, so hold on a second. Toby, if you're watching, are you okay to do a video Skype? So I'm waiting for Toby to answer. I've just added Toby on the Skype. Toby's typing. Go for it. All right, anyways. The legendary Toby, everybody. Here we go. There you go. It's calling. There he is. Toby, you there?

00:13:46 Toby: Yeah.

00:13:47 John Daub: Oh, there he is. How you doing? And we got, like, the same hair going on today. Oh, yeah, definitely.

00:13:54 Toby: Yeah.

00:13:55 John Daub: All right, everybody. Okay, I'm Turn this screen. Here's Toby. Say hello to everybody. How's it going, guys? So, Toby, first of all, Toby, I'm really sorry for being a bully. No, it's no problem, man. It was super funny when you started mentioning my name.

00:14:14 Toby: It was just super funny.

00:14:14 John Daub: I thought it was hilarious. During this trip, I think we blamed you for just about everything that went wrong. I think we named a crow after you in Noboribetsu, that stole meat. I did see that. Did you see that? Yeah. It's all in good fun. It's all in good fun. So I'm glad. I've been actually chatting with Toby on Facebook over the last. I guess, since Noboribetsu, and I offered to give him a DVD of this, so. Once again, man, I'm so thankful for you. Maybe not so much about the. The very good luck that you've been bringing me on some of these live streams, but after all.

00:14:59 Toby: So long, man.

00:15:00 John Daub: Yeah, man. It's. It's. It felt really good. I think when I got that last ride a couple of days ago and I pulled into Wakkanai Station, just everything hit me at that moment, like, you know, I'm done. It's like, right. What do you do next? Oh, yeah, yeah. What do you do next? And editing. Editing is.

00:15:20 Toby: You're gonna do next.

00:15:22 John Daub: Yeah. Thanks a lot for ruining it, Toby. I mean, come on. Gosh, you know, I'm trying to enjoy my time before the editing starts, and you bring that up.

00:15:36 Toby: You got it. You got it, man.

00:15:38 John Daub: It's not to say when Toby's on, You know, if you're chatting, it's different. But this is the thing with YouTube, and when people write comments, when you're behind the scenes, it's different. You treat it different. But when you're right in front of me, we can see. Toby's a really nice guy. He's not. He's not a crow that steals from bears or he's not a guy who Vex, you know, jinxes everything that, in his way, in his path. Right. No. Yeah. Yeah.

00:16:06 Toby: I'm from Southern California, so.

00:16:08 John Daub: All right.

00:16:09 Toby: Kind of nice.

00:16:10 John Daub: Yeah. Southern Cal. They got great weather. Everybody's pretty chill over there. Compared to New York, where, you know, the area where I'm from, it's a pretty rough, rough town. Yeah. But. Yeah. Do you have any questions for. About the trip or anything you want to add? Where are you right now?

00:16:27 Toby: What's this dome all about?

00:16:29 John Daub: Okay, so I started live streaming about 30 minutes ago. The problem was that the live stream was unlisted. I forgot to turn it on to public, so there are only 18 people watching. And now the live dome is. Is behind me. And when I end this for everybody watching, I'm gonna go outside and stream the live. The wave dome. And there's also street Signs here, they're in Russian, which is pretty cool because Russia is just across this. The. The Cape. And I think it's cool. Yeah, it's really cool. I could see. I see Russia from here.

00:17:03 Toby: That's sweet. Take a look at that. Hell, yeah.

00:17:06 John Daub: I. Yeah, you know, I need a zoom lens, but you can see it just barely on the horizon and probably best in the morning. Geez, should I do that tomorrow morning before I leave to Sapporo? Maybe I'll do a quick shot from. Of Russia. I might come back in the summer and take a ferry out there because that. It's Russia, you know? I don't know. It's Russia.

00:17:28 Toby: It's Russia, man. A new place.

00:17:31 John Daub: There you go.

00:17:31 Toby: More exploring, man.

00:17:33 John Daub: Only in Russia. Only in Russia. Only in Russia. All right, all right, thanks. Thanks so much for calling in. Oh, yeah, not at all, man. And. And I appreciate. I appreciate you always typing in and taking the fans. Look, he's a good guy, so you don't have to, you know, curse him and his family and he's. He's okay, you know, but once I hang up this phone, it's. It's back to Toby. No. All right, thanks so much, Toby. They're calling in and taking the time. All right, see you, man. That's awesome. So I'm telling you, I mean, he's. He's a really nice guy. It's just when you're offline and on that day, it started the Toby. So all of you who've been asking, who's Toby? Who's Toby? That's Toby. So maybe, yeah, maybe we'll end up being really good friends, you know, after. After what happened. And I'll hold the sign up more for Toby. Okay. Okay. Corey had one more question. What was your favorite manhole cover you saw on this trip? And this is a really good question. My favorite manhole cover, I love the one in Iwakuni in Hiroshima. If you look back in the Instagram feed, my Instagram handle is what? Onlyinjapantv One word. I put a bunch of manhole covers in there. Iwakuni's with the bridge was really, really nice. And I love that bridge so much. It's so close to Hiroshima. So if you come to visit Japan, definitely head down to Iwakuni and. And see that bridge. Kintaikyo. What other ones are cool? I noticed Kagoshima didn't have a manhole cover. And that's a major city in a prefecture that didn't have a manhole cover, which was unusual. The one here in Wakkanai is pretty nice. I'll put that on Instagram later. And gosh, Aomori is nice. Hirosaki has this swastika on it, which is the manji. That's unique. Although I don't take it personally. I guess because I'm talking loud, they pumped up the elevator music to give it more atmosphere, you know. Not that live streaming isn't enough atmosphere, man. Whole covers. Oh man. I'm trying to look back all through. All through this whole trip. Tajima. Yeah. Okay. One of the unique one was Tajima, which is where a lot of the Kobe beef comes from. And they had cattle on the manhole cover. And that was pretty cool to see like the beef on the manhole cover, the wagyu. So that I think that one was probably on this trip anyways was one of my favorites. But they're. Each one is so unique and so beautiful. So thanks so much, Corey, for that manhole question. Because every time I see a manhole cover, I just shout manhole. And I have no idea why I do that. It's more fun. It's more fun that way. Okay, I'll take some more questions via Skype. We have here Twin Otter Forever. Twin Otter Forever. Are you okay with video? I'm calling a. Twin Otter Forever is away. Are you online, Twin Otter? Okay, when you're online, I'll try to call Ernest Hong. Live stream on YouTube. Disconnected. Might make a new one. So, Ernest, I'm online right now. If you're good to go, let me know. Corey, you're very welcome for that. So I'm gonna wait for some more live chats to come on here. I'm looking at some questions. I didn't. I forgot to ask Toby some of your questions. Toby, suck my toes. I said, you know, you should be nice to Toby. Just today, you know, this is the end. This is where we make. We make peace in Wakkanai. Just listen to the music. Toby Beef. Gosh, Toby Beef. You guys really don't like Toby. What is. What. What's the appealing of just learning to someone talk about what he's done? He never shows anything but his face. Talking about his fun adventure. Boring. This is Mew Fortune Webs. This is called a question and answer. So what do you want me to do? What do you want? Alright. It's called a question and answer. You ask me a question and I answer it. This is what I do, okay? And it's not just my face when I'm. When I'm doing the live Streams. Because they're live streams. I turn the camera around and show you the area. That's right. Okay, here we go. Twin Otter Forever, you're on right now. I'm twittering. This is fun. I think I'm gonna do this more often. All right, it's connecting. Hello. Hello, Twin Otter Forever.

00:23:06 Vaughn (Twin Otter Forever): Congratulations on your trip. It's been great pleasure watching you.

00:23:12 John Daub: Oh, you're very welcome. I don't get the video on, but I think we can hear you. All right. There he is. Where are you calling from? It's fine. Where are you calling from?

00:23:28 Vaughn (Twin Otter Forever): I'm calling from Calgary.

00:23:30 John Daub: Calgary. All right. Yeah, we always write in from Calgary. I remember commenting earlier, like, you have a lot of Japanese stuff in Calgary. You said a little bit.

00:23:41 Vaughn (Twin Otter Forever): Or maybe I'm just exposed to it a little bit more. Follow it. There is most unusual places here that you'll find like Japanese white bread. They have a place that makes it in town but doesn't sell it in town. You go to the factory and buy it fresh frozen and there's a natto place in town of all places. It's in Calgary. And I grew up in Ben, Vancouver. And it's hard in some ways it's harder to find those Japanese items at least there. But no, it's. It's been a great pleasure watching you go to the kind of the outlying areas where people don't normally go when they go on a trip to Japan and just. Just to see what the real, real people are like. And just the kindness has been. This blessed me away.

00:24:34 John Daub: Yeah. I think this experience and this is why when I did this in 2003, it was the kindness of the people and going to those unexplored areas that kept me in Japan longer. I think I went over this a little bit in the question answer earlier, but in 2003, when I first started the hitchhiking, I didn't know if I wanted to stay in Japan because I did really didn't know much about the country, even though I'd been living, living there for six years at the time. It wasn't until I got to know the people like this, putting myself in a situation where, you know, you have to rely on people like this, that I just fell in love with this place because not everybody stops and picks you up, but everybody really does. Not everybody, but most of the people really do care about other people. And I mean, that's not unique to any other country. A lot of countries are like that. Right. It's just for me, Japan, to have people stop and pick me up and then it's invite me to stay in their house or treat me to breakfast or lunch or dinner and to drop me off at the exact location that they say, where do you want to be dropped off? And I go, well, anywhere that's convenient. Says, no, no, no, no, no. Where do you want to go? And when that happens, it's like, whoa, in the US that maybe not only would no one stop, but maybe they wouldn't be so, so kind, I guess to somebody they don't. Yeah, you got to be a lot more careful in the. So I think with this trip I just wanted to show that as well as see new things. Like you said, people coming to Japan, visiting, they probably don't rent a car or they probably don't drive on the highways as well. And to show you stuff on the roadside and the signs and the culture out here. I think that was a different part of Japan that even I don't see that often.

00:26:20 Vaughn (Twin Otter Forever): Yeah, I really enjoyed watching it. Just get to see the other side and see the countryside quite literally. And it's absolutely fantastic. And I hope to see you. I think you touched on it a little bit or slightly with renting a vehicle. Yeah, I think you were talking about looking at that or doing that in the future. I was wondering if. Are you planning on doing maybe live streaming from the road on like a east to west trip? Might be a little short and kind of do this format in the future, presumably. Probably are, but interesting to see what you have on the books to go into the nooks and crannies of the vehicle.

00:27:09 John Daub: Oh yeah, absolutely. I think the next trip I'm planning in my mind is just to see more of Hokkaido and maybe rent a motorcycle and live stream with motorcycles and stuff like this. You can have the microphone inside the helmet and live stream of where you're going. I think there's so many more trips I want to do like this. The problem is to get the workflow where I can edit a really good video and then bring that to you right away. Because not everybody liked the live streams. Not everybody liked this format. And I can understand that because it can get boring. It can get. Everybody's different. And if you're used to the edited videos, you're not used to the live streams. So it's a mix of things. But what you said about doing more trips like this. Oh yeah, definitely.

00:28:03 Vaughn (Twin Otter Forever): I look forward to that. The live streams. Yeah, you did it for five, six weeks. But it's. Hopefully everybody realizes just it's temporary and yeah, it's difficult to produce and get sleep everything. And fighting the computer you have there.

00:28:26 John Daub: Yeah, that became the issue. It says I better bring some content than no content. And I think for those who buy the DVD or I'm gonna put some highlights on the main YouTube channel that are. That has been edited. When you see that and you look back at the live streams that we shared together, I think it has more meaning. Meaning to you because we shared those times live. At least that's my hope, right? I had my GoPro camera on my shoulder a couple of times, so it's really cool. All right, well, thanks. Thanks so much for calling in from Calgary.

00:29:05 Vaughn (Twin Otter Forever): Thank you very much for everything you've done as well. It's been fantastic. And I think a lot of people are, myself, obviously included, are gonna, gonna miss your adventures. At least for the near future.

00:29:19 John Daub: Until the next one. Yeah.

00:29:20 Vaughn (Twin Otter Forever): Yeah.

00:29:22 John Daub: All right, thanks for calling in.

00:29:24 Vaughn (Twin Otter Forever): Thank you very much, John.

00:29:25 John Daub: Thanks. Ah, nice guy. So calling in from Calgary. Judy, who was on, on, on the live stream before, has a question. Actually, Judy asked a question and she wasn't online, sir. I'm just gonna call her right away and shock her by calling her without prepping her. So that's what I'm gonna do. Judy's back. So Judy. I had to cut the last stream. So Judy's back. Yeah. So Judy, sorry that no one was watching the first live stream. Maybe 18 people. So now we're back and there's 500 people. Now I got practice. Okay. Yeah, now you got practice. Right. So you had, you had a question that you just wrote. My question is, would you hitchhike again? Maybe not the whole country. Come on, you can do it. Gosh, you're making this hard. I know I can do it. I did it twice. But do I want to do it again? You can do it again. I would do it after a few years to see how the country's changed. I think for me to do this again, there was a reason to do it. You know, I sort of wanted to do it for everybody to sort of share the same memory that kept me in Japan 14 years ago and see if you could get that same feeling about the country that I had at the time. Now that you've done that, my gosh, what else is there? You know what I think? Hitchhiking. I've been hitchhiking highways and expressways. Maybe going like local might be something. Or take a different route. Yeah, maybe make sure you take the right route. Like, you know, they have bypasses now. Yeah, good point. You have to do your research. And I sort of was doing stuff, you know, off of my. Off of like the. What do you call, boot laces. I didn't really prepare as well as I could have, but that's sort of part of the adventure. Yeah. All right. Yeah. You know what? I would do it again, but maybe I'm gonna take a little bit of a break. Awesome. Do it again. Put another Kickstarter up. Okay, I'll put another Kickstarter up. I'm taking a break a little bit. Hope you don't mind. It's gonna be a little while before I hitchhike again. Okay. All right. Okay. All right. Thanks for calling back in. Thank you, John. Alright, bye. Bye. All right, that's Judy. Cool. All right, let's take a couple more calls. So I really do appreciate you everybody asking the questions. I see that the chat's coming in. Earlier we had Toby on, which you'll be able to go back and watch. Toby is a nice guy. Don't curse his parents and his family. He's got this. You know what? Toby had, like, similar hair as me. Okay. Judy's from the U.S. but Toby has hair like I do, and that's not a bad thing. I'm not gonna call Toby back. Rockshot100 just asked me call Toby back. I missed the Toby conversation. Well, that's why you should have. You should have gone in earlier, you know. Oh, sorry. So Twin Otter forever from Calgary. His name is Vaughn. Okay, so Vaughn called in, so. Thank you, Vaughn. Thank you so much for calling in. Let's see here. Solers, you're up next. Okay, here we go. Calling the video chat. I hope the video is okay. Solaire's is gonna be on live in about now. Hello? I'm just waiting for the video to pop up. Oh, there you are. Oh, great. It's okay. I look like a wave, so don't worry about how you look. Where are you calling from? I'm calling from Tulsa, Oklahoma. Tulsa, Oklahoma? Awesome. I went to Ohio State University. We'll be playing Oklahoma in a couple of months. I think so. Oh, really? I don't know if you follow NCAA football, but no, not really. I'm not really much of a. All right, delete that. Let's go back. All right, you're calling from Oklahoma. What's your question? My question is what sort of resources, like money or supplies, and what amount would you recommend for someone hitchhiking the country? That's a good question. The first time I hitchhiked, I did it on a hundred and. Okay, so we lost them. That's okay. Are you still there? Yes. Oh, somebody just added me on the Skype. So you lost you. So the resources. The first time I hitchhiked, one reason I did it also was because I didn't have any money. I was pretty young. I was still young back then. And yeah, I did it on about $150. Oh, wow. I did one month of traveling on $150. I ate basically rice balls from supermarkets, which sometimes are half price. I'd save it for the next day for breakfast. I didn't eat very well, but I got to see the whole country. I had a tent with me and a sleeping bag. And I hitchhiked in the fall when the weather was warmer. As I showed you, in this, you can camp just about anywhere. Camping in Japanese means starting a campfire and having a barbecue. But what I do is more like crash, which is set up a tent. I sleep, I wake up early, I leave. And that's not considered camping in Japanese. Sort of. It's gray area resources. Yeah. Tent. As little as possible. I had way too much luggage on this trip. Most of it was batteries and cables and the drone and my gosh, it was pretty heavy. As little as possible. I lost one ride because I had too much baggage. Oh, gosh. Yeah, that was at. Right outside of Sapporo. Going to Asahikawa about. Yeah. But last week and I was off, off on the highway. I got so many stories. I don't want to bore you with all the stories, but I was, oh, no, nonsense.

00:36:12 Solaire: It's not boring at all.

00:36:13 John Daub: I was in. I got picked up in Sapporo and taken. And the guy was really nice. He only could take me about 20km, but he wanted to stop. And I'm like, okay. I don't turn down a ride unless the guy looks like he's gonna, you know, kill me. And nobody looks like that. So I said, okay, because you don't know. It's fate, right? In a way. So I don't know what's gonna happen next. So I get into the car and he drove me the 20 kilometers. And he dropped me off at the toll booth, which is a great area because the people getting back on the toll booth are usually taking the expressway to the destination you want to go to. So I was waiting there for about an hour. And yeah, the guy stopped and he said, okay, Asahikawa, let's go. And I opened the door and the back door to put my bags in. I was like, whoa, it's all filled with tires and all of his stuff. There's no place for my bag. Then I said, hey, what about the trunk? And he goes, sorry, man, that's full, too. I'm like, ah. He goes, okay, Zanen, you know, like, too bad. Next time, okay, Next time. And he was going straight to Sapporo. I would have been there by, you know, in like, two hours. And he left. And then I got kicked off of the highway by the Nexco, which is. Who owns the highway system in Japan. It's a private. Private company. They kicked me off the highway. A guy in the helmet said, you can't hitchhike here. I said, well, it's not my fault. He let me off here, and I didn't get arrested, but I got in trouble. He walked me. He walked me out to the low road, and it took me three hours to get a ride and then two hours to get to what as a. So it cost me like six, seven hours because I missed that one ride. Pack light. Pack light. Bring. Bring a smartphone that has a translation app with you, like Google Translate, if you don't speak Japanese. Yeah, exactly, that. That. I never had to use it. No, no, that's not true. I used it a couple of times because sometimes when I'm in the car, people would say a word that I didn't know what it meant, and I would use the Google Translate and would even. I had to go in there because I'm conversational. I'm not fluent in Japanese. I can get by pretty good, but there's a lot of words that I just don't know, especially political. Everyone wanted to talk about politics, like US Politics or North Korea and missiles and stuff like this. What's happening in the world today? And get it like an American's point of view on it. I didn't really want to talk about politics because you have to be safe in Japan and not, you know, I don't want him to pull over the car and let me off. But having the Google Translate app was a big resource as well. That was free because you can download everything and use it offline as well. So I did appreciate that. Is there anything else that you were interested in in terms of resources, more specific questions about. I think you covered it pretty much. Yeah. Bring a drone. Although the rules are hard to use drones in Japan. Man, I'm so glad I brought the drone because. Yeah, from the sky. Mavic Pro, actually. Yeah, yeah, right. I mean, with it, when you turn the GPS on and the sensors, that thing doesn't really crash. You can just let it hover. It does everything. It's amazing, right? Yeah, I threw that in my bag too. So some of the shots that I got were like, people ask me, how did you take that picture? DJI Mavic Pro. I mean, you can leave it on hover, put the remote control down for like 30 seconds, and keep your eye on the drone. And if it starts to move, then you can. You can push the home button and bring it back. But usually you don't have any trouble. All right, thank you so much. Thanks for calling in. Thank you so much. Do you have any more questions? I've enjoyed so much watching you on this trip. I feel like I've been with you through the Pandemic Patreon and the only in Japan Go channel.

00:39:53 Solaire: It's. It's been so much fun. Thank you.

00:39:55 John Daub: Oh, thanks so much for saying that. Thanks for. For following because when I'm out here alone, I really do appreciate everybody being with me because it sort of sucks to be hitchhiking on our road when there's no cars and. And having you, having all of you that out there with me, it was a big, big help. So thank you. Yeah, thank you.

00:40:17 Solaire: Matane.

00:40:17 John Daub: Matane. Thanks for calling in. Oh, that was nice. Okay, so, Corey, thank you very much. You're welcome. Again, I gave everybody who is supporting on Patreon my Skype address to Skype in. So these are people who are supporting on Patreon. This is from Matu. Sorry, Matlu. We got you. We really. We got really used to these live streams. It was great. It was great journey for us. Thanks for that. You should do it back to Tokyo as well. Time for time. It feels like we're there with you, and I like it. I can't visit Japan until next year, so it's like my only chance. Ah, man. Yeah, that's one of the. You're very welcome. That's one of the reasons why I like the live chats because I can sort of interact with you. I. I don't always read the chats because if I do that, then I. I don't focus on what my environment. So I've learned live chatting is. It's a different muscle. It's a different skill. It's. You can't go back and erase what you just said. So you have to have the skill set to be able to see around your environment and react to it and still seem natural, not be, you know, like an idiot, which I sort of am on the live streams sometimes, but when stuff happens you have to make a split decision. Do you want to confront that or do you want to just ignore it and just focus on what your plan was? And it's not always easy to do that. Also, the live streaming, this DJI and I can show it to you really quickly. This DJI Osmo that I have has been really, really good. I'm turning it around now. You can see here that it right now you are on this DJ Osmo and I can do things like pan and tilt so smoothly. And then I bought this super expensive stick to attach to it and I didn't. I thought this was the most ridiculous thing to buy because it's like $65 in the US for just a stick. But I found that without the stick I would have missed a lot of shots. So in, in the end, in the beginning it's like ridiculously priced. But in the end I found that I used it and probably got my money's worth out of it because I can extend the pole higher or I can get reach so. So you don't look like this inside the camera. I like to have a little bit of distance between us, like right here. Not just because I don't want you to see like my skin real close up, but I want you to get a wider view when I'm live streaming. And that's what that stick. Let me do this. This stick costs $65 from DJI and this cost, I think $350. And I'm using an iPhone 7 Plus, which I bought from the Apple Store, which costs. Don't ask. Got a message from Toby. Hope the editing goes okay. Man, it's going to be a lot of work. It is. I added the contact, but no results. No, I got you, Toby. So this is after the fact. So thanks so much. I'll take one more Skype call. And then this is coming from Ernest who added on Skype. Any plans for more 360 videos in the future? And did I do any 360 on the road? Yeah, you know what? I. I did one 360 video in Miyajima that I'll put on the. On the 360 channel. But I stopped doing the 360 because I get as many complaints as I did people complimenting the the channel. And I didn't get that many people subscribing to the only Japan360 channel. Maybe because there's not enough content. But also a lot of people are confused by it or they're not used to the technology and I have to Be honest with you. YouTube has done an awful job of promoting 360 video. They don't. They have a 360 channel, but they don't promote how to use it or how to. I don't know. They. I don't. That's not fair to YouTube. But really the platform for 360 video, it's good that they make it, first of all, because there aren't too many places you can stream 360 video. But it seems like YouTube just sort of stopped there. Like, we're gonna make a platform for creators, and that's it. And then, I don't know. I almost feel like YouTube has given up on 360 as well. I don't hear people. I don't hear YouTube talking about 360 video anymore. It was something that was big last year, and it sort of has gone away. I think it's gonna be around longer. But I like. I like 360 video for. Because I like. Just like with the live streams, I want to give you a very immersive experience into Japan. And people have told me, okay, so I get another contact request for Skype. People have been telling me that they want to come to Japan, but they can't. And with the 360 videos, I can kind of give you, like, that immersive experience into it, but not for everything. There's certain topics like that don't work in 360. And the topics that work best are the ones where you're in areas that you can look around in, like the Yakitori episode in Shinjuku, or what was the other 361 that I did? Or in Miyajima, for example, which is something I'll put on the 360 channel. Okay, so this is. I. I was saying earlier for people joining in. Yesterday when I came back from lunch, I walked in on a wedding that was happening here. I was like, whoa. And the bride and bride was on the top of the stairwell here. And I. I was at the entrance. Like, what do I do? How do I get to my room? So I just started walking, and then everybody turned and looked at me. I was like, I just kept walking. And I turned to the bride down there, and I do all these. What's the groom gonna do? Attack me in front of, you know, 300 of his best friends? They gotta find out what room number I'm in. Can't do that. All right, so let's see here. Eric Holleron has added me. Eric, please send me a message if you're cool to do a video chat and Andy, Andy, I've added you. If you're cool to do a video chat, please send me a text. Solaire, thank you again. Thank you. Thank you. Honestly, these live streams, I don't know. Everybody doesn't like. Everybody doesn't like the live streams. But when I was out there on the road sometimes just hitchhiking and I pushed the live button, that was really cool for me because I really did feel, like alone out there on the road. And then when I live streamed, I felt like I had friends with me and that meant a lot to me. Yeah. Okay. John, I would love to do a call, but not video. That's cool. Okay. Andy, I'm doing an audio call. So this is audio call with Andy. Hello, Andy. Okay, hold on a second. Let me get. All right, there you go. How you doing?

00:48:27 Andy: They're not too bad. Yourself?

00:48:29 John Daub: Not bad. You know, end of the trip, I'm recovering from, like, jumping into the sea and that and sort of banging myself on the rocks, but other than that, pretty good. Where are you calling from, Andy?

00:48:42 Andy: Crosschurch, New Zealand.

00:48:44 John Daub: From New Zealand. Oh, cool. All right.

00:48:48 Andy: What do you reckon would be the most memorable thing you've done on your truck?

00:48:53 John Daub: The most memorable thing that I did on this trip, I'm going off of the top of my head. What I remember right now, the first thing that hits me, I think Miyajima and the deer was a lot of. Lot of fun. Starting the trip is still fresh in my mind. It seems. It's weird. It seems such a long time ago and yet it seems like yesterday. Jeez, the Muslim.

00:49:28 Andy: Yeah. Because I noticed when you looked really happy when you're doing all the, like, holding up fun, doing the head trucking, like, meeting new people. What was that like?

00:49:42 John Daub: That was harder than it looked. Maybe. Yeah. I. Holding up the sign for an extended amount of time, it makes. It isn't easy. The sign isn't. Isn't. You know, the sign isn't. Isn't heavy. The problem is the wind, because behind me and in front of me, the wind was sometimes blowing like a sail, like on the sea. And that was hard to keep it steady, which is why I duct taped the sign from time to time. That was hard. But for me, I have, like, very little pride in myself. I don't mind doing silly stuff. So standing on the side of the road and taking, you know, taking the full force of people's. People staring at me, I'm sort of. I don't mind that at all. And I think it depends on people's personalities. And while you're standing on the road, you can see everybody's personality and the way that they. They react to you. Some people would totally ignore me. Some people would wave at me. Some people would take, like, cell phone video or photos of me. Some people would look at me and then look away like, like, like they felt guilty for not stopping. So I saw all sorts of people on the road and then there were the ones that stopped, and I think those were very special people. So, yeah, holding up the sign out there, humbling, humbling experience. It. It very. Is very humble and very rewarding because when you stand out there for three hours, you do anything for a certain amount of time, and then finally somebody stops. You feel like this really great sense of achievement. Each time I hitchhiked, and for me, that was, that was, you know, you asked me what was the most memorable thing. I think that might be it. Every time one person stopped and pulled their car in front of me or behind me a couple hundred meters and I had to run to the car or something like this, that was. It made me feel really good, like I'd achieved something.

00:51:35 Andy: You could, because you'd be, like, making, like, new friends every time and, like, hearing interesting stories.

00:51:43 John Daub: Yeah. Yeah. Wow. Each one, each. Each one of those rides is a very interesting story. Actually, that's part of what the DVD is all about to help fund this trip. A lot of these people's stories and, and highlighting the rides a little bit more instead of just me, because, wow, I became friends. There's about 32 people stopped to pick me up, to bring me to this spot. I'm here as a result of 32 people stopping to bring me here. And about five or six of them have become very good friends. People that have called me to make sure I'm okay or send me messages or emails. So, yeah, I mean, this has been such an awesome trip on so many levels.

00:52:39 Andy: At least you enjoyed yourself and it must have been a really good experience.

00:52:44 John Daub: Oh, I, I can't say I enjoyed every minute of it, but on the whole it was. It's. It's when you do something outside of your comfort zone and you. And you finish it, that's what sticks in your mind for the rest of your life, I think. And that's what makes you a different kind of person, maybe a better person, a stronger person. And those are things that I'll take out of this trip. Yeah.

00:53:12 Andy: Well, I hope you enjoy yourself, John, and I can't wait for your DVD to come out.

00:53:17 John Daub: Thank you so much. Thanks for calling.

00:53:20 Andy: Cool.

00:53:20 John Daub: Have a good one, John. Thank you. Bye Bye. Bye. All right, that was Andy. Thanks for calling in, Andy. Okay, this is fun. I'll take one more. I. I got a couple of super chats in here. Let me read those. Nemex28. Any plans on going to Okunoshima? Okunoshima? Yeah, I've been wanting to go there for a long time, I think. You know what? Gosh. I'm planning to go to Okinawa in the end of. In the beginning of fall. Okay, let me show you. Show everybody where Okunoshima is right now. So Okunoshima is right here. Boom. So. Oh, sorry. I guess it's easier to see if I draw the map out. It's right near Hiroshima and it's famous for being the Rabbit Island. And Okunoshima is someplace I'd love to go to. I'm planning to go to Okinawa at the beginning of fall and in the summer. I'm sort of already decided what I'm going to do. And I only can do two episodes a month on the only in Japan main channel. So it's going to be hard to get an Okunoshima episode in until maybe like the end of the year. The thing is, though, that, like, people have done so many episodes on Okunoshima. I don't. I don't know if it's worth being on the only in Japan channel, except as a resource for you. Again, like, if. If a lot of people don't view the episodes, it's hard to justify spending a lot of time to make them. You make the episodes for your viewers, but you also make them so you can grow the channel. And if there's something where a lot of content has been made on it, I usually will not do it. Because for me personally, after living here for 20 years, I better know Japan better than people who've been here for just a few years, right? So I have to find new and fresh topics all the time. Okunoshima Rabbit island is not. It used to be fresh. It's something where the trend, the wave has come and it's gone. And right now it's somewhere over here where just about every YouTuber has done an episode on it. And that doesn't mean. And I don't like to follow trends. I like to start trends. I don't always do that, but for me personally, I like to be in front of stuff instead of behind it. And right now I'm behind on Okunoshima. I think maybe not. Maybe next year after it's matured. It might be interesting to take a look at how Okunoshima has changed to approach it from that way. Two years ago, Rabbit island did not have a lot of tourists and it was new and CNN did something on it that went viral of some woman getting attacked by rabbits. It's not like that anymore. It's now tourist mega hub where it's a small island and there's too many people. You used to be able to camp for free on the island. You can't do that anymore. There's a lot of restrictions now which take the fun out of it. And that might be the episode how a new tourist attraction matures. Because right now, to be honest with you, I was attracted to go to Okunoshima two years ago, but I didn't have the money. I did have Patreon people to help fund the episodes to so I could do these types of shows and just go out into Japan and quickly film something. That's why I love Patreon and the super Chats help to do that. Actually, that's the extra. Excuse me, extra income. Like if it was today, I'd be able to go out and follow a trend somewhere on the corner of Japan because I have the income to do that now. I didn't have that before, but Robin island is something. Maybe next year. There's too many things. There's just way too many things to to approach. Would you do a live in Hokkaido? I'm in. I'm in Hokkaido right now doing a live dang dinghy right here. Doing it. Let's go back to Skype because I don't like listening to myself all the time. See here Skype. So I got here Eric, holler on. Good job for finish your hitchhike trip. I got the DVD from Kickstarter. Awesome. Eric. Eric, do you want to do a. If you have a question, do you want to do it a video Skype? Ernest as well. If you want to do a video Skype, let me know. All right, so I have Ernest and see your earnest. I just added Joe Joe, if you're. If you'd like to do a video Skype, let me know. Right? Cool. So I'll wait for a couple of. I guess when chat's coming in I'll wait for a couple of people to opinion on Skype and I'm going to end this in about two minutes. My goal was to do one hour. Ms. Clark, what's his Skype name? I don't have a Skype name because Microsoft doesn't use Skype. Names anymore. Microsoft has ruined Skype in a way. But if you, if you support on kick on Patreon, $5 or more per month to help support the channel. I put my stuff Skype information on there and the only reason I kind of did that was number one, so I wouldn't have too many people calling me and I would limit the people who called me to people who were contributing to the show. Those people care enough about this, cares a lot about the show in that way. So I wanted to give them the Skype information there. If not, I probably get like a hundred, hundred people Skyping at the same time, which would be crazy. So far it's been pretty good. So Eric, Joe or Ernest, I haven't talked to you yet. If you're in or Mutlu. Yeah. If you'd like to do a video Skype, let me know. I'll wait for any other people adding on Skype. And I think I'm gonna do some of these Skype chats more often. If you support on the, on the Patreon, I'm going to be able to communicate more pe with. With people like face to face. Because you know what? Like before I end this, I'm going to go outside, so I'm going to show you a little bit of Wakkanai. I. I like, I like seeing Toby. I liked. I like being able to talk with Judy and Corey and Benjamin and Sam and John and Solers and Vaughn and Andy. And I like being able to talk with you. And these chats are great. And I like. Toby is not his son. No, Toby was gorgeous. Okay. Rock shot. Yeah. Will you attend the Japanese Grand Prix? Maybe. Is that like a race? Like a car racing? That's. That's sort of a good idea. That'd be cool. Yeah. Toby's a nice guy. He has the same hair as me. He looks like he's half my age, though. But it's cool. But he's a nice, nice guy. I was surprised. And this is, this is really. Yeah, Izumi. Toby was charming. And this is the thing. I want every to leave an impression on you. After doing these Skype chats with the people, the people that are chatting right now, you don't see their face, you don't hear their voice. And when you do, it changes your opinion of that person. And this is the first time to meet with Toby on Skype like this on a video call. But as you can see, I've been like grilling. We've all been really tough on him for the last few weeks. Has it been that long? I'm sorry, Toby, but when you meet him, it's like, man, Toby's a nice guy. So there's a big difference between what you write on Skype and who that person is when you meet them face to face and hear their voice. There's a big difference. And for. For all of you, who I get a chance to talk to via the Skype here, I mean, for me, it's a big deal. So I get to meet you and that's cool. I get to meet you and that's really cool. I don't know questions right now, but yeah, I can say hi. Okay, let's say hi to Mutlu. So Mutlu, I'm going to call you really quickly. This is the last Skype call I'm taking. Nice to see another face, except for this one. All right, Mutlu is on the online. Hey, there we go. Hey, there he is. How you doing? Oh, hi. Okay, we're getting the audio. How you doing? This is Mutlu. Am I pronouncing that right?

01:02:55 Mutlu: Hello, everyone.

01:02:58 John Daub: How you doing?

01:02:59 Mutlu: I'm seeing myself.

01:03:00 John Daub: Yeah. Where are you calling from?

01:03:03 Mutlu: Well, I'm calling from Turkey. It's 6am in the morning and I was actually about to sleep and I just realized you started a live stream and just wanted to, you know, go in and still watching you maybe for one hours or more.

01:03:19 John Daub: Oh, wow.

01:03:20 Mutlu: It's nice.

01:03:20 John Daub: Yeah, I can't believe how fast these live chats go. Yeah, know. Wow. Calling from Turkey. How cool is that?

01:03:30 Mutlu: Actually, I wanted to thank you for all the content of all the trip. It was great from the beginning till the very end. And your original content on the original channel is great too, but this was much more fun.

01:03:45 John Daub: Oh, thank you. Thank you so much for that. It means a lot to hear that because, yeah, I mean, I get a lot of the feedback through the chats, but this is really cool to be able to talk with you like this, isn't it? It's like. It's like cool, isn't it? This is.

01:04:02 Mutlu: Yeah.

01:04:04 John Daub: I'm like in shock.

01:04:06 Mutlu: I can't believe I'm talking with you right now. Strange. Actually, I need to show it to my family.

01:04:12 John Daub: Do you have any plans to come and visit Japan?

01:04:15 Mutlu: Well, I was dead last year for two weeks and now I went to visit next year. Maybe this year I can't, but hopefully next year I'll be there in Sakura time.

01:04:25 John Daub: Oh, cool. Yeah, I like this because when I'm able to talk to you, it's like now when you meet someone, now we're like friends, Right? So there you go. Right. I mean, we're meeting for the first time. All right, cool. Did you think of any questions? Did you think of any questions, Mutlu?

01:04:44 Mutlu: Well, no questions, but actually I have one. Are you planning to continue some, you know, live streams, do some live streams back in Tokyo?

01:04:54 John Daub: Yeah, I'm glad that you asked that. A lot of people are going that saying that they're sad that the live streams are ending. They're not ending. It's just this trip is ending. But the live streams. The live streams on the only in Japan main channel are ending and all the live streams will be here on this channel and. Yeah, and actually I think I'm going to be doing a lot more of these call ins because it's really nice to be able to get questions directly and then answer like this. So I'll be doing a lot more live streaming in Tokyo. But like this show's title is called Only in Japan. I'm on location all the time. So most of my stuff won't be just in Tokyo. It'll be all over the country. Which I think it makes, maybe makes the show a little bit different than other people's YouTube channels. I'm gonna be outside of Tokyo a lot this year, but I'll be in Tokyo too. Do you have any ideas for a live stream in Tokyo? Anything that you liked when you were here? Sorry to put you on the spot.

01:05:54 Mutlu: I liked izakaya, you know, drinking some umeshu with some, you know, and every other meat, not just me, but every dish was great.

01:06:09 John Daub: Sorry, the battery is getting low. You know what would be fun? I think if I can get some of my Japanese friends together and get a live stream and just put. Put you like the iPhone 7 live streaming in one of the chairs. I can bring all of you to the Izakaya and then have people calling in and like we can all do kanpai or eat some good food. Food sort of virtually. That's. That might be an interesting idea. I don't think anybody's done anything that crazy.

01:06:41 Mutlu: I don't think anyone done that before.

01:06:44 John Daub: No, I'm not afraid. I'm not afraid to take some risks. As you can see live streaming for the last six weeks. I'm okay with taking some risks. Yeah, there was that. There was that bath in Tottori prefecture. I live streamed from a Japanese, Japanese onsen and at any moment that towel could have come off.

01:07:04 Mutlu: Yeah, I wish to them wait for it not to happen.

01:07:09 John Daub: Yeah, in hindsight, that was pretty dangerous and sort of dumb. But luckily it turned out okay. And no, nobody saw anything that they shouldn't have seen. Yeah. All right, Mutlu, thanks so much for calling in.

01:07:28 Mutlu: Thank you for calling in.

01:07:29 John Daub: You're welcome. Bye Bye.

01:07:31 Mutlu: Bye, bye. Have a nice day.

01:07:36 John Daub: That's cool. All right. Thanks for calling in. Awesome. All right, so before we end this live feed, I'm going to take you outside to Wakkanai so we can have a look around. This is how. Yeah. Now I'm, like, in hitchhike mode. It's like I've been sitting down for the last hour taking a. Taking your questions, and now I'm changing gears. I'm changing gears to, like, let's go outside. All right, man. And this music has made me so numb. Look at this. This is such a beautiful hotel. I want to walk. I want to walk down the steps. Like. Like. Like. I don't. I don't know. Why do I walk down there? Why the heck would I walk down the steps? All right, let's just do it. Oh, gosh. A big staircase here. It's like, I. Let's. I don't know. This is such a nice hotel, and there's nobody here. Wow, look at that chandelier. I want to jump on it and swing from chandelier, Chandelier. Like Tarzan. Does that make me weird? Yeah, it does. Makes me very weird. All right, let's go down the steps. Now. I'm gonna. I'm gonna go from here outside to the Wave dome. I want you to know something. Okay? Number one, the Osmo battery is dying. Number two, it's very, very windy outside. So I can just show you a little bit of the outside of. Of Waka Night before I got to end this feed. All right, so I'm going to show you the street sign, which is in Russian, and then the Wave Dome. It's going to get windy and loud. That's Wakkanai Station. And the glass right there. There's the mountain and there's a tower. I'm going to climb that after I do the live. I almost stayed in that hotel, but it says Dormy Inn, and I just don't like the name of that hotel. It sounds weird. It's probably a nice place, but it was only a couple. This hotel that I'm staying in, which is the nicest one, I think, in Wakkanai, this one was just a few dollars more than the other one, so what the heck, I'll go for the Ana Crown Plaza instead Of Dormy Inn, there's the Wave Dome. And this is really, really cool because it's absolutely gorge. Like, why is it doing here? What's it doing here? It looks like a classical Roman structure, but they make it, I guess, because this is the windiest city in Japan with the highest waves. And I guess it's a symbol of that. That sign up there, the blue sign. All the traffic signs in Japan are

01:10:40 John Daub: blue,

01:10:43 John Daub: so there's no traffic coming. I don't know why. This is like downtown Wakkanai. Okay? This is near the pier. You can see all of. All of the signs are in Japanese and then English and then Russian. And that's really unique to Wakkanai because Russia is just across the Cape Sakhalin. And right there is the Wave Dome, which is super cool. Fourteen years ago, I camped right here on my first hitchhiking trip because the grass was so soft. I pitched my tent there, and I woke up in the morning and put the tent away. And I started the trip 14 years ago in front of the Wave Dome. And when I woke up in the morning, I looked up at this hotel. That's one reason why I'm staying there. Because 14 years ago I was camping, and now I'm staying there. Thank you, everybody, for the support. And the Osmo is dead. Sorry. The Osmo has died.

01:11:55 John Daub: Yeah.

01:11:56 John Daub: All right. This is the Wave Dome with shaky video because the Osmo is gone. Battery lasted for 75 minutes. That's pretty good. Osmo. Ah, wave dome. This looks weird. It's so cool. Look, it's about 500. No? Yeah, about 500 meters long. And if you shout in echoes, really, really good. Let's shout. What should I shout in here? You're gonna get a lot of waves. Oh, there's a dude down there. If you're like a skateboarder or something like this, this would probably be pretty cool if you could skateboard on the top of it. Well, I think you have to be in the middle to get to. It is a really, really cool structure. In Waka Night, 14 years ago, they had, like, a festival going here on in here. And I had scallops. Monster Hokkaido. Scallops. Yeah. Toby did it. I know Toby. Now, I can't keep blaming Toby. Toby did it. But 14 years ago, I had better hair. And they had a festival going on inside of the Wave Dome. And I had 20 scallops for $5,500 yen. And they were like this big for each scallop, all grilled. And they said, eat as much as you want. $5. And I said, cool, that's pretty good. But not today. So that's it, guys. Toby did it. We met Toby. Toby, if you're watching this, thank you. We met Toby. We got a chance to meet some. Some of the viewers who have been supporting this channel since wow. Could be for a long time. So thank you very much for that. Those who support on Patreon, I'm going to be doing more Skype calling for live streaming Q and A like this in the future because it's just awesome. It's awesome to be able to see you and to make I feel like we're friends when I see you. It's different, isn't it? If you have any more questions about this hitchhiking trip for Wakkanai, leave it in the comments below. I'll try to get to it on the bus ride back to Sapporo. Tomorrow I'm leaving to go back to Tokyo. There's going to be a lot of wind. Sorry. I'm leaving to go back to Tokyo. Ah, tomorrow morning I leave. I go to Sapporo and take a flight back to Tokyo. This is the windiest city in Japan. There's a windmill going crazy up there. You can see. So from me to you, wherever you are in the world, we got a chance to talk to people from all over the place. Thank you very much for being a supporter of the show. Thank you so much for watching this hitchhiking trip. This is the last Q and A I'm going to be doing here in Wakkanai, here in Hokkaido. About this hitchhiking trip, I really appreciate all of the support. I always make this long winded goodbyes. So goodbye. See you. See you on the road. See you in Tokyo, everybody. It's windy.