00:00:00 John Daub: Hi everybody, welcome back. I'm in front of Sano Stadium here. This is the field where they're going to be playing the cricket match. You can see that up there, and inside the match is just about to start. I've changed phones from the iPhone 7 Plus to the iPhone 6 Plus. We seem to have some difficulty with the phone. Hopefully the signal is going to be able to last. But anyways, right now the match is going to start.

00:00:21 John Daub: We have a team in yellow that's from South Asia, and the team in pink is from Japan. There might be a lag, so I apologize for that, but I wanted to bring you this event to give you a glimpse of what it's like out here. On the left is the team from South Asia in yellow, and on the right is the pink team from Japan. They're going to be playing a match, kind of an exhibition. I think the team from South Asia is highly favored.

00:01:15 John Daub: We're out here in the countryside. This is Sano in Tochigi Prefecture. Yeah, it's a beautiful day. This is a perfect day to have some cricket up here at the stands. I happen to have a media pass for this event. This is the event that I'm at, held from the 17th to the 18th this weekend in Sano City. It starts at 10 a.m. and ends at 3 p.m. Hopefully we're going to start really soon. I'm pretty hungry, and there's a lot of curry booths on the other side. We're going to get a chance to try some curry.

00:02:02 John Daub: In this live stream, I want to introduce you to this area and set up the rest of the day. I'm going to be live streaming for the rest of the day here. Over that time, I'm going to bring you some of the dancing, some of the festival activities, the cricket match, and the festival food. There's a lot of it. It's not just curry. Up here, it's starting. There's really not a lot of people here, but the afternoon is just warming up. Okay, here we go. We're starting.

00:03:05 John Daub: Hey, everybody. It's really stomach-watering here, watching. I'm excited to play cricket. I'm going to have a fun time eating curry from all over South Asia and Sano's local food. I'm going to show you the charm of cricket town Sano. I'm going to start the cricket match. First, I will introduce the players. This is from India. The 11 from India and 11 from Japan.

00:04:11 John Daub: Abhishek Terang, number 3. He's introducing the players now. Lupita Bisht [?], number 12. Kamaorish Ravichandran [?], number 8. Nanda Rangasamy, number 13. Raghur Kol [?], number 6. Number 11. Pabeti Bersami [?], number 1. She's introducing the team from India. And now, the team from Japan in beautiful pink. The Japan team is somewhat mixed as well. I want to give a shout out to the players.

00:07:38 John Daub: We have a kick-off event. There will be a match between the Indian team and the Japanese team. We hope you will enjoy the match. Furthermore, you should have a guarantee of following the Asian culture of curry also. Hope you have a eat. This is from Sano and he explains. He tells everyone to enjoy the event. Alright, the rousing speech. Good job. Very good job.

00:08:50 John Daub: Ah, the mascot here. Sanomaru. Sanomaru is the yuru-chara (mascot character) for the city of Sano. And yes, that is a bowl on his head. Sanomaru is giving the Indian team some much needed motivation. Sanomaru has now become a striker. Very cool. Strike it! That's me taking pictures for Instagram later. Haha. That was worth it. Just for that, this is worth it just for that right there. Brilliant. That's Sanomaru the yuru-chara. We'll be seeing him later.

00:11:00 John Daub: I'm shuffling out of here. Sanomaru! Sanomaru! Hello! Oh, you're so kind! It's close! It is, right? So cute. So they're going to start the match now. I know that the signal is lagging, and I apologize for that. But yeah, I'm out here in the elements. This is Tochigi Prefecture. We do have 4G LTE out here, but for some reason the iPhone 7 Plus that I normally use for streaming is offline. But I have a backup, which is the one you're watching.

00:12:30 John Daub: I'm going to be doing this throughout the rest of the day, so hopefully the signal gets a little bit better. Is this live? Yes! Can I see the link? Yeah, the channel is called Only in Japan Go. Oh, really? It's your channel? This one is Only in Japan Go, which is a live streaming channel. Only in Japan Go. Yeah, you are live right now. It's awesome. Oh, you're a YouTuber. Yeah, yeah, I'm a YouTuber. You're part of the Indian team? Yes. Oh, cool. Oh, you're in the 11? Yes.

00:13:16 John Daub: All the players with the yellow t-shirts, yellow shirts, and yellow dress, they are all in Japan. On the Japanese team. Oh, that's so cool. Yeah, actually the ball is not that heavy, which is used in cricket. But then we have to wear all the equipment, like gloves and pads and stuff to demonstrate like how this is played. So even though you can see the ball is very lightweight, it's not that heavy, which is usually in cricket. And the match is going to start. The first ball is a glance.

00:13:43 John Daub: Is it because the Japanese team is beginning? No, no, no. Not exactly. But this ball is a little different. Different, okay. Because this is a very fast-paced game, I usually commit it to about like 40 moves. So it's like a 15-minute run, which lasts for like four hours. Oh, I see. Second ball is going on. Oh. That's a miss shot. Oh. Very cool. I think we should clip it too. That's it. Yeah, we can do it. Boom. That's pretty nice.

00:14:24 John Daub: So that was pretty cool. So they're part of the Indian team. And I didn't know that. The ball here is a little bit different than in normal cricket. That was good information. So let's take a look a little bit at the match. Here's the bowler throwing to the striker. That's where they're making the announcements from. They also have a livestream going on, but I think more people are watching this livestream than the other one. That's my feeling, which is okay.

00:15:42 John Daub: So we're gonna come back. I'm gonna take you a little bit around the area and show you about this place. This is the Sano Sports Park, I believe. And I want to thank Peter also because of the laggy video. It's nice to have a comedian watching this video, so thank you, Peter. Peter's also a moderator, so Peter's job is to block anyone who is disturbing this livestream, including himself. So Peter, feel free to moderate yourself. That would be helpful. But thank you to Peter for making the chat lively.

00:16:24 John Daub: There's Sanomaru, and Sanomaru is the yuru-chara of Sano City. And Sanomaru is really cute because of the bowl. You can see the piece of noodle, which is his hair. Or its hair, I'm not sure. And down there he has a fried potato or something from the city. We're gonna be seeing more of Sanomaru as the day goes on. Oh, look at the kid! Look at him jumping with the... Look at him jumping, too. That's awesome.

00:17:13 John Daub: So for kids, you know, when you see yuru-chara, I remember when I was a kid, I used to see like comic book characters in costume, and I thought they were real life. So I bet you that kid, in his imagination, thinks he's dancing with a real life creature. Sanomaru. Sanomaru. Ha. With a ramen bowl on his head. I'm gonna introduce this to you also later on in another stream.

00:17:37 John Daub: One of the reasons why Sano City is chosen for this cricket and why there's a lot of curry here, because what I smell is curry, is because this is House curry. And House has a factory here. I didn't know that until I arrived here and I saw this booth when I was coming in here, and House makes a lot of curry, and the factory is here in Sano City. So yeah, it's a curry town. And people are already lining up for the curry. This booth is operating pretty fast. It smells so good. And they have like a lassi going on there. You see the lassi on the left? Wow, it's a big naan. That guy's hungry.

00:18:39 John Daub: So the head of the organization right behind me is the Japan Cricket Organization. Cricket is not yet a big sport here in Japan, but it's increasing a little bit. And I asked, I'm going to interview with Alex a little bit later on. Hopefully the streaming strength gets a little bit better as the day goes on. But I'm going to ask him a question. And my question is why Sano City? And why is cricket? I think the stream is getting progressively a little bit better. I don't know, maybe the phone is warming up. But I'm quite interested. Why Sano City? Why here? What makes this place the focus of cricket for right now?

00:19:18 John Daub: And is there any connection between the fact that there is a curry factory just down the street and there's a lot of people from South India? And if you had to pick a national sport for India, I believe, I'm pretty sure it's cricket. So it makes sense that there would be an Indian team. And I have a feeling that the team from India is just going to kick the pink people's butts in this match. I don't think there's much suspense in who's going to win this and who's favored highly. But I have a press pass today, so I'm going to be able to get onto the field and bring you that story. Hopefully I can make cricket a little bit more interesting.

00:19:54 John Daub: There's also a place where you can try cricket over here. And this event's going on. I came here. I want to promote Sano City a little bit. It's out of the way, this place. But one of the reasons why Sano City is big for cricket is because when you play cricket, you need a big open field. And you can't... Tokyo is so crowded that you can't find an open field to play a game of cricket. It requires like advance notice and you have to have all these... It's a pain in the neck. But here in Sano, because the population is declining and they have a lot of open land, if you want to come to play cricket, Sano City is like, sure, take the stadium.

00:21:08 John Daub: Come here and play cricket. And play other sports, in fact. This is a Saturday, but I guess they're doing some sort of undokai (sports day) or some sort of event. Yeah. So, I mean, like, outside of Tokyo, there's so many places like Sano City where you can just use the open field at almost no cost. They're kind of encouraging people to come here. And one of the ways they could do that is by residents or teams or people who want to practice or play here in an open field like this. And yeah, there's not a lot of people out here yet because this is out of the way. Japan is a crowded country, but there's a lot of places where it isn't that crowded.

00:22:02 John Daub: So I came here by bus this morning. It was about a two-hour trip from Tokyo. Oh, you can see behind the curry booth. So I'm going to be trying some of the curry. After I get done with this live stream, there's going to be a halftime show. And in the halftime show, they're going to have Bollywood dancers. And I think that's sort of cool because, you know, my mother's from India originally. And when I was growing up, I got to see some of those Bollywood movies. And I never really got into it until recently. I'm more into the Bollywood movies because some of them are better than the Hollywood movies. I'll be honest with you.

00:22:56 John Daub: They're going to have Bollywood dancers at halftime. And I want to cover that because I'm really curious to see how authentic the Bollywood dancing is here in Japan. Anyways, I smell a lot of curry and I smell a lot of fried foods. And fried foods are famous here in Sano. There's the potato fry. And I'm going to be trying this imo-fry (sweet potato fry). Right there in the center is a booth for the imo-fry. And I want to do a livestream just on food because this is just an introduction to what the day is going to be doing. I'm going to be livestreaming throughout the day.

00:23:48 John Daub: I have a battery to power up both the gimbal and the phone. There is some media here, which is kind of cool. Actually, I took the bus with them. The cameraman and the reporters. So that was pretty neat. I got a press pass. And right now what they're doing is filming for TV the Indian curry place because of this. And they're going to be filming the international influence that the city of Sano now has. Possibly because they have a major Japanese food producer has a factory here. A House. So that's the first livestream of today. It didn't go smoothly. We had some difficulties.

00:24:39 John Daub: I was told when I was going to start, yeah, there's 4G LTE. But it's hard to see how strong that signal is in order to bring you this story. One of the great things about the Only in Japan channel for me is that I get a chance to see how technology today is working. How the signal to livestream and the platform is working today. And it's not really smooth all the time. But it's still pretty cool to see that I can do this. Because a few years ago, you couldn't do this. You couldn't livestream on location. Even in 480p. Even with the lag, you can do that. Out here, in the middle of nowhere. Well, I wouldn't call Sano the middle of nowhere. It's not that far from Tokyo.

00:25:44 John Daub: The information I got from members of the Indian team of Eleven was that the ball is different. It's lighter. So that's going to impact the flow of the game, I think. He said that the game should take about four hours. Just how long they tease the pink team. Because I think the team from India is just really strong. Like when the Yankees play a little league team. Because India's national sport is cricket. And I'm not sure how good these players are. But I'll tell you what. I used to play in my mother's village. We would just set up like trash cans as wickets. And I didn't even know the rules. I would hit it like a baseball. But I had a cricket bat in my hands.

00:26:44 John Daub: And those people in the village, they're not professional cricketers. But they're pretty darn good. So I'm going to say that just the normal people who play this every day, who grew up playing cricket, are going to be good. Because a lot of the talent in Japan, they grow up playing baseball. Before I cut this live stream out and start another one, I'm going to go up here. And once again, you want to turn on the notifications and make sure you check back. Because I'm going to be doing at least four streams today. I want to show you this area and the food. The food. I'm starving. So here's the stands. Let's take a look from the top. There's no home runs in cricket. It's pretty cool from up here. You get a better view of the field.

00:28:18 John Daub: Yeah, you're right. Things aren't really coming up on the screen so well. Hold on a second. Although that might make this a little bit interesting, huh? I don't know that might be me. Maybe I don't see any alcohol here. So that's a good thing, but it's not for the streaking. Thank you for that, Nosh and Vaughn. Get some food. Oh, yeah, you better believe it. That's what I'm gonna do next. Mr. Sphinx Canada. Thank you very much. Oh, thank you for joining Patreon. I appreciate that. Thanks for the super chat. Thanks Nosh as well for pointing that out. I'm gonna go get some food.

00:29:16 John Daub: There's not enough cricket fans out here to support me. Everyone's telling me to go play baseball and stuff that. But cricket, you know, once again, let me go up here to the top. Cricket is not a really popular sport in Japan yet. The commonwealth sports are increasing. Rugby. One of them is rugby and I don't know if rugby is a commonwealth sport. I just know it's not a sport we play in the United States very well because we have American football. Rugby will be having the World Cup in Japan. So Japan has a pretty decent rugby team. And that World Cup is going to be coming next year, 2019.

00:30:10 John Daub: So I'm hoping that's going to be a very good event where we can sort of highlight what's happening for the 2020 Olympics. Just like in Rio, they had the World Cup for soccer, the football in 2014 before the 2016 Olympics. I'm gonna end this live stream over there in the distance. Those people like me who've never played cricket before. I'm gonna show you how to play it professionally with real wickets. You can go down there and you can try cricket and there's a try play. So I might go down there and give it a try. That's kind of neat. And that's free.

00:30:53 John Daub: And you can see all of the food stands. There's all kinds of different curry so I'm going to do Indian curry versus some of the Japanese curry and see if I can taste the difference. Of course I will but it's going to be fun trying and that's what the purpose of this stream is, just to eat food. It's not actually an academic study. Not every live stream is an academic study in professional quality analysis, it's more just for fun and to see and experience a different kind of curry, especially here in Sano, which is, you know, Sanomaru the yuru-chara. He's his head's a bowl of ramen. And yet this is known as a curry town.

00:31:46 John Daub: So maybe Sanomaru is going to need some competition. You know, a South Asian looking character. I could be that guy I guess. Who will compete against his ramen? The best would be curry with ramen. Look at him. He's down there currying favor with the locals down there. I like this. We're gonna have some fun. So in the beginning of this live stream, I could not get the iPhone 7 Plus to work. But the iPhone 6 is working with a lag. So we're gonna try to fix these problems in the next live stream. I'll bring you the iPhone 7 Plus.

00:32:31 John Daub: It's pretty interesting to see cricket here because this is a sight. I think in Japan you do not see like a lot of fields of cricketers. That's right. So according to Vishal, thank you very much. Cricket is most popular in England, Australia, New Zealand, India, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Pakistan, West Indies and all those countries in the middle of South Asia. Except for West Indies, which is in the Pacific, but it's very popular there too. But yeah, India, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and Pakistan. Oh my word. They are cricket insane. There's no other sport that brings out passion like cricket whereas in England there's rugby and there's football. India doesn't have that football craze. What they have is cricket craze.

00:33:24 John Daub: So I'm gonna end the live stream here for the opening. Once again, they're doing the cricket in Sano here. And this is interesting because there is a South Indian community in Sano. But this is also where the curry factory is and this is also where there's an open field to play cricket. There's not in Tokyo. And it's a good reason for me to get out of the city and then check out a different area. You know, it's nice to get out of Tokyo for a day. Especially on a day like this. I mean we have blue skies. So that means the cherry blossoms are going to be warming up and popping out in about a few days. We'll start to see the buds starting to turn into blossoms, which is pretty exciting.

00:34:08 John Daub: So I'm going to end the last 20 seconds looking at this really exciting cricket match and I'm going to bring you some food next and then we're going to do a halftime show. Dancing and then the final thing I'm going to do is to bring you more in depth the cricket match and sort of get a point of view from the players and then get so these balls can come into the field and hit us. I don't see anybody hitting home runs into the crowd. I guess they could conceivably slam the ball into the audience right into the crowd. I didn't realize that. I thought it was safe up here. I don't think power is might be an attribute necessary for cricket. I think it's more skill. It's an interesting sport.

00:35:03 John Daub: So I'm going to do a live stream of the food and then after that we're going to do a halftime show with Bollywood dancing. I'm curious to see how that works and if there's Japanese Bollywood dancers and how that's going to shape up. Peter knows what I'm talking about. And then we're gonna check out the match in more detail probably from the stands and up close onto the field because I got a press pass for today. So I'll be streaming all day. So join me on this beautiful afternoon here in [inaudible]. See everybody. Yeah. There may be some belly dancing. Bollywood in Japan. Very cool. Thanks everybody. See you again very soon. I'll schedule the events so you'll be able to see them at least 30 minutes before.