00:00:01 John Daub: Greetings from an onsen town. This is Dake Onsen in Nihonmatsu-shi. It's quiet, sort of off-season, but that's not going to stop me from enjoying this onsen town. Welcome to Dake Onsen. You can hear the rush of water. When you have an onsen town, you have water, lots of it, and this water is pretty fresh. It's a natural town. It's really lovely. This goes straight through the main street, cars go this way and that. On the left and right are lots of shops.

00:00:36 John Daub: I thought we would take a look at some of them. Up the road, like all onsen towns, it's filled with ryokan. There's lots of Japanese-style inns here and there. I filmed in one of them just recently.

00:01:05 Shopkeeper: Kamagawaya.

00:01:08 John Daub: Kamagawaya. And they have something called kuroganeyaki. We're going to find out. Are you hungry?

00:01:21 Shopkeeper: Hungry.

00:01:22 John Daub: I'm so hungry, starving. I can always eat. Alright, let's go inside. Looks like it's going to rain. Hello. It's a lovely shop. It smells good. Let's take a look around.

00:01:54 John Daub: These are pretty interesting. These are sake flasks. Sake, right? Is this sake from Japan? Oh, really? I've never seen anything like this. You put the sake in here, it goes in this donut-looking thing, and then you pour it like this. I guess you can put the sake glass in the middle. That's hot sake. Wow, the shape is interesting. It's got that wabi-sabi look to it too. This is Soma-yaki from Fukushima. Soma-yaki ceramics. Very interesting. And I like these lacquer boxes. Wow, these look like antiques.

00:02:56 Shopkeeper: Natural wood, original woody.

00:03:02 John Daub: What's this?

00:03:04 Shopkeeper: A tagoita.

00:03:06 John Daub: We play with this during New Year's. Oh, you use this during New Year's? For what? To hit your brothers and sisters?

00:03:13 Shopkeeper: No!

00:03:14 John Daub: You're going to hit your brother, right?

00:03:16 Shopkeeper: No, no. Wow.

00:03:17 John Daub: And what's this? Difficult to explain? Like a badminton, right? Oh, like badminton or tennis. Good badminton. Oh! Like the sprouting bean. So you hit a sprouting bean with these paddles. Cool. For New Year's. Very cool.

00:03:40 John Daub: Alright, I just got my first sight of it. This must be the kuroganeyaki, right?

00:03:51 Shopkeeper: This is different. Miso!

00:03:53 John Daub: Miso manju? I've never seen that before. They put miso inside that. I've never heard of that before. The great thing about leaving Tokyo is that even after 20 years I'm discovering new stuff. I've never heard of a miso manju. You can put anything in a manju, I guess. This is pretty cool.

00:04:17 Shopkeeper: This is for couples.

00:04:19 John Daub: For couples. So this is for husband and wife. You share. There's only two. Unless you buy another set, then you get four. I'm digging this one. This is just weird. I've never seen anything like it. It reminds me of a donut. This is $10. I like it. Yeah, we saw that. We saw this in the last town. This is from the local area.

00:04:56 Shopkeeper: Akabeko.

00:04:57 John Daub: Akabeko. It's like a ushi, right? This is a cow. And it moves its head like this. It's a strong cow. Very strong cow. I pray to the cow for delicious steak.

00:05:13 Shopkeeper: We pray for the growth of the children.

00:05:15 John Daub: It's just hanging by a rope here. Do you see that, everybody? It's hanging by a thread, literally. What is this? It's a weirdo. It's like they took a log and put the head on it. It looks like a totem pole without all the heads on top. Pretty interesting. So you're happy to see me? Maybe not, 'cause you can't even breathe. There's a breathing hole on the top. Cool. Lots of neat stuff, but I came in here because I'm hungry.

00:06:05 John Daub: What did you get?

00:06:07 Shopkeeper: I got it! Kuroganeyaki!

00:06:08 John Daub: Here we go! Kuroganeyaki! It's a specialty of Dake Onsen. Wow! That's amazing! It looks like this. Wow! This is kuroganeyaki. Only here, right?

00:06:25 Shopkeeper: Yes, only here, but it's 70 years old.

00:06:29 John Daub: 70 years! I can see the photos. It's a history. This shop has a history going back 70 years, although the photos look older. This is the Taisho era, right after Meiji. I guess it's like 1910, 1911. They're building that main street that you saw outside. It's basically nothing there. Then you can see how the town evolved over time. And now, this picture is really cool up here. I like this picture. Kurogane... It's from the '40s. The '40s of Showa. Wait, they wrote their phone numbers here. Phone number 20. Their phone number was just the number 20. That's so simple. Back then, they had 2 numbers. 20. That's so cool. Phone number 20. Literally, it's written on there, 20. So 70 years. There's a history going back 70 years. From my parents' generation.

00:08:00 Shopkeeper: They usually make this. They make this in the morning.

00:08:05 John Daub: Wow, so they actually make the confection in the morning here in the back room. Everything's finished now because it's the afternoon. But in the morning, they're busy at work making the kuroganeyaki. And then they put the kuroganeyaki in the boxes and sell them as gifts. And it's a very famous confection in Dake Onsen.

00:08:25 Shopkeeper: If you like it, you can try it.

00:08:26 John Daub: Oh, really? All right.

00:08:32 Shopkeeper: Mia loves to eat.

00:08:34 Shopkeeper: Yes, I love it.

00:08:36 John Daub: Let's unwrap it. Mmm, it's so soft. What kind of cake is this? Like a pancake?

00:08:48 Shopkeeper: It's a castella.

00:08:48 John Daub: Castella cake. Very European kind of pancake. And anko in it. Whoa. There's red bean paste in the middle surrounded by a pancake. That's pretty cool.

00:09:00 Shopkeeper: It's made from soybean, right?

00:09:02 John Daub: I don't think... Azuki bean, right? Azuki bean. Soybean is tofu. Sorry. That's not tofu. Oh, that's good.

00:09:14 Shopkeeper: Okay, you can try it.

00:09:15 John Daub: Oh, really? All right. Here we go. Looks good.

00:09:23 Shopkeeper: It's so good. Like a pancake. Like a pancake with azuki beans.

00:09:37 John Daub: All right. The taste test. Of course, it has to be good, right? They're watching me. I have to give a good comment. Okay, here we go. It's a little bit different than a pancake because it's spongier. It's a lot spongier. The azuki red bean. I don't know if you've ever had red bean paste before. Have you ever had azuki bean before? It's naturally sweet. It's got this kind of mild sugar to it. Almost like a sweet potato, but a little bit sweeter than that. And the castella cake around it is spongier than a pancake, but similar to the consistency. It's a little bit more mochi-mochi. Like springy, right? It's not too sweet, so it's good. It's pretty good. That's a pretty good description. It's light. It's something that would be good with coffee or tea.

00:11:00 Shopkeeper: Or green tea.

00:11:04 John Daub: Japanese confections go really well with green tea because it's Japan. Green tea is the best. Thank you very much for the super chat, by the way. I just saw that comment. I really appreciate it. Oh, that's another attraction. Oh, wow. This is all handmade. There's no machines or anything like that. They make it by hand, meaning they put it onto the press and then they turn it over and flip it. You've got to be kidding me. I like this. This is really cool. So I like it when there's a family business like this. They wrap it all themselves. The family does this. This is a family business. They make all this stuff themselves in the morning. They work really hard to make these confections, this kuroganeyaki, and they've been doing it for 70 years. That's the kind of stuff that I'm always searching for, these stories. You find a place that makes a confection for 70 years, family-run business. I like that. So it's nice to support this. This is really good. So you can buy boxes of them. I think I'm gonna end up with a big box of it. You see here, this shape looks like a koban, so it's a good thing for people.

00:12:39 Shopkeeper: Oh really?

00:12:40 John Daub: That's amazing. Koban is an old thing from the past. Very old, very traditional. You can get 12 for 1400 yen. That's pretty reasonable. I think hmm, I'm gonna end up leaving with a box of them. Oishikatta. I should bring the green tea. Yeah, hahaha. Let's go back and get some green tea.

00:13:08 John Daub: See you later! Thank you! I'm gonna come back and buy some. Wow, the weather looks like it's gonna rain. That's why I'm wearing a down jacket. Hello. It's not as cold in the onsen towns because you have the hot steaming water coming out. But in general in November you want to bundle up. Fukushima's up in the mountains, higher elevation right now. In fact, we're walking up an incline. You can see the beautiful leaves have changed up here. A lot of autumn is already finished down there on the bottom. There was a tofu shop in the onsen town. There's like mom-and-pop shops. This is another reason why I love these places. Some onsen towns ban convenience stores. They won't let them into the area and they kind of protect the mom-and-pop shops. I think that's a good idea. Oh, that's a beautiful ryokan. That's a Japanese inn, ryokan. It looks family-run. Very traditional. Oh wow, I'd love to stay there. Those are the kind of places I like. Wow, look at you. You can even kind of see inside. Oh in the back. Whoa. If there's time I might wrap around and sneak in just to say hi.

00:14:56 John Daub: Alright, there's the onsen symbol that means bath. Saying that you can come in and take a bath even if you're on a day trip or taking a break or just want to stay for a little bit. Bath is in here, this way, follow the arrow. Looks like it goes towards a dead end. I guess they mean this building. Wow. Back there. This is where I filmed. This is a really great ryokan as well inside. It looks like you're going back in time. Maybe we'll step in there and just take a look. I thought I was in a completely different country, different time zone, like going back in time. Along this river they put little walkways so you can get from one side to the other. Very beautiful. You can see there's no convenience stores. There's not even a vending machine.

00:16:01 John Daub: Jikan desu ka? This is a ryokan as well. You see it's on a slope here. So they built that ryokan up on a hill, some beautiful rooms up here overlooking this stream. At night when the sun goes down this place even comes more alive because it gets brighter. They have some lights around it. They've fashioned the center of this street to be one of the big attractions. Because an onsen town is a water town. It's a place where all the baths are and the water is very spiritual. It's very important to people. Alright, we got a shop. Yeah, sake. That's one happy Fukushima dude. That must be the store owner. Look, it's loaded with sake. I think it's good. There's like a homemade convenience store. This booze shop also is like a convenience store on half of it. That's pretty good. I found the vending machines.

00:17:42 John Daub: So we're climbing towards the ultimate goal, which is the end of the road, this shrine here. Not Inari Jinja, I actually don't know what shrine this is. Oh, this is a beautiful park. Yeah, there's a really nice park. This is the type of place that I would pitch my tent to save a few dollars. Wake up in the morning and go to the onsen. That's sort of how I roll. But it's a pretty lovely park. You can see autumn is at the end of the cycle here. We're getting closer to winter. Alright, let's go underneath this torii and visit the shrine.

00:19:04 John Daub: Whoa, and they got CCTV here so you can't do whatever you were gonna do. How do I wash my hand if you only have one hand? I'm holding it. Just throw the water at you. No, it's not the good way. Well, it's wet. That's good. That's one way to do it. This is the onsen shrine. So this is a very important place to this onsen. It's sort of unusual because look, just right on the side is the main street. This onsen is right at an intersection curving towards Mount something. I can't see the sign clearly. This is the Dake shrine.

00:20:02 Shopkeeper: The god of the onsen. Is it? That's a happy god. His name is Daikoku.

00:20:28 Shopkeeper: Why he is. The name of here is Koshidaikokuten. That's why he is.

00:20:37 John Daub: All right. Hi Daniel. Say hi Daniel. Yeah, so this is the god. You want to see it clearly? That's a god that's been eating a lot of the money. Thank you for Dake Onsen, kami-sama. Yeah, he's holding...

00:21:04 Shopkeeper: Ah, that's kotsuchi. Kotsuchi.

00:21:07 John Daub: Kotsuchi. You're not supposed to rub it.

00:21:10 Shopkeeper: You're not supposed to rub it.

00:21:16 Shopkeeper: Ah, okay. It's a god of good luck.

00:21:22 John Daub: Yeah, well that's nice. You can walk your dog here. Should we pray? Yeah, you're gonna pray?

00:21:33 Shopkeeper: Ah, okay.

00:21:34 John Daub: Okay. You don't have anything? I have one. You have five yen? So you planned this out. I didn't. There's five yen. This one's an old one. All right, so at the shrine you want to get five yen. Now we're in the queue. We have to wait a little bit.

00:22:21 John Daub: Yeah. First you ring the bell, right? You can ring the bell. Okay. Let them know we're here. All right. This is for all of you here. Did I miss? Not good. We both missed. Okay. Two bows. One. Two. Clap twice. Pray. So everybody pray for something, and then bow again. All right. Correct. Good. Did you get that everybody? Ring the bell, bow twice, clap twice, and pray. And then bow once and you're finished. So there you have it.

00:23:25 John Daub: This is Dake Onsen Town. I'm going back to get some more of those cakes to take back home with me. They're really good and they're homemade. That's a nice looking ryokan as well. This is another place that you can stay. Well all of the... I think I want to point out before we end this livestream about onsen towns. I did one on Noboribetsu when I was hitchhiking and you saw a lot of really big ryokan. This one, the ryokan are more family-run, very small. Some onsen towns have huge ryokan, right? Like the one that I stayed at last night, which is a really nice ryokan in Bandai Atami. But this town is much smaller and more family-run. The onsen, the baths are inside of the ryokan. So if you want to take a bath and get the experience of the local waters, you have to probably stay at the ryokan. But usually there's one place that's public and open to everybody. That's the one we passed. Right, that is day-use. That's guided, you show that it's a mohyon. Hi. So that's sort of an onsen town experience. You don't have to stay at the really expensive ryokan, but I kind of think you should. Because it's so nice inside.

00:24:56 John Daub: That's a weird-looking cloud. This is probably the last livestream of the day because it looks like it's gonna start raining. I hope I didn't upset the gods because that cloud does not look happy to see us. That's some pretty scary looking storms coming our way. [inaudible]. Okay, I'll check the chat. Kind of before we leave I want to show you what the inside looks like just for a second. I love this. I really like this. This is the old content. Look, they sort of really do a good job preserving the old culture. Do you see this is the old mailbox? Old post box for Japan. This symbol representing the post office. So this is the ryokan. Oh my gosh. This is the beer truck. Oh, we came at the right time. They got the booze here. This is a keg of beer in Japan. Nice, they're gonna be having a good time in here.

00:26:06 John Daub: All right, this is I filmed this for the main channel, but I'm gonna give you a quick look in here. It's just beautiful. This is why you stay at a ryokan. See off of the street, you didn't expect this did you? It's like going back, like being in another world. You're a guest in a really traditional Japanese place. You can sit there and have tea. Enjoy yourself. It isn't like a museum. There's tables where you can enjoy, just sit and relax, read a book. There's big glass windows where you can enjoy nature and yet sit inside the warm room. They got the kerosene heaters going inside the warm room. I know if that's a phonograph. No, that's like a record-player looking phonograph. It's just lots of antiques. Look at that thing. The ambience, you know you pay for? The tradition, the feelings. Look at the flowers. Everything is just set up so beautifully like a really beautiful Japanese garden. They take care of this. Jokana says family run as well. Never rickshaw on the back there. How cool is that?

00:27:22 John Daub: Do you want to go somewhere?

00:27:24 Shopkeeper: I want to go but I can't.

00:27:27 John Daub: How many years ago did you use it? But it's still used in Asakusa.

00:27:32 Shopkeeper: Oh that's for tourists.

00:27:34 John Daub: It's like for tourists they don't really use this for public transportation but... When did they stop using rickshaws? I don't know when they stopped using rickshaws but this is... this is the lobby of the ryokan. It's such a beautiful ryokan and the link is in the description of where I am. Definitely check it out. You know what, if you go to Instagram, I'm going to post a picture of the bath. They have... I don't want to tell anybody because I don't want anybody to come here because it gets too busy and then I won't be able to get a room here. So they have private baths in the room and when you see how it is you're going to want to stay here too. It's tattoo friendly so you can have tattoos and stay here because the bath is in the room but the way they did it it's not like it's a private bath. It looks like a small version of a public bath. It's just so beautifully done and I'll put it on Instagram, okay, the Only in Japan TV Instagram page. Check it out. Oh it's an old phone. Do you use it?

00:28:35 Shopkeeper: I don't use it.

00:28:37 John Daub: It looks like you could use it.

00:28:39 Shopkeeper: Oh you use it. I don't use it.

00:28:43 John Daub: It's a public phone. Yeah it's a public phone. They got lots of really cool gifts in here. I like the lights, you have to look up. I like that style of lights. It's really cool. Everything is really well done and here's the entrance. I'm not going to take you in the room, you're going to have to watch the main channel but here's the entrance. Those who pay can go in and enjoy the ryokan. It's nice. Kimono obi. Oh yeah that's the obi for the kimono. The jacket no? Yeah and after that the oba. Oh okay wow it's beautiful. So that's just a look inside, this is just the lobby of the ryokan. You gotta see the rooms. Instagram, I gotta put it on Instagram. I'm only going to livestream the town for this one. Alright, arigato gozaimashita.

00:29:58 John Daub: Very cool because the onsen town is family run and it's small, this one in particular. And I'm always looking for new onsen towns to go and visit to explore because not all of them are quite famous but many of them are really really beautiful and unknown even now. This is one of them, Dake Onsen. Um, things close pretty early so you want to like 5pm, gojiji made. I just wanna... we're not allowed to come in here, I didn't announce it. Just take a look at the entrance to this ryokan, iriguchi desu ka. Look at how beautiful this is. Like the staff is waiting at the end of this corridor. This is like a bridge do you see this. He's like looking, are you filming? Yes I am. People are very friendly here so... I'm surprised they're not coming out and saying come on in. That's sort of the feeling I get uh livestreaming around here. I like the sign though. Even the sign looks like it has a lot of history, some personality in the way that the rust is sort of bleeding down like that. I like that. That means it's been around for a while and that's pretty cool.

00:31:22 John Daub: Alright thanks everybody for watching this uh livestream from Dake Onsen, Nihonmatsu-shi. There's a link in the description where we started this at the cake factory. Ah you know it's not a big town, it's probably not in the guidebooks. That's why I'm here. We're putting it in a guidebook, we're putting it on the show. Hope you enjoy it. Oh look, no way that's... I didn't expect that's like a pizza and ramen combination shop. The pizza and ramen. What? That's I never thought the two could go together but um that stinks it's closed. They put pizza and ramen together, those are like my top two favorite foods. Pizza and ramen. That's crazy, that's genius. Why didn't other people do this? The pizza ramen combo fusion. Can you make a ramen pizza like a pizza? No way. I'm thinking of ways to fuse both of them together. This is also a really beautiful shop too. What is it called?

00:32:33 Shopkeeper: Okashi.

00:32:33 John Daub: Ah this is onsen manju but yeah that's a really pretty shop too. There's cakes and stuff in there, how did I miss that. And it says onsen manju. There you go onsen town. You can buy gifts in here. There's the gift shop. It looks like it's family run. What's the name of the shop? I'm thinking of a little bit of everything. What? There's a cat inside? Ah the cat's looking at us. You see the cat? Ah he hid behind there. Cat sighting. Oh it's not coming this way. Haha there's no cat. He ran away. I saw it go under the table. The cat's under the table now. I like cats.

00:34:02 John Daub: So that's it. Again this livestream, thanks everybody for watching from Dake Onsen. This is a place that I don't think many people know about but now you do and that's pretty cool. This is ah link is in the description. See ya.

00:34:22 Shopkeeper: This is her last livestream. She's going to Tokyo.

00:34:24 John Daub: Yes I miss you. I miss you too bye bye everybody.