00:09 John Daub: Good evening everybody. I'm at another onsen. Of course, this is an onsen tour. I'm in Fukushima. Now I'm in Yanaizu. Yanaizu Onsen, which is not too far from Bandai-san. That's where we were before. It's kind of between here and Aizu-Wakamatsu. This place is pretty cool.

00:29 John Daub: Now this particular onsen, right now I'm in the bath. I have this place all to myself for about 15 minutes. See, this is the bathing area where everybody will shower before they get into the bath. I've already done that. Guests can have this onsen at night. This is why I really like staying at a ryokan (Japanese inn) because you have the ability to go out at night naked into the bath. And this is like my 6th or 7th bath in the last few days. There's been a lot of onsens so far. And I'm just kind of at the beginning of this thing. I'm not even halfway done.

01:14 John Daub: So when you come into the onsen, whether it's night or day, it doesn't really matter. You might want to rinse yourself off. There's a bucket and a stool. And rinse yourself off. You don't have to do a full shower. I do that last because we don't know who's been in the water. The water might not be completely clean. And nobody wants to sleep with all the minerals on their body. I usually soap and shampoo after I get out.

01:40 John Daub: But I'm going to show you this one bath. For safety reasons, I have to wear a towel. This is for your safety, internet. Not mine. And mine, probably. There's some things I don't want to show you. So I'm going to be wearing the towel in the onsen. It's not typical to do that but I have special permission to do that. This particular bath is really nice. This is still indoors. Ah, it feels so good. This water is coming from the ground.

02:20 John Daub: Actually, not too far from here, about 500 meters, is a 1,200 year old shrine. Just bite on that for a second. And that water has been coming out of that area from that shrine for that long. For over a millennium. And that's the water that's being pumped into this bath. So a lot of people come here because it's very spiritual. You have to see the area during the daylight. Thank you very much for the super chat. I appreciate that.

02:53 John Daub: So this bath is pretty warm. It looks like a pool. I like the blue. It's a good contrast to that. And that's where we're going right now. That is the night bath outside. That's where I'm going. Now, I've already been out there once before. It was snowing earlier today. It's cold. I'm not wearing anything except for this towel. Glowing in the heavens. And all that water in there is just screaming, "Jump in and I will give you magical powers."

03:30 John Daub: Now, I'm not convinced that I will get any magical powers. But I am convinced of one thing. It's going to be a lot warmer in there than it is out here. There's the bath. You can see the steam rising up. The steam is a good indication of how freaking cold it is outside. It's a bit nipply. We have some beautiful trees here. Autumn.

03:56 John Daub: I like this also because it has... Let me get in and explain it. Ah, yeah. You can hear the water going over the side. That's all me. I just displaced like 75 kilograms of water. That's how much I weigh. They put in some nature inside this walled area. And right now it's autumn. So you get the autumn leaves. The autumn colors.

04:44 John Daub: So right now it's about 6 o'clock. 6 p.m. It got dark really early up here in Fukushima. I was surprised. At around 4:45 it was pretty dark. At 5 o'clock. It wasn't pitch black but it was pretty dark. And right now it's 6 and it's pitch black. It gets dark early in Japan because it's the land of the rising sun. The sun comes up early. You're probably going to get a sunrise at 6 a.m. In the summer it rises at like 4:30. Which is crazy.

05:16 John Daub: I like this because not only is this bath all made of wood, which feels really nice. It's got this vaulted wood ceiling. I really like this. So you're sitting underneath it. So even if it's raining, you're protected from the elements. Except for the cold air. That was brutal. I'm telling you when you come in. When you come into the bath. It's from the warm inside. And you come outside. Those like five seconds. It's like five seconds of torture. Especially if you've been in the other bath before. And you come out and you're wet. It just hits you. Now this is November. Imagine February. The impact of night onsen is even crazier.

06:08 John Daub: This roof though extends to the women's side. You can see on the other side of the wall is the forbidden area. It's so forbidden. We can't go on the other side. That's where the ladies are. Again this water is coming from a 1,200 year old shrine. And it's being pumped into this bath. It's a really special experience. You can see the steam coming out. It's like a hot spring. It's mysterious in that way. Surrounded by steam.

06:47 John Daub: You know what? There aren't any ladies in there. You know why? Because this onsen is closed until another 15 minutes. Even if I did peek, there's nobody there. On the other side of that wall. It's just us. I like it when you ask permission. That you get special access to go to places like this. This is a cool bath. This is a reason to come here. It's a pretty neat experience.

07:16 John Daub: Me and Shige. My friend Shige who is on this trip with me. We were enjoying this bath for like 10 minutes. It gets pretty hot. But I'm warm. Even though it's cold now. Because my body temperature was raised. But you can see how spiritual and mysterious this bath is. Bath of the gods. On the other side of the roof this way is the city.

07:41 John Daub: I just wanted to give you a short look. I'm going to go live stream and share this experience with you. I appreciate everybody who has subscribed to this channel and has been following me on this journey. This has been fun. Like 3 live streams today. This is really awesome. So tomorrow I'm going to be going to another area that's even more countryside. We're going deep, deep, deep over the next couple of days. And I'm going to be sharing that experience with you on live stream. So this is going to be exciting. It's going to get even better.

08:14 John Daub: Thanks for sharing this night onsen experience. Again, the rooms here are about $100. I put a link in the description. Definitely check it out. I'll be posting pictures on Instagram. Only in Japan TV. Oh, and somebody asked me to remind you. The postcard club is on Patreon. So sign up before the end of the month. They were angry they didn't get one last month. Sorry about that. I sent out postcards of Aogashima to everyone who signed up for the postcard club on Patreon.

08:43 John Daub: That's all. I don't have anything else to say. I'm going to be going to bed real early tonight. It's been a long night. That's the outdoor bath. This is the indoor bath. It's sort of the system. That's the way it goes. And it's time to go. I'll see you all later. Thanks for following this trip. And I'll see you tomorrow. Night bath! At the onsen! We were there!