00:00:02 John Daub: Good morning everybody. I'm in Daisenmachi. This is Mount Daisen. To me, I like to think of it as one of the trendier mountain towns in Japan. See behind me, this is where the street starts. There's a tourist information center right here and you can get here by bus. A bunch of buses come in here. The reason a lot of people come is to start their hiking trips. See a lot of people getting ready to hike through the autumn foliage to the top of Mount Daisen. It's really beautiful and we've got a perfect day today.

00:00:39 John Daub: But I thought before I go back to Tokyo today, I'd take you on a short trip around this town and take you up the street and show you a really cool coffee shop that I found called Inakaya, just a couple hundred meters up there. Once again, this is the tourist information center and they've got a bunch of stuff in here that will help you. You can also rent bicycles from here. I thought that was pretty cool. There's a lot of stuff that you can do. There's Otsuka-san again. Good morning. He's gonna be following us. Up above is also a really trendy cafe. I guess I could take you in there for a second. Hold on. This is fun. Yeah, this place is really trendy too. You can see quickly inside the Sunset Cafe. All you can see right now is the glare but there's gonna... Oh, it's closed right now. Oh, that's too bad.

00:01:39 John Daub: So let's go up the street. I want to show you some of the autumn colors and take you into a really cool tatami cafe. Yeah, we're gonna have some coffee in a really beautiful place today that has a history. I like that. Whenever a place has a history, you can see this is the best time of year to be here too. The weather's not too hot. All that humidity from the summer, gone. Behind me you can see Yonago City and Miho Bay. We're at elevation right now. What a stunning view. If I zoom in you can see down there the bay and the city. So we're quite high up already. That's what makes this a mountain town.

00:02:25 John Daub: Now the ski slope, there are ski slopes all around here. What makes this place pretty cool for skiing is that as you're coming down the slope—now I haven't skied here, but this is what everyone told me—as you're coming down the slope, you're looking straight into the sea because the mountain is so close to the sea. It kind of is one of those only in this area type of thing. But I love this street. Every building has a history. Every building is really old, made of wood.

00:02:59 John Daub: Alright, here's the cafe. So this is where I'm gonna show you, but I'm gonna take you up the street for a second. Look at the colors there. It's beautiful. And this cafe, it's got such a really long history. I'm just gonna take you up the street a little bit to show you a little bit more of this town. Now this street goes up to Daisenji (main shrine here). And I'm gonna highlight that in another Only in Japan video. Now Daisen is celebrating its 1,300th anniversary next year. So you're gonna see a lot of news, maybe some coverage about this area. It's kind of exciting because I started coming here when I rode the Sunrise Izumo train. A lot of you watching this show know about the Sunrise Izumo train. It's the last night train in Japan. And it stops in this area. And that's when I discovered this place.

00:03:59 John Daub: Even the post office is pretty scenic. That's the post office. There's some construction going on for the festivals in the summertime. This is a... Wow, now you can see Mount Daisen. Yeah. This is an onsen (hot spring), right? Right behind me is an onsen that you can go into. They also make tofu. That's what the steam is coming out. There's the onsen mark, you see? This right there means onsen. And this is free. This is a public foot bath. Now there must have been hundreds of people's feet in here, but there's always new water circulating. So it's not that bad.

00:05:02 John Daub: I'm actually going back to Tokyo today. I don't have a lot of time, so I'm rushing a little bit. But just bear with me because I really do think this town—four years ago when I first came here and now has gotten so much traction. It's getting more and more trendy. The shops are new. There's more stores coming in. There's construction. Dark wood. Really quiet cafes. Smokey atmosphere. People have fireplaces. Not smokey tobacco, but smokey like... you know, mountain stuff. It's pretty cool.

00:05:41 John Daub: So I'm going to take you to this coffee shop. Now this coffee shop has a really long history. I'll explain it to you when we get there. It's just down the street here. Here you can see the steam coming out of the vents here. Does anyone know what this place is? They're making tofu. So I introduced tofu before. This also is an onsen, a bath, but they also make tofu. So what I smell right now is tofu. It smells like tofu. All the ingredients in this area are fresh. I thought it was a good idea to show you guys. I think if you've been watching the livestreams for the last couple of weeks, you'll know that there's a lot of vegetables here. A lot of farms. All of the produce here is organic, fresh. I don't want to say organic, but it seems organic.

00:06:42 John Daub: There's a lot of chemicals. I spent some time on the farm with a 106-year-old farmer named Tomiko. She was born in the Meiji era. I'm doing an episode about this on the main Only in Japan channel. She's been farming for her entire life. So healthy. 106 years old and geeky. If you go to my Instagram, you'll be able to see a picture. I just posted it yesterday. Here we are. This is the coffee shop that I wanted to take you into.

00:07:17 John Daub: Thanks guys for the super chats. I'll read them inside the cafe. I appreciate that. This is coffee written in kanji. Usually it's written in English. But I don't know. I'm so excited. I'm so stoked to take you into this place. Because right now, this is the high season for the area. Look at the colors. Here's the sign. Inakaya (country house). Thank goodness Otsuka-san is here. See all the fall foliage is starting to fall to the ground. And it gives you that smell of autumn.

00:08:03 John Daub: It's in here. I'm just going to pan to the left here. Take a look at that. It's like a really quiet area in the woods. Something that's out of a movie almost. See the beautiful trees have turned colors. Spots of red and green and yellow. You can sit outside if you want and have a cup of coffee. But these really nice old windows. See now the cafe is open. All these really nice windows have bars there. You can sit and drink and sip coffee and eat Japanese snacks. It's really really quaint. Very very cozy inside. This place though has a history. It's actually a temple. This temple is quite old but the owner of it has turned it into a cafe and a marketplace. You can see some of the statues here of Buddhist statues here. We call it bukkyo (Buddhism) in Japanese. Beautiful.

00:09:07 John Daub: So we're going to go inside this temple coffee shop. Alright here we go. Inside very cozy. You have to put your shoes away. Sorry the gimbal is going crazy. Look at the beautiful bar that they have here. Sitting down getting a coffee. You're treated to a wonderful countryside view. Over here on this side there's also another bar. They also sell kaki (persimmons). Again these are persimmons. These are quite big ones.

00:10:21 John Daub: So let's take a look inside here. Here. This is the altar for the Buddhist temple. It's quiet in here. But this back room is really special. It has a fireplace. Again all these stuff here. I don't know if I mentioned it but you can buy it. There's a price tag on everything which is so cool. These vases. I think it's 3,000 yen. No wait. This is 5,000 yen. Yeah. But you can see here. There's a table and a fireplace. And lots of things. Lots of things for sale here. And the connection is getting bad inside that area. I'm going to come back out. I apologize that the connection is not so good. It is very quiet in here. A lot of stuff for sale. Antiques. Things that you probably can't find anywhere else.

00:11:32 John Daub: That's sort of a really amazing. Something that I really like about here. I love the design of the cups and the saucers for the cups. It's very Japanese. They even have clothes. It's beautiful. It's a yokai (supernatural creature). There's a yokai on a grandma bag. Isn't this place so cool. And I'm walking on tatami (straw mat flooring). There's a beautiful table here. There's some people just enjoying the wonderful countryside view. Very beautiful.

00:13:03 John Daub: Excuse me. Can I have a cup of coffee here? Oh, is that so? Yes, please. Okay. I asked for a coffee. Quick coffee. Look at. These are all handmade. 2,500 yen. 25 dollars. Very cute. You can hear the sound of the door opening. Everything is really. You can also take a magazine if you like. I'm going to stay at the entrance here. Oh, look. They got blankets if you get cold. It's not really cold. The heat in these old buildings don't really retain well because there's no insulation or anything like that. So it can get cold. Look at the colors of the trees outside the windows.

00:14:35 John Daub: So thanks for the super chats. I appreciate them. So Von asks, what's the most interesting thing that I've eaten on this trip? I would say maybe the tofu donuts were pretty good. There's a lot of really good food. Yesterday I ate Tottori Wagyu, which is like a Kuro Wagyu, the black cattle. It has the same kind of taste as Kobe beef, but it's not as good. I ordered a coffee. The atmosphere here is just so good.

00:15:20 John Daub: Is that the menu? Oh, what a taste. Sets. Coffee. And this. Coffee and this. That's what I ordered? Okay. Good. All right. So I came in here before I started filming just to see if it was okay. And I asked permission to film in here and I said, I'm going to come in and show the place and have a coffee. And I didn't really know what specifically to ask for. And Otsuka-san just showed me. Do they speak English? Sort of. I mean, enough that you can order a coffee. If you order a coffee and they have the menu that you just saw, it's just a coffee shop with one dish. Pretty much. You just point. I'll have that. And I came here with NHK staff when I was filming Journeys in Japan, an episode for Mount Daisen in June. I think it broadcasted in July, a couple of months ago. But in that episode, we didn't show this coffee shop.

00:16:44 John Daub: That's not on the menu. That's a burger. It looks good. I just got the coffee. I didn't know they had burgers. What kind of coffee shop is this place? Okay. So I ordered the coffee. Let me just take you around a little bit more. Here's the front door that we came in. I love it. It has that rattling sound of the wood and the glass when you open it up. It's just such, it's one of those sounds that, here, listen. I love that sound. Up here is the wood. All of it is old. Again, this used to be a temple, a Buddhist temple. There's the altar, and they've turned this place into a cafe. And you can see the tatami, which has got the tatami smell to it. It's really fresh. This is the type of, you know. I do like Starbucks, but when you find a place like this, it's like, Starbucks could never do anything like this. Until I saw the Kyoto one, which is in another episode. But this kind of place, a real temple, this is such a find.

00:18:35 John Daub: I found you. Too much longer now. Katneko, I wouldn't say it's like a Japanese cracker barrel. I'd say more a temple cafe. It's hard. You can't, and Florencia, I haven't been able to see the Super Chats too much, but I'm so happy for that. And coffee on me from Matt, thank you. And I saw there were some big ones in there. I'm going to go back and try to find them. I guess they disappear after a while. But, you know, if you do send me a Super Chat, at the end of each live stream, I will go back and copy and paste it. And put in your questions and answer them. So, definitely, I appreciate it because, man, it's nice to share this experience with you. And be able to bring you live content like this from, like, tatami coffee shops and stuff that. Like, that's so cool. I feel like I'm supposed to be whispering. And you can see Otsuka-san in deep concentration. He's so focused.

00:20:07 John Daub: Japanese omotenashi (hospitality). Oh, yeah. I didn't notice that. So, you have slippers. So, you always have warm and toasty feet. Nice and warm. Yeah. Lots of the little things. We call that, like, omotenashi. And it's a hard word to translate. It's like these little teeny things in service that makes you welcome. It's not just service in general. It's all the little things that we probably don't do in the West. All that encompasses omotenashi. This really amazing word. And you might have heard it if you've been seeing the internet. Japan's really pushing that word, omotenashi. But whenever you buy something, for example, you give them maybe a thousand yen and you get back change. They'll put their receipt underneath it. And then they put the change on top of the receipt. And then they give it to you in a way that they don't actually touch you. And because it's on the receipt, you just dump it into a coin purse or something. It's like this little teeny thing that they do when they give you the change. But it's part of that omotenashi. Just that little teeny service in every single aspect of what they do. That's what makes, to me, Japan really special. And why that word omotenashi, you don't notice it, but it's there. And things like a slipper. What cafe? Right? What cafe puts slippers on the ground for you to keep your feet warm in? And puts blankets out for people? Some cafes do that, but they really went to the next step and put slippers. And they're nice slippers, too.

00:22:01 John Daub: Ah, look at the, there's like a breeze going by. Look at that. Every time the wind blows, leaves start falling from the tree. Wow. Matcha (powdered green tea). Ah, you got matcha. Matcha. Green tea. Japanese tea. Yeah. That's good. That's green alright. Haha. I see. You should drink matcha. You drink coffee. This is a bit... This is matcha. Matcha is bitter. A little bitter. Sweet. Ah, bitter. Bitter. Yeah. Sweet. Matcha. So the matcha is bitter tasting? Yeah. But if you eat this with the cookies, it's sweet. Sweet. Right. Ah. So that's a, it balances the taste. It balances it. Nice taste. Good job. I like it. That's awesome.

00:23:09 John Daub: One thing for everyone watching, this is my last day in Tottori Prefecture in Daisen area. I wanted to come before I go to the airport to this area in particular because next year, which is just in a couple of months, they're going to start the celebrations for their 1,300th anniversary. I can't even wrap my head around how big that number is, but you can see the steps to the shrine. They built it 1,300 years ago with rocks. And it's still all here today. It's like, you know, going to Europe and seeing the castles, but man, things are in pretty good shape here. What I like about Daisen though, and this town is that it's, it used to be kind of old and run down. I'll be honest with you. It had that charm to it, but over the last couple of years, they've started to change. The shops on the street that I showed you early on, if you're just joining me, you'll be able to see it later on in the stream. That street leads up to the shrine to Daisenji. And then up there, you know, you can see a lot of the history. It's about a 15 minute walk up really big cobblestones. Yeah. I mean, they're big because they made it 1,300 years ago, but down on the base is this town, this really cute town.

00:24:24 John Daub: Ah, they put the coffee. It's not in a mug, but it's in a cup. Wow. You know, that's kind of cool because you feel the heat of it. It's not too hot, but you feel what you're eating. Oh, look at that lady. She's taking a picture. Got to get the right angle. Here's the coffee. Oh man, I need this. I've been up really early. I got up at six o'clock this morning. What is this? I ordered this earlier. Okay, here you go. Three, two, one. I like how they give you these spoons. Look at this. It's all wood. Whoa, what is this? Let's try this thing. It looks like potato. Sweet potato. Man, this is so good. Sweet potato. It's so good.

00:26:07 John Daub: You got to take off your shoes. All right, let's drink this coffee. I actually have to go to the airport. You don't have much time, do you? Yeah, and the shop's getting crowded. When we came, there was nobody here. That's why. They figured out the taste. The coffee, the matcha is more bitter than the coffee, so the sweets are sweeter. The sweet potato, it's not that sweet. It's just, I mean, there's a little bit of sugar on it, but it's not that sweet. It's naturally sweet. The coffee is naturally bitter, but not that bitter. Together, they're really balanced. Where the matcha is even more bitter, they balanced it out with even sweeter food. That's something that I didn't realize until now. Oh, it's so good. Look at the steam coming out of that. It's beautiful. So they've taken yakiimo (roasted sweet potato), satsumaimo (sweet potato), and they've made satsumaimo, right? Maybe satsumaimo. So good. I mean, just this place is worth coming to Daisen for. Just chill. They've got lots of really cute hotels and ryokans (traditional inns) around here as well, so you can definitely stay here. Ski season is also, they've got ski slopes. I'm coming back here in the summer too because they're doing the torch festival. If you watch the NHK. I'll put a link to the NHK. It's on video on demand. I'll put a link there and you can see what this place looks like in the summer because they did a pretty good job making that episode, I think, if I don't say so myself.

00:28:23 John Daub: Once again, the view, very, very nice. All right, if you have any questions about Mount Daisen or the area, I'm looking at the screen. I'm going to take the next couple of minutes, try to answer some of your questions. I see Peter here is bothering us. I'm going to take a look at the screen. I don't know if you can see this with the live stream. Peter and I have been talking. We might redo the YouTube. I don't know if they accidentally did it, but they deleted two of my videos. One of them was one that Peter and I did. We spent an hour making that thing. Right, Peter? Professor Adele. Thank you, John, for sharing all your experiences with the world. You bring such amazing content about Japan to us. Keep doing this for years to come. Oh, man. Professor Adele, thank you so much. I will absolutely keep making stuff for everybody to watch. I just released a video on Obama, Japan, which I thought was pretty unique. It's not a political video, but kind of highlighting the area. And next month, I'm going to be in Fukushima Prefecture driving in a car from ryokan to ryokan, to show you a more traditional side of Japan. A side of Fukushima besides, you know, all the problems that are going on that you've never seen before. And that's what I want to show you. Thank you so much for that. Tom Higgins, thank you so much.

00:29:51 John Daub: What does it smell like in the temple? Actually, it smells like coffee. But there are some incense. So it's temple-like smell. Some incense. It smells like tatami, some of the wood. Tatami, which is like a fresh hay. And then some light incense from the temple. So that's what I smell. I wonder how the coffee would be with some fresh soy milk that you had. I wonder too. That was really good. It's not Professor Adele. It's Brofessor Adele. Just want to correct cheesy popcorn. Digging the longer stays. Thanks, Tom. Yeah. You know, I think my kids and I are loving them. Yeah. I think when you live in a place, you can start to feel the atmosphere, get to know the people, build trust with people, and then you can get really great stories. Like if you've been following on Instagram, you'll see I just posted a picture of a 83-year-old Shinto priest. He owns a Porsche. Right? Porsche. He's 83 years old. He's Otsuka's friend. And I got to drive around in the Porsche with him, which was like a surreal experience to have an 83-year-old guy. But people in this area really live life. And that was good for me to see. That's one of the things why I came here to see why people live so long in Japan and why, especially in this area, people are quite happy.

00:31:31 John Daub: Arun Meng. I've recorded for the main channel. I've recorded two episodes that'll be coming out next month. The temple's pretty big. I'll take you outside if we have time to show you. It's over. It's gotten a little bit crowded, so. It's so good. It's super hot. Are you okay? Really? Sorry. Otsuka sounds awesome. Omotenashi. I'll get him something. We'll take care of him, okay? We're gonna take care of him. Take care of our friends, right? Take care of the people around you, right? That's the best way.

00:32:45 John Daub: The hardest part for me is never bring hiking boots. In Japan, it's really hard. I just go like this. It's too easy. It's unfair. Thank you for the food. Sometimes I wonder why I gave you my phone number, Peter. I didn't just call you. You called me. Your attention-grabbing, pain in the neck. Hey, I found a statue that looks just like you. Was it David Florence? No, but it looks pretty similar to you in a way. Can you show me? Well, you have to watch the show. Which one? I don't know. The live one? Well, you're gonna have to figure it out, Peter. I'm like, we're streaming live. Well, I'm coming back to Tokyo. So I guess we'll catch up in a couple of days. Yeah, sounds good. Some airborne diseases I caught along the way. No, no, no. I don't know. I'll see if I can find something for you at the airport. How's that? Okay, that'd be nice. There was some mention of tofu donuts, perhaps? Yeah, they spoil in like six hours. They don't put any preservatives in it, dude. All right, we'll scratch that. I'll see what I can find. How's the weather in Tokyo? It is beautiful today. Yeah, it's nice here too. Awesome, awesome. And it's a holiday today. Yeah, I didn't know that. Yeah, me neither. And I don't have any idea what holiday it is. Culture Day. It's Bunka no Hi (Culture Day). Bunka no Hi. Oh, how apropos, because you are like a bunka (culture) guy. You travel around Japan searching out cool bunka. I do my best. I try. We all appreciate it. All right, Peter, well, thanks for calling. Well, thank you for my company. It's nice to hear from you. Thanks for calling. You're cutting me off already. I am, because I got to look.

00:35:22 John Daub: All right, everybody, take a look up here. Before I leave, I just wanted to show you one last thing, and it's not Peter. Hang on, let me just say it and I'll let you go. Hashtag. All right, go ahead and say it. Hurry up. Hashtag, John is a mean guy. John is a mean guy. All right, I'll talk to you later. Bye. All right, bye. I just hung up on him. But here, you can see these are kaki (persimmons). I showed you in the store earlier. What they do is they hang them outside the window or somewhere in the sun, and they eventually dry over the course of about 3 weeks. Yeah, 3 weeks. And then they get dry, and you can see on the end there, some of them are getting close to the end. That's called hoshigaki (dried persimmons). And these hoshigaki, they taste like candy. They're so sweet. It's something that I just want to highlight it because if you come to this area, you're going to want to try a hoshigaki, and it's only available in the fall. These are the kaki dried. They're in the middle of the stage. It becomes dried fruit, and it's so good. I ate some of them a couple of days ago. It was last week in the rain when we did the tofu donut episode at the end. That might have been Instagram only. Sometimes I get lost.

00:36:38 John Daub: I'm like, yeah, I want to talk to Peter, but I'm working here. I've got Otsuka-san here, and we're going to be taking a... Oh, we've got some hikers. Are you going to the top? No. Are you going to the top? No, I'm not going. Oh, wow. I see. They don't speak Japanese. They're Korean. Korean. Sorry, the video footage kind of froze there. I was asking them if they're going to the summit of Mount Daisen, which you can see right here. This is really funny. There's the summit of Mount Daisen, right there. People start the hiking course here, and then I asked those people, are you going to the summit in Japanese? Chojo made ni ikimasu ka. And they were like, look at us. They're Korean. They're tourists from Korea. So of course they didn't speak any Japanese, but I'm going to the airport now.

00:38:00 John Daub: Last time at Daisen for this year, so I'm really happy to have had the time to come to this town, this really beautiful town in the peak of the autumn season. Look at the colors, right? Now I'm off to the airport. I might do another livestream from the airport if I have some time, but thank you so much for the super chats. Thank you for the support. Thank you for following this trip for the last two weeks in Tottori Prefecture, here in Daisen in particular. I'm really excited about this place. I'll be back, but before that, I'll be in Tokyo. So see you again from the other side of Japan. Everybody, thank you so much.