00:00:02 John Daub: Hello everybody, greetings from Aogashima. This is 1,000 kilometers away from the center of Tokyo and yet this is Tokyo. I'm streaming now from the Only in Japan Go channel. I've had some problems getting a live signal—a lot of problems—but the best I can do is keep trying. Without a way to communicate with a lot of you who are waiting for the live feed. But anyways, here I am. You can see I'm sort of at elevation, so the signal might not be so great. But if you look between these two mountains—this hill and this house—that's the Pacific Ocean.

00:00:50 John Daub: Population 200 on this island, and I'm in the center of it, which is why I have any signal. But I do apologize that the signal is very very bad. It's a rare live feed from one of Tokyo's islands—very very far away from the city center, over a thousand kilometers. The fact that I have any signal is sort of amazing actually. Right there is a cell tower, so I'm figuring I'm gonna get the strongest signal by being close to it. I did try to start a live stream about five minutes ago, and it failed. So I'm sorry about having to cancel that and I'm not even sure how far I can move away from this area. But I'm on an island in the middle of the ocean a thousand kilometers away, and I thought that was pretty cool just to even start a live stream. We do have 200 residents here and a cat—so instant friends right there.

00:01:58 John Daub: Really nothing much here except for nature. One interesting point with Aogashima is that it's famous for having a mountain inside of a mountain. If you go to Instagram, I'll show you—I'm gonna put a picture on this—but inside this mountain there's this little mountain inside of it which is really unique and it gives it this sort of Jurassic Park look to it, especially if you're looking down on it from the sky. I'm gonna be flying the drone tomorrow and since I'm here all week I'm gonna be flying the drone until I get that perfect shot looking down at this island where you get this feel like this is some sort of tropical paradise. On the island itself though it's pretty quiet—I mean there could be dinosaurs here but I just haven't found any yet.

00:02:47 John Daub: Now I'm staying at a yado (inn) or like an inn on the other side—it's pretty basic—but to get to this side I have to go down and then come back up which is pretty crazy. I've been going down and up that road just to try to get this signal and I guess I'm at the highest spot that allows me to get a signal. It's funny though because it says that I have Softbank 4G LTE signal but this is not LTE quality. The place that I'm staying at again it's four thousand yen a night—it's basically a room, ne futon (laying futon) on the floor—but it's a family-run and they're very friendly. I had a conversation so my—I brought the boots that I had from hitchhiking and the bottoms of the boots fell off again. I should have thrown those things away but the owner of the yado, the inn, she gave me glue so I'm trying to fix up the boots one more time. This is the last trip for those boots—they fell apart when I was at the Amami Islands in Honshu during the hitchhiking trip and now they're falling apart again here on this deserted island. Guess what—there's no store to buy another pair of shoes. Luckily I brought my backup shoes and I'm glad that I brought them.

00:04:14 John Daub: Hey Jim, thanks for the super chat—you're hitting me up in the middle of the Pacific, Aogashima—thanks for giving us a video even in the signal's like good. You're very welcome—that's Jim in Tacoma, Washington. Let's see if I can give you a quick look—you got a good look at the blue sky. There's my shoe situation. I don't think looking stylish is very important to the people on the island. So I'm going to go with it because that's all I have—and a pair of flip flops. I want to take you around here. I'm just afraid once I leave this area the signal is going to cut off. So if we lose the signal and this stream ends, I apologize in advance because I am a thousand kilometers away from central Tokyo. It takes about a 70-minute flight from Haneda to Hachijojima, and then from Hachijojima I have to take a helicopter for 20 minutes this morning, which I took to get here. Or you could take a 12-hour boat and then another three-hour boat—there's no direct transportation here. So it's 15 hours by boat to get here, or it's like two hours by helicopter and flight. And that's how I came.

00:05:54 John Daub: There's so much I want to tell you, it's crazy. I arrived this morning at around 9:30 a.m. and I called in advance to make a reservation at this yado, the inn. And she met me with her car. Also the head of the tourism agency who I met in Tokyo to set up this trip—he also met me at the heliport. So when the helicopter landed, there must have been about 20% of the population of the island was there waving at the helicopter when it came in. And it was pretty cool. I was videoing it with my iPhone 7 Plus, the other phone that I have. You can see just how welcoming this place is—it's like they're seeing people coming for the first time. So it was such a welcoming thing to see. And she picked me up in her car. We drove about 100 meters, which is like one football field, and she drove to her house where there's about 10 rooms in there. So it's actually quite full.

00:07:08 John Daub: There's also one izakaya (pub), which happens to be right there—this building is also an izakaya. That's where I'm going tonight for some drinks. You think that this island's gonna be a real party island, right? I don't think so. But the people I think are really friendly. So it's gonna be a good chance to get to know everybody—everybody knows everybody. I was sort of hitchhiking—I was just walking down there and if anybody would stop for me, I was gonna take a ride. And the lady who picked me up to take me to the hotel, the owner of the inn, she picked me up and she said, do you wanna go to the port? And I said, sure, I'll go to the port. So she drove me—it takes about an hour to hike from here to the port. You have to go down the mountain into the valley and then up through a tunnel to get to the port because it's the side of the island where the water is not so rough that it can make a landing. The water here is very rough. There's no beach on this island, by the way. I sort of hitched a ride with her all the way there and I helped her throw her trash away—there's a trash zone. And then we came back around and she dropped me off on the top of the mountain where I got some spectacular views of the Pacific Ocean and the island.

00:08:28 John Daub: I have my drone in my backpack, so I'm gonna start flying that thing around. The wind is pretty good for drone flight right now. I'm gonna wait until there's no wind whatsoever and take the drone really far out and get this awesome satellite-looking view of the island—maybe tomorrow. It is hot. Right now it's starting to cool down. It's a lot cooler than central Tokyo, but I'd say with the sun beating down I'm wearing this hat—it's not enough. I got sunburned yesterday on Hachijojima. A sunburn is as much of a sunburn as a guy who's half Indian can get because I get pretty dark in the summer. But yeah, it is really hot. I got the sweat patterns on my shirt like normal. The island wind is pretty nice.

00:09:29 John Daub: The reason why I'm waiting here also—you see this shop? That shop right there? This is the only shop that sells bread. And this here is the only other shop on the island. I forgot my toothbrush at the camp location on Hachijojima and I have to get another toothbrush—I can do that here, I think. But the owner of the inn told me to wait here around between 3 and 5 p.m.—the boat comes from Hachijojima, the far island. It comes three hours to here. There's a bakery on the other island—there's no bakery here. And apparently the bakery on the other island ships the bread on the boat. And they bring it to that little shop there. And then they line up the bread—it's like sweet breads. They have all sorts of breads like croissants and bread with chocolate in it, and bread with cream cheese on top of it—like a bakery. And then all of the locals, when they get off work at 5 p.m., they come to the bakery and they just take whatever they want until it's all gone. So I gotta get there really early. And of course I'm gonna get there early because I don't have a job like everybody else—I can come here anytime I want and get it. And right now it's empty, so I guess the boat hasn't come in yet. That's one reason why I'm here—to get a toothbrush and to wait for the bakery. So I'm kind of excited about that. So Jim, I'm gonna be using your Super Chat to buy bakery goods today. And if they come in, I can show you some of the stuff.

00:11:13 John Daub: Sorry about the wind—this is the iPhone 6 Plus. It's not gonna have such great wind cancellation as the iPhone 7. This is the bakery here—it's still empty. And they say there's takoyaki in here, but there's only takoyaki every Wednesday. Today's Friday—there's no takoyaki today. Only takoyaki once a week. This is crazy. And this is the store. I'm gonna go take you to where you can see the sea right now. I don't know if the signal is gonna die or not, but let's just hope that it can stay on as long as possible. If the signal dies, I apologize in advance. I hope they have a toothbrush—or else I'm gonna be finger brushing for the next week. I don't even have toothpaste—I figure someone will loan it to me.

00:12:43 John Daub: You can take a look at the island for as long as the signal will hold out. You don't need to look at my mug. This is what it's like—it's not that exciting. But one thing that might be pretty cool is you see this here—because this is Tokyo, they have proper signs. Everything is set up like it would be in a normal city. There's a fire extinguisher, a fire hydrant. And then there's a sign: Aogashima Hondo (Aogashima main avenue). This is the main street, folks—watch out for the traffic. Haha, rush hour.

00:13:39 John Daub: This is pretty much the main intersection here as well. You can come this way or go down this street. And if you go down here, this is a shortcut, but it's not a shortcut—they trick you. This road, you have to go down to go up. You literally go down and then you come up to get to the other side. It's a shortcut, but it's not a shortcut—it's like one of those you know, I'm going to trick you kind of roads. So on the Google Maps, it looks like it's an easy way around—there's nothing easy about that road. I don't even want to go back to the hotel because I got to go up and down that road again.

00:14:35 John Daub: The heliport is over there where I came in—this is the center. It's so quiet. That's the gasoline stand right there—one gasoline stand. That's where everyone gets their gas—one place. And let me take you to something else before the feed cuts—and then maybe I can get a view of the ocean. It really is beautiful to see the Pacific. The town is situated about 200 meters up on the ledge of the mountain. I don't even know why they have a traffic light—what traffic light for? Why just 200 people? There's probably 100 cars. There's a traffic light—what do you need a traffic light here for? This is insanity. It's always blue—except for when you push the button and then it stops and turns red. Then you can cross the street. But I'm walking in the middle of the street, so it doesn't really make a lot of sense. Michael, thank you so much for that super chat—I appreciate it. That's going towards my bread binge later today as well.

00:16:24 John Daub: There's one elementary school up here and I guess you have to go to the city of Tokyo like Shinagawa for high school. But here is the pool for elementary school kids—I can't go in, I'd love to right now. But well, there's a bulldozer coming—that's your traffic. So here's the ocean—that way is Hachijojima. The helicopter came in this way and landed right here into the valley. Yeah, it's nice to be up here—we're about 200 meters up. So you get a very beautiful view of the sea. It makes me laugh because it says here don't walk—it's a red don't walk sign. And the only—there's no traffic. Well, there is now. You know, it's funny when I talk about that, that's when cars start coming.

00:18:03 John Daub: I think it's almost rude—it says oh stay aside, please push. OK, you have to wait for it—wait for it. OK, now I can walk—I don't want to break the law. You better hurry up—oh, it's already red again. I swear in the last five minutes I've been walking for like a minute—there's been like five cars. It's just funny that there's a traffic light here in a population of 160. OK, so this is a map of Aogashima. I'll put later on a Google link to the Google Maps. We can see where we are—Aogashima is in the Pacific. Again, this is all part of Tokyo—to the area of Tokyo, the city of Tokyo. And Aogashima Mura (Aogashima village)—this is the town of Aogashima. Aogashima is part of Tokyo-to (Tokyo Metropolis), so the mayor of Tokyo is the governor of this island, which is pretty cool—that'd be Koike-san. Koike-san is the new governor—she was elected last year in a landslide.

00:19:27 John Daub: Here's the town—it's not big at all. The fact that I can live stream anything to you right now is extremely impressive. Just like Tokyo, anywhere else in Tokyo, they're going to have a map. So if this was any other country, I don't think we'd have such organization, like a traffic light and stuff like this. There's an elderly welfare center, there's a library, there's a police box—there's one police officer on the island. There's a nursery, a health center—there's one doctor. One doctor on the island—I think if you have a problem with your leg, they amputate first and ask questions later—not always, I'm just kidding. There's a clinic—I guess the same doctor runs both of these. There's ojare care [?]—I guess it's for the elderly. There's a park that's up the hill—I'm not going there. Then there's a shrine and there's a post office. And I walked past the post office and I think there's three people working at the post office, which is cool. And this is where I came in this morning, the helipad. And on the island, you have to go all the way off the map to go to the pier.

00:20:35 John Daub: The pier is where I might—depending on the weather—I might take the boat back to Hachijojima. But there's Aogashima—you can walk from here to here in about an hour. Here is—if you were watching the live stream in the beginning—this is the mountain within a mountain right here. So you see this is a big, big mountain around it—it looks like a wall. And inside is another mountain jutting out of the center. It's pretty cool—it looks like a core. And the shape of this mountain is pretty cool, too. If you go to the Instagram, I'm going to upload a picture today so you can take a look at what the mountain in the mountain looks like. Aogashima—this is pretty kick-ass island, I have to tell you.

00:21:32 John Daub: I came from Hachijojima yesterday. Hachijojima, which is the island I was on before, is way way way more built up than here. They have an airport, they have lots of restaurants, they have tons and tons of infrastructure. I was really impressed with Hachijojima—it's extremely well built up. They don't have any chain shops, but apart from that, it's a well-established island. Aogashima is the opposite—and I love that. I love this because it's very manageable. I think after a couple of days here, I'm going to get to know everybody or at least they'll know who I am because I was walking up the hill and I could hear the guy say, oh, it's a foreigner who came from Tokyo, right? And they're laughing about it. I don't think they see too many foreign tourists here. The helicopter ride, if you don't know about it, the helicopter ride is 20 minutes—it's subsidized by the government of Tokyo. It's considered like public transportation. So it costs about $100 for a 20-minute helicopter ride which is a bargain.

00:23:11 John Daub: This is looking towards California—that's east. There really isn't much of anything here. So this is the center—if you're looking on Google Maps, this is where the car rental shop is. I was looking at the Google Maps and I saw that there's only three things listed on the Google Maps. In fact, Google Maps Street View has not come here. So I wanted to get the Google camera—you can hike and do the street views, but you have to reserve it three months in advance. And I can't help Google out with the street views here, which would have been pretty cool. But if you're looking at the Google Maps of Aogashima, I am now standing here—I'm standing just about where the car rental and the gasoline stand are. The car rental agency—the heliport is just over here. That's it—that's all of the town. There's a business hotel, there's an izakaya that I'm going to tonight, there's one shop, there's a town hall with a lot of business people in it. I almost walked in—I was about to open the door. I looked in like whoa—it's just filled with people in white shirts, button-down white shirts, like typing onto the thing. I'm like, I don't know why I'm going in here—I shut the door and I ran away.

00:25:06 John Daub: Up there, one more time, is the elementary school—up on the hill. Aogashima Mura Shogakko (Aogashima Town Elementary School)—it looks a really nice looking elementary and junior high school. And because we're on elevation, you can see the clouds going by. Yeah, it's telling me that the connection is poor—I am aware, I apologize for that. Tobidashi ichimawari (be careful, don't speed around corners)—and you can see the mirror, there I am.

00:26:07 John Daub: I don't know if I made a 30-minute feed out of this. I haven't been in touch recently—I did a drone cast two days ago and I wanted to do something from Aogashima. I'm going to be here for the next at least six days. I tried to upload a video onto the main channel, but had problems with the connection. And I didn't have a chance to upload a video on Edamame. So I'm going to make a message tomorrow for the people on the main channel. There's no bread—not yet, you gotta wait for it. This is where the booze is—they're moving drinks, I think. Oh, beer—they got beer here.

00:27:01 John Daub: All right, folks, I'm going to end the live stream—27 minutes of me talking is more than enough, I think. I just wanted to give you an update. And I haven't been in touch that much recently—I've been on location shoots like crazy. This is where I started—I'm back. So I've been on so many location shoots recently—I haven't gotten a chance to really talk to a lot of you or take questions. I'll try to do an Instagram video, live video as well, and maybe a live stream from the hotel—they have Wi-Fi, but it's a little bit slow. And the video I'm making for this island is going to be really good—that's going to be broadcasted on the main channel. I have my drone, I have all my camera gear here. And nobody on YouTube has done a video on this island that was really in-depth, and that's what I want to try to do. And the only reason I'm here is because of a site called Patreon—P-A-T-R-E-O-N.com. I started that a few months ago and there's about 160 people that give money to help out the channel, help me out. And I use that money to come here—it's not cheap, it takes a lot of money, it takes a lot of time. I can't do other stuff when I'm out here. And I think that's really cool—I'm using that money to fund this trip. So I'm spreading that money around as much as possible—I'm going to be eating at lots of places, using the services here, maybe buying a toothbrush in that store.

00:28:48 John Daub: And if you're a patron from the Patreon, I also send something like a gift to you once a month—which is cool, something from Japan, usually food. Looks like it might start to rain—the weather on the island is very weird. Hey, that's a truck. Oh, and the owner of the yado is going to let me film at the bokujo (cattle ranch), which is where all the cows are. So get to meet some of the island cows, which is cool. Again, I think that the island could probably survive without having boats and stuff coming in here—they have just about everything. They have potatoes, vegetables, meat, electricity. I think they're getting the electricity though coming in from Tokyo—so it's not like nuclear power. They don't have solar or wind here yet. So I think they still get like coal or something sent in to produce the power. But even that's going to be changing—they're going to be self-sufficient soon, which is really cool. That's another reason to visit this island, I think—or any of the Tokyo islands. It's just absolutely beautiful.

00:30:18 John Daub: He's got bread! He's got bread! Where'd he get the bread? I think he got it at a store—I've been looking at the wrong store the whole time. Bread alert! Heck yeah! Oh my gosh, I gotta go get the bread. It's in that store—I thought it was in this store, but no, it's in this store. And this truck—that truck driver came for the bread! Oh man, I had it wrong the whole time. So I'm going to go get some bread. Thank you Jim and thank you Michael for the Super Chats—I'm going to be using that for bread. Because I'm going to be here for a week, I have to ask permission before filming there. But I haven't asked permission yet, so I can't film inside the bread shop. But if I can get permission and I get a chance to livestream again, look for Tokyo Island Bakery on one of the future livestreams. And maybe I can show you some of the stuff that they import from the island three hours away to bring in here. Wow, that car's pulling in too to get bread—I better get the bread. Alright, anyways, I'm going to leave you the last couple seconds to look at the bread bakery place while I go and collect my thoughts to run and get the bread. Thanks for visiting this live stream from an island 1,000 kilometers away with big trucks, lots of wind. Have a nice day everybody.