00:00:04 John Daub: Hello and welcome to Costco. This is the one in Makuhari, about a 20-minute train ride outside of Tokyo. I'm shopping, looking for something—I'm not sure what. So many different things here. This is a cart cam. I kind of put the camera in the cart, but you can see what a Costco looks like here in Japan. This camera is shaking pretty bad even though I got it on the Osmo.

00:00:36 John Daub: Now Costco in Japan is pretty similar to the one in the United States except a lot of the products. The buildings look the same, but the products are a lot different. Most of the stuff are Japanese brands, which makes it sometimes hard to know what's good and what's not. Alright, for example, let's take detergent. They have stuff like Downy, the usual Kirkland ultra soft. And then there's companies I never heard of like Finnish. Like what the heck is Finnish? Anybody know any of these brands? Haitta—no, thank you, we'll pass.

00:02:23 John Daub: Most of the stuff that I want is on the first floor anyways. It's been about six months since I was here, so my card expired. I got a new one. I'm a business member because I have a Japanese company, but you can use these worldwide. The dude at the registers didn't stop me from taking a silly photo. It got cut off a little bit. You can't get everything in a little teeny picture like that. Next time I got to put it right in front. Whoa, toilet paper. I don't think I need this much with a family of one. So many things here.

00:03:33 John Daub: Mega chopsticks—that's a lot of chopsticks. These are made of bamboo, kind of expensive. Most of the stuff that I want is not up here on the second floor. The Costco at Makuhari has two floors, and a lot of the Costcos are like this because it makes better use of space. The ones that I go to in the United States are all one floor, just a massive warehouse. But this one has two floors, and most of the stuff I want is on the first floor: produce. I like to get a lot of the vegetables and fruits from countries where it's in season, for example.

00:04:38 John Daub: Oh, LED lights—they're still pretty expensive in Japan. I've been wanting to get a ceiling light for my house. They have them here. These are the usual Japanese ceiling lights—almost everybody in Japan has one of these styles. It has a remote control, and you can control the type of white. It's kind of a brown light. It is a super hot day, and to get here from Makuhari Station, I had to trek. What's your favorite food court item? Pizza—definitely the pizza. You can't get a slice of pizza in Japan anywhere else that's sort of the same as the U.S. But here at Costco, they have a way to make everything pretty consistent worldwide.

00:05:51 John Daub: That's pretty cool to me because I'm really far from home. Although coming here sort of feels like home. Costco smells the same as in the U.S.—that's sort of funny, right? Costco Japan smells the same as Costco USA or in any other country. I'm in the market for a bike I could ride home. It's really crowded—I think it has something to do with the fact that we're in Japan and there's a lot of people here. Big things of Dove soap. I'm going to go down the escalator here to the produce aisle, and then I want to get some maple syrup and some coffee. So there's a few things I've sort of already decided. I didn't get anything on the second floor.

00:07:03 John Daub: Thanks for the lunch. The pizza is pretty good. They might have some things that are different on the menu than in the United States, but I think it's pretty consistent. They have the clam chowder—sometimes Manhattan, sometimes New England. There's the bulgogi bake, which is like a big hot pocket. You can see we are coming down to the first floor of Costco. I love these magnetic escalators too—the wheels are magnetic so they stick to the bottom.

00:08:18 John Daub: Freedom. Check that out—these are olive trees, right? Wow, I totally need one in my house. That olive tree is around $35 US—that's about 35 bucks. And this is a blueberry tree. Okay, I'm going to go to the produce and get some vegetables. Akamaru, thank you very much for the super chat. It's time to attack the fresh produce. This cart will be full after I leave this area.

00:09:24 John Daub: Avocados—no, I never buy avocados here because they're actually cheaper in the supermarket where I'm from. Not everything is cheaper at Costco. Oh, I think I'll get those onions—I like the purple onions. Wow, watermelons. This is the refrigerated area. We have maitake—that's a lot of maitake. There's some shiitake. I'm looking for blueberries. Alright, here are the Yamanashi grapes from the Mount Fuji area. Gosh, they're so good, these grapes, but I can get them in the supermarket near my house. These are about $17, so I don't need to buy these here. Strawberries, but they're out of season. Blueberries—these look questionable.

00:11:16 John Daub: All the good stuff's underneath here. Boom! Alright, treasure. They always look for like a bad one. These look good—product of USA. I'm a product of the USA too. Maybe I should get three of them. There's always a bad blueberry in the pack with all the fungus on it. Alright, this one looks okay—so there's three blueberries. Boom! We're doing pretty good. Here's some raspberries from America—these are about $8. You know what? I'm gonna pass on the raspberries.

00:12:34 John Daub: Here we have the Japanese cherries and the American cherries. You can see the color difference—the Japanese cherries are a little bit pinker and the American cherries are very deep red, a burgundy color. These are like $18, but there's a lot in there. Oh, Corona—yes, please, you're coming with me. You have to double-check these with a visual check because sometimes there's a bad one in there. I even do a smell check. Boom! You're coming with me to my house to be drunk as a beer.

00:13:42 John Daub: Gosh, I'm really confused on whether or not I should get these cherries—they're like $15 for a big thing of them. I'm gonna try to make jam out of this. The visual inspection—this one passes, there's no bad ones. Oh, there's one bad one in there. Cherries get a lot of fungus on them. Never pick the first one—always go for the second or the third one. These are rules to live by. Always check expiration dates as well. I always check the labels to see if it has butter or margarine. Japan is a pretty healthy place, but they use a lot of margarine in everything. You have to check.

00:15:01 John Daub: I saw at 7-Eleven, the bread made by the convenience store is better than the ones made by the brands because if you check the ingredients on the back, it says butter with margarine in the brands, and then the 7-Eleven one only uses butter. You have to manually inspect that to get the ingredients. Just because it's Japan doesn't mean it's healthier—you have to read the labels even here. Mushrooms—Japan is like the kingdom of mushrooms. There's shiitake from Niigata Prefecture. I don't like pre-cut vegetables.

00:16:02 John Daub: Thank you very much, Mr. Urka Gage 68, I appreciate that. I'm gonna use the super chat for lunch—I'm serious. The line to get the pizza is so long, and it's just about 12 o'clock. It will take me about an hour to get a slice of pizza in line. Everybody and their mother is waiting in the line here at Costco. I have to go through the booze area. Thank you, Jim. It's still early—I have a rule, I don't drink any alcohol before 5 p.m., and then I break that rule. But it's summer and so hot—I could use a drink of anything right now. Water would be perfect.

00:17:05 John Daub: Costco has a pretty good collection of wines that they don't have in any of the other Japanese stores. Chia seeds—what do you use this for? I find stuff that we just don't have in Japan in the other stores. I've never seen kinoa—from Andean farmers to your table. What is it? How do you cook it? These are stuff that I think normal everyday Japanese don't have any idea about. They're here in the store and that's why no one's buying anything—they don't know what it is. In Japan, half the food is a superfood.

00:18:20 John Daub: Alright, where's the cheese? Who cut the cheese? Cheese is usually very expensive in Japan. Yeah, you're coming with me—Kitty cheese. There's Philadelphia cream cheese here, which is a new brand in Japan—they didn't have this a few years ago. This is the Japanese brand called Kitty, and I'm looking for the human-sized version of it. Ah, the bakery—this is a dangerous area. The bakery is so dangerous.

00:19:33 John Daub: They have natto flex? Buttery spread—that sounds really chemical. Usually the Kitty cheese is here. Here's butter—wow, that's pretty cheap. Ah, here it is! Boom! It's so much cheaper here. I'm gonna get two of them—you know what, I'll just get one. Okay, Gupta, GK Gupta, it's been purchased. I don't know if I'm allowed to film in Costco—I didn't ask anybody, just try to be careful. This is like a museum to me. It's such a different style of shopping compared to anywhere else in Japan—it's a museum of food.

00:20:53 John Daub: We don't get Haagen-Dazs in this size—this is only in America. We never get Haagen-Dazs in pint size like this. Whoa, Ben & Jerry's—what are you doing here? No, I want you but you'll never survive the train ride home. Swiss Miss, why? Let's go to the bakery. Usually there's a cake that I want that I don't buy because it's too big. I'm limited to what I can take on a train. Oh, Hawaiian chips, Lay's—I haven't seen that since I was in the U.S. These are all brands that don't make it to the Japanese supermarkets. Doritos does, but Lay's doesn't. And right now there's a potato shortage in Japan, so this is actually a pretty good buy—this bag is about nine dollars.

00:22:16 John Daub: Pancakes. Oh my god. Bakery. These look so good—I just want to open it up and shove it in my mouth. I'm so hungry. Whoa, free food—no way, cake. Oishisou (looks delicious). Caramel flan—amai deshou ne? (it's sweet, right?). Tsuyokute amai deshou (strong and sweet, right?). Alright, stay here, cart—I'm getting some free cake. This is an apple tart. Please take three—yes, please. Oh, I'm sorry, please line up. Thank you for waiting—here's your cookie.

00:24:00 John Daub: Look at the apples in this—this is awesome. Alright, let's try this thing. That's coming with me—oh, this is mine, I just ate it. It's not too sweet, it's good. Wow, that's pretty cheap—it's like $7 for that whole thing. But it's really big. Things are so big here at Costco—it doesn't fit on trains. You have to come here with a car. I came here on the train, there's no way. This is never gonna fit in my backpack. How do I get that home? No way—I gotta take this home. Oh my god, look at that—can one person eat this? Gonna have to have a party. This is about $14 US. I can't carry it—there's no way.

00:25:45 John Daub: And this caramel flan looks so good too, but there's no way I can take this home. That flan—you don't even have to chew it, it just slides down your throat, I bet. Costco Japan always has these bread rolls that they make fresh—I'm not a fan of the bread rolls, I have a home bakery. Again, you have to read the labels. But in general, Costco is pretty good with bringing in organic products. And then there's the tiramisu—they always have this though. I never eat the whole thing—tiramisu, it's impossible. I need a family, I need roommates or something—there's no way.

00:26:42 John Daub: Alright, let me take you to some other aisles. There are some unique things here at Costco Japan that you can't find anywhere else. Like for example, one of my friends has a product that he sells here. This is so good too—the apple bacon. You know the apple bacon? It's $1.50 per 100 grams. Where's my friend's stuff? His company is called White Smoke—my friend Craig White. He makes smoked bacon—I used to go to his restaurant all the time. I don't see it here, which is a shame—probably sold out, it's pretty popular. I don't think you get this in the United States—the White Smoke product. He smokes it all here in Japan.

00:28:49 John Daub: So this is the spice aisle. I'm pretty sure you don't get this in Costco—this is katsuobushi (dried bonito flakes), the flakes that you see on the top of takoyaki (octopus balls) and okonomiyaki (savory pancakes). Here's niboshi (dried small sardines) that you would put in soup. The stuff you could put in miso soup (soybean paste soup)—this is a massive size. Usually they're in little envelopes. And then here's miso—really heavy, this is about $7.50. The only way you can make this work is if you have a family. For a lot of these products, I come here for coffee, which I drink too much of, and for maple syrup, which I use too much of because I like pancakes.

00:30:09 John Daub: And for pancakes, which they have here—these buttermilk pancakes are pretty good. But it's always better to make it from scratch. But if you can't, then this pancake mix is pretty good. Whoa, triple brownies—can I fit you in my backpack? No, you are going to have to stay here. I totally want to go back and get those brownies—I should take a taxi home. Here's original gourmet barbecue sauce or tare (sauce) for yakiniku (grilled meat). You use this with beef—I don't need this much though.

00:31:56 John Daub: Alright everybody, mayonnaise. There's two kinds of mayonnaise. The first one is not popular here—the American mayonnaise. And then there's the Japanese mayonnaise, which is so much better. But it's so big—you can get a smaller size at the supermarket just as cheap. So there's no reason to buy a massive restaurant-size mayonnaise. But it's interesting to illustrate the difference between the Japanese mayonnaise and the American. My lap is already full buddy—I got a lot of stuff already. That's why I might go back and get the apple—I'm prioritizing things that I can carry.

00:33:24 John Daub: So here's an aisle that you won't have in the United States—this is the rice aisle. Rice is nice, and so is the price. This is 20 kilograms, which is really really big. Normally I would buy bags of 5 kilograms—they're about 2000 yen, 15 dollars. So this is 20 kilograms for about 40 dollars—a huge savings if you have a family. This is from Tochigi—Tochigi Koshi Hikari (rice variety). This is so cheap as well. In the supermarket most sizes are 5-kilogram bags of rice—at Costco they go to 20. And 20 kilograms is not going on the train with me—no way.

00:34:39 John Daub: And there are a lot of varieties of rice. I made a rice show about rice a couple of years ago, and I showed you that every single area of Japan has its own variety of rice. It's different based on the altitude, the weather, the temperature—each variety thrives in different locations. You can see it here in Costco—you have all these different kinds from different areas. Most of them are from Japan—this one is from Akita Prefecture, Akita Komachi, which I really like. 10 kilograms is 3000 yen, actually on par with the supermarket, just slightly cheaper. This is Miyagi Hitomebore (love at first sight rice)—pretty good too. I think most of the rice is good in Japan. This is from Yamagata, Tsuyahime (rice variety).

00:36:21 John Daub: You have to be a really big professional of rice to differentiate the differences in taste—for me it's very hard. So I'm going now to the aisles that are most important to me: the coffee aisle, the syrup aisle, and the chocolate aisle. Instant ramen—you know, instant ramen and the price is reasonable, but you don't need to buy that here unless you're addicted to it like crack.

00:37:12 John Daub: Dried tomatoes. It's a coffee—hot coffee, be careful. Where is it from? It's a European blend of coffee—very easy to drink, kind of bitter. Like me today. I feel like the captain of a ship going out to sea, see the storm brewing—not much hope for me, just go for it. You know it's not going to be a happy ending. You drink a cup of bitter coffee.

00:38:42 John Daub: Whoa, that's something I don't see everyday—peanut butter. We don't have a lot of peanut butter here in Japan, and this is extra crunchy, which means it's extra good. But Skippy puts a lot of stuff in their peanut butter—if you read the labels, they write it in foreign languages so you can't even know what's inside. Truffle spread? No thank you. Yeah, I'm double-thinking that truffle spread though—might not be as bad as I'm laughing at it now.

00:39:48 John Daub: So here's the coffee I always get—oh I love the Rwandan coffee. There's something about coffee from Rwanda. So I'm going to go get coffee with the people of Rwanda. I know it's a beautiful country because I was in Kenya and Tanzania nearby once. I think I'm taking her with me—I love coffee from this area. I'm going to get another bag because right now I'm editing a lot of videos, I'm home a lot, so I need a lot of coffee. These are all the Kirkland ones—they're all roasted by Starbucks. The price is good—this is about $15 for close to 1 kilogram of coffee. You can buy this on Amazon, but it's about $5 more expensive.

00:41:21 John Daub: Sometimes they have really interesting coffee like this—I like the Guatemala one as well. They had ones from Sumatra, Indonesia. The Rwandan one is about $20. So this is the candy aisle—bubble gum, America's original. I've seen this as a kid. Then there's the Japanese gum from Lotte. Mini Cola—these are little bottles of variety ramune (soda with marble stopper), a traditional summertime drink. Chew and Reel—organic. Some of this stuff looks really good. And then some of them doesn't. This is umeboshi (pickled plums), a sour plum—hachimitsu umeboshi (honey pickled plums). This one has shiso (herb). These are sweet umeboshi.

00:44:41 John Daub: The lines are pretty reasonable—this is a Sunday afternoon in Makuhari. There are a lot of people, but in about an hour this is going to be a madhouse. The line for the food is going to be incredibly long because it's now lunchtime. Marshmallows—they have marshmallows in Japan but they're always so small, and these things are massive. Alfred's cookies—these are the best cookies in Japan because they're addictive as heck. You see how the chocolate overhangs the cookie? You take little bites and bite off all the chocolate around the cookie and then eat the cookie—extremely addictive. In about 10 minutes the whole box is done. Here's some Japanese animal cookies—they look pretty good. I don't see the chocolate pretzels that I really like.

00:46:31 John Daub: I have not drank Coca-Cola in over two years, and I'm looking at the cola cans now—I haven't had cola in two years. I think the colas are what make you fat—even the diet ones aren't very good. Even juice isn't very good—I just drink a lot of water, carbonated water. I found that when it came to cola, I didn't really like the sweetness of it—I just wanted the bubbles. And you can get that without any calories just drinking club soda or seltzer water and put a little lemon juice in it—pretty good.

00:47:21 John Daub: There's not much more I need here. I think I'm gonna go back for the brownies and for that apple cake. I think I have enough fruits—I got coffee. Syrup! I gotta get the maple syrup because this is the best place for cost performance for maple syrup. I dump the syrup on my pancakes—I eat more syrup than I really need. This is furikake (rice seasoning)—what you put on rice to give it some flavor if you don't have something else. And this size is huge—usually it's a little envelope, that's a jar!

00:48:50 John Daub: Fruit snacks! I'm gonna go over to the Nutella because I promised Leo I would do that. Now, there is this thing in the news that Nutella's palm oil caused cancer, so a lot of people started taking it off the shelves here. Okay, here's the Nutella—so Leo, this is what we have for you buddy. It's a little bit over $7, and you get a size this big. This is about $15 for this. Oh yeah, you are coming with me—this is about $14, and you get almost one liter of syrup. It says pure—100% pure maple syrup, that's the only ingredient, so that has to be good, right? You're coming with me.

00:50:35 John Daub: I would get the Nutella but I'm still not sure if it's good for you—and I know it's not. There's bad good for you and then there's good good for you, and Nutella seems like the bad bad for you. I think everything processed is probably going to kill you. Now I'm very very sad about this—Perrier, and I drink this because it's better than Coca-Cola. This case is just a little bit over $10, but I can't take this on the train—I have to put this on my back. I can get this on Amazon for $6 more and it might be worth it because I don't want to carry it. Car, I need a car.

00:52:06 John Daub: Alright, I'm going to take one more swing back to pick up that pie—I think I can take a cake with me. Coffee, fruits, syrup, limes. So I'm going to go back for that cake, and I might have room for a bottle of wine. Back to the olive tree—I so want that brownie. Brownies, why do you have to be so big? And they don't have the smaller sized ones in the supermarkets either—you have to buy the big one or nothing. French wine—I'm going to like this. Bangolassi—I've tried this before and I liked it, but I could never eat both of these—they would always expire before I could eat it all. This is honey butter.

00:54:21 John Daub: Alright, I'm going for that cake. This bakery aisle is always the most crowded. Looks like Toby (crow)'s here. Toby, do you always renew your US license? Yeah, my driver's license—I had to go back to the United States last summer to renew it. But that doesn't mean anything because I can't use that to drive here as a resident of Japan. You need a Japanese driver's license to drive—you can't use an international driver's license. But if you're a tourist, you can use an international driver's license to rent a car. I can't rent a car here unless I take a Japanese license, and I'm doing that as soon as I can this summer.

00:56:26 John Daub: All these people are waiting in line because she's grilling meat—she does not look like she's happy about her job. She's got a lot of hungry people just waiting for their meat. I'm going to leave the cart here—that's like a no-no at Costco, you can't leave your cart somewhere on a Sunday anyways. Everybody, I really want this though. The meat is good but this looks good too. So I just talked to the lady and she freaked out. We meet again—you look so good with your very delicately grilled apples. It's not my birthday but it could be—20 bucks. Life is a series of choices.

00:58:02 John Daub: Which cake? There's flan, there's this layered cream cake—which would probably kill me because I would try to eat it all today. And then there's that apple one. Alright, you know what? I'm just gonna go for the apple. So I asked the baker which one is the most delicious one—like I guess no one asked that question. Because she said that this one is because it has good color to it. So sometimes if you ask you might get the best one. I'm getting this apple cake. I wanted to get that strawberry one but I could see a lot of things going wrong with that considering it's 100 degrees Fahrenheit outside, which is like 30 or 40 degrees Celsius today. I don't see that cream making it back with me—it takes me about 40 minutes to get to Costco from my house.

00:59:30 John Daub: Ikea is easy, but I have to switch trains three times to get here—it's not really easy. And that is a really nice looking whiskey—so that's a 40-year whiskey, reasonably priced for $700. 24-year blended scotch for $100—that's actually not bad. But it is for me today. I'm gonna have to come back. So basically what I'm doing is getting things that are necessities, and I'll have to come back with somebody who has a car. So if you have a car in Japan and you wanna go to Costco, give me a call—cause I could totally use you. I would just use you for your car, and then maybe I'd buy you a slice of pizza.

01:01:03 John Daub: There's a lot of international families also come here—maybe because there's an international choice of foods. I have cherries, limes, apple cake, coffee, syrup—that's pretty much all that I wanted to get today. I'm pretty cool with that. So I'm going to end this live stream cause I'm going around in a circle now. That's Costco Japan—pretty much like the US. It's stocked with stuff, not as much—there's a lot of things that are different. There's seaweed—you're definitely gonna have that stuff here. Thanks for joining me on this live stream. I'm going to go to the food court, but it's gonna take me a while to pay and waiting in line. I might suspend the feed and turn it back on in about 20 minutes—it'll probably continue with the live stream. I probably should give you the complete Costco Japan experience, and that ends at the food court. Thanks for joining everybody.