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00:00:02 John Daub: Alright, we are live! Good morning from Tokyo, Japan. I'm taking some questions via Skype. And if you want to join this, you have to sign up on Patreon. This is what Patreon looks like if you have a mobile phone. Everybody who's at the $5 level gets my Skype address and the ability to Skype in and call through video phone. And this morning we have Jim from Washington, right?

00:00:25 Jim: That's right, Takuma, Washington.

00:00:27 John Daub: Takuma, Washington. Cool. What time is it there?

00:00:30 Jim: Hold on. I have to pause YouTube because I'm getting feedback. Okay. Let's see. It is 7:01 p.m. Pacific time in Takuma, Washington right now.

00:00:48 John Daub: Alright, 7:01 p.m. It is now 11:01 a.m. here in Tokyo, Japan. So, today we're going to take some questions and answers from you here using video chat, which is really cool because I get to see or hear who's talking. Jim, you had a really good question on Patreon.

00:01:08 Jim: Yes. Yeah. So, I'm wondering, now that your hitchhiking through Japan is completed, and this is for the second time, I'm wondering how has the hitchhiking across Japan for the second time affected what you will consider filming in the future? Did it give you any new ideas, maybe?

00:01:29 John Daub: Yeah, that's a really good question. The first time I hitchhiked, I didn't have any... I had one video camera with me. It was like a... What do you call them? The Hi-8 cassettes or something. A mini-DV cassette, and the quality was so bad. I really wanted to do this trip for such a long time to record it. And over the second trip, it's totally changed who I am because I've been... Since the last two weeks since I've been home, I guess it's more like, what, 12, 13 days. I've been kind of sad. Every day I wake up in the morning, I want to go out there and go somewhere new. And I wake up, I'm still here. I don't have to pick up a sign and get on the road again. So, the hitchhiking trip has made a big impact on my life now and the way I live. I want to go places more. So, that's going to affect the way that I film and the way the show is. I'm not putting any more live streams on the Only Japan main channel because it's a love-hate thing with a lot of the viewers there. There's a lot more viewers on that channel than there are on the Only Japan Go channel. But I'm going to keep the Only Japan Go channel. This makes it hard for some people. A lot of people haven't subscribed to the Only Japan Go channel. That channel is specifically dedicated to live streaming, meaning wherever I am at the time, if it's interesting, I'm going to push the live button and just start streaming interesting content. Hopefully interesting content to you, wherever you are in the world. With very little update or heads up. And you just have to be subscribed and have notifications turned on. The main channel is very heavily edited videos. Now, the content that I found on the hitchhiking stuff, a lot of it is like, to me, it's like gold. Because all of the topics that I see on YouTube, not all of them, but a good many done by other vloggers or YouTubers have been covered by other people over and over and over again.

00:03:32 John Daub: One of the good things about a trip like this is that you get a chance to see places and locations totally off the beaten path that no one has covered.

00:03:41 Jim: True. And I noticed that you took the route along the Sea of Japan, not along the opposite side of Japan where there are more tourists that usually are there and a lot more publicity. So you kind of went to the places that are a little less traveled by.

00:03:55 John Daub: Yeah. Yeah. And I discovered a whole bunch of stuff that I'm going to go back and visit. One of them is the beach. One of the beaches is called Tajima. Do you know where Tajima is? Tajima, it's in Hyogo Prefecture, which is the same prefecture as Kobe. And I didn't know I was going through Hyogo when I was hitchhiking. But the guy who picked me up on the Sea of Japan, in order to get to Obama City, which is in Fukui, I had to go through Hyogo. And the guy who picked me up took me through the mountains. And he was sort of, I guess, like the mayor of a town, Tajima. Or he was very famous there. And he took me to his friend's house who has all these cattle, Wagyu beef. And I started live streaming and they're like, this isn't enough time. I want to come back and really get this story of Kobe beef and Tajima beef and why this area of Japan has the best beef in the world, they think. And why the cattle looks like they look and taste like they taste. So that's what I did. And that's like some place I want to go back to visit. Not just because of the content, but because of the people that I met. And I want to see them again.

00:05:11 Jim: I take it you forged some new relationships with people along the way, people that you're staying in touch with?

00:05:18 John Daub: Yeah. There's a couple from Hakuba that picked me up. I wasn't expecting to go to Hakuba at all. But when they picked me up on the route and I got to my destination, Itoiyama, they asked me if I wanted to just go to Hakuba. And it was completely off of the beaten trail. That was in the wrong direction. And I said, yeah, okay. Because they were going to put me up for the night. It's part of the experience, right? You got to stay with strangers for one night or two nights. I took them up and oh my gosh, it was so beautiful. Have you ever, you know where Hakuba is?

00:05:55 Jim: No, no I don't. I've never been to Japan before, but definitely it's on my bucket list.

00:06:01 John Daub: Oh yeah, please. Hakuba is, it might be on the, I had the pictures on this camera, but oh my lord. It still had, it's in the North Alps of Japan, I think. Is it the North or the South Alps? It's on that Sea of Japan side of the Japanese Alps. This is where they had a lot of the Olympic events during the 1998 Nagano Olympics. So they had the ski jump in Hakuba. And a couple of other ski events. And even in the beginning of April, it was just covered in snow. It was absolutely beautiful. The water was so clear, it was just melting. And you could see the mountain water flowing down into the streams. And these two people that picked me up were so nice that they send me email messages and phone calls at least once a week. And when they come to Tokyo in business, they want to meet up again. So I'm trying to make time to see them again. Because we had such a great, and they had four poodles in their car. So that made the experience a little bit more different than other rides. So yeah, some people, you know, everybody's different. And this is the thing that I learned on the hitchhiking trip. Some people are more shy and reserved and they don't want to see you after the hitchhiking trip. That's done. Their transaction is finished. Then there's other people who want to build a relationship with you because you had such a good time together. Then there's the people that pick you up and probably want to be like the first person. And then at the end of the trip, you have such a connection that you exchange business cards or addresses and you keep in touch. And I'd say maybe about half of the people I exchange business cards with. And probably I will meet them again sometime over the next 20 years that I'm in Japan. Because these are friends that I think that I want to keep.

00:07:50 Jim: Yeah, that's awesome.

00:07:51 John Daub: I get a lot more content too that I haven't told anybody about. The next Only Japan video I'm editing right now is in Miyajima in Hiroshima where I spent two nights camping. And I filmed a street food episode. And that's going to be up maybe tomorrow or Sunday. Which will be the long time no see edited video on Only Japan.

00:08:16 John Daub: Any other questions, Jim?

00:08:20 Jim: No, not at the moment. I always look forward to seeing your videos posted. And some of my relatives in Michigan are starting to watch your channel as well. Because I talk about your channel and they like to talk about it. And it just kind of trickles out from there, kind of spreads. So, yeah, getting more viewers.

00:08:40 Jim: And also another thing is that I'm a substitute teacher in Tacoma, Washington. And one of the things that I like to do if I have extra time is if there's like a gap in the schedule and there's just some free time. I like to just put in one of your videos from YouTube and show the kids some place in Japan where you've been and shot a video. The kids just love your videos. They love it. Almost every single time I put them in, there's at least one kid who says, I want to go to Japan. I want to see that. Oh, cool. Almost every time I hear kids saying that after I show your videos. And they're like, wow, I want to see that.

00:09:23 John Daub: Aw, Jim. Thanks for sharing that. That's awesome. How old are the kids that you teach?

00:09:31 Jim: Oh, basically all grades, really. I tend to most of my subbing jobs come from elementary school. So if the kids are like in third grade, fourth grade, fifth grade, I sometimes show them one of your videos. Gosh, they love them. I mean, I think some of the favorites are the Sapporo Snow Festival. They love that one. Oh, yeah. The other one that they really like is when you go to a restaurant where you show the food that the Japanese kids eat at their schools.

00:10:01 John Daub: Oh, yeah. The school food. Yeah, school lunch.

00:10:04 Jim: Yeah, the school lunches. And then the kids watch that and they're like, wow. Oh, that's what they eat there. I wish I had that food or that food.

00:10:17 John Daub: I bet you some of the Japanese kids probably wish that they had some of the American food, though, too. I mean, pizza for lunch was always a highlight as a kid. But yeah. The nutrition value is a little bit different. It's a little bit different between the two countries, however. Yeah. It's quite unique to see what other people are eating at different countries. Well, thanks for taking the time to call in, Jim. And I'm sure I'll be seeing you again on other live streams. I really appreciate you taking the time.

00:10:43 Jim: Yeah, you're welcome. It's very good to finally meet up with you on Skype. But all right. You need to get going and take more questions from others.

00:10:50 John Daub: A lot of people have questions. Thank you, Jim. Take care.

00:10:56 John Daub: Good seeing you.

00:10:57 Jim: Good to see you, too. Bye-bye.

00:10:58 John Daub: Cool. So that was Jim. He's calling from Spokane, Washington. He's a Patreon supporter. And if you're calling in now, I've given the Patreon supporters, everybody who's given $5 or more to help support the show, access to, here's the Patreon site, access to Skype. And I like this because I get a chance to talk directly with people who read my posts. And I'm really happy that they really care about the show and take some of their questions. And this is not the first time that Jim has called in. So I'm really happy. Or is it the first time Jim has called in? I think I might have seen Jim before. But I'm really happy that he called in. The performance was excellent. So there you go. Next up, we have Gila and Edward. And I'm going to – this is an audio call, so I'm going to give them a call really quickly. But I'm going to also take a look at people who ask Super Chats. I really value that. That also helps support the show. So we have Rui JB. Hey, John. Akiba's Hidden Secret was awesome. I'm checking it out next time in there. By the way, it is on Google Maps.

00:12:12 John Daub: Yeah. So JB, yeah. You know, I was thinking of what I could show you on the live stream that was just number one off the map, something that you haven't seen before. Nobody would use it. I mean, it's a show on YouTube. But also something that I wouldn't do on the normal Only in Japan channel. I would have to live – I would have to edit it and then put a background story. And there would be so many elements to it that I can't make an edited video. But this is a situation where the live streaming format was so perfect because I could sort of walk from one place, talk to you, and build up the excitement, and then go in there and see this secret place. This secret treasure. This secret shrine. Hanabusa Inari Jinja is what it's called. Yeah, it's on the Google Maps. But it's not really something that anybody, well, number one, can find. You see it on the Google Maps, but you don't even know how to get there. You can't find any road that takes you to Hanabusa Inari Jinja. That's what made this really, really unique. And even though it's on the Google Maps, it's still pretty secret because, as I said, there's no way that you could know as a tourist how to get there. You would need a guide because when you see the alley, that little teeny thin alley just wide enough for my shoulders, you're not going to walk down there because you're going to think, number one, it's a private road or it's just an alley and someone's probably waiting in there lurking with a knife or something, depending on where you're from in the world anyways. So, I mean, taking you down there and then seeing that shrine was pretty cool. I wish I'd had somebody else with me join me on the experience so I can get another point of view. And I wish I'd done it at a different time when people were awake because I didn't have as many people watching at 6 p.m. when I did it in Akihabara. It was at 6 p.m. But I wanted to do it when the lighting was a little bit darker to make it a little bit more mysterious because that's sort of the drama. Whenever you make a video, you have to consider the time and how do you make that video better. So when I pushed the live button, usually I put some thought into how I want to do the episode so it goes a little bit more smoothly. And the more I do these, I'm going to get more and more people watching. And the more I do these live streams, the better they're going to get. So if you don't like the format now, maybe you will in a couple of months because I like to believe that we get better and better and better as this goes along. Let's see here. One question. TyceFly123Floor. I totally butchered that name. But, yeah, I might do something with Ninja Samurai. And I did something on Geisha before but it didn't do well. Only in Japan. Main channel. Cultural stuff does not do well. People want to see food. And I don't really want to do food all the time because food, that's one element of what Japan is. And a lot of people that are watching the show, especially the people that have been watching the show for years, want to see a variety of different things. And I try to add food into each episode, into the adventures so you get a little bit of that, which is what Japan is. And that's what people really want to do. But I don't make food the main. I'm not going to put it on the thumbnail all the time and say, OK, I've got some food. And this is also Japanese culture. Food is one element of Japanese culture that I want to continuously show you. But Ninja Samurai and Geisha, if there is a fun way to do it, I'm going to totally do that.

00:15:42 John Daub: So I got here a super chat, which I really appreciate. This is coming from Brian Rogers. Vienna coffee on me John. Okay, cool. We absolutely love them. Yeah, you know what? I was gonna do a live stream. This is, it's interesting that you bring this up. A live stream from Jimbocho, which is an area of Tokyo right in the center. It's not so far from the Imperial Palace. And this area is known for books and it's also known for cafes. Not Starbucks, not Tully's, not the chain coffee shops that everybody knows. Everybody, all the foreigners like to go to Starbucks when they come to Japan because it's a known quantity. It's something that they know. Jimbocho is all cafes, not all, but if you go into the alleys, like in the back, they're all really, really special cafes with history, lots of history. And the one that I want to take you on a live stream sometime this month, maybe next week, is a cafe that is the first place to serve Viennese coffee. They put huge toppings of whipped cream on it. And the inside of it is so cool. It looks like you've gone back in the time. And this is why, I like going to Starbucks every now and then, but this is why I really like going to Jimbocho. And whenever I meet people for the first time, they say, where do you want to meet up? And I say, Jimbocho. Because, number one, it's not so crowded like all the other places, Shibuya, Shinjuku. And number two, it's so easy and so much more relaxing to walk around that area and those cafes. So, wait for that episode. I appreciate the question. And I appreciate the super chat. I'm going to call in to Hila and Edward. Are you ready? Audio chat.

00:17:29 John Daub: It's always exciting, like, what are we going to talk about? And then after this, we have Sean up. So, Sean, you're coming up after Hila and Edward. And Sean's in New Zealand. I'm not getting your call.

00:18:08 John Daub: Oh, Skype. That's right, again. So, while we're waiting for the phone to pick up, I thought I'd tell you a little bit more about this coffee. I get it at Costco and it costs about $18 for a big bag. It lasts me about two and a half months. So, I always stay very much caffeinated when I'm at home editing videos. That's good coffee. So, we don't seem to be able to get in touch with Hila and Edward for some reason. So, Sean, sure, call me. Call me now. Right now. So, Sean, you're up right after Hila and Edward. So, if I can't get the call from Hila and Edward, I'm going to call Sean. That's weird.

00:19:04 Hila: Good morning.

00:19:06 John Daub: Good morning. What's up?

00:19:08 Hila: I'm so excited to talk to you. Don't know how much.

00:19:16 John Daub: Oh, wonderful. So, are you with Edward now?

00:19:20 Hila: No, no, he's sleeping because we're both from Israel. And it's 5 a.m. here. And I woke up especially for you.

00:19:27 John Daub: Oh, wow. So, I'm sorry to make you wake up so early.

00:19:37 Hila: No, it's okay. So, yeah, usually we watch you both together. And we both like you very much and your channel and everything that you do. We really appreciate that. But now, yes, he's sleeping and I'm here.

00:19:50 John Daub: Oh, wow. So, my question is how many videos do you think are going to come out of this trip? The whole trip.

00:20:10 John Daub: Oh, wow. Do you mean like edited videos for Only in Japan? Yeah, yeah. Oh, wow. Okay, so the next episode that's coming up on the Only in Japan main channel is Miyajima. I made a street food episode because there's a street in Miyajima that was just loaded with street food. And I didn't plan it. I just right away, I'm making a street food episode. So, the day before, I made a reservation to film in a couple of the shops. The next day, I filmed in the morning and then I left. So, there's Miyajima street food coming this weekend, I think. I'm editing it right now. Then there's Fukuoka. I filmed a ramen episode. So, I ate about three or four different varieties of ramen. Not varieties, but different shops of Hakata Fukuoka ramen. So, that'll be the next episode, I think. I have a video on castles, which I've been accumulating over time. That I added in Kumamoto Castle and Matsui Castle. And I filmed a bunch of castles. Hirosaki Castle. So, I filmed a bunch of castles on this trip that'll be put into a bigger video on Japanese castles. Coming later on in the year. Then there's a video on Obama City in Fukui Prefecture, which is coming up in June. And that's gonna be a fun one. It's weird. This Obama City.

00:21:29 Hila: Yeah, it's something you talk about in the last Livestream, I think.

00:21:33 John Daub: Yeah. I think you explained about the city.

00:21:37 Hila: Yeah. And you showed some snacks, I think.

00:21:39 John Daub: Oh yeah, right. I still have one on my desk. They took the ex-president and they used the fact that his name is part of the city. Just phonetically, it just worked out that way as a coincidence. And that was part of the reason why I filmed there, because of the coincidence. Because I think it's... It has that... Just an interesting enough thing that made this city stick out because of the that Obama City, Obama President thing. And I'm not gonna tell you who I supported. I didn't make it because I was an Obama supporter, because I'm not. I only voted for him once. Or I might not have. I'm not gonna tell you. So, that's how politics work. But my gosh, Hila. I filmed a lot. I filmed in Hokkaido, a bunch of stuff. I set up an episode that I want to film. I might go back next week just for a one-day trip to film in Hokkaido. And I can't tell you what that is yet.

00:22:35 Hila: But it's so far. I think you should take a ferry and a Shinkansen and fly. Or how are you gonna do that?

00:22:43 John Daub: Well, okay. To go back up to Hokkaido, I'll fly. It's about $60 one way.

00:22:49 Hila: Oh, so it's cheap.

00:22:50 John Daub: Yeah. There's been a budget, budget airlines. This is what you should consider before you buy the rail pass. If you're not... If you're just gonna make it one or two trips to places. You might not... You might want to forego the JR rail pass and just get cheap flights in Japan. I think you can pick up cheap flights, for example, to Kagoshima, which is on the Shinkansen, eight hours or more. Yeah, maybe eight hours. More than eight hours. You can fly there in two hours. And it's sometimes as low as $50 one way.

00:23:22 Hila: Yes. We're planning on going to Japan in the fall. For a hundred dollars.

00:23:28 John Daub: And we're going to Japan for our honeymoon. Oh, wow. Our related honeymoon because we got married one month ago. And I'm planning this for so long.

00:23:37 Hila: Yeah, so I searched all the stuff, all the transportation and everything. And I just came to realize that it's so inconvenient to take night buses.

00:23:51 John Daub: Yeah. Well, the convenient part of it, if there is one, is that you don't have to... You don't have to pay for a night at a hotel, right? So night buses make sense in that.

00:24:03 John Daub: Yeah. I'm thinking of making an episode about buses because they have some new types of buses. The problem is, though, that the prices are expensive on those. You get a good night's sleep, but the problem is, though, that you probably should have just stayed in a hotel because it was so expensive.

00:24:31 Hila: I heard that there's a problem with the bus drivers. That they're overworking. And sometimes there are accidents.

00:24:34 John Daub: Yeah, that's... I'm living and breathing, so I can tell you not all buses crash. But I think around the world, bus drivers on long hauls, they do work a lot, just like truck drivers. Most of them are quite experienced. But the problem is the wages can be so low that the people that are taking these jobs are senior citizens. And the senior citizens are... What happens is a lot of bus drivers... They're not bus drivers for life. What they've done is... Especially these industries like bus driving or taxi drivers, most of them... In the United States, taxi drivers in New York, most of them are immigrants. People who are doing this for the first time as their job. Because their skills in English might be limited. I'm not sure why, but the immigrants do a lot of the taxi jobs in New York. And I sort of dig that. I like that. In Japan, we don't have a lot of immigrants coming around from other countries. And the young people don't want to be taxi drivers. So senior citizens, people that have retired from salaryman jobs, where they were in corporate life, they're the ones who take over these jobs. And they're the ones who started as bus drivers as well. I mean, who doesn't want to drive a big bus after sitting in an office for 40 years of your life, right? It's sort of a different type of job. But the problem is that they're so old, they have a tendency to fall asleep at the wheel. It's not alcohol. It's just old age. And that causes... I think it's because of accidents. Because they're overworked just in a different way. And they're not used to the... Like, truck drivers in long hauls are so used to driving. They're used to that lifestyle. Like this, and seeing caffeinated and stuff. They're used to that. But these... Like this, and these bus drivers in Japan don't. And then that leads to accidents, especially on overnight trips. Where they don't have a backup driver if someone gets sleepy. A lot of other countries have a backup driver. Japan often does not now for cost-saving measures. But I've taken a lot of night buses, especially between Tokyo and Osaka. And it's so cheap. It's as low as $30 one way. And, you know, that's cheaper than driving yourself. That's cheaper than any train. That's cheaper than the puddle hopper, the slow train. So it's like you can't beat it. So for 30 bucks you can get to Osaka. It's almost worth being in an accident to go there. Like the chance of an accident is really small. But to be honest, an accident can happen anytime, anywhere. You just don't know. That's true. It's just fate. That's true. Yeah, but in Japan though, I'd say one accident occurs, it's big news because it happens so rarely. And in another country like...

00:27:22 Hila: The crime rate is so low.

00:27:24 John Daub: Yeah, and the crime rate is so low so you don't have these problems. If it happens, it makes big news. When an accident happens in Japan, it's like, oh, it's a big news. When you go to Japan with a bus, it makes big news because it's so rare. It's like an anomaly. You have to report it. In India, there's bus accidents like every five minutes, I think, because there are so many buses on the road, first of all. And second of all, the roads in India sometimes don't have lines on them. And I don't know how they navigate back and forth. I'm from India. My mother's from India originally and I go there every couple of years.

00:27:56 Hila: Have you been to India?

00:27:56 John Daub: No, but actually my father lived here for 15 years.

00:28:00 Hila: Oh, wow. Even though he's an Israeli.

00:28:05 Hila: Yeah. But, yeah. So, yes, I know about that and I know about all the problems. Yes, it's not so... Compared to Japan, Japan society, even though it's still in Asia, it's not the same thing.

00:28:24 John Daub: Yeah, yeah. It's amazing how... When you compare just Asian countries to Japan, it's amazing how Japan has states... Like, has states... Well, one of the most amazing things to me is something I take for granted. In Japan, it's very safe, but everywhere that you go in the country, no matter where you go, you can open up the tap water and you can drink the tap water. In Asia, there aren't many countries where you can do that. You have to buy bottled water or get water from a different source. But Japan, everywhere you go from the tap... We have this in the Western countries, but in Japan, it's like a Western country in that respect. And I don't think there are many countries... Even out in the countryside where there's nothing there, you can just open up the tap and you'll get really good water. Because every city and every town has purified water. Has water that...

00:29:11 Hila: And a vending machine.

00:29:12 John Daub: And vending... Oh, don't even get me started. And vending machines. So, this makes Japan an extremely convenient destination for people that aren't used to traveling. If you're going to India for the first time, you're going to have to drink bottled water. You can't drink anything from the tap. In Japan, you don't have that problem. You can just go to the hotel room and you'll probably have water, especially in the outside of Tokyo, that tastes better than the bottled water. I've had water right from the tap that tastes so good. I bottle it and I bring it back to Tokyo. So, yeah.

00:29:44 John Daub: So, there's that. But, yeah. Yeah, go ahead. Sorry.

00:29:49 Hila: No, it's okay. My second question is, if you had to choose another way to transport all around Japan, would you rent a car or take a flight or a shinkansen?

00:29:59 Hila: Yeah. I mean, if you want to, and then planning on traveling from Hokkaido to Fukuoka... Yeah, ...for a very long time, relatively long time, let's say a month and a half, what do you think is the best way to do it?

00:30:18 John Daub: You're giving me some really great ideas. So, right now, I'm trying to get my driver's license in Japan. I have a U.S. driver's license. I've had that for, you know, over 20 years now. I go back to the U.S. to renew it. I went back in June last year to renew my driver's license because once you let that expire, you have to go back and take the driving exam again in the U.S. Of course, they make it hard. But here in Japan, some countries, some nationalities can get driver's license right away. They just transfer it. And some countries have to take tests because the U.S...

00:30:48 Hila: I know. Here in Israel, we actually have to go to a specific agency, only specific agency in Tel Aviv. And only there we can get the license. That stinks. It's separated from a regular national license that we already have.

00:31:05 John Daub: Yeah. Gosh. And Tel Aviv can be kind of far from certain places, right?

00:31:09 Hila: Yes. I'm leaving like 20 minutes drive right from there, so it's okay for me. But if you're from the north or the south and it's pretty much in the middle, it's very far.

00:31:23 John Daub: Yeah. Yeah. Same with Japan. I think the driving schools here in Tokyo, there are three areas that you can get registration. Adachi, which is in the north of me, Shinagawa, and I think Tachikawa. So there are three big ones. Two big ones in central Tokyo and then there's some... Tokyo is a big, big, big city and it's also like a state. It's probably one of the biggest because they have islands going 2,000, 3,000 kilometers out into the sea, which I'm going to be telling you about this summer on the channel. It's another episode that's coming. I shouldn't say that because these are top secrets, so if you're other YouTuber, don't steal these ideas. Yeah. But this idea of getting a car, renting a car, getting like five or six friends together, making a show for one month, just driving down Japan is something I want to do next year. So if you're interested in this, let me know.

00:32:25 Hila: I'm actually interested. I fell in love with Japan, unfortunately. I'm reading about it like whenever I have the time to do so and learning Japanese, playing with Hiragana and Katakana and Kanji, eventually I'll know something.

00:32:46 John Daub: So who's more interested in Japan, you or Edward?

00:32:47 Hila: Me.

00:32:48 John Daub: Okay. That's why Edward's still sleeping.

00:32:52 Hila: Yeah.

00:32:53 John Daub: But okay. Cool. I'm thinking of ways to make the trip interesting, meaning if we go with five or six people, maybe put in some people that are first timers in Japan, put some people that have been here longer than me, put in some people from, put in somebody that maybe is from Japan and get just as, while we're driving along, just get different points of view on the country and do this trip for... Oh, that's true. Yeah. And because I have to be perfectly honest with you, on the Only in Japan main channel, I love like really editing and going in depth in the stories. But the one thing that bothers me is that sometimes the channel feels old to me because I've been doing the same thing for four years. I want to try to inject something new into the channel all the time to try to make it feel that it's new and energized.

00:33:51 Hila: I actually really appreciate that you don't do the usual J-Vlogger thing that you're going to Shibuya and showing another maid caster or something like that. Yeah. Because honestly, even me as a watcher, I'm in Shibuya, look at there's the hot girl. I don't know, three years that I'm watching all the regular good channels, yeah? Yeah. But I'm used to that and I want to see the more secret places as you call them. Yeah. And I want to see different prefectures. I really appreciated the OdiGo travel thingy that, you know, Rachel and June and all these guys went to last year. Yeah. Because they actually went to all the 47 cities. And they went to all the prefectures and it was so interesting to watch.

00:34:29 John Daub: Yeah. I think you have to get out of Tokyo. There's so many vloggers here that are really new to Japan. In fact, I'd say a lot of the Japanese YouTubers, they're recently new to Japan. So you get a point of view of someone who's been here for just five years or just one year or two years. That means that when they go to Shibuya or Hachiko, they're like a tourist still. They go there like, whoa, they go there with really open eyes. I have to be honest, after 20 years in Japan, I go to Hachiko, I want to avoid it. I want to stay away from Shibuya. I want to stay away from Shinjuku. I want to stay away from crowded areas. This is my home. I want to kind of avoid all the tourist spots. And that means that in this series, that gives it a different type of maturity level, I think. I mean, of course, I'm still immature for sure. I'm still immature for a 43-year-old dude. But I mean, that's how I think that also makes this show interesting too. Because every YouTuber has to put their personality into it. That's how it makes it believable and it makes it natural. You have to be you. But at the same time, these shows, I think, because I've been here for so long, have a sort of deeper impact. Because for the last 20 years, I could say 20 years because I've been here for 19 now. I just round up. I'm so curious in Japan and what I've already learned about this country that I want to go deeper. I want to go deeper than everybody else just to satisfy my own curiosity. And when I watch other YouTubers, I mean, I'm not... And Rachel and Jun are probably the YouTubers that I watch the most because they go deeper into what they do because they're married. And I'm not married yet. So there's such an interesting aspect in their shows that I haven't experienced before. I'm a couple that's married together and have these... Not problems, but they have fun in a different type of way than I do with Japan. And then there's Simon and Martina who have been going...

00:36:35 Hila: Well, I know them so much.

00:36:35 John Daub: They have been going to every corner of the country in search of food. And that's really, really unique because they have a way to take food and inject in this local regional area of Japan and add in... This is sort of what I do with my show, which is... This is why I really like what they do and add in that aspect. And they don't do what everybody else is doing. They sort of try to also find original ways, original angles to approach a story. And I really appreciate that when a YouTuber or a vlogger does something original and find something that nobody has covered before. And that's the way... And after 20 years, I better be able to do that, right? I better be able to approach something from a new angle or a different angle than everybody else. Because that's sort of...

00:37:24 Hila: I totally agree with you. And I think you're in the right way. And yes, especially in Japan when Amari is known for apples and other places known for citrus fruits. Right. Especially in that kind of place. It's cool what they're doing. I think it's a great place to film different foods.

00:37:50 Hila: Here in Israel, you can go to Tel Aviv and find... I don't know. You can go to Falafel and go to another place and find another Falafel. You won't find another really interesting thing. And in Japan, all the regional stuff is very prominent.

00:38:06 John Daub: Yes. Every area of Japan... And this is a reason to get out of Tokyo and Osaka and Kyoto, especially Kyoto. I like Kyoto, but people spend too much time there. Every area of Japan has something regionally that's so special about it. Like states in the United States, except that it's even more different. Because Japan is a country that has thousands of years of history. And the United States just has, what, 100... Well, almost 250 years more than that. But the states' identities are still quite young. I mean, Arizona has only been a state for about 70 years.

00:38:46 Hila: I know that. And actually, when I first came to New York, I was... I felt the same thing, I think, that newcomers feel when they're going to Shibuya or something like that. It's so high and so many people out there. But now, when I'm coming, after a few times that I've been there, I want to go somewhere else. I want to go, I don't know, to Texas.

00:39:10 John Daub: Yeah. I think that it's okay to feel like that. It seems normal to me that after some time in a country you want to visit, you want to go somewhere else. Right. I think that's another reason why there's a lot of repeaters coming to Japan. People come in for more than one time. A week is not enough. Two weeks is a pretty good trip. Three weeks... Yeah, and it's not to question if you have a job or not, to go back to what... Three weeks to a month is a really good... Is enough time to really see Japan. It's a small country, but it's just so packed with stuff to do. And even on a month-long hitchhiking trip, I didn't even scratch the surface of this country. And that's what I wanted to show people as well on the hitchhiking trip. Whoa. After six weeks, and that's about how long I was away for, I really didn't even see that many places. And I think on a one-week trip, I think it'd be hard for you to pack in so many different places to see. So, yeah. Your earlier question was about transportation. I think that the train passes and the buses are pretty cool, but there's no substitute for renting a car. Absolutely none. Not in Tokyo. Forget the cities. Go outside of the cities, rent a car, and you're going to have such an experience because you'll be able to get to places and shrines and far-off locations and drive through mountain roads like this. And they're all really, really well-made roads because this is Japan. They engineer roads very, very well, so you're never off of the beaten track. But your places where cars can't go... Trains can't go. And buses that fill in the blank for the trains can be really expensive, and they're not on the rail path. So renting a car in Japan for 30 bucks a day, it completely enhances your trip. It's a different way to see Japan. Absolutely recommend it.

00:41:08 Hila: Okay, so that's definitely what we're going to do.

00:41:10 John Daub: Cool. Does that answer your questions?

00:41:12 Hila: Yeah, yeah. Thank you so much.

00:41:14 John Daub: No problem. Well, 20 minutes we've been talking. Sorry, everyone who's on waiting, it's 20 minutes. Sorry.

00:41:22 Hila: Thank you so much. And I'm waiting for the other episodes that are going to come.

00:41:29 John Daub: You're very welcome. Thanks, Hila. Thanks, Edward. Still sleeping. Bye-bye.

00:41:34 John Daub: All right, so that was Hila calling from Tel Aviv in Israel. Wow, other side of the world. This is so cool. So I have Sean that's been lined up for a while. I don't know, Sean, are you still there?

00:41:49 John Daub: Yeah. So I can give you a call. Let's see here. Yeah. So Hila brought up some really great questions. One of them about the episodes that are coming up as a result. So I'm looking in here at the Super Chats. So I always go back, if you do send a Super Chat, I will go back and search and answer your question before we end the live feed. Because I really value anybody who gives you money. You're going to value that and you really appreciate the support. Again, people who are supporting me on Patreon, this is the Patreon site. People supporting on Patreon, $5 or more have my Skype address and I add them in on Skype so then we can talk face to face like this. Because I think it's cool to get a chance to meet and hear your voices. And that helps me as a creator because I want to know who I'm making these shows for. So, all right, Sean, did you want me to do a Super Chat? I did a video. I forget again. Let's see here. Voice call. Okay. I'm calling Sean right now. Skype. This is Sean.

00:43:04 Sean: Hello.

00:43:09 John Daub: Hello, Sean. Good morning or good evening.

00:43:18 Sean: Well, I'm in Utah so it's like 7 or 8 o'clock.

00:43:23 John Daub: Oh, okay. Good. Yeah, this is a good time for the U.S. and it's a really hard time for Israel because it's 5 in the morning. And it's even worse in Europe, I think. So, good evening.

00:43:30 Sean: Well, no matter what time it is. Yeah, whatever time of day you pick, it's going to be inconvenient for someone. Right. So, what's your question this time, Sean?

00:43:42 Sean: Okay, well, I sent in a few questions earlier. Right. We'll get to those once it loads up on my tablet. It's slow going compared to a desktop computer. So, in the meantime, I have two other questions if you wouldn't mind.

00:43:50 John Daub: Sure.

00:43:52 Sean: All right. My first question was actually about the dynamics of you and your videos. How do you determine what you make? Like a limited time exclusive for Patreon people, something that's always exclusive for Patreon people, and something that you just share with everyone?

00:44:10 John Daub: Okay, that's a great question. So, on Patreon, for those of you who aren't Patreon supporters, there's inside of it, there's different levels of rewards. I'm sort of new to Patreon, one reason, because I wasn't sure if I wanted to do it. I didn't really understand why I would give rewards to anybody. Right? But the more subscribers that I had on the channel, the more I found that I simply cannot keep up with the amount of direct mails or emails or chats or Skypes or comments. If I were to answer everybody's emails and direct mails on Instagram and on the YouTube comments, I don't think I would do any other job except for that. I need somebody to answer for me, and I can't do that because it's disingenuous. So, I don't know. That's one of the reasons why I started the Patreon, really, so I could connect with people that are so interested in it that they're willing to give and help the show financially. On Patreon, there's different reward levels. Patreon, when I pushed start for the page, the levels were already sort of decided. And I had to go back in there and quickly delete some of them because they already have like a $1 and a $2 and a $5 and a $10. I was like, well, okay, wait a minute. You really have to think this through before you do the rewards. And there's people who can sign up for the Patreon with no rewards, and they get just basic updates, stuff I would probably put on the Facebook page anyways. So, there's that. If you give $1 or more, I think you give updates like when I'm going to be doing a live stream. I'll probably give an update when that's going to happen before I live stream it so you can get ready for that. If you give $1 on Patreon, I'll have special updates. I'll have special updates that I won't do anywhere else on social media. I sort of have been, over the course of the hitchhiking trip, I've been going back to Patreon and just treating it special compared to other social media. I'll go there and then if I have something that's really, really different or special, I'll go there and I'll want to share that first. And then anything else that I find that's general, maybe I'll go into Facebook. Basically, Patreon is a place where I'm more, I share more of myself. Who I am. And those are the people who are supporting the show so you get a lot more background. For $5 or more, I make more of an effort to try to get, to make more content with you. More contact. Which is why I wanted to do, people who give more, I want to find a way to connect more with them. And if you're giving $5 or more, then that's one, this is just one of the things that I thought of that I could do that. Skype calls on the live stream, take questions. And then there's another category for, called the Daimyo. And these are people that are like, they give $100 a month to the channel. And sometimes I'm just in shock because, wow, they give $100 to the channel. I didn't think anybody would. But these are really, these are people who are just really, really want to, they feel like they really want to support the channel. And some of them have, and I send them a box of, I don't know. Cookies or chocolates from somewhere in Japan when I'm on my trip. A place that you can't buy on Amazon or something. Something that's really special to them. As well as make a video for their eyes only once a month and things like this. Just perks that I can do. I might be getting off of this.

00:47:51 Sean: Yeah, it's really amazing that there's actually five different people supporting you at the $100 level. That's really awesome.

00:47:53 John Daub: I know, right? And for me, when I see that, I was really moved by it. Especially during the trip. Because that's so cool. In fact, Patreon in general, those contributions are the reasons why I could stay in hotels during the hitchhiking trip. Because the Kickstarter didn't give me money yet. I don't think the funds have been transferred to my account yet. But from Kickstarter. It takes two weeks. Okay, so they probably just transferred. So I gotta go check on that. But during the trip, I didn't have the money to stay in hotels. So the reason why I could stay in hotels was the people who were giving money on Patreon. That money from March came in in April. And I was like, okay. Now I can afford to stay in some hotels. And recharge the batteries. And maybe eat a little bit better. So that had a huge impact on this. And since the Daimyo pay for half of the contributions on the Patreon. I mean, that's just incredible to me. And I don't take that for granted at all. In fact, they keep me in check on a lot of things. So, I mean. It's just something that I appreciate a lot.

00:49:01 Sean: Well, I say as a fellow Patreon supporter of yours. That I'm all in support of you putting Patreon videos. At least at the $5 level. On your other channels on YouTube. Because I think it's a nice way to advertise that you're on Patreon. And encourage people to support you on that. Because the more they hear about it. And all the exclusive perks. I think the more people will sign up. And the more independent you can be.

00:49:28 John Daub: Yeah. I don't think I've really promoted the Patreon that much. I mean, it's. I don't. Gosh, it's really hard, Sean. Because I'm not somebody who likes to ask people for money. You know what I mean? I don't want to. I feel almost uncomfortable saying. Oh, and go on to Patreon and support me financially. And this and this and this.

00:49:52 Sean: I'll say that's the ironic part. Is by not going and pushing it. And making such a big deal. And being humble about it. It actually charms some people. And encourages them to support you.

00:50:00 John Daub: Maybe that's the case. But it's not something that I'm completely 100% comfortable with. And there are other YouTubers that I've talked to. That are the same way. Like, gosh. I should try to find a way to do it without asking the viewers. But at the same time. It comes down to the fact. Like, I could probably. If I pushed it, Sean. I could probably find someone. A corporate sponsor. To help fund the channel. But then I'd have to add a little bit of money. And then I'd have to add in more commercials. And then I would have to probably have meetings with them. And they would have a say in the content. Whereas if I could go directly to the viewers. I can not only get feedback from the people who are watching the show. On topics that I should cover. And do I get a lot of feedback from people on topics I should cover. It's amazing. I can also feel safe to know that I'm not having one person. Or one group tell me what to do to make the content. I can. I still have the creative control. To make the content that everybody likes. And that's what I've been finding over the last. I've only been doing Patreon for about two and a half months now. I mean seriously doing it. And I found that I have more creative control now. Because I don't have to rely on money from other places. I rely from people backing me. That are watching the show. That really, really care. And that is. This is a game changer. And the more and more. Because the revenue from YouTube is going down. I guess the advertisers have been pulling out of YouTube. And I notice it a little bit on the money. Even though the views are going up. And the channel subscribers are going up. The money is like. There's good months. And then there's really bad months. And the bad months. I don't even know why it's bad. I guess just YouTube doesn't feature the shows. Or people didn't get the notifications. I'm not sure. But financially it's hard to be a YouTuber. Because it's not a stable. It's not stable. Right? You need another job.

00:51:54 Sean: But. Yeah. I follow a lot of people that are YouTube people. You know. Not famous ones. Like PewDiePie or whatever. But you know. Regular YouTubers. And a lot of them have turned to alternative means. Instead of YouTube advertisements. Yeah. To support themselves. Because with all of the changes. And the dynamics. And Google changing algorithms and stuff. They can't make it on that money anymore. Right. So a lot of them use PayPal donations. Or Patreon. Or they sell shirts. Or other merchandise instead. And they use those as their. Right. Their more important streams of revenue. And things from. The money from YouTube is more like just a little extra on the side. Instead of the main thing anymore.

00:52:34 John Daub: Right. Absolutely. And this is what came through my mind last year. It came through my mind when I first started this series. Only in Japan. Because you know. I'm not. I've been out of university for 20 years now. So I kind of have an idea of what I want to do by this time. And making videos was something I wanted to do. I've been doing this job for a long time actually. Before YouTube. My first travels.

00:53:01 Sean: Did you make a video where you went to a public university and ate at the cafeteria in the last few years?

00:53:08 John Daub: I did that for NHK World a few years ago.

00:53:09 Sean: I can't remember because it's kind of a swirl in my mind. But I thought it's cool that regular people if they want to could go to one of those universities cafeterias if they chose to.

00:53:19 John Daub: That's a really. That's a possible episode in the future. But my friends at Tokyo University. I think it's Tokyocheapo.com. That's a really good website. If you want to looking for. If you're looking for information on Tokyo. Not just on being cheap. It's called Tokyocheapo. But they did an episode on university food. Anybody can go to a university cafeteria and eat. And it's like so cheap. Right? So you know. You probably know about as much about this as I do Sean.

00:53:50 Sean: Well I spend a lot of time. I guess you might call it casual research on Japan. Watching Japanese videos and stuff. I've been doing this everyday. And learning what I can. So I've nowhere near experienced as somebody that's been living there for almost two decades. But that actually brings me to another question I had. If you don't mind switching gears.

00:54:08 John Daub: Oh sure. Just one thing I want to point out. So last year I trademarked. Go ahead. Yeah. This is the trademark for Only in Japan. So I trademarked the logo. And the name. And now from this I can. I can start to monetize it. And not worry about somebody suing me. because in Japan we don't have a problem with people suing other people like in the United States. People don't lawyer up in Japan. They'd settle this usually privately because they don't want the press. They don't want to be out there doing this.

00:54:45 Sean: Yeah, there's a joke on a website that I read that says when you can't innovate, litigate.

00:54:46 John Daub: Yeah, that's basically. We don't have those types of things in Japan. If you slip on the street, no, you're not going to sue the city. The city is, I mean, it's probably your fault because you didn't see the ice. This is still the type of thinking that people have maybe from the 1950s in the U.S. They have that sort of thinking in Japan. People are quite careful. But businesses in Japan will sue other businesses. That's different. There's the private. There's two ways of thinking in Japan. One is private citizen in the way that the community integrates with one another as people. And then there's business to business. And I'd say in Japan. No private. The workplace is as bad business to business as in Japan. There's so much protection and patents and lawyers and protections and all this stuff. Japan just takes all those precautions. And I had to trademark only in Japan. So once you get a new YouTuber and you want to make this a full-time business, you really have to consider trademarking and copywriting and taking steps to protect your intellectual property because it's now a business. It's no longer. You're just someone living in Japan and the same rules apply to you culturally. You have to really know the laws and know the tax laws and all of these things. So it's changed the dynamics of YouTubing. But yes, sorry. Go ahead. Go back to your other question.

00:56:17 Sean: Well, you know, looking at the only in Japan logo, you should make stickers out of them and send them to people.

00:56:18 John Daub: I'm already ahead of you.

00:56:19 Sean: I know. I'm well, my question actually. And then I'll get to the ones I wrote. And that way we don't take forever. But if somebody moved to Japan, like, let's say they got a job. Maybe it was one of those over the summer kind of jobs or something like that. They found a company that situated them with some housing. They got this little apartment. They're now living in one of the big cities and they're in Japan and they do their job during the day. Let's say it's like an English teacher assistant or something like that at a school. So they're there for a few hours a day. Somebody's living. They're there. What do you think are the most important things that this person freshly moved over to Japan, maybe for a few months? What do you think they should do to help establish themselves during those first weeks to kind of get them feeling comfortable and in the flow and kind of acting as a good citizen and neighbor and getting to see and kind of live outside of just this go to work, go home, go to work, go home.

00:57:22 John Daub: Did you watch NHK's Tokyo Eye and NHK World's Tokyo Eye show?

00:57:24 Sean: I watch that most weeks.

00:57:25 John Daub: Okay. So I did that one that I did last year on moving to Tokyo? I might have. I watch a lot of that channel. All right. So I made an episode with NHK World moving to Tokyo. And the part that I did, usually we have other reporters on the series now, but the part that I did in NHK World was moving to Japan and how to integrate with your community right away. Okay. Okay. Okay. So I did a lot of stuff in Japan before I moved to Tokyo. I was moving every three to six months to a new city in Japan. So I've lived in 16 different cities here in Japan. And I have a lot of experience answering this question. So I'm going to put in the link in this video the link to the NHK World show. I'm pretty sure that it's on YouTube now somewhere. People are always uploading the NHK shows on YouTube. But there's also an on demand link to the NHK World show. So that link will answer the questions for utilities and stuff. But I'm going to tell you the five things that I think you should do right away when you first move to Japan. Number one is to set up your personal infrastructure, so to speak. Get a cell phone right away. And this is number two. I'm sorry. Number two is to get a cell phone or get a telephone. Nobody really gets landlines anymore. When I first came to Japan in 1998. To get a landline, you had to pay NTT, which is AT&T or like the state run telephone company. You had to give them like a kickback or like a payment in order to get a phone line. It was $700. You had to pay NTT to get a phone line to be installed into your house. Not the installation fee. That was just what you gave NTT for the phone number.

00:59:17 Sean: Just like a gratuity?

00:59:17 John Daub: Yeah. And Japan is still filled with that. Okay. Like sometimes when I go to film, they have a media charge where I had to give a gift money to them in order to film them. And I usually will say no to that unless the gift charge is like really, really reasonable, which it usually isn't. So NTT has gift money to the corporation to get a phone line. Guess what? We don't have to do that anymore in Japan. And now 20 years later in 2017, we can go to and just get a SIM card and put into our cell phones. So if you have a cell phone from the United States, you can get a SIM card. You can go to the United States or Europe that's SIM free. Get a SIM card right away so you feel connected to home. You don't feel any panic because you're... It's exciting to be in Japan, but after a few days, sometimes you still are somewhat want to feel that connection to your home because here and visiting here as a tourist are totally different things. When you live here, you're on your own basically. So it's good to be connected.

01:00:16 Sean: The audio cut out for a split second there for me. I was going to say one of the things I found most surprising about your hidden shrine video that you recently had with the live stream on Only in Japan Go was not the actual main content nor the things being sold in the shops or the people milling around. What blew my mind is when you walked by a pay phone.

01:00:43 John Daub: Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. They still have pay phones because there's so many old people in Japan. Yeah. People using them are usually elderly or someone who... There's two reasons why. Number one, there's a lot of elderly in Japan who still use the pay phones. So they don't have cell phones. They don't know how to use it or they don't have the money. They don't make enough money to justify paying $100 a month for a cell phone plan. So they still exist. They're not as... They're still rare. There's also people whose cell phones die. The batteries will die. So they go to the cell phones to make calls when they have to do that. The problem is if you don't remember the number. If you don't remember the number by heart, how are you going to call the person? But yeah, they still exist.

01:01:30 Sean: The importance of keeping an old fashioned analog phone book of your numbers.

01:01:31 John Daub: Yeah. When I first got to Japan, just a quick side story. The green telephones only take cards and 10 and 100 yen. The gray telephones, I used to use those almost every day because inside of the pay phone, this is something I didn't see in the US until years later. They had a landline. So I could plug in my laptop and my modem into the public telephone, call into America Online, which is what I used like 15 years ago, get my email from the United States through the old modems. And this is 18 years ago, right? Like wow, a long time ago. And then download it from public pay phones before I had... They didn't really have cell phones in Japan until 2000 when it was available.

01:02:21 Sean: Well, that's really awesome that you didn't have to use a phone coupler or anything. You could just use a jack.

01:02:24 John Daub: You could just use a jack in the pay phones. So that was like high tech Japan at the time. And those great pay phones with those jacks still exist in Japan. So to me, it's like I don't want them to end. It's still like a connection to just 15, 20 years ago when people were using this all the time. But yeah, they're cell phones.

01:02:47 Sean: Yeah, it made me sad because in the last five years in my city, they removed the final like three pay phones that were here.

01:02:49 John Daub: They actually keep one just so that they use it. So I think that young people understand where we came from. There was a time when we didn't have cell phones and life was hard. You had to use maps. You didn't have Google Maps or Apple Maps to get you around. It was sort of a different world back then.

01:03:10 Sean: So what was the final tips for when you first get settled you were going to say?

01:03:11 John Daub: Okay. So the first thing you have to do is if you're going to live in Japan, you need a bank account. So that means you need to go to... Yeah. You need to go to the city hall to get a foreign residence card. I'm not going to show you mine, but if you look online, you'll see what a foreign residence card looks like. I think they give it to you at the airport now. If you're coming here to live here, you can get the foreign residence card right away, which is awesome to do because you need that. That's your proof that you live here. Then you can go to the bank and you can get a bank account. You have to tell the bank who your employer is. So probably you need some proof or have a contract. It depends on the bank actually. But once you have shown that you live here. You need to have a bank account, a place where you can have income going in and out inside Japan. The banking system in Japan and in the US is totally different or anywhere else in the world. You can't take an ATM card from the US and put it into a Japanese bank ATM. It won't work. The systems are different. My Japanese card, it doesn't have any plus or serious system at all. In fact, it's like off the grid. When I travel abroad, I can't use my Japanese ATM card anywhere. It's a real big pain in the neck. Even if it has like a Visa logo? It doesn't have a Visa logo. The cash cards don't have any logos. You can only use that in the Japanese banking system. If you use your bank, they don't charge you except after hours. If you use another bank, I use Tokyo Mitsubishi UFJ Ginkgo. They've joined so many times over the years. They don't know how to abbreviate the name to something simple. So it's called Tokyo Mitsubishi UFJ Ginkgo. There's... That's what I've been using for almost 20 years, this bank. Then there's Mizuho Bank and there's Mitsui Sumitomo Bank. If you use those ATMs, you can, but it's 216 yen to take out money. They even charge a tax to take out money from those ATMs on a bank card. You can't use foreign bank cards in Japanese bank ATMs. You just can't do it. You've got to go...

01:05:18 Sean: Now, I know in America, if you use an ATM that's outside of your ATM network, you'll often get charged twice, once by your bank and once by the ATM owner. Is that how it is there?

01:05:27 John Daub: No, the bank won't charge you for using an outside ATM machine. But the ATM machine will charge you. Once they charge you, the banks won't charge you more. Not yet, anyways, in Japan. Because the banks charge a crazy amount of money. The only reason banks stay in business in Japan is because of the fees, I bet you. The fees are outrageous. If I want to send money... This is something you'll learn when you move to Japan. If you want to send money from one person to another, like PayPal and digital banking exists, but nobody really does it in Japan. Still, they use something called furikomi. Furikomi is a digital wire transfer from bank to bank. And inside of the ATM machines is a monitor screen. The screen is very, very interactive, and it's been interactive like this for 20 years, as far as I can remember. You can send wire transfers, which people do regularly from ATM machines. They charge you, depending on the bank, usually about 400 to 500 yen for five bucks for a wire transfer. So if you want to pay the travel agency for your plane ticket to go to the United States, I'd have to go to the ATM machine and send the money by wire to their bank account. And the bank would charge me four dollars.

01:06:43 Sean: Well, here's a connected question for you, because this information might be out of date, and so I thought I'd ask you. Sure. I heard that in Japan, people tend to get paid in cash, and that carrying cash around is rather important, more so than in the US.

01:07:00 John Daub: Yeah. Let me just finish the list of the things you need when you first move here, and then I'll get to that. Oh, yeah, sure. So first, come to Japan, get your foreign residence card, go to the bank, get a bank account. After you go to the bank, or before it, you might want to get this. This is a hanko. This is a stamp. So you have a stamp pad like this. You have a hanko. I have a case for it. This hanko, or chop, has my name on it. I registered this with the local government, so this becomes my signature in Japan, which is sort of cool. I don't have to sign like this on everything. I just go, boop, and that's my signature for legal documents. I have two stamps. This is my... I own a business in Japan. I've owned a company in Japan for over 12 years now. Yeah. I own a company stamp, but this one's not registered with the city government, but I have one that's in there that's registered with the government that I use for all really important contractual obligations. So after you get this hanko, H-A-N-K-O, you can go and get a bank account. Some banks require that you have a Japanese registered hanko. And once you have a bank account, you can go and get a cell phone contract if you don't want to just get a SIM card one. Then you can get a cell phone. You can get services inside of your house. Like cable TV if you wanted. Because then you have registered way to get payments in and out. And then after you've set up your personal infrastructure, then you can start right away get in touch with your community. Don't wait on this because after you've been living there for two, three months, it's sort of too late to introduce yourself. I go around the building and I knock on people's doors and I used to bring a small present and I would give them and tell them my name. And tell them that I just moved in next door and the apartment number and I'd give them a small present and say, Yoroshiku onegai shimasu. And this means that if I see them in the building, they're going to know who I am. I'm not a stranger. And it also means that I have a chance to make some friends. And the more friends you make in your community, the more you're going to feel at home. One of the problems that foreigners have is the communication barrier. You don't speak Japanese. How do you feel at home? But if you can sort of make friends. Friends right away with the people in your community, you feel a little bit more like your home even though you can't really make conversation. But you have people that you could practice your Japanese with when you do see them in the elevator or in the stairways or when you're leaving your door and they're also leaving their house. You can say konnichiwa and have conversations with them. So those are things you want to do right away. What was your other question again?

01:09:43 Sean: Oh, sorry. I had to get back to you. Every time we talk I think of more questions and I was thinking, you know I heard a lot of Japanese people like to get help with their English in exchange with their neighbors that are from countries where they speak English.

01:09:56 John Daub: Yeah. Okay, so we've been talking for almost 30 minutes. So if you have one more question I can answer it real quickly but I have to move on to a couple other people.

01:10:10 Sean: Okay, yeah, sure. Sorry. Let me see here. Yeah, okay. So just basically, I'm going to ask you a question. So just basically, how important is it to carry cash in Japan versus in a place like America?

01:10:21 John Daub: Okay, so thanks for calling in, Sean. I'm going to cut off though but I'm going to answer this before I move on, okay?

01:10:28 Sean: Sure, thanks.

01:10:29 John Daub: All right, thanks, Sean. Bye-bye.

01:10:32 John Daub: All right, so Japan is a cash society. That means that when I... Not so much recently. Recently people are using more cell phones or IC cards. Where did I put it? Oh, here. Here. So I have a bunch of these that I collected on the trip. These are IC cards. This is Icoca which is from the Osaka area and this is Hayakaken. Hayaka. Hayaka. Hayaka. Hayaka Ken. Hayaka Ken, okay? And this is from... I'm not sure where the heck this is from. Maybe Fukuoka? And every regional area has a regional card. IC cards are digital money. This is an episode that I'm going to do in the future really soon. When I first came to Japan in 1998, everybody had wads of cash. I was shocked the first night that I came to Japan in Okayama. I went out to an izakaya, Japanese pub, and there weren't that many foreigners in Okayama at the time. In fact, maybe in Japan. Not like now, even with foreign tourists. In the izakaya, there was an old guy. He was dressed up in a traditional outfit. This was in the middle of summer. And he started buying drinks for me and my other foreign friend at the time. I was living here. I was working in Japan and he in his sleeve He pulled out a wad of cash and the wad of cash must have been $10,000 US in cash in his sleeve and we were drinking and in the US he'd get mugged like doesn't it? No question he'd be getting mugged, but he had carried An older guy maybe in his 60s carried $10,000 in a wad of cash in his sleeve Unbelievable unbelievable to me. I was in shock. I said wait a minute like is that safe? He goes But in Japan, it's safe people don't mug people in Japan. So people usually Would carry in the past huge wads of cash on them. Nowadays it's not this it's not really the case Sean. people are using digital money more like this card or Cellphones so they're getting used to the Western way of doing things, but it's still a cash society I pay my electric bill at the convenience store and in cash They scan the barcode that the gas company sent me and I'm paying cash at the convenience store So the the services are still paid in cash So it's different culture different ways but more and more the week I can see how Japan is becoming globalized I get a lot of questions one of them is is Toby Toby Do you want to? to do an audio call for two minutes? All right. Toby. Let's see what he has to say. And a few of other people. So I'll get to everybody really quickly.

01:13:37 John Daub: Hello, Toby.

01:13:38 Toby: Hey, man. How's it going?

01:13:41 John Daub: Pretty good. How are you doing?

01:13:45 Toby: I'm all right. I'm all right. I just have a quick question for you. So this summer, I'm definitely going to be spending my tax money on going to Japan. And I just wanted to know, where's the first place to go to Japan?

01:13:53 John Daub: Okay. So I could tell you're... Some of the good places. That's a good question. I could tell you're like under 30 years old because spending your tax money, usually you have to pay tax money. So you're getting like a big tax return? Is that what you're saying?

01:14:04 Toby: Yeah.

01:14:05 John Daub: Lucky Toby, huh? So you're going to be buying the beers, huh?

01:14:09 Toby: We'll see. We'll see. I just wanted to see where's the best place to, you know, check out.

01:14:18 John Daub: If you come in Japan, and this is your first time?

01:14:20 Toby: Yes. I've never been to Japan.

01:14:20 John Daub: Wow. Wow.

01:14:21 Toby: I'm probably going to... I'm going to rent a car and just probably wing it.

01:14:23 Toby: Oh, that's cool. I don't know.

01:14:24 John Daub: Do I need like a license over there to rent a car?

01:14:29 Toby: You need an international driver's license, which you can get for like 10 bucks at the AAA.

01:14:35 John Daub: Right. Okay. Sounds good. You don't have to take any exams or anything. And then you can rent a car straight from the airport if you want. You do know, Toby, that they drive on the other side of the road, right?

01:14:46 Toby: That's something that I'm going to try and figure out, but we're going to see how that goes.

01:14:50 John Daub: Yes. I don't think it's going to... And if you've never driven in the Tokyo Expressway inside the city, you're in for a very, very special... Maybe you're used to that in Southern California. There's no comparison. I mean, it's like one lane, really congested, high speed expressways, where if you miss the exit, you're going around again. Gosh. Okay. It's a big city, so it could be a while. You don't miss your exit. The accidents happen because of tourists. And you're going to miss the bus, I think, most often. But hey, it's a fun experience.

01:15:30 Toby: Yeah. Definitely. I'm going to be trusting Google Maps a lot, but we'll see what happens.

01:15:35 John Daub: Yeah. They're fairly reliable. Better than the Apple Maps. But yeah, I think that if you come into Tokyo for the first time, you're going to want to see Tokyo. You're going to want to see...

01:15:43 Toby: Definitely. Yeah. I just don't know where in Tokyo. It's kind of like...

01:15:49 John Daub: Yeah. What do you like? I mean, people ask me all the time, where should I go in Tokyo? But every single person's personal preference is Tokyo. Yeah. My whole personality is different from everybody else's. Some people like museums, some people like clubbing, some people like manga and anime.

01:16:03 Toby: Well, it's going to be more of like a family kind of deal. I got like a little brother and parents and stuff. We're going to probably do something family-oriented, you know what I mean?

01:16:12 John Daub: Yeah. Oh, so she's not coming?

01:16:13 Toby: What?

01:16:15 John Daub: Your girlfriend from Norway.

01:16:19 Toby: Oh, no. Well, we're going to just keep this. She works a lot, so we're probably not going to... Well, maybe. We'll see how it goes. Well, she's a nice girl.

01:16:22 John Daub: She's in Texas, right? That's a far distance. This would be cool to come together, no?

01:16:29 Toby: No, no, no. No, she isn't in Texas. So you're what?

01:16:32 John Daub: Oh, okay. Never mind.

01:16:34 Toby: No, no. It's just, you know, that's like a whole different kind of issue with family and girlfriend and things like that. But, yeah. It's just going to be definitely a family trip to Tokyo, somewhere cool. I just want to, like, leave California for a little bit, you know, check it out somewhere different. I love sushi, too, so.

01:16:55 John Daub: Ah. So then maybe you know where you should stay. If you stay around the Tsukiji area, you could probably have really good sushi. Although, this eating around Tsukiji Market, which is where they have the auction, doesn't mean that you get the best sushi. Everywhere, everyone in Tokyo pretty much gets their fish from the same place, Tsukiji Market. So almost every sushi shop is really fresh. I don't know. You know what? I tell people, don't stay in. If you're coming with your family, don't stay in Shibuya, I think. Don't stay in Shinjuku. Don't stay in a busy area because I think it's really stressful. If you have to take the train to go somewhere, the subway, it's really stressful to get on it and then to get out of it. There's a million subway exits. Go to someplace simple like Asakusa. Asakusa is the traditional heart of Tokyo where Sensoji Shrine is. And it's a lot more relaxed. There's a lot of people. There's a lot of cultural stuff. And it's very easy to get from there to somewhere else.

01:18:01 John Daub: And there's a connection from Narita Airport by train directly to Asakusa. Not the JR line, but the Keisei line. So you can... Keio. Is it the Keio line? It takes you directly to Asakusa. So it's so simple. Asakusa would be my recommendation for first place to stay in Tokyo for sure.

01:18:19 Toby: All right. Definitely. Yeah. I'm staying at one of those hotels. So we'll see how that is. Hopefully it's not really in a busy area, all those hotels in there.

01:18:29 John Daub: Yeah. If you're coming with family, you're not staying in a capsule hotel, right?

01:18:30 Toby: No. I was thinking of... I was looking into that Airbnb or whatever. I don't know what that is.

01:18:35 John Daub: Ah, Airbnb. Telling me about it and telling me to do it, but I don't really know what it's all about. But we'll see. I'm just going to go with the hotels and stick with the hotels.

01:18:46 John Daub: Airbnb is just... It hasn't really started... It hasn't really taken off in Japan. But it's sort of... It's pretty big in Tokyo, but it hasn't really taken off outside of Japan, outside of the city.

01:19:00 Toby: My buddies went to Tokyo already and they said they used Airbnb. So I was like, I'm going to check it out.

01:19:15 John Daub: You can in the touristy areas or just a population, but anywhere else outside of Tokyo where you really need a hotel or where I really wanted to use Airbnb while hitchhiking, they didn't really have... I didn't know what it was.

01:19:20 John Daub: Yeah. So I still recommend... I still recommend regular hotels or ryokan. You have to stay in a ryokan even though it's a little bit expensive. Because the reason why, Toby, is because they have traditional meals inside the ryokan and you get to feel like you're in Japan in a ryokan.

01:19:41 Toby: That's definitely what I wanted to do. Yeah. Yeah, definitely.

01:19:49 John Daub: And you also get the experience of going to an onsen or the hot spring, which is totally part of Japan. It's something you can't miss.

01:19:54 Toby: Yeah. Yeah, definitely. I'm going to try all that stuff. Awesome. Definitely.

01:19:58 John Daub: Yeah. Spend those tax dollars wisely.

01:19:59 Toby: All right, man. Thanks for taking my question.

01:20:00 John Daub: Not at all. Thanks for calling in. Take it easy.

01:20:04 John Daub: See, look. I mean, Toby is not a bad person. And if you've been watching the Only Japan Go channel for a while, you'll notice that Toby is a pretty cool guy. We gave him a bad rap, but he's not a crow that steals food from poor bears. And I can't keep using that. I don't like that either. Because he's too nice. Amanda, you're early. My question is, do you ever get bored living on an island?

01:20:46 John Daub: I like your profile photo here. Amanda, are you there? Yeah, I can hear you. Are you there?

01:20:57 Amanda: Yes.

01:20:57 John Daub: All right. So I got a bunch of questions. So if you don't mind, ask your question. I'm going to cut off the recording. I'm going to cut off and answer it off. Is that OK?

01:21:07 Amanda: That's fine.

01:21:09 John Daub: All right. What's your question?

01:21:10 Amanda: I was just asking, don't you live on an island? Do you ever get bored?

01:21:17 John Daub: All right. OK. So thank you, Amanda. So Amanda asked, I live on an island. Do I ever get bored? If I lived on another island, I might. But although Japan is an island, it's sort of like, I don't know. A really big one. And I don't think... This is such a good question because there's so many ways to approach this. It's hard. I don't think I'll ever get bored. First of all, I'll answer the question directly. I don't think I'll ever get bored. And the reason why is because Japan has so many major cities on one island. It's amazing the amount of things that is here. Second, Japan, like every other country around the world, especially developed countries, the city is always changing. So not just Tokyo, but all the other places outside of Tokyo, there's always change. New businesses are coming. New attractions are coming. New things are coming. New old cities are reinventing themselves and becoming new again. This is a recent trend in Japan, too. The people are preserving their history. And a lot of the things I don't know, they're becoming known. So I don't think I'll ever get bored. But... The reason why I'm sort of... I step back from that is there's a difference between visiting Japan as a tourist and then living here. And living here after 20 years, you start to see the country differently. You start to see it as... It starts to become a part of your... A part of you because this is your home. People ask me, do I feel more American or more Japanese? Where does your heart lie? I don't know. It's the heart's in two places. How can it not be after 20 years? Almost half my life has been spent here and half of my life has been spent in the United States. And my heart is in both places because I really love this country and I really love the United States very, very much. So that's not an easy thing, which also makes it not an easy thing to say that I'll never get bored in Japan because I think when you start to look at the world, you start to live in a country, you can get bored of it because every day seems the same no matter what you're doing, which is why I did the hitchhiking trip and why I travel a lot and why I made this channel only in Japan so I get to see the country all the time and always changing locations to bring you interesting content. So to answer your question in a really long way, I don't think I'll ever get bored. And yet living here, it's different. It's different, but it's still cool.

01:24:07 John Daub: Sean, you're very welcome for answering the question. This livestream's been going for almost 90 minutes, so I'm going to take a couple more questions because people have been waiting for a while. Jose has added me. A lot of people have added me, so thank you very much for that. Thank you for supporting on Patreon. So everybody who has... I'll say this again. Everybody who is now chatting is supporters on Patreon, and that support is really, really helpful for the channel because it allows me to stay in nicer hotels or do more content. In fact, this channel, this question and answer is supported almost... No, it is supported entirely by Super Chats and Patreon. So when you give a Super Chat, it pays for the bandwidth when I use 4G because that's what I like to do when I'm out around... When I made the last episode, the Akihabara secret shrine at Hanabusa Inari Jinja, that was all funded by Super Chats. So the Super Chats are a big deal. Super Chat, Mr... Super Mr. Crazy Man. What the... The name is correct. So the chat is the Super Chat. Thank you very much for that. And hi, how are you doing, Godzilla? Rocks. Okay. Yeah, Godzilla. Yeah, he's doing pretty good. I can see Godzilla. Godzilla in Shinjuku, he's part of a hotel there where he's like popping out of the building. If you go to Instagram, Only Japan TV Instagram page, I have a picture from there from last week of Tokyo at night with Godzilla popping out of the background. So the Instagram page has that image on there. And there's also another Godzilla in Tokyo in Yurakucho next to the Toho Cinema, where the movie theater is. And it's a much smaller statue, so you can get pictures next to it. It looks like Hachiko, the dog statue, but it's Godzilla. So that's worth checking out if you're in Tokyo. So thank you for the Super Chat. Let's see here. Hi, John. This is coming from Cory. Oh, Cory. How are you doing, Cory?

01:26:29 John Daub: Hi, John. Hope the editing and the footage is going well. I really liked the livestream you did with the shrine. Thank you very much. The editing is going really, really well. Thank you. Junior. Whoa. Like that, Junior. Super Chat. Thank you. The editing is going very, very well. The project file, the timeline was getting long. I'm past in the video for... I'm going to give... If you're supported on Kickstarter, I give an update once a week. So I finished about almost 10% of the editing after I decided the format and how I wanted to make this video because it changes based on the editing. So I'm going to give you a little bit of a preview of how I want to go with the flow to make the story. Once I decided how I want to make this DVD, this video, it's easier now to edit the video. So the first week was sort of fitting the pieces and how I want the flow to go. And now that I've decided the flow of the DVD, it's a lot easier to edit it, to keep it constant. So for a two-hour video, you're going to be entertained where there's pieces of each two-hour, which is take a step back and bring it back to normal. which is bring you... From the video footage that I edited, there's video times where you sit back and watch what's happening. And then there's times where you lean forward and are really engaged in what's happening. And I like that because I don't think over the two hours, you're going to be bored. And I want you to be able to sit down and relax and watch it. And sometimes you're going to see some drama and sometimes you're going to sit back and enjoy what you're seeing on the screen. And then you lean forward when I'm teaching you, or learning about something new. And that's a recipe for any successful content. Content needs to be valuable. Content needs to be valuable to the person watching, I believe, very strongly. I believe very strongly that you watching this have to take something back out of this experience. Your time is valuable. That's because my time is valuable. I want to make something not for me and not just for people that like me, but for people who are interested in Japan. When I started this channel, I was under the assumption that people aren't going to like me. They're not going to care about me. I'm just someone who's bringing you the content. And I think there's a lot of other YouTube creators that are serious creators that feel the same way. They're just storytellers and navigators bringing it to you. But as I've gone over the YouTube process over several years, there are people who like you as you, who you are. And that, to me, is not something I expected. And it's something that makes me feel really, really good. It makes me... It changes the way that I make the videos. That's one reason why this live stream has been going on for an hour and a half. Because I like you, and you like me, and we sort of have this connection. And I really want to spend time and answer as many questions as I can. Amanda, thank you for taking my question. You're very welcome. I appreciate you. Thank you for the support on Patreon. Thank you so much. There are more questions I'd like to take. Let's go back really quickly. So it's been 90 minutes on this live stream. This is really cool. Time is flying. So I think I've answered all of the Super Chats. I do that and try to make sure I answer the Super Chats. Junior Wolf was the last one. Like this, yes, it was. And to go back, one more question from the normal chats. So in order for them to answer any question, you need to pay. That's a good one. Perez. So in order... Stephanie asks a very good question, and you should ask this one. So in order for him to answer any questions, I need to pay is what you're saying. No. The problem with that is, Stephanie, during this live stream, I received about like 1,000 questions. I can't answer all the 1,000 questions. In fact, I can't even see the 1,000 questions, Stephanie, because the questions are moving like this, okay? The questions are moving very, very, very fast. The people who send in Super Chats, they pop up real colorful, and it's easy for me to see that. The benefit to that is anybody who wants to support the show and is giving money, I, as a creator, have to stop and say, whoa. I mean, I don't actively ask for it, but my gosh, if you're a creator, you would not not do that, right? It's hard, but when somebody gives a Super Chat, I stop what I'm doing, and I see this on the screen. I don't know just the way it's set up. I don't want to say that that's the excuse, but the excuse is that there are too many questions, and you can give a kiss. Absolutely. In fact, if you send in comments on the videos that I do, and if you comment right away when I upload a video, I will answer that question if it's not a ridiculous question. I'll answer that right away. You don't have to pay money to answer that. You don't have to pay money for me to answer something. The problem is, Stephanie, if you look at my Instagram, there's direct mail, which has become really, really awesome because I can talk with people, but after I post a picture, I get a lot of direct mails, and if I answer all the direct mails, I can't edit the videos. So for me, I have to make a decision as a creator. Do I take the time to answer every single question, which I can't do? Or do I answer the questions for the people who love the show so much that they're willing to give Super Chat or willing to pay to support on Patreon? And if they're willing to give money to support on Patreon, as a creator, I don't feel like I can just take money for just taking money. I want to give back to them, and I want to give back to you on Super Chat. How can I give back to you on Super Chat? What value? What value can I give for the money that you've given to me? Besides the satisfaction of feeling good that you've supported a creator, the best thing that I can give you is my time. My time, in all of our times, we have 24 hours in a day. What we do during that day is very limited, Stephanie. So I can answer a thousand questions to people that are just randomly asking them on a feed that's going back, and a lot of them are really, really good questions. Or I can focus on some of those questions, and I can give back to them. So I can answer their questions, which I can actually see, because the feed is going crazy like this. Or I can focus on these bright ones that pop up from people who gave me something of value, and I can give them something of value, which is answer their questions right away. That's where we are. I put a little bit of thought into this, not a lot, but it is what it is, and that's the only way that I can keep up. I can't keep up answering every single person's email. I just simply cannot do it. I hope that answers your question. I hope that answers your question, Stephanie, and you didn't pay for that. So I hope that's your answer.

01:34:22 John Daub: Sonofacakes writes in a super chat, what was my profession before YouTube? My profession before YouTube, I think you can see it. So I was an English teacher. I taught children. And I was on something called iTunes. And I think if you search iTunes, you can still see some of it. Before YouTube, I was a... I was a... I did podcasts, video podcasts, so I've been making videos for a very long time. Since 2003, I've been a vlogger. I don't even know what a vlogger means. Vlogger is people who show their everyday lives to people who are interested in that person's everyday lives. I don't think I vlog. I just make stories. I don't think it's the same thing. But if you search my company or I think if you just search my name in iTunes store yeah you'll get some of the shows that i did early on if you search my name in the itunes store this one was called reverse engineering english there's there's still about 25 episodes of this that i made and i i was a teacher so i tried to teach i tried to teach i tried to teach japanese english this is way back in 2006 2007 and i produced videos like this um 10 years ago and well i was really young back then too so that's what i did before and these are all free and the problem that i had is the same problem that um uh that all creators have that's being solved with things like patreon and super chat i made these episodes for free they were downloaded over 20 million times by people in japan who wanted to learn english in fact a lot of japanese people still remember me when i walk down the streets from being one of the first people in in japan maybe even in the world who was doing video podcasts and i had a lot of people who were doing video podcasts because video podcasts i had the first um ipad ipod with video and nobody was making videos for it because nobody number one knew how to edit videos um well back then we just if you remember 2007 2006 we were just uh we we didn't even have cell phone video that was very good in fact the iphone didn't have good video at all i don't think if you remember it was really bad like the 360p grainy but i had a really professional camera and video editing software so i was uploading videos back then and it was so it was really popular here's a show called um otaku eikaiwa and this guy here is patrick galbraith who's in a couple of only in japan shows um this is what i did before my company was called weblish and it's this is ridiculous hi i'm patrick w galbraith i remember patrick grammar from my book from all it's from the shows so patrick and i had adventures here in akihabara and i made this show 10 years ago so this is what i did before i did um youtube so that was my career i was a podcaster i made no money off of this um before that i was before i was a podcaster i was um an english teacher and i saved up um a lot of money and i lost all my money um i was a podcaster because podcasting and i this is why you don't people don't put stuff on on itunes anymore youtube you upload a video to youtube right youtube pays for the bandwidth so when you watch a video it's not my server you're watching it on youtube server on itunes when you put a video on itunes you put it on your server that means that you pay for the bandwidth everybody who watches the video you have to pay for them to watch the video because the bandwidth is not free in fact it's pretty expensive and when my show was featured in the local in the national newspaper and it was featured on tv shows in japan um 10 years ago all of a sudden there was a boom of people watching my podcast and that was a good thing but it was also a bad thing because unlike youtube itunes my server was drained right away so i was going through more bandwidth on my channel than sony music was going through bandwidth in japan sony music japan i had more bandwidth and i was giving it away for free and sony music was making money i lost 30 000 giving away my show trying to grow my company and i just ran out of money this was in 2010 i had to stop doing podcasts because i couldn't afford the bandwidth anymore until a sponsor came called brightcove brightcove started making money and i was still in debt too far to continue doing this i couldn't monetize i couldn't i wanted to make content for people learning english in japan but i couldn't make money off of that experience i was losing money nobody would sponsor me because in japan at the time and even now big sponsors don't want to sponsor local people you need to have an agency you need to reduce risk to them and it's very hard to get a corporate sponsor in japan to back what you're doing even now in the united states companies see the value of the company you're giving them an independent creator and they're more willing to sponsor but not in japan yet maybe that'll change youtube and patreon have created a platform where we can monetize um our content and that's why uh i use the platform because i've been here i've been in a place where i'm losing money creating content or i can't live i was living really badly back then i i was working 16 you know i was i know some other creators who were also doing itunes and we were english teachers at the time and we had very bad we worked too much and made almost no money we were losing money and that was what i went through 10 years ago and to and this is what a lot of actors go through um they believe in their craft they believe in their art they make a show they they act in a production they don't make a lot of money and then hopefully they break through and they become big time where commercial um commercial where they can commercialize their work because that's how they can make a living i don't have right now this is my job so i have to make a living off of making travel videos for only in japan but i know the value of when people support me because i've been giving away my show for free for a very long time and i think that the best way to make money is to go in instead of trying to get corporate stuff to be a part of the show and i think that's the best way to make money to sponsor you is to go right to the people and that's that's how the work is funded i can make money off of ads on youtube but i mean how how long is that good for how long does that last where does that take you and you know if youtube every i i don't even know if youtube's going to be around in 10 years right because every couple of years something new comes a new platform comes and you you have to start over from scratch again and that's not always a bad thing because it keeps you as a creator you're a creator you're a creator you're going to get it right out there it's creating new things all the time that's something that you can't get comfortable when you're a creator you always have to reinvent your ideas reinvent stuff because you as a viewer want to see new things this is so critical for for young youtubers to know that you know because now I'm 43 I have a past where I have struggled a lot to get to where I am and I don't even know where I am yet I'm somewhere in the middle going from here to there and I can't get to there right now without support so to answer your question what I did before I was an English teacher I was a podcaster I lost a lot of money and now I feel guilty sometimes for asking for money because it's it's hard to do but it's also I've come from a place where I didn't have anything I didn't have any money and when I think about those times I think about and I'm really sad because it was it was really hard so that's why and that's where I come from I came here in 1998 and as an English teacher and now I am Jack Frost writes John you're 33 and not a day stop it yeah no no no I'm 43 and I'm a day over 43 yeah but I feel really really good I don't feel my age so that's a good thing but I but the good thing about my age is that I I bring with me all the experiences that I've had and that makes you a better person so the older you get I think the more refined you get the more you learn from your experiences the more you focus on things that are important to you and this live chat is important to me because I've been doing it for a hundred and seven minutes so if there are any more questions I think we can end it here I do apologize if Stephanie I do take your question your question to heart on why I answer the super chats it's not something I take lightly and it's something that something that I think about all the time and it's something that I you know when people who gave on patreon every day I'm trying to find new ways to give back to them to that community and give back to you you for watching but when you have on YouTube when you have on YouTube and this is the thing one hundred and four hundred and sixty one thousand subscribers when you have four hundred and sixty one thousand two hundred and three subscribers on YouTube it's it becomes very very difficult to stay in contact with all of them and so Kyle I'm I'll call you back later Kyle I'm sort of ending the feed now so when when I I want to connect with with people how do you connect with four hundred and sixty one thousand two hundred and three people and I read the entire number because every single one of them is really important to me every single one of them has subscribed because they like what they see and they feel that what I do brings them value but I cannot keep in touch with four hundred and sixty four hundred and sixty one thousand two hundred and three people it's really really hard and I feel bad when I can't answer somebody's question just like now right now Kyle was calling in and I feel bad because I can't take the question because I have to eat lunch and I haven't eaten breakfast yet it's not it's like it's it's like almost 1 p.m. so there's that it's not easy you can't do it on YouTube you can't do it on YouTube you can't do it on YouTube there's the one that's and this is what I want to end with I have to end it and and this and this to you it's not easy it is there's so many things I want to say right now that's so easy to be a creator and it's so hard it's so easy to just start a YouTube channel and start vlogging and go out there and make a show and then it's so hard to take what you made and evolve it into something bigger something better and and to evolve it into a career and that is I mean I've been doing this again for a very long time as I was telling you before you know on iTunes but there's nothing easy about this there's nothing easy about it's just like any other job the read there 461,203 subscribers on the 203 subscribers right now on the YouTube channel and how do I make every single one of them happy it's impossible but all I can do is give my time which is extremely limited and I work like business hours supporting the channel now. It's crazy. I spend so much time on social media, making content, editing, responding to as many people as I possibly can that it really is a full-time job now. Maybe not in the beginning, but I can't imagine, I'm never going to complain about it. But what I can do is I can give the people who want to support what I do something back which is my time. And the ones who leave the comments when I have any free time, when I'm on a train traveling from here down to Ginza or down to Shinjuku, I get on my phone. And I used to read books. I used to read a lot of books. And now I don't read the books. I'm on social media trying to respond to as many people as I can. Because I know if you're writing in and leaving me a question, I know that you're doing that because you really love the show and you really have something that you want to ask. And I try to answer every single person, but I do feel guilty. That's why I'm taking such a long answer. But I just simply can't do that. So that's why if you ask a question and you're a Patreon supporter, it makes it easy for me to go on to Patreon, on to this social media, and I can answer it because it's a smaller group of people. Patreon has 120 people on there who support the channel who really, really, really love the show. I mean, they really love the show. And when they ask a question, I stop what I'm doing and I try to answer right away to them because they really... they make my life easier. And I mean, I have to be clear on that. It's just a fact. And the Super Chats here, they make this channel possible because... I'm always going back to check to make sure. They make this possible because on my hitchhiking trip, I used 4G bandwidth. And every time a Super Chat came in, that paid for the cell phone bill, which was ridiculously expensive. So it paid for the ability of me to live stream on location in a place. And I'm going to keep the Only in Japan Go channel going because of the support on Super Chat. I mean, it's as simple as that. The only reason why I'm going to keep doing the Only in Japan Go channel is because people are watching the content. I can do stuff. The people have asked me to do without having to edit it and make a story out of it. The story is that I'm there right now. That's the story. And that's really exciting. And to pay for that, I can... Because it doesn't... It makes like almost no money on YouTube, the Only in Japan Go channel. It's very small for the ads. I couldn't pay for the phone bill. But I can pay for it because of the Super Chats. And I'm going back to Stephanie who asked that really important question. So you have to pay to have your answer question. You have to pay... Somebody has to pay to support the channel, Stephanie. Somebody has to pay to support... Support this. I'm not going to become a millionaire or super rich off of a YouTube channel because not everybody is PewDiePie. Not everybody is... Has like 200 million followers. But the people that I have right now watching the show, man, do I value you so much? And I just simply... I'm trying to find ways to spend my time when I have it as efficiently as possible to answer as many people as possible. Which is why this live stream is now... There's a timer on the camera. It's now 111 minutes long because I want to do that. I want to answer everybody. And I don't know how to do that. And I'm still managing all of this by myself pretty much because I don't trust agencies to do that. I don't trust... Once you start the corporate way, you lose sometimes sight of what you want to do. You lose your soul, so to speak. And this... I don't want to go on about this because people do have money. And Kyle has a question. I don't want to harp on too much about this. But for me, after living here for 20 years, the most important thing and my success is not going to be the money. The money will keep me going. But that's not going to make me happy. I mean... The reason why I do this and I do it as best that I can do it, why I try to make every show really, really special is because the most important thing in Japan is not the money. It's your reputation. In fact, I think this is like this in every country and it's something that people lose sight of. If you have a reputation of making very good things, if you have a reputation of being perfect, if you have a reputation of... If you have a reputation of waking up early in the morning, working hard every day, and a lot of people out there do this. It doesn't matter what your job is. If you clean a toilet, or if you are working in a library, or if you're working in an office, or if you're working as a taxi cab driver, if you go out there and you do your job better than anybody else, it doesn't matter what you do, if you do it so good and you do it consistently so well, people will absolutely respect that. And you'll get money off of that. And you'll get the one thing that you have to earn. You cannot... You can't... It's not something that just comes to you like money. Money can just come to you. But the one thing that you have to earn is reputation. It's the one thing that you cannot pay for. You cannot buy reputation. Just like you can't buy love. You have to buy... You have to earn it. And I... That goes through my mind every time I make a video, even this question in the chat. I don't know if I can answer. I want to earn what I get. Not just with money. Not just with subscribers. Not just with views. But the most important thing over all of this... I can't... I'm... I stressed it enough. Reputation. Who you are as a person. Who you are as a worker. Who you are as a human being. Who you are as... as a creator. And what you see on this channel is... And the Only in Japan Go channel, you see John Daub more than the Only in Japan. The brand. You see the person. I think the people who are watching the Only in Japan Go channel like Japan a lot, but they also like who I am. Which makes me like who I am. But also the people on the main Only in Japan channel, they like the content of what I'm doing. And they... They subscribe to it. 461,203 people because of the reputation of the show. Because they believe it's good. And that's the best feeling I have as a creator. It's the best feeling I have as a creator. When somebody subscribes and not... The money helps keep me going. The money does make me happy. Makes me smile because I can eat better. I can live better. I can focus on this. But the best feeling here... Is when supporters subscribe to the channel and they watch. And they give you their time. And they write a comment. And that's... That's why I do it. And if I do it better than anybody else, I'll have a reputation of that. And if I have a reputation of that, then you will subscribe and then you'll see the value in it. And if you have the means, you'll help to support me. And that's all that I ever ask for. It's not that I'm asking for money to go live a high life. I'm not living a high life. I don't think I know how to live a high life. I'd probably be living in my tent. Whether I was hitchhiking or not, I would probably be... You know, whether or not I had support, financial support or not, I'd probably be in the tent. That's just who I am. I like people. I like... My tent. I like my tent. That's... I don't think I'd ever change. Um... But... To make this... To make this short, that's... That's that. Woo! Did I make that go really long? Sorry for that. The next episode coming this weekend, it's Friday and I haven't been editing all morning, is Miyajima Street Food. And the Miyajima Street Food I've been editing for the last... I used Premiere Pro, the latest edition. Just updated it last week. The Miyajima Street Food. Now this one will be out this weekend. Uh... I think probably Sunday because I don't know if I'm gonna get that much done because I've been doing this live chat for a long time. Um... Let's see if Kyle has a question because I wanna... I do wanna... Kyle, are you still there? Kyle has a question.

01:56:57 John Daub: Woo! I wanna change gears. I wanna end on a high note. And I think that... Maybe that was a high note but I wanna end on something... positive. It'd be Kyle. Yeah, so I wanna end on a... On a high note. But... Yeah, so this is what I'm editing. I put a lot of... Uh, thanks Amanda. Now sorry, I... I think... I... This speech just sort of came out of me. This is what the maps look like on the... You can see the timeline's quite big. Just to do one map. There's a lot of work to do one map. Uh... I think I can show you a piece of the next episode. If you don't mind. Do you wanna see a little bit of what's coming on Sunday? Yeah? I'm talking to myself. I'm just saying... Yeah? You wanna see something? Okay. So this is the timeline. Here we go. Welcome to Miyajima and Hiroshima Prefecture. This lovely island is famous for that. The red torii. The shrine. The beautiful island. The deer. But there's a lot more to Miyajima than just those things. In fact, this place is a street food paradise. And we've come here to eat. So I hope you're hungry. We're gonna be eating a lot. Ah, narration. This is Miyajima. This island has a lot of deer and a little bit of... A lot of food. And this is Hiroshima City. We're zooming into it. What a beautiful city Hiroshima is. But not far away is another island called Miyajima. And this island looks very, very close to the mainland. But it's a 15 minute ferry ride. Everything is located in this particular area. But I'm gonna be focusing right here. Drone footage! On this beautiful city. Miyajima. This beautiful island. So that's sort of... I used the drone. I used the drone. And that was thanks to everybody supporting the channel. So everybody who supported the channel, thank you very much. That's for you. That's a little sneak peek. Because those that have been watching for a long time, I want to add something to you. Brandon PW, thank you. Thank you so much for the super chat. And Trekkerus. Trekkerus. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. That's a funny one. I pay, you pay, even Fong pay. I don't know what that means but it's cracking me up. So thank you so much for the super chat. I am sorry for asking for contributions. Sometimes that's how we support the channel and that's how we support what we do. And that's why I put back. What I take in, I put back into the shows. And I hope you can see that in the stories that I tell them. So go to bed. Go to bed. If you're in the United States on the East Coast, it's now midnight in Tokyo. Go to bed, okay? Have a good night. If you're in Japan or if you're in India now, waking up, good morning. If you're in parts of Asia, if you're in South America, gosh, you're probably in the same boat as the United States timeline. But my Australian friends, good day. Everybody, thank you so much for supporting on Patreon and for calling in. I didn't get to everybody's calls, but I'm going to be doing more of these chats because I like to hear feedback from everybody. And this as a creator is good for me because I want to know who's creating it. Sorry, I want to know who you are who is watching this series. And I want to know how you are doing out there all around the world. It's such a big place, and yet it's just all here in this one episode. And that was totally cool. So thank you so much for watching. Thank you for taking the time to watch. It's been two hours on this. It was two hours. Thank you, even Toby, for calling in. I hope you do come to Japan and let me know because that would be pretty fun to be together in a video. So have a great day, everybody. Great night, wherever you are. See you on the road. Not anymore, but bye-bye. Let's push the button. Yeah.