00:00:05 John Daub: Hello everybody, so I'm at the Abashiri Drift Ice Festival the day before, so it hasn't started yet. But I was just walking through the area and I go wow this is pretty cool. I guess I'll just go live and show you. This is a live stream for the Only in Japan Go channel. Yeah, why not? There's about 15 or 20 different sculptures here, some made of ice, some made of snow. And I'm just gonna walk around and show you.

00:00:31 John Daub: This one is quite famous. This is not the Sapporo Snow Festival. I'm way further up north and I'll put a link in the description to show you where I am. But this one looks like minions from the movie. It's pretty cool. The event actually starts tomorrow, Saturday and Sunday, the first Saturday and Sunday in February I believe. These are Komasan and Komajiro. The details in it are really amazing. It's sort of a warm day here, so I'm kind of hoping that these things don't melt.

00:01:22 John Daub: But it should be fine as soon as the sun goes down in a couple of hours, it will be freezing again. This one says "I love Abashiri" and that's the town that I'm in right now. Abashiri, and you can see they put a lot of detail. Wow, look at this one, this looks like a goose and the gander. Very wonderful details.

00:01:46 John Daub: They're using copyrighted music so it might get axed later on in the video, so excuse me. But until that happens, just enjoy these ice sculptures. They look even cooler with the sunlight I think because the natural light is going right through it, giving you that contrast between where the artists sculpted where they cut and the pure ice.

00:02:24 John Daub: This one is Praha in the Czech Republic actually, believe it or not. This is Prague Castle in ice in Hokkaido. How cool is that? These are kaiori or something. I guess it looks like squid and fish. So just enjoy yourself. I'm gonna walk around for the next five minutes and take a look at these ice sculptures.

00:02:58 John Daub: Washie, it's a bird. Obviously, oh this looks like a scene. This is a bear hunting. Wow, and you can see the dog and the hunter in ice. This is really cool and the bear up there. What an amazing amount of details. I mean just clear what's happening here. They're hunting the bear, the dog and the hunter.

00:03:31 John Daub: Thank you Goku with a super chat. So we have people watching from all over the world, from Oregon, from Malaysia, from India, from Japan, the United States. This is the main sculpture here. So they'll have performances on the stage here and that's the lighthouse.

00:04:11 John Daub: So if we walk back through here, we'll take a look at some of these other sculptures. These are all made of snow. Young mother, nyan mother nyan. Is this meow of the cat yeah. Bushishi she o. Hey, Snoopy. Snoopy's here from the Peanuts and there's more Snoopy over there. There's is that Linus? It looks like Linus or Charlie Brown. It's hard to tell, very cool.

00:04:50 John Daub: So I guess this the theme is sort of Snoopy, Pluto. This is from Disney. This is Pluto or Disney snowdrift Mario and something. And on the bottom of it, this is put it though in the blue and then the bottom in the white is the team, the team that actually sculpted this Disney. I guess they got to give them credit, right? You have to give the big corporations credit or else they'll come down with their lawyers. That's okay. Hello Kitty, Sanrio. Of course, there's Hello Kitty here.

00:05:40 John Daub: All right, there's a couple more in here. At night, they light these up, you can see the lights right there. And the contrast with the dark and the light, it really makes the sculpture stand out even more. But I'm actually leaving this area in about five hours. So this is a rare look before the event actually starts. So pretty cool.

00:06:04 John Daub: Oh, this is Nippon and Nippon is the mascot of Abashiri. I can tell from the hat. Yeah. Nippon is the mascot of the city. And yeah, I bet you Nippon is here tonight. It's a shame I'm not going to be here. In two hours, there's a festival starting in the center of the city and I'm going to be filming it for the main channel but I came here just to check out this area before I go. It's actually lucky to see this.

00:06:48 John Daub: This is a house, Buruzon House. I don't know what that is but Kamakura Club. These are equivalent to some of them that you'll see in the Sapporo Snow Festival. But you can get up close to these and really see the detail that they put into it. The artists put a lot of work into it. It's a shame that they'll melt sometimes. But most of these snow festivals, the day after the festival, they bulldoze them, I guess, because it would just be really sad to see them melt away.

00:07:24 John Daub: This is Moomin something. I don't know what this is. Moomintosnafakin. This looks like maybe a Japanese anime. It's from Finland. Okay. These are characters from Finland. If we have any Finnish people watching from Helsinki or somewhere else, you'll be able to recognize these characters. It's really interesting. They've brought in characters from all around the world.

00:07:55 John Daub: Before, we had some from other countries. And we have the US as well. You saw Snoopy before. Gara-Pi-Ko-Po. Ko-Pu. Gara-Pi-Ko-Pu. The Kinoko no Yama. There's some strange clubs here. Look at the detail in this one. I like all three of them. And in the background, there's that robot-looking thing. Very cool.

00:08:31 John Daub: Right now, the Sapporo Snow Festival is going on at the same time. So this is a lesser-known one. This is one that a lot of people say, I want to go to one day. But they never do because the Sapporo Snow Festival is just so big. This is Anpanman. One of my favorite characters. The largest, the most characters in a series in the world. It's got a Guinness Book of World Records, the Anpanman characters. And there's Doraemon. And in the background, there's a dog surrounded by puppies. Pumpkins. It looks like a dog.

00:09:07 John Daub: But I want to turn your attention here. See this slide? You could actually, this is totally all made out of snow, okay? You can walk these ice steps to the top. And then slide down. This is so cool. Oh, I wish I was staying for another day. No way. And it's made from like really, oh, this is made from solid black ice. Wow. Oh my word. You know how fast people are going to be going?

00:09:39 John Daub: The first people who go down this are going to go like warp speed. They probably just disappear by the, they reach 88 miles per hour by the time they reach the end and they're like gone back in time or something. I mean, that's how fast people are going to be going down this thing. Oh my word. And you can see they just use blocks and blocks and blocks of ice to create this. And I guess they sanded it down. So it's a smooth ride. Wow. If I only had another 24 hours, I would totally do that.

00:10:18 John Daub: It's a beautiful, this is the warmest day that we've had here. The air in Northern Hokkaido is super dry. And that means that like everything gets dried out. My lips are dried. My eyes are dried. My hands are cracked. Should've gotten some lotion or something. But if you come up to Hokkaido in the winter, be prepared for seriously like super cold weather and dry conditions. And anybody living north of like north of Canada, Siberia, Scandinavia, all these people that they're probably laughing at me like, ah, we got this stuff all the time.

00:10:51 John Daub: But for a lot of the world that watches the show, there's no snow like Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Philippines. They don't really get snow down there or that at all. So there's some more ice sculptures. Very cool. And in the distance there's an industrial park back there. Oh, very cool.

00:11:16 John Daub: Here's the schedule. The event takes place tomorrow and starts on the 10th on Saturday from 11am. Actually, the opening party is tonight from six, but I leave for the airport then, so I won't be able to come and see this. And it goes on until the 12th. Lots of events, performances. It's a shame. You can come. Just fly on up. Although most of the hotels seem to be booked solid. Fly on up and you can catch the Abashiri Drift Ice Festival.

00:11:53 John Daub: Now I'm going to walk back into the city and get ready for this other festival that's starting, this yatai. Okay, here's the official sign. Welcome to the Abashiri Okhotsk Drift Ice Festival number 53. The Abashiri Okhotsk. They wrote it in Japanese in the bottom. You write it in English because it has an impact. It has more impact than this down here. Drift ice. Wonderful. And they have red lights to highlight that.

00:12:40 John Daub: So that's what you get here, the ice festival. So I'm going to mosey on in the town right now. I'm actually a good 10 minutes away from the roadhouse where the boats take off. The ones that go on the drift ice tour that I took you on a couple of days ago. And if you didn't see that, oh my, you have to go. I was actually able to stream. I don't know if you can see it. I don't know if it was HD or not or pixelated or not, but I went out at least two kilometers. We went out there with like over a couple of, it was more than two kilometers. I guess it was about two miles out into the drift ice over there on the other side, way down there. And I was still able to stream live. It was really incredible.

00:13:17 John Daub: And that stream is one that I'm going to be rewatching when I get back to Tokyo tonight because I haven't gotten a chance to do that. These ships here are out of commission. They're not going to be on the left side until the snow goes away. They also have ice fishing on the lake and I don't know if I'm going to get a chance to go there. One reason I'm going back to the roadhouse now is to see if I can get a bus there, film it for 30 minutes and get a bus back and be able to insert that into the video I'm making about Abashiri.

00:13:53 John Daub: This video is all completely paid for by Patreon, the supporters on Patreon. So thank you. Cause without that, I couldn't come out here for three days, four days and film this. This is, you know, Abashiri is one of these places that everybody wants to go to, including Japanese. They all want to go to the prison and then come to the drift ice festival and see this sites, but it's so far away from Tokyo. It's hard. People always say they want to come, but they never do. And I'm really happy that I said, you know what? I'm going to Abashiri this year.

00:14:32 John Daub: There's been like almost no YouTube content on this city. I'm going to totally cover it at the peak time, which is right now in February, which is the time that's why the hotel is kind of expensive too. But yeah, I think I've done a pretty good job of showing you around the city and I spent my birthday here yesterday. People are very friendly. I liked it about Hokkaido.

00:15:00 John Daub: One of the questions that I got. You can see there's a, they even have vending machines in the middle of the snow on the docks here. One of the questions I got was how are the people different in Hokkaido up here than in Tokyo. And in Tokyo, you know, we say in the United Tokyo, but the people here say Tokyo it's two syllables and the people in Tokyo are just busier. They're not as friendly because they don't have the same amount of time and people are more cautious with talking to strangers.

00:15:32 John Daub: We're here. After a while, I got a call from a friend. But so after about at first people, they look at you like, and then after about ten seconds, they start to smile and because I can speak a little bit of Japanese, I can make conversation with them and get to know them. And all of the restaurants let me film after I asked them and once I asked them and gave them my business card. If you come to Japan, always bring business cards or meishi (name cards) and you can exchange that because that's the culture here. You're a stranger, they can get in touch with you so they kind of trust you. So it's good to have that and it's good if you want to make friends here in Japan or in Asia in general. So after I did a meishi kokan or a business card exchange, it's like people really opened up and that's sort of made this trip special cool everywhere I go whether it was Aogashima in the summer or here in the winter or for maguro hunting.

00:16:37 John Daub: It's been a pretty good trip. This is what the back of the town looks like. It's kind of a far walk but all the people who live out here they have a pretty tough winter, wouldn't you say. Look at that, the stairway is totally snowed up. The snow's almost gone up to the roof there. Look at that. I don't think they've ever been to a place like that before. They go up to the second floor very often but the piles of snow are really high. If you go into the city the bulldozers have plowed the snow up to about five meters high. I've seen the snow drifts.

00:17:26 John Daub: Um so and the locals here's something funny before I end this live stream one of the funny things that I noticed was that the locals get upset at some of the tourists. There were two kids from China and I know because I talked to the parents and the locals told the kids to get off of the snow drift because apparently they can collapse down into the center of the snow drift or something or somebody can get hurt. That's bad for the city. The locals told the kids that they shouldn't be playing in the snow drift and the parents got them down. That's when I said I asked them where they were from. A lot of tourists from China, people from all over the world here and that surprised me the most how many tourists are actually here. I thought it'd be one of the only ones, totally wrong. A lot of people come here on tours or packages and it's Abashiri is included in a northern Hokkaido tour and the bus rolls on to the other side of the island.

00:18:28 John Daub: So that's sort of what nobody does what I do get on an airplane from Tokyo and spend five days here, four or five days here nobody does that. Oh there's one of those snow walls I was telling you. You see that yeah. Very deep Hokkaido yeah we had some snow every night and there's a picture I put on Instagram from it but you can hear the snow crunching underneath my feet every time I take a step. There's always fresh snow and a lot of it is powdery. See this is the, it's very powdery snow not hard. This would be good for skiing.

00:19:50 John Daub: All right this is where I wanted to fly my drone but the drone laws are pretty strict in Japan. Um there's DJI has a map of where you can fly and where you can't fly and you have to and when you can fly and the area is not pink you have to fly within you can't fly over 150 meters high and you have to stay 30 meters away from building people and cars. Oh there's somebody taking pictures. We should push them you see that some of the drift ice has made its way into the harbor here. Uh it's going to be sad to say goodbye to Abashiri. I've spent a really nice four days. I came here Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday and it was enough time.

00:21:17 John Daub: This Abashiri banya shop looks really nice. Both of the ice drift ships are out to see. Thanks for the birthday wishes everybody I'm already on the other side of that. True story huh. This one looks cleaner than the other one. This one I guess they have a glass factory in here too. We love drift ice why would they put that sign there. Hey he's waving from the inside. Hey look this is not part of the exhibit check it out uh I wonder who made these did the tourists make these. Look at that one has a scarf on it. These look like idols more than they just snowmen but this one at the end seems to be the patriarch he's got a scarf somebody's scarf it's nice to see that.

00:22:43 John Daub: So right there in front of me is the roadhouse where the icebreaker ships depart and on the left side there are a ton of buses. See that there we could build a snowman I mean is that what you want. I was like I was gonna go check the bus time so I can go do a live stream at the on the lake before the festival starts and maybe go eat some ice fish have a beer with some ice fish but uh you could build a snowman or demolish those I don't want to demolish somebody else's work somebody took pride in those idol looking snow family. Yeah we have a ton of people from all over the world and people they just go on the ice boat and they get back on their bus and they're off.

00:23:41 John Daub: But the hotel I stayed on last night was called the Dormy Inn not the best name for a hotel the Dormy Inn is a chain they just built a new hotel here uh the manager told me it has an onsen on the roof which I never had time to go into I always fell asleep too early or too late woke up when it was closed. Ah here we go we're back back in town. This is what the city looks like most of the streets look like this around town.

00:24:24 John Daub: Oh I see Gretchen's in the house hope you're feeling better Gretchen stay away from the potassium. I had lunch up here on the second floor of this roadhouse so everybody who's been praying for Gretchen and hoping that she gets better and stronger she's actually watching this live stream now which is pretty cool. Gretchen did a live stream with me when we went on a midnight snack run she made me drink Monster at three in the morning and then she apologized for that she didn't have to apologize for it but she's right now watching so Gretchen Brown's from Arizona she's a fighter so watch what you say to her.

00:25:22 John Daub: Yeah this is all the tourists are getting off the bus I wonder where they're from. Oh the other day I wanted to see if I can rent this now that I can rent a house I got a lot of some toys and there's a lot of friends have a driver's license apparently not. Okay now this Boss coffee is only in Hokkaido this is an original blend yeah they have a lot of this one as well Santos premium I don't know why but this Santos premium only in Hokkaido and this coca-cola as well as a only in Hokkaido coca-cola can 140 yen you get less for almost the same price this is crazy we've already had this discussion though.

00:26:27 John Daub: All right I gotta find the bus you see the lady that in the tour group she's holding a flag and I'm holding the camera I wonder if I get close enough people start following me holding the camera up like she's holding the flag that'd be sort of funny and then behind me there'll be a line of people I'll walk straight ahead and I'll walk straight ahead and I'll walk straight ahead in the ocean and then so the other hundred people behind me that would be sort of funny even though oh that would never happen but maybe it would. That's the bus there's a chance I can go to the ice okay that's the bus I'm gonna ask the driver if he's gonna go towards the lake I might be able to make it it's 2:38 they love crabs see this this one goes to the ice drift ice this bus is the Abashiri bus but I don't know where to catch the next bus there's a bus schedule here okay let's do this all right I'm going to the lake then let's do it.

00:28:27 John Daub: I don't have a lot of time I want to get back in time to go to the festival at 4 p.m so I have to get back in like an hour actually this is dangerous actually this is dangerous should I just scrap the lake yeah I bet this is too dangerous actually this is today I'll never make me get back in time. I guess I have to cut that scene from the video the lake fishing the festival is more important than the lake fishing because the festival this is when you have to start to think like a producer here. The festival is its own episode so I can't miss that if I go to the lake which is about a 20-minute bus ride I have two hours to get there and get back less than two hours to get there and get back that wouldn't leave me with enough time to film the lake. I spent too much time at the ice festival. I should have caught the bus before. Yeah, sorry, you know happens, but what I can do is go towards the festival and start filming there.

00:29:53 John Daub: Hello. Where are you from? Malaysia welcome to Hokkaido. I'm from Tokyo. Cool so they're from Malaysia you have people from all over the world coming here coppers wonder who did something wrong? Gotta be watch your step here. You know gets warm and cold and warm and cold and that's why we get the dangerous ice from behind. But the police are after somebody it's pretty cool, but this ship here is very interesting they look at they're checking me out making sure I was legitimate well, um just down the street. There is where I know I found this bakery. Oh, no, you know what I could take you there. There's a bakery down the street that has they've made you know unagi (eel) which is eel they made bread look exactly like the unagi and the baker was so perfect with the design. It's almost like spikes like scales burnt scales that when I bit into it, I stabbed myself because I didn't think bread could be that hard. She did a great job.

00:31:41 John Daub: The snow has really melted here I could see if the bakery is open. That's where you got my birthday cake yesterday. I got three pieces of cake which is really good actually this store right there Tagami what are they selling? Oh? This is all ice this morning. I bet your big bus is gonna come by and just totally drenched me. That's how fate works. It's very slushy out here. I don't know you know the rent here it's very very very cheap compared to Tokyo. Could you live out here? I don't think I could I think it's pretty hard. There's a 7-Eleven. I found four 7-Elevens in Abashiri it's pretty crazy or three one here one by the hotel and then one near the prison the real prison.

00:33:26 John Daub: How much plus is that Jim who came in here how much? Plus the move in the cost well the rent that I saw was $400 a month which is one-third of what I pay plus the key money would be usually one or two one or two months of that plus one or two months of shikikin (deposit). Many places in Tokyo have two months key money and two months deposit, and if your rent is $1,500 that's like six thousand to seven thousand dollars in key money and deposit upfront plus it's a lot of money, and I'm gonna be moving this year and it's more than I want to pay. I've been in the same apartment for 13 years now and after 10 years. I'm gonna cross the street illegally. Oh, I can't. After 13 years of living in the same apartment you automatically get your deposit back in full. I didn't know about this rule they can't take money up because after ten years they have to redo everything so that's a good rule.

00:34:57 John Daub: I don't see Tokyo on this sign do you so I've been walking these kinds of sidewalk that have snow on it not very slushy like where I was just that all right now we're actually very close to where the bakery is so I'm gonna do a quick drive-by and if they got you know what if they have that unagi pan we're gonna end on that wait Gretchen you're from Minnesota I thought you're like an Arizona local from that suntan you have where was that Keen Thomas Street oh you know Keen Thomas Street well these snow drifts are massive do you think if I try to climb it locals are gonna yell at me this is a yakiniku yakiniku pond punson all right here it is let's see if the bakery is open Florencia can and help me eat it because I don't think I could eat all this I had a pretty big lunch we're getting close it's interesting on this street there's one butcher one fish shop one bakery oh there it is one bakery the other one went out of business it's like the 1950s in the United States everything is family-owned and family-run here this is pretty cool there it is atlant that's where I bought my birthday cake I'm gonna see if they have the unagi pan you see it all right let's go in and take a look.

00:38:09 John Daub: That's what I ate for my birthday these are the cakes looks delicious I ate it yesterday that's why I'm eating unagi pan oh you ate this yesterday? Yes so did you eat it? Thank you awesome all right we did it cool all right you know what there's no coffee shop around here this is crazy like why wouldn't they have a coffee shop and they yeah so I could get something from the vending machine or something but I can't eat this this unagi this is cool right this is the last one it was half price like this is how cool is this all right I'm gonna put this so where you can see it and it's softer good yesterday I stabbed my mouth for everyone who's tuning in I got one of these for my birthday and I stabbed my mouth because the baker like I don't know what she does or he does but it's pretty just a big chunk of ice just fell off that roof you have to be careful of icicles wow all right I'm gonna put this unagi pan on the snow so you get a good look at it it's pretty cool all right here we go look at that is I mean this is really cool oh gosh why are they using royalty music they blasting this J-pop music all over the place I mean is this this is the coolest thing right they've made it to look like an unagi one which is an eel in Japanese unagi pan all right I can put it on this snow up here this looks clean semi-clean all right tell me that's not like the coolest thing you've ever seen and these things here they're so sharp I wasn't joking about this got some snow on it and she puts chocolate on the as for the eyes and you have the spikes here look at that that's a lot of detail the color is great you know it's homemade because I've never seen this before anywhere else are you going to eat me let me go sir and I will give you three wishes well you can't you're a piece of bread and I made you talk like that so I know you're not gonna give it three wishes here we go going to the sun should I go head first tail first what do you think when no one's saying head first or tail first first person tail all right D wins here we go tail first oh the great that's the one with all the spikes sticking out it tasted better yesterday half off well thank you photo Luke Hawaii and brown dog thank you this is like my second birthday kick and Shuichi Takumi thank you guys everybody what's next head or leg what do you think head or leg first person to chat it in gets it head too late hmm doesn't look the same anymore does it there's no filling filling but the snow tastes fresh thank goodness if it tasted salty I'd be in big trouble right tourists so I've been showing you this at night the last two nights you can see the streets during the daytime and it's a lot better at night a lot better at night.

00:43:12 John Daub: Oh here I saw cat here yesterday there was a cat sitting in the window watching me yesterday I took some pictures up I'll post the cat's picture on Instagram later on but that was really cute and I was freezing my butt out here and the cat just looking at me dumb human sit outside in the cold well I'm in here a comfortable 23 degrees Celsius mmm I'm eating this last because I keep stabbing myself mmm I'm eating this last because I keep stabbing myself it's not as hard today because it's in a bag all day oh boy so we're gonna end this live stream because we've reached the end this leg is for you guys.

00:44:45 John Daub: Winter sale you're having a winter sale and coats you think about the winter sale are you excited yeah she looked like she had too much coffee well thanks for joining me on this well I'm gonna see me do one more at the event today I have two hours to film it all it's really fast for me okay it's this street that the festival is gonna be on so if you're in the opposite look for me I'm gonna be here eating and looking at a bunch of street food oh they got they already started they're setting up right now you see all the tents oh this gonna be awesome they have like barbecues outside I'm gonna be sitting out here with the locals very cool do you see this they're gonna put in barbecues and people can sit outside and eat I'm gonna be filming that this is the okonomiyaki restaurant from before curry udon curry udon for 500 yen amazake (sweet fermented rice drink) for 100 yen that's cheap wow the festival is happening in about an hour I'm gonna be one of the first people make sure I get a good prime spot I'm just sitting up there oh this bar's made of ice look they put up like a neon light but underneath there too say yes to Hokkaido I love these ice bars this is gonna be fun this is gonna be a good episode I wonder what's in that pot gonna find out right now it's minus one or two degrees Celsius it's sort of a lot warmer than it was in the past. Oh, so it's just the street. I thought it was the whole street, but just ends here. So it's just a few shops that have stands in the street. These do not look like kegs of beer. Oh, these are for the barbecues. Interesting. Take that back. It's very interesting. All right, I'm going to build up my hunger. And over there is where the ramen shop was that was closed. I'm going to build up my hunger.

00:48:19 John Daub: All right, everybody. Thanks for watching this live stream. All right. You know what? We did pretty good with the super chat. I'm going to try one of these Hokkaido drinks. Let's see. I don't normally get canned coffee. I'm going to go for this Santos Premium. This is Hokkaido only. So I'm going to get this for you guys because it's hot. Atatakai (hot). Atatakai means hot. All right. This drink is dedicated to Rene because he gave a big super chat. All right. Oh, it's so hot. This is lovely. Oh, this is pure warmth. Santos Premium. That's all it says. That's what it says in Japanese is too. This isn't a Boss coffee. You have to look tough when you drink a can of coffee at a vending machine. Let's get the Santos open. The sound of success. All right. Cheers to all of you. We'll drink something a little bit harder later. It's nice and warm. This goes well with that unagi bread that I ate just a little while ago.

00:50:17 John Daub: So I'm going to charge my phone. That's another reason why I want to turn this off. I get to charge up my phone and my equipment for an hour before I come back here and do the opening. I'm hoping they don't use copyrighted music. That would stink. So what turned out to be the Ice Drift Festival turned into a tour of the area for the last 50 minutes. So thank you very much for watching this amazing tour. I'm not going to call it amazing. You should call it amazing. Leave a comment below. Tell me what you think. If you have any questions. Amazing is for other people to do. But it was amazingly fun time. I can say that, right? Yeah. So we're going to be back in an hour. Leave a comment below and I'll see you guys. I'm going to leave you with a beautiful view of this vending machine. And some copyrighted music, which is going to demonetize this video. But hey, it's going to get demonetized anyways by YouTube. So just kind of used to it. Bye bye, everybody.