00:00:08 John Daub: Believe it or not, this is Kyoto. That's the Kamo River down there, flowing through Gion. And I'm joined right now with Kevin Reilly.

00:00:22 Kevin Reilly: Hey, hi.

00:00:22 John Daub: How you doing, Kevin?

00:00:24 Kevin Reilly: Very good. This weather is a complete polar opposite to yesterday when we were just wet the entire day.

00:00:35 John Daub: I'm really happy because I'm here on a mission. I'm here filming the Only in Japan main channel. And yesterday was supposed to be a day where we introduced two temples to you. However, it didn't work out the plan, did it?

00:00:49 Kevin Reilly: No, we were soaking wet rats at the end of the day.

00:00:52 John Daub: Yes, it was really miserable. However, today makes up for it like ten times. I don't have the kind of free time. I got to go back to Tokyo soon to edit. Oh, this duck is going to... Duck, no, don't go down, duck! All right, I thought he was going under. I like how the... This is called the Kamo River, which means duck river (鴨川), right?

00:01:14 Kevin Reilly: Kind of like a goose-duck type thing, yeah.

00:01:16 John Daub: And this guy down here, it's a really natural world. And that's what I like about Kyoto in general, right? Kyoto is a place where the natural world connects with culture and history and the spiritual world. And the view that we see right now is just really nice. That there, yeah. It's a place to be in summer.

00:01:45 Kevin Reilly: Well, Kyoto's got four seasons, winter, spring, summer, fall. So each one is pretty special. I like autumn here.

00:01:54 John Daub: So what we're going to do is walk in this live stream, walk to the bridge in the distance. On our right, right now, are a bunch of, you see some decks here. These are all restaurants, right?

00:02:06 Kevin Reilly: Most of them are, almost all of them are restaurants. Some of them might be people's houses, but the majority are restaurants. And they're all connected on the front by an alley, right? Yes, there's one on the other side. Everybody comes in from the other side.

00:02:18 John Daub: And what is that alley called, Kevin?

00:02:20 Kevin Reilly: That alley is called Pontocho (先斗町).

00:02:22 John Daub: Pontocho! You were going to do a little Pontocho walk through. But first, take in some of this nature because it's just such a nice day. And this is where we want to start. We want to start a live stream right out here. It's a really beautiful day. That bridge is the bridge a lot of the tourists will walk that bridge to go from the station. This is the Keihan Station. There are a lot of rail networks.

00:02:47 Kevin Reilly: JR Kyoto Station is maybe about a 15, 20 minute taxi ride, yeah, that's the way it is down south from here. It's over in a bit, too. You can walk here to Gion from Kyoto Station in about 30 minutes, I'd say. About 45, yeah. But taxi is about 15, 20 minutes. And you can go by bus as well. But JR pretty much ends at Kyoto Station. And then you gotta take private train lines like the subway, which is very limited. And the Keihan Line, which goes along the river, the Kamo River. Yeah, there's not many, not as much trains here as we have in Osaka or you guys have in Tokyo.

00:03:30 John Daub: And you can see up here, it is just getting close to lunchtime. And as we get closer to the bridge, the decks get a little bit better because these restaurants might be doing a little bit better financially, I think. You can always tell out here, but this river does flood sometimes. They have big rains, so there's a meaning to having these stilts up here. Have you ever eaten at a restaurant there?

00:03:52 Kevin Reilly: Yeah, I haven't eaten at any of the ones here, but I've eaten the same style up in Kibune (貴船).

00:03:57 John Daub: And what you're doing is, the idea is you're sitting over top of the river in summer, so it's cooler. You got the cool breezes from the water. So this is a nice place to have lunch. Check it out. There's chairs up there just overlooking the river. That's the place to be. Now, they're not quite, not all these places are open yet. Oh, there's two girls that just sat down there. It's still a little bit early. Here's the guy ready. She's getting ready for the lunch crowd, checking it out. And you can see on the right side of the screen, that's where the alley is. And we're going to be walking through that alley next, so definitely stick with us for another couple of minutes. There are some people having lunch up there.

00:04:37 Kevin Reilly: Yeah, I noticed they pulled all the shades across.

00:04:41 John Daub: Oh, right. I was here yesterday because it was raining, but today it's going to be hot and sunny, so it's a little shade. That won't protect you from the rain, but it will keep the sun off of you because it is getting really bright. Yeah, and it's going to be cooking. It's a hot one today. That's why I wear the hat, keep the hair down.

00:05:07 Kevin Reilly: I hate hats. I can't stand them. I didn't bring my bandana with me, so.

00:05:11 John Daub: All right, so there's the station right there. That's the Keihan Gion-Shijo Station (京阪祇園四条駅). So this is where a lot of people come in here because the Gion area is very popular. And we're going to be going up this stairway up under the top of the bridge, and I think you get a little different view from up there. Then we're going to take you down Pontocho. It's going to be pretty cool. I'm really looking forward to it because I haven't been there in a year. And hey, everybody keep your eyes peeled. We might be in luck. We might see something special in Pontocho. Just never know.

00:05:51 Kevin Reilly: You know what Kevin's talking about? You might see something special? Are you talking about the maiko (舞妓, apprentice geisha)?

00:06:01 John Daub: Yes. And what is a maiko?

00:06:05 Kevin Reilly: It's a geisha in training. The young ones.

00:06:14 John Daub: So, I did a little research. I did see once. I came up behind one. Walked out right in front of me, and it was quite the sight. Thank you very much, Jim, for plugging Kevin's channel right there.

00:06:25 Kevin Reilly: Oh, thanks, Jim.

00:06:25 John Daub: Kevin also runs Kuma's Kitchen, which is a YouTube channel that focuses on the culinary skills that he has, which he's really good at.

00:06:37 Kevin Reilly: I like sharing my recipes, which I've all created over the years, so it's my outlet for doing that. I love cooking.

00:06:44 John Daub: I like eating. That's my second thing. Now, this is where I wanted to bring you. We're at the top of the bridge. Check it out. It's really nice up here. This is the postcard that you'd probably want to take from Gion. On the left, you have the restaurants and Pontocho, which is the alley on the left side. On the right side, you have the Kamo River, and in the distance, the mountains, which just makes Kyoto a really natural place. I mean, in Tokyo, you can't see the mountains surrounding it. I think having that on the horizon really makes the city stand out.

00:07:19 Kevin Reilly: Yeah, we're kind of in a bowl of mountains here. They're all basically, I think, at least three sides, all mountains all around the city. I go hiking. A lot of these, like up over there. I go hiking over those mountains. It's fantastic hiking here.

00:07:33 John Daub: And if you look over here on this side, this is where the crossing through Gion. There's another mountain there. That's the Higashiyama (東山), right? That's the east side of Kyoto. That's where Kiyomizudera (清水寺), that's where Ginkaku-ji (銀閣寺), that's where Heian Jingu (平安神宮), which is over there. All of them are on that side. On this side, there really isn't as much. Nijo Castle (二条城), Nijo. A couple of temples up in the hills there. And Ginkaku-ji, the Silver Pavilion would be over here, and the Philosopher's Path is over here, and Kyoto Station is the opposite direction.

00:08:07 Kevin Reilly: This way. Not towards me.

00:08:09 John Daub: But it is really an impressive place. Colonel 007 writes in, have you ever tried taking a bike?

00:08:16 Kevin Reilly: Yes.

00:08:16 John Daub: In fact, if you go back and look at my Fushimi Inari video on the main channel, you'll see me renting a bicycle and riding it. Riding a bicycle in Kyoto is really neat, but the roads are not really set up for bicycle riding. You have to be quite careful and stay to the shoulder, more so than other cities. There's just not a lot of bike paths. There are here, but near Kyoto Station, there's not much infrastructure for that.

00:08:40 Kevin Reilly: Yeah, along the river would be best.

00:08:41 John Daub: Oh, it's just beautiful though. To walk along the Kamo River here at night and during the day, it's just really nice. It's really hot in the summer, but right now, it's really nice. Look at the distance there, you can actually see a couple of people biking right now. The bikers are coming. Boy, but you can see them coming in. I mean, you can even bike up one side and down the other. It'd be a great little bike day. So, let's go down the alley.

00:09:18 Kevin Reilly: Sure.

00:09:19 John Daub: There are a lot of tourists. I mean, that's a given, right? But I hear languages. I just heard some Thai and Chinese and I think Vietnamese. I saw a lot of French yesterday. A lot of French, German, Austrians I met. So, people from all over. This is not what you would think of Kyoto, the center of Gion area is very much like this. Shijo, we would call it, right? Now, we're going down here. And if you're an alien-looking man with a very strange-looking child, you'll have a better experience. I'm just saying, right? It's sort of weird. Check it out. Now, this is something that you always want to do. You only see on a live stream because I don't think I would edit this in a video. But let me read it for you. The history of Pontocho.

00:10:25 John Daub: Just quickly. Pontocho, one of the most outstanding and prosperous quarters of Kyoto, used to be a sandbar in the Kamo River. However, in 1670, after a reinforcement of the riverbank was completed, houses were constructed along the embankment. Sometime later in the area, which is 600 meters long and 50 meters wide, became known as Pontocho. And then after lots of inns and tea houses served by hostesses were allowed to be put in this street in 1712, the area became a prosperous gay quarter.

00:11:06 Kevin Reilly: It was a gay quarter, right? In a different meaning from what we think now it is.

00:11:12 John Daub: A different meaning. But the people writing it just used a translating dictionary maybe. The exact origin of the word Pontocho is unknown. However, it is believed to have come from the English word point or the Portuguese word ponto. As the area developed, was on the west side of the river at the point of the sandbar. The Kamogawa Odori (鴨川おどり), the traditional geisha dance, which is held at Pontocho Theatre every spring and autumn, is considered a very popular annual event of Kyoto and attracts not only citizens of Kyoto but numerous tourists from every performance. So that's kind of a neat sign at the front of Pontocho. And you can see as I turn the camera around, at night this place is awesome. And during the day it's not quite the same. But we're going to show it to you nevertheless. Ready? Some Pontocho. If you're watching this, slam the like button. And if you do, I will buy Kevin a drink. Please slam the like button.

00:12:17 Kevin Reilly: Yeah.

00:12:18 John Daub: If we can get 200 likes, I will buy Kevin a drink. It's up to you. We're going up very quickly. Smash that like button. This is active crowd participation. We're almost at 200. Nobody's really... People are too slow. We got there, dude.

00:12:46 Kevin Reilly: Yay. Thank you. Thank you. It's on me. My thirst was liked.

00:12:50 John Daub: Oh, wait. Okay. They don't have... I can't pay by... Oh, yeah. Here we go. Now this is going to be an excuse. No, no, no, no, no. There's no excuse. I can't pay by Suica card, by IC card. Where's the Boss coffee? There's the Boss coffee. What do you want, Kevin?

00:13:01 Kevin Reilly: Just the water.

00:13:02 John Daub: Just the water? You don't want a Monster? Come on. I know you do.

00:13:07 Kevin Reilly: No, I don't. Gretchen wants the Monster, I'm sure. Too sweet. We're going to stick it with the water. I have a water from the hotel in my bag.

00:13:12 John Daub: Okay, buddy. Go ahead. You push it. I bought it. Here we go. Boom. We have a winner. Thank you, everybody, for supporting the show. I appreciate it. Kevin's got his water.

00:13:25 Kevin Reilly: I appreciate it. Yeah. Drink. I was getting a little thirsty.

00:13:29 John Daub: I knew you were. I could sense it in your voice. A little raspier than normal. Oh, here we go. It's so smooth now. Michael spotted. Do you see it, Kevin?

00:13:40 Kevin Reilly: Oh. Oh.

00:13:42 John Daub: We were finding Michael on the vending machine right here. My spidey senses sense it's... but it's pretty nice to see on the side of the vending machine. So now you know what to look for, okay? That's what we're looking for.

00:13:57 Kevin Reilly: That's a Mico [?]. We're hunting that right now.

00:13:59 John Daub: You're hunting that. I'm not hunting Mico. Okay. You hunt the Mico. So at first, you could see right from the start, you could see straight through it, and that's sort of how the restaurants are built, where there's an entranceway. You could eat inside, but everybody goes outside to the balcony, and they get a beer or something. Except for yesterday, which is miserable. We have unagi (eel) on the top, which is really good. That looks pretty good, actually. The prices are fairly reasonable, 2,600 yen or $20 for the one in the middle. Bring that a little closer to you. And you get here... I believe that's sukiyaki down there.

00:14:35 Kevin Reilly: Yeah, that's sukiyaki. You get a bunch of meat there. That's beef. Sukiyaki.

00:14:41 John Daub: And yeah, about $32 for that. And you have the unagi teishoku (eel set meal), which looks like just a set with sashimi and unagi for $20. So pretty reasonable. But wait, there's a lot more down this alley, right? We're just getting warmed up. It just happens because this restaurant in the front is an unagi restaurant. All right, let's walk down here. You know why we eat unagi in summer?

00:15:12 Kevin Reilly: No. Why do we do that?

00:15:13 John Daub: Okay, so June... I think it was June 21st. I always forget the exact date, but we have a date called Doyo no Ushi no Hi (土用の丑の日). And we eat unagi to give us strength to face the heat of summer. I don't know if it does anything, but I'll take any excuse to eat unagi. Hey. What you all got? You don't get to see the cameraman very often. Tempura. So this one does not have a river view, but I think I may have been... I have eaten here before. Has English menu... Yeah, lunchtime started already. It's kind of pricey, though. They want 30 bucks for their lunch menu. It's a cheap restaurant. It's a little crazy. Kaioutei since 1915. And they have... Let me see the menu here. Green salad, tempura, hamburger, grilled pork loin. The lunch menu looks pretty reasonable. I mean, you get a lot for that $25. Steak and wine. When I searched my memory 20 years ago when I came and walked through here the first time, it's different.

00:16:31 Kevin Reilly: Oh, it's changed.

00:16:31 John Daub: Yeah. There's a lot of new little restaurants here. I mean, look at this. A hair salon. Curl. Hair salon. And you can see the posters for tourist attractions. This one is a... I'm not sure. It's a maiko show, right? A performance for maiko. Kamogawa Odori. Interesting. So this one's taking place on May 1st to 24th, which is right now. Heisei 30, which is 2018. There's the phone number if you're interested. And yeah, they don't really have a URL, do they? One of the things you'll notice is they do this a lot. They give you the search term. Except it's in Japanese. So I guess this is not a tourist event. But if you want to... There is the QR code. You can screenshot it in QR code that Mama gets them in. The tickets are reasonable. You know, if I came to Kyoto, I would not want to go to a tourist show. I want to go where there's lots of locals going. But I don't think that there's a lot of shows that locals go to, like geisha performances.

00:17:34 Kevin Reilly: Kyoto residents don't do that, do they? I don't know. I'm not a Kyoto resident.

00:17:37 John Daub: But I don't think so. Same we do, right? I mean, we don't go to tourist things. So when people ask me what's the best show or the best tourist thing to do, I say, we don't know.

00:17:52 Kevin Reilly: Do you know? I don't know.

00:17:53 John Daub: Because we don't do that. We kind of just... We do what locals do, which is we would just go get drinking a lot and eat a lot of food and have a merry old time. Hey, summer festivals. We do like summer festivals. I do like how the restaurants are made of wood. And even though these are newer built... They do adhere to the style of the area. And that makes this really a unique place, especially at night.

00:18:22 Kevin Reilly: I got to do one up here many years... Many, many years ago. A bar up in the north there. It was beautiful working with all the wood.

00:18:31 John Daub: Let's move up to the side here so people can walk past us. And now, in case you're getting excited, those are not... Those are tourists coming towards us in yukata. Yeah, those are tourists. This one... Maybe we can grab a beer here. But no, the lunch sets are expensive. I think they know that the lunch set is going to be really pricey. Because they know we're going to... That's over 8,000 yen there. They know we're just going to sit there on the river and not budge. So these red lanterns, you can hear they all have a little wind chime inside of them. Well, not all of them, but this one does. And that little chime, it cools you down in the summer. That's why wind chimes are very popular in the summertime. And the wind moves this Premium Malts beer advertisement. I like seeing these little history of the Kamo River. The river is here in the picture. And you can see people have been traditionally sitting along the river and eating with lanterns on the table like this for a long time. This is not a new thing. This is a very, very old tradition. That was the only way they could cool down in the old days. They didn't have air conditioners. Japanese houses are hot in the summer, cool in the winter. They were built better, though, for breeze to go through compared to newer modern buildings. They actually thought of the way... They had all the fusuma (襖, sliding doors) that opened. So you get breezes going through the buildings. They had to. You can see above here... I don't want to talk too loud because it feels like we're in a neighborhood. But the phone and power lines, none of them are below. They're all above. That's the one thing about Japan. It has to do a lot with the fact that there's earthquakes in Japan. And when there's earthquakes, you can't really put the cables underground because the ground is always shifting. So what you have above is just like wires going everywhere. It's pretty crazy, isn't it? It gets pretty heavy in some places. And then when there are earthquakes, these things sway like crazy. You can hear it going...

00:20:55 Kevin Reilly: You're getting thirsty. I thought you just wanted water, but I guess you're thirsty for other drinks.

00:21:05 John Daub: So Kevin and I are going to do another shoot in about two hours or so, right? That looks good. That looks reasonably priced. And it's up the stairs here. Well, I guess as you keep going further down Pontocho, the price is going to go up. The prices seem to get a little bit more reasonable because at the beginning they were quite expensive. Some of the set lunch sets were like $80. And here we got oden (おでん). Let's see what this is like because oden shouldn't be that big a price.

00:21:42 Kevin Reilly: Oden is usually an inexpensive food, but I have seen it expensive. Now, this is pretty reasonable. Not bad for a set.

00:21:53 John Daub: Yeah. Let me get that in here. ¥1,580 for the obanzai (おばんざい, Kyoto home-style dishes) set. And they have rice with some oden. The other sets, they kind of go up in price. And here's one for two people. That one is for ¥2,100. It's a real decent price. Actually, that's pretty decent because if you're going to sit on the riverside, you pay for that as well. It looks good. You can see on the other side that light in the middle is where the river is. She's selling us the sets. She's telling us the prices of the sets. I love these little alleys too. Look at this. This is what at night, it just really comes to life. It totally takes on a different personality, which is why the nightlife in Kyoto, this is a nightlife area. People are drinking and boozing and enjoying life. That's where they're spending their money too. Usually, there's a lot of posters. Again, it's the entertainment area. The posters tell you the tale of the things that you can see and do. A lot of this stuff is in Japanese, but if you want it in English, the tourist office inside Kyoto Station is really good. They have all that information in English and help to promote Japanese culture to tourists because not everything is in English.

00:23:27 Kevin Reilly: Yeah, they've gotten really good about it.

00:23:30 John Daub: Kyoto is so tourist-oriented. It's very tourist-oriented, but I think if everything was in English, it wouldn't feel like Kyoto. I'll be honest with you. I want it to be unreadable to people. The attraction for tourists is that they don't want to see other tourists. They'd rather see Japanese at these events. If you go there and it's all these other tourists, I don't think that that's so attractive because then you doubt the authenticity of what you're seeing. I know my wife was really unhappy one time when we went to Switzerland when they had Japanese signs. A lot of Japanese tourists, she doesn't want to see that. She's like, no, no. If you're in another country and you see Japanese signs, it's kind of the same thing. Oh, look at this. Just right along the alley here. You have these two rabbits, one looking up at you saying, hey, don't eat my flower. Oh, and it's pretty nice inside. You can see there's the genkan (玄関, entryway) and the tatami. Looks like somebody's house, like you're looking into somebody's house. It is probably an old machiya (町家, traditional townhouse). People that live in part of it. They have a little store in the front. Okay. And here they give you pictures of what it looks like on the outside because you might have seen on the outside. But when you get into Pontocho, you're very disoriented. You don't know which shop was actually the one that was right. Am I right? Which shop on the river. And this shows you what the tables look like on the river and what they look like inside. And it's really nice. They've done a good job here. Not just that, but making an English menu. Look at this. Grilled pork. Kyoto pork lunch. And that's pretty reasonable. 2,160 yen. Grilled fish lunch for 1,960 yen, which is about $18. And you get to sit on the riverside and enjoy. It's a good idea of chicken. Shabu-shabu. It's easy to read it when it's in romaji. I don't see that often like this. So makes me think that locals don't eat here. Mostly tourists eat here.

00:25:53 Kevin Reilly: Most likely.

00:25:54 John Daub: I don't know. You know, I don't mind. I think I would eat here just for the ambiance. Just to sit outside. I don't care. The food should be good because that's what you pay for. But you also pay for sitting outside on the river on a nice day like today. All right. So we're just going to walk a little bit further. That's pretty cool. She's making a delivery. Did you see that? She had a tray of food. She's making a delivery. That's how the maiko will come. They'll just pop out and they're out and they're gone and that's it. If you do see one, it's very, very fast. The lights are coming out. Everything's starting to open. She's throwing water on the street and it's to keep the dust down, right? So when they first open, a lot of restaurants will throw water on the street. It keeps the dust down. It keeps it clean as people start passing by. Mima-suyo [?]. So this old lady just walked from here and like across there.

00:27:08 John Daub: Konnichiwa. Konnichiwa. Konnichiwa. They spell Kobe with a U. Kobe. That's how it is, right?

00:27:20 Kevin Reilly: Actually, Kobe should be with a U because it's Kobe-u, but they really did it.

00:27:26 John Daub: Nobody usually writes it in romaji that way, but that is the right way if you're writing in Japanese. I like how they wrote on the window like this. It looks traditional like they like something that they would have done in the past. This is something was funny too. As you look down here, hamburger like it's a hamburger city and I saw one where they use a user was Humber. Yeah. They also have an English menu which is it's pretty neat to see this because when again when we first came here that was not an option. Part of the experience was the struggle to order stuff and figure out what it is that you wanted to eat and then make that. So we went through all the work of learning Japanese when there is nothing in English you have to learn Japanese, right? I mean right you're forced to learn. That's good. Actually. I like that. Maybe if it'd been easier we wouldn't have done that. Well, thank you. Thank you Denise. Bah hum burger Hamburg. Really so going back and look at some of the comments. Check out Hankyu visitor's pass good tip Nosh Abroad a Hankyu has a pass. Get Anthony out here. I don't know what that means the Ray blade in the old days property was taxed by the width of the street. So folks would make the narrowest buildings possible and make them as deep as they could afford this street. This street was designed to avoid taxes really good insight Ray blade. I think that this really is an illustration of that. Pontocho is narrow and they avoid taxes. I'm sure of it because you don't know what's going on in some of these buildings. What's what they got going on in there, too?

00:29:24 Kevin Reilly: Dragged my sister one day to go to Osaka not in Kyoto that comes from deep purple and thank you for Tenasha brought into gym for moderating this live stream, and you know what this this brown ball up here means right Kevin. Oh, yeah. After they make the sake. Yeah, all right. Yeah, we're live streaming right now. That's Kevin. Yeah, go, Texas. Bye. Bye cool. It is the right choice.

00:29:58 John Daub: So oh this is the place you know what a couple years ago I came here with some friends of mine who work in the in the movie business and they took me here. Yeah, it's really nice this one has a fantastic balcony. However, it's pricey. I didn't pay. Okay oh cat very nice. I love it when you see a cat crossing the street. I think it's good luck. They love hanging out at the local shrine. A whole bunch of noise. So there you go go this is this one on the end is a beautiful restaurant it's called Yoshi and that also has a history but if you look down the alley from this point at nighttime this is one of the most spectacular points to look back down at the alley it really is beautiful it feels like Kyoto this is one of the places where you feel Gion you feel Kyoto at night especially and you hear the wind chimes going you might catch a maiko go every now and then just just kind of crossing from one side to the other it's a glimpse it doesn't happen very often but when it does it's pretty special so Mark and TFP 01 thank you very much Kevin and I will be drinking later today I guarantee it all right because what we're gonna eat requires drinking at this yeah yeah we're gonna be shooting this afternoon you can't eat without drinking something with it it's almost like a requirement of eating this yeah I can't tell you because it's for the main channel that's that's I'm just filling this day in by showing you some things of Kyoto this is the end of the alley at the end of here if you if you really are hardcore Starbucks fan there's one that's famous on the other side however Kevin suggests that you go to Tully's because he prefers their cafe mocha yeah definitely they automatically put chocolate on it that's why one of the things he likes about that right it's a thicker whipped cream on top to a thicker whipped cream holds up better I think it's a very very good thing to do it's a little bit more of a flavor for the main channel but it's very popular so I think a lot of the lot of fun yeah Goku Whittington writes in that he'll be in Osaka in two months I think I think a lot of people are going to be visiting this Kansai region in in the summertime and I have to tell you something I so what do i want to leave here all right so you can see here's what it looks like yeah from this this shop right and the food looks good uh it's reasonable 2,000 yen to start for that set you know summer what are first of all tokyo or osaka which one is the should people make as their portal this is an easy one for us you're going to say you know i'm going to say.

00:33:02 Kevin Reilly: Osaka of course yeah you're going to see a second i'm going to say tokyo but i'm gonna i'm gonna disagree with myself and say maybe kansai is is better uh because right now tokyo has a hotel crunch uh okay like there's not it's very hard to find a hotel in in tokyo and the prices now have.

00:33:24 John Daub: Like so oh what is this this is um kyoto style beef this looks good too you can see the aged beef in here there's roast sirloin and they have a lot of beef here and they have kyoto's uh beer that's a matcha beer we have a lot of uh local like around kyoto mino or osaka place like this um the new craft beer is coming out yeah it's really really delicious five ten years yeah so going back to it osaka might be the best place to actually visit because when you think about it kansai is stocked with attractions and if you if kyoto is high on your list of places to go then make kansai airport the your entry point not tokyo don't try to do day trips because kyoto everything is so spread out that it's much better to either stay in this area and get an early start on everything or or she's going to be too stressed out it's very hard to do a day trip to kyoto what would you say also i'd say like i know quite a few people would come here and it stayed just one day on osaka franz if you're listening i know you came through here um they came here and then i say oh i wish i stayed longer you know i wish i yeah i've done a few few days instead of just one so really one day is not enough one day you know what i think if you if you want to just get a taste of kyoto you still one day is not enough one day is not enough yeah so i moved to the side so i think tokyo is probably the place so tokyo is probably a place where i avoid because um there's a lot of shops in the south side but it's not really a lot of shops it's just a lot of stores and they're just too expensive it's just too kevin's in the procession it's pretty cool but but there's a real kimono actually there's a real kimono beer all right just to tie this up i'm not anti-tokyo but right now there's a crunch on on accommodations in tokyo and they're very expensive kansai has kobe has himeji has osaka which is a massive city in itself has kyoto has uh know there's other place has nada so it's stocked with places that you can visit.

00:35:53 Kevin Reilly: Are you reading the comments I knew you my engagement for Kevin John doesn't have that much money you have no idea how much that would be and and would you be satisfied with that entertainment not really see all that like all that money you want me to blow on entertaining this this guy he wouldn't even enjoy it he's a sin you're like me I'll be happy with just just something real simple yeah don't waste your money your money on us don't waste your geisha money on two dudes just plop us on a table with a bunch of beers with some nice people and we'll be just fine yeah like the other night that was fine that was fun we'll bring that story to you a little bit later on so that's it I think I think we're getting further away from from you the station oh yeah so this will be really by summertime it'll be done you can see they they really preserve they I mean look at the quality wood work you can smell it mm-hmm hinoki yeah he knows his cypress and it's beautiful wood I've worked with this stuff and I love it yeah it's great to work with and so you'd be you'd be comfortable up there working oh yeah okay so we're gonna we're gonna make our way back now so that that's pretty much it for the livestream I hope that you got a little bit of insight into Pontocho and the Kamo River down there, Kamo River and you get an idea of what it's like during the daytime it's pretty quiet most people are temple most people are watching temples right going to go in places to place nice place to walk right now it's kind of relaxing yeah that's pretty neat this dish with the geisha on there yeah Kevin Kevin if you stand up theensively you're gonna get a kick out of this man's beard the right spot you your face will be there we go oh that's very creepy very creepy there you have it ponto hope you enjoyed it i had a lot of fun and kevin did too we're going back to osaka thanks for the drink hey you wanted it we'll get you something stronger later oh yeah right now that hit the spot yeah the day is young it's still just lunch time we're gonna get something maybe get a sandwich or something and then head back oh we still got one more scene to film for that actually at the station right right yes yeah one more scene to film and then we're back to osaka yeah then we're back to osaka so see you guys everybody and uh yeah we'll be maybe do another live stream tomorrow kevin's you're not going to be here tomorrow i'll be up in the mountains tomorrow kevin's going to be away i'm going to be in kyoto in the morning and then in the afternoon i'm going to be back in osaka for one more shoot and then i'm heading back to tokyo and that's it for me i got a lot of editing to do for the main channel uh got a lot of work to do so i will see you all again soon and kevin i'll be back this is the last time you're going to see kevin for a little while until the edited versions of the video come up but thank you very much for sharing your insight with us and just one more plug kuma's kitchen uh think jim has already shared the link a couple of times nosh as well i appreciate that and we're going to put a link in the description and and kevin's i think you have about 2200 subscribers it'd be cool to see him um you know start getting more because you put a lot of work and effort into your videos and yeah i i appreciate we appreciate you as a community who watch these videos thank you in japan and want to support what you do because that's pretty it's pretty delicious when you see more japanese food though.

00:39:41 Kevin Reilly: Yeah yeah a lot of western food okay i i my wife is the japanese cook okay and she's not gonna go in front of the camera she said no no no no uh also she's really busy right now because she's studying she's uh doing a course at cambridge so okay i can't get her on but i do do some uh actually i'm thinking of uh getting her to show me how to do a really special that would be interesting yeah that one up there yeah that's something that'd be interesting really like so but yeah i'm a subscriber so we will definitely support you my friend so here's the last 20 seconds looking back at pontocho as we walk back to kyoto station and if you're in the area come say hi we had a couple people this morning at at the hotel who said hi to me from i forget where he was from maybe i think he was from thailand very nice guy uh said hi to me at breakfast at the hotel i was staying in and um we had a couple people yesterday too yeah and just now that couple from texas yeah so it's nice yeah oh yeah we're friendly come up kevin won't fight not that hard all right see everybody bye.