00:00:02 John Daub: Hello everybody! I'm in Fukushima still, and I'm in an amazing ryokan. This is a five-star ryokan. I spent the night here yesterday, and I want to introduce you to Toryu-kan. Toryu-kan is, well, this is the first room I'm going to take you in. Each room has a number, but it also has a name. This is Hanafusa. That's the name of this room. So each room has its own personality, I like to think. Hanafusa-san, let's go inside.

00:00:34 John Daub: Alright, they're cleaning right now, I don't want to show you too much of it, but the interior of the ryokan is just amazing. Everything is very natural looking. Room 101... Ah! Miya's back! Hey Miya! How are you? Hi, I'm fine. Oh, wonderful. So this... See, this is the room. Yeah, this is the room! This is amazing. I stayed in one just like it. I've already talked about it. I already checked out, but I asked the ryokan to let me take a look at the inside of this one.

00:01:17 Miya:

00:01:17 John Daub: Wow. Miya's back. Miya! Miya! Miya! Alright... So, I really like the interior. It's very clean. The walls are, again, the colors are very subdued. They're not bright, very earthy, very natural. This one has a lot of wood on it. The tan walls are... They kinda look sand colored, which I really like. There's textures as well. The walls here have a rough texture and then you'll see on these shoji doors (sliding paper doors) they have... Shoji, right? This is a shoji sliding door. This has more like a wallpaper-looking color material to it. Very shiny black wood trim. Every single detail of this room is just absolutely beautiful.

00:02:07 John Daub: Mia's inspecting the handles. Yeah, because even the handles... look inside the handles. Scenes of Japan. That's how my friend Peter von Gomm would say that. The entrance is really beautiful and what was really interesting about this is... Alright, these doors... it's like you're shutting the door of your house, okay? There's a lock here. It feels like you're shutting the door to your house, not a hotel room. It's a pretty special experience.

00:02:46 John Daub: Alright, let's take a look at this room in more detail. The table, just like every ryokan, it has pretty much the same stuff. The key is on top here. There's a manual on how to use the room, the TV, all the features of the ryokan. They have the emblem of the ryokan on the table, which is cool. I like the way these chairs are on the floor. This one, it's a little bit classier. If you see... This is an elbow rest. It's a hiji-yoki (elbow rest). Hiji is elbow, so... Ah, so this is something that's not on a lot of the other ryokans. This is a hiji-yoki and it's an arm rest. I don't see that in many ryokans, so it's usually just the chair.

00:03:29 Miya:

00:03:29 John Daub: In the center is a message from the ryokan welcoming you. Some origami, right? You gotta make it yourself. And some snacks. This one is a room for two. There's two guests coming in the afternoon. This is a sakusaku butter senbei (crunchy butter rice cracker). Very nice. On the bottom where Miya's feet is, this is a tea set. So you can make your own tea. Inside is matcha. Yeah, different teas. Brown and green tea. Each one has its own. You have more choices. This ryokan is really, really nice. I'm gonna show you why. This gets better.

00:04:27 John Daub: Those of you who've been watching my Instagram know, actually. I don't have to tell you. So here's the futon set up. This is really cool. They have the futon already out of this ryokan. The room is quite big. This is a very large ryokan. There's two rooms. Mine had three rooms. But this one has two. This is a standard sized room. I wanted to show you something normal. Every single Japanese ryokan has a little teeny lounge area where you can sit. Of course, these shoji doors, they close. But these shoji doors, they slide and they close. They're on a track. And somebody says it brings bad luck if you step on it. I like it. And a wonderful view of Aizu. This is Aizu, right? Yeah, Aizu. This road here is an old road that people took from Aizu-Wakamatsu to Tokyo. The samurai would travel that road. And now it's run by cars.

00:05:02 Miya:

00:05:02 John Daub: Bye, Miya. The futon is so comfortable. I guess this is what you get if you have so many stars. Now, there's a yukata that I'm wearing. This is the bath yukata. This is a room yukata that you would wear inside before you sleep. There's one lady, one man. So the bed is already set up for a couple that's going to be coming in the afternoon. The quality of the futon is amazing. And it's really warm because it gets quite cold at night. It was really cold at night. And you need to have a lot of layers in this area.

00:06:14 John Daub: You see my little teeny light coming in. I like the little touches to it. There's a pillow there. Ah! I want to show this really quickly. This pillow sitting here is for this. The ladies might know, but this is a place where you would take off your makeup. So they made a little cove. This is what the ladies would... put on their makeup and stuff. So they're giving some thought into that. Up above between the room, really beautiful. This is all carved out of one piece of wood, actually. It's kind of amazing. And again, there's a kakejiku (hanging scroll) on the wall there.

00:07:08 Miya:

00:07:08 John Daub: Can you read it? I can't read it. You're Japanese! Why can't I read it? It's a little old style, maybe.

00:07:22 Miya: Okay.

00:07:22 John Daub: Alright, so you've seen three rooms. We're gonna go in now. Going into the part of the place that shocked me the most. Each room has a special part of the bathroom.

00:07:52 Miya: Okay, open it, open it.

00:07:55 John Daub: Whoa! You have your own private onsen! This is your own private bath in your room! It's crazy! You don't have any idea how awesome this is. You don't have to go outside to the bath. You don't have to freeze, change, move from A to B. You can just stay right here in the room and it's amazing. I was in mine for like an hour until my fingers got all wrinkly like grandpa. They kinda still are. You see that? So, you have a bucket. You can wash. This is the shower for my father who has never taken a proper bath in his life. He loves his shower. And there's amenities here. There's a bucket. There's a stool.

00:08:40 Miya: Yeah.

00:08:42 John Daub: One thing that you have to be careful is on the roof, it's like raining. Because this is made out of wood, even the ceiling is wood. But you can see the water on the roof and it'll come and hit you on the head. But the camera's gonna steam up. But I wanna take you just really quickly in here. Wow. It's a totally different atmosphere. Wood, wood, wood. Except for the bath is wood. And that little window in the other room, that's right here. Very cool. The water temperature is pretty hot. It's coming naturally from the river, from the ground. And this is what makes this room such an amazing room, I think. Guests are gonna check in.

00:09:31 Miya: Check in, sir. Please.

00:09:37 John Daub: So, this is the room. Really quickly, I'm gonna take you downstairs and show you the outdoor bath. This is my last livestream in Fukushima. I've been here for so long. This is pretty incredible. Again, the rooms are named for those of you joining in right now. This one is Hanafusa. So now let's go downstairs. Yeah, it's a pretty nice ryokan. There's the lobby. Hey, there he is! Gaku! What are you doing? He's just reading. Oh, he's reading. He's an academic. Pretty cool.

00:11:02 John Daub: I don't know, if I lose the signal, bear with me. It's gonna come back on when we get downstairs. Here's a map of the ryokan. First floor, basement. Each one has a... This is flower, island, wind, and moon. So each wing has a name. I like that. And each room, you can see the name. Hanafusa. We were in this one, Hanafusa. I stayed here Hana-kago last night. This one was such a nice room. I didn't wanna check out. Yeah, me too. So, you can see a really beautiful Japanese garden outside the window. This is just walking towards the bath.

00:11:49 John Daub: Those of you who have been in Japan before, you can see... Right there. And what is this? This is a noren (short hanging curtain). Before the bath. Noren. This curtain hanging over the bath. So the noren symbolizes the bath. And that's the name of the bath. What is this? It means men. It's a male bath. Really? Yes, it's a male bath. It doesn't say otoko (man), like otoko-san. This is another way to say men. You know how I know? Because it's blue and the women's is red. So that's the best way. This bath is open, but I think you've seen the baths if you've seen the show before. There's nothing too different about it. It's just a functional bath. It's this I'm gonna show you. This is the outdoor bath.

00:12:49 Miya: You're welcome.

00:12:58 John Daub: It was dark, right? Yeah, it was dark. But the light is on. Oh, really? So this was lit up at night? Yeah, like that. Oh, there's a light, okay. But it's still kind of dark and scary. Alright. I'm gonna take you first to the men's bath because I'm a guy and that's what I do.

00:13:26 Miya:

00:13:26 John Daub: Is there somebody in there? Oh, no. It's okay. That's my footprint. I was here earlier. It's still there. Alright. Wait a second. Miya, this is a men's bath. No, no, no. So this is a guy's bath. You're not supposed to be here. It's okay, it's okay. I'm just kidding. You have to tease a little bit. Alright, you ready? Here you go. Three, two, one. Turn around. Look at that bath. And if you see on the top of the screen, you see that glitter? The little flashes? That's the river down there.

00:14:27 Miya: Yeah.

00:14:27 John Daub: Oh, there's a dog. A dragon. Somebody give him a toothbrush. Pretty nasty. This sound is one of the reasons why I love the onsen. Simply put, it's a relaxing sound. And once again, I mean, I tell this every time I'm in the onsen. You sit there. And right now the air temperature is about 4 degrees Celsius. It's pretty cold. And the bath water is like 40 degrees Celsius. So there's a big contrast between cold and hot. The cold air is like 4 degrees Celsius. You breathe it in. And your body is surrounded by the hot water. It's just an amazing feeling. And with the sound and the view. Every sense is being stimulated, I think.

00:15:42 John Daub: Now we have access to film here. The other side. Something you should never do. Never peek to the women's bath on the other side. That's the women's bath. And it's separated by this dragon. So never do that. But, you know, there's nobody over there. Isn't it nice? It's awesome. This is such an awesome temperature. It's so nice. It's a nice bath, right? Just close your eyes. No, open your eyes. And photoshop yourself into this bath right now. Because right now I sat there for about 15 minutes thinking of life and the mysteries of life.

00:16:39 Miya:

00:16:39 John Daub: Mia's gone, alright. I'm gonna ninja walk the side. This could go horribly wrong. I'm gonna ninja walk the side and then show you the view. It's a little bit steeper than it looks. Aha. There's the river. When I was bathing with Gaku earlier there were a bunch of hikers that came up here. And they could see right into the bath. Hahaha. But the funniest part of it all is right now we're like at this weird season, okay? This is the season where all the leaves have fallen off of the trees. And the snow hasn't come yet. The snow will be coming probably next week in this area. So what happens is you see the trees are bare. So the people on the road could see into the bath. It's kind of, for perverted people, paradise. But I don't think anyone in Japan really cares too much. It's a wonderful view. But for the next two weeks you could see in. When the snow piles up on the trees you can't see anything. You could cause some accidents if there's a beautiful lady standing right where I am but in the nude.

00:18:12 **Miya