00:15:00 John Daub: Hey everybody, I just wanted to come on really quickly live to show you a little bit of the countryside from another area of Tottori Prefecture. This is still Tottori Prefecture, but this is called Fukuoka Shrine. You can see the torii (Shinto gate) right there. It's famous for something, and I'm going to tell you a really short story of what makes this area famous. You can see they've already harvested the rice. The fields are pretty bare now, golden. What you see remaining is just the stalks of the rice, I believe, and other crops. And over there they got negi (leeks), and I love that. I'm going to get a chance to eat that later today.

01:13:00 John Daub: But this isn't going to be a very long live stream, just enough to show you a little bit of the countryside. Now this is Hokicho, part of Yonago City, part of Tottori Prefecture in the Daisen area, called the San'in area overall. This shrine up here is Fukuoka Shrine, and I think you can find it on Google Maps. I'll try to put a link in the description so you get an idea of what this area is like. But once a year, they worship the octopus. There's a religious ritual where they basically perform a tale from a legend that goes back hundreds of years.

02:01:00 John Daub: The thing that struck me about this is that the octopus is actually a creature in my mind that either we eat it, or an octopus attacks boats like massive octopuses and drags sailors down to the depths of the sea and eats them on the bottom of the ocean. Right? Like snakes and octopuses and spiders, they don't have good images. But here, the tale is that a fisherman had fallen into the sea and it was an octopus that saved the man. I never even thought octopuses can save people, but the tale is that the octopus saved the person. As a result, this shrine is dedicated to the octopus because it's a savior. It's not a creature that's going to eat people. And I thought that was a pretty unique story because I don't think there's another place in Japan where they worship the octopus. Usually it's a mythical creature like a bird or something, but here it's an octopus. It's just kind of unique.

03:05:00 John Daub: So when you walk underneath these torii gates, I want to point out something you should probably know if you're visiting Japan. When you walk underneath it, you don't want to walk in the center. Walk to the left or the right because the center is a path for the gods. So just kind of walk to the side. Like, I'm going to go to the right side and go through here. Yeah. So that's good to know. Don't walk down the center of the path as well. Try to stay to the left or the right.

03:45:00 John Daub: One of the things I like about doing these NHK shoots is that it takes me to places like this that I would never ordinarily come to. There's no story here for "Only in Japan" like the show that I do, but it's something that I think you can only tell on NHK. That's what makes this really unique. I'm walking down the stairs leading towards the stream that goes through this town. Most of the people who work in this town are farmers. They don't have a lot of other jobs. Either you're working for the post office or you're pretty much a farmer. But this is sort of the way it goes. There's no convenience stores near here.

04:31:00 John Daub: You can see up there, this is the path that I walked, the entrance, the trail that goes from the beginning of the shrine. It starts right there. You can see the torii in the distance. So it starts there and you actually have to walk about 500 meters to get to the shrine at the top of the hill. The shrine's inside of a forest. You can see the path continues up here into the depths of the forest. So I could take you up there for a couple of minutes maybe and you can take a look at it. This is the kind of scene if you leave Tokyo and instead of hanging out in Osaka, Tokyo, Kyoto, just kind of leave the area, you get views like this. Even if you just take a local train for five stops and go out to the middle of nowhere, get off the train and just walk around, you're going to see really cool sights. It does get boring after an hour or so, but find a local restaurant, eat lunch, get back on the train. And then you could say to everybody that you saw the real Japan. Because this is actually the real Japan.

05:54:00 John Daub: All right. It's 12 p.m., lunchtime. It's still echoing through the valley here. At 12 o'clock, they have sounds that tell people what time it is because a lot of people will be working in the fields here and they don't have watches. These little reminders tell people, yeah, go home, have some lunch and come back in an hour. It doesn't mean it's trash day. I'm looking at the live stream here. Like I see some of the music for the rice to grow on. Could be. I'm at 5 p.m. And this is all over the entire country. That was a loud alarm. Yes, it was pretty loud. There's three massive megaphones up there spraying the sounds across the valley. That's pretty loud. And I'm at 5 p.m. all across the country, not just here. They only have this here, I think, the 12 o'clock lunchtime midday ring. But if you go to Tokyo, Kyoto, anywhere in the country, countryside or cities, at 5 p.m. they have a bell. My wife said it tells the kids going back from school, kids should go home and stuff like this.

07:25:00 John Daub: They're actually filming the show up there. I don't know if I can take you up to the shrine. I'm not sure how good the reception is, but I can hear the crickets. The thing is with being out here in the countryside, the air is just so much better than Tokyo. And the sounds. There's rushing water over here. Can you hear that? The sounds of the insects and the birds chirping. I don't know if you can pick that up, but it's really so relaxing. And this goes down to a bigger stream that goes through the valley right there. But it's these little things that I really love about the countryside of Japan. The little things.

08:23:00 Priest: [inaudible Japanese conversation with John about daily music/chimes at 6am, noon, 6pm for people working outside.]

09:50:00 John Daub: So they have bells at 6 a.m., noon, and then at 6 p.m. here. So it's a little bit different. And the reason is not really sure, but it does tell people it's like the meal times, I guess. And it lets people know what time it is. And that's what she said: 6, 12, and 6. So every six hours.

10:13:00 John Daub: Car? Yes, that car. I think it'll be a little bit more colorful. Is there a driver? We have a driver. She wanted to ask about the driver. That was the priest. And I'm going to be back on Sunday here because they have a festival where they celebrate the octopus. This is why I'm taking you up there. I'm just going to show you just a little bit inside of the main shrine here. And you get to see one of the main shrines and what I'm talking about, why this is unique and why you should watch this NHK show.

11:17:00 John Daub: It's an octopus ritual. I don't think it's a festival. It's a ritual. If you look inside there, you see it's an octopus. That's the octopus that helps people, not eats them. That's an octopus that helps people. And that's why the people here don't eat octopus. There's no takoyaki (octopus ball) shop here. It's all like chicken or something. No takoyaki. But it is beautiful. And the ritual, it's not a festival like we wouldn't say matsuri. We would say like a tako shinji. Shinji is the word for a ritual. So it's a Shinto shinji, a Shinto religious ritual that they do.

12:34:00 John Daub: This is pretty neat. This is like a bamboo forest in here. I got to be careful because there's some massive spiders in here. Check it out. It's really cool. The air is a lot cooler here than on the other side. But it's pretty neat to see how deep in the forest the shrine is. It's not deep, but it's in the forest and up on a mountain. That's pretty cool. Yeah, there could be snakes in there too. But I'll tell you one thing, they're definitely spiders. I've seen them. They're yellow. They're big. And they seem to do a good job of catching insects. This is called Fukuoka Shrine, by the way. And I'll put a link in the description. This is the main shrine here. This is where I was filming with the priest about an hour ago. And then we filmed another section here talking about the ritual that's going to take place on Sunday. They do this every year.

13:39:00 John Daub: I'm really looking forward to this because it's an unusual ritual. Now, the story goes that somebody fell into the ocean and it was an octopus that saved them. It brought them out of the ocean like this. So in the ritual, there's like eight people to represent all eight legs. Eight people, each person represents one of the legs. And then they put one dude in the middle and they throw him up into the air like this. And they're all wearing a fundoshi (Japanese loincloth), like the sumo wrestlers wear. So they're throwing up this dude just like this. And this is the thing that the octopus did to save the person to celebrate the goodness of the octopus. And I'm really looking forward to this. This is on Sunday and it takes place here. Actually, anybody can come. It's not exactly the most convenient location. So if you're thinking about making it for the ritual, yeah, good luck. You're definitely going to have to rent a car. There's no public transportation here. But I'll be here on Sunday.

14:52:00 John Daub: It is a really relaxing place. I'm sure there's a lot of people who are still writing in. They want to see it. If you do, you have to wait for the episode. Either you have to come in person or you have to wait for the episode to air. And I believe it's going to be at the end of November. So I'm going to take you down to one more place before we leave, okay? And definitely hit the like button if you're enjoying these live streams in the countryside.

15:24:00 John Daub: Each area of Japan has its own unique characteristic or history to it. That's what makes it unique if you compare it to the United States where you have a lot of small towns out in the middle of nowhere. This is the middle of nowhere, kind of, sort of. And they have a really long history of stuff that's happened here. And that's the kind of stories that makes it a reason to come and visit. You have to know the stories. You have to learn from the people who live here, these inside stories. And from that it just makes coming to visit a place like this so much more meaningful. Like if I didn't know about this tako, this octopus ritual, we wouldn't have any reason to come here to be honest. But every single town, every single neighborhood seems to have something that they do that's really unique. And this just happens to be this town's thing.

16:30:00 John Daub: The thing is that the population in Japan is getting older. We all know that, right? It's famous that Japan's population is getting so old that there's not enough young people to fill in a lot of the services. Which is why robots are starting to take over for people, just because there's not enough people to do a lot of the jobs that need to be done. Or they're bringing in people from the Philippines or from other countries, or anyone who has a skill that Japanese don't have. But for this ritual, there's not enough people that took over. And so there's a place in it in the past where they used to have like 30 people. Now they just have like eight or nine people. There's just enough for one octopus instead of like five octopus groups. So it's not as exciting as it was in the past. It's because there's not enough people. The people have all kind of passed away. So there's not enough people to keep this religious ritual going. That's kind of sad.

17:32:00 John Daub: This is where all that water, that little stream that I showed you about 10 minutes ago, it all comes down and flows into here. Hey Mellow Yellow writes in, love the streams and learning about different places and culture. Thank you very much Mellow Yellow, I appreciate it. It's nice to bring you somewhere other than Tokyo. And I'll be here for another few days. So let's see if we can bring you some more areas. It's pretty good that we had a really strong signal in the middle of nowhere Japan. That means they can bring you to places like this. There's no way that I would ever make a main episode show on what I'm showing you right now. Maybe on the ritual but not just to walk around the countryside and look at bamboo trees. You can see just natural bamboo trees growing all over the place. This is stuff you would see in only a Japanese garden. This is like everyday life for people here. It's pretty cool.

18:30:00 John Daub: So I'm going to walk back up over this bridge. And everything is just so clean. There's no trash. Everything's clean. Everything's been groomed. People take really good care of their town. They respect the water. All these little canals, streams are flowing into this one that goes down into the river. You'll find this in China and all over Asia, really pristine places like this. But in Japan, that's where I live. So this is what I cover.

19:23:00 John Daub: So we're still in Hokicho in Daisen-machi. This is more Yonago in Tottori Prefecture, not where the sand dunes are, sakyu (sand dunes), but up or down by the border of Shimane Prefecture and Tottori Prefecture. This is where the 106-year-old woman lives. You remember I made two shows, one on why Japanese live so long on the main channel. This is her town, this area, Hokicho. This is where she grew up and she was born in the Meiji era. And I'll put a link in the description if you want to see that video, why Japanese live to be 100. And she has, she's the reason why. She eats well, lives a very modest life and simply probably genetics. She's still working. She's 106. She might even be 107 now. But it's this clean living. Check this out. I mean, if you live out here, you have access to clean water, delicious food, clean air. It's a low risk lifestyle. The only thing you have to worry about is like a snake attack or 100,000 spiders jumping on you. They don't even have stingers, do they? It's hard to say, but there's not a lot of risk here. So it's easy to live a little bit longer here than you would anywhere else.

20:51:00 John Daub: This area of Japan is also famous for not having a lot of earthquakes. And it's because the mountain Daisen is here. It protects it from really bad typhoons. So they don't have a lot of really strong typhoons. They go through here. So there's a lot of positives to living in Tottori, this area of the prefecture.

21:24:00 John Daub: All right. I'm going to take you a little bit further over here. There's a little white moth. You see it? Ah, right in the center there. Thank the lady for me. She got me hooked on tofu and miso. Yeah. You know what? When you have tofu as good as the one that I had there. Oh my. It's just so good. And I never thought that tofu to me is like the most boring, bland food in your mind. But when you eat it fresh made like that, the beans, the soybeans that they grow here, maybe not the ones where you are eating it, they have a natural sweetness to it. And when you put it through the process of making either soy milk, which is a byproduct of making tofu, or just the tofu itself, there's a natural sweetness to it. I was surprised how good it is. I didn't even need to put something on the tofu when we made it. And I made a live stream about that last year when I was here too. That was almost less than a year ago, dead of winter.

22:32:00 John Daub: Hello, I'm a newish subscriber. Hey, welcome. Several across your channel sometimes this past June while searching for Fukushima documentaries. Yes, I made several of them from up there. Who knows why one of your videos popped up? You know, it's kind of neat. If you're producing videos a lot and the thing is with suggesting videos. First of all, thank you so much for subscribing and being a part of the channel. And it's really nice to be able to share places like this with you.

23:02:00 John Daub: The YouTube algorithm is a beast. It just kind of knows what you're looking for in a way. And we'll start suggesting videos that people when they click on it, they seem to watch long. If you make a video that's deceptive and people click on it and they don't like it and they move away from the video right away, the algorithm automatically, that's the worst thing that can happen. Even though it could have a million views, the algorithm will play this video down and you won't see it in suggestions anymore. Or if it's a video that people keep watching because they're very drawn to it, then the algorithm will suggest it more. And when the algorithm is like that, then you start getting a lot more subscribers. That to me is one of the reasons why the channel has grown. Because I like to tell stories that I would want to listen to too, right? I don't just make stories just for the sake of having some content on YouTube. But you want something that's going to make people change the way that they see something or the way they feel about something. That's sort of the idea.

24:26:00 John Daub: Have you ever been to the ten-yen sushi restaurant in Shinjuku? Kato Kiyomasa writes in, no. And ten-yen sushi sort of scares me and it should scare you too unless it's really, really small. You can get to Tottori Prefecture by airplane or by train. I said this in the last live stream that I did. You can take the Sunrise Izumo train from Tokyo to Izumo or Yonago or Matsue. It's the last night train in Japan. It's still running from 10 p.m. every day from Tokyo Station. And it's kind of hard to get reservations. But it'll take you to this side of the country. Or you can fly. It takes you only 90 minutes to come to this side, the Sea of Japan side. But if you do make the trip, you're going to get views like this. Oh wow. I don't know if this camera is doing it justice. But the way the light is breaking through the clouds and you have the multiple layers of hills. We're in a valley right now. Yeah, the Sunrise Izumo. Kono Moon writes in, absolutely. It's my favorite night train because basically it's the only night train right now. This is so postcard material, PMX. You got that right. I send out postcards on Patreon for supporters there. Every month I got to find a really nice view. And this is something that could be on there. This is beautiful. But this is the thing. This is just one of millions of places outside of Tokyo that's like this. It's postcard worthy. But there's thousands of villages like this that I haven't been to yet. So it's a reason. Just keep on going. Just keep traveling.

26:20:00 John Daub: This is our van that we take. It's blue and you cannot miss it. So when you have a TV crew and you're making productions, if you have audio guy, we have an audio guy, camera guy, a director. We have an assistant. We have a reporter, me, and we have a driver. So we have a team of about six people to make this episode.

27:19:00 John Daub: So Joe writes in, will you be participating in the ritual, the shinji tomorrow on Sunday? Actually, I asked about this. I really, really, really want to do it. There's something about wearing a fundoshi, the Japanese thongs. The answer is no, because in this program, we're not allowed to participate in what we're introducing unless everybody can participate in it. And if I participated, it would be special just because it's me. So I can't do it. Now, the rules of the show is always changing. And I don't disagree with that because I want to introduce something that you can also do. But I kind of really want to participate. And the priest told me, she asked me, because sanka sanka means to participate in Japanese. And I can't sanka. I can't participate because they won't let me. But I want to. So maybe next year, I don't know. But let's see what Sunday's like. I probably cannot live stream this because my priority here is to make the show. But I can tell you what, it's going to be pretty interesting to see eight dudes tossing one dude in the sky out of respect for an octopus that did this from a tale or legend that goes back hundreds of years. That's so Japan to me. That's one of the core of Japan, like to celebrate its history in this kind of manner. And it's weird if you don't know the history behind it. Like if it's your first time and you see a bunch of mostly naked dudes throwing one dude in the air like this, that's kind of weird. No, that is weird. But they do that. And that's what's so cool about Japan, too, because they do that. It's like imagine you had baseball games, especially Japanese baseball games. When you win the World Series, they'll take the one dude and they'll throw him up in the sky like this. Do you ever see this? They used to do this decades ago to celebrate it. They'll throw the people up into the air and then they'll catch them and throw them back up like this. This is what they do with one dude to celebrate the octopus saving the man. And it's going to be pretty cool. I don't know if I have video of it, it's going to be a clip and it's something maybe I put on Instagram, but I don't have enough time to live stream. I would love to do that. This is like the kind of live stream worthy story. But I'm here for this episode of this particular program. And you know, you can't do both things. You have to focus on one job at a time.

30:04:00 John Daub: Japan's creation of mythology is so confusing. It is. There's a lot of mythology. Some that it's all mythological. But a lot of people say that Japan was born here in the Daisen area. And a lot of other people say that was born in Mie-ken, Mie Prefecture which is near Kyoto and Osaka on the other side. And there's sort of a competing story on how Japan was founded. But does it really matter because it's all like mythological? But it does matter. It matters to the people. It matters to the people. And that's goes back to the history and the way people believe what they believe and what they think. And that's how you kind of figure out the culture.

30:56:00 John Daub: Now it's starting to get sunny again. We've had decent weather on and off for the last couple of weeks. It'll rain for a while and get cold. Now it's warm because the sun is out, but it'll get cool again. I'm going to make one more pass by this torii. And then we're going to end the live stream. But just kind of soak it all in. This place is called Hokicho, Hokitown. It's basically in the city of Yonago near Daisen. Daisen is the big mountain here. For those of you who are joining us, hit the like button. If you like this, I might do another live stream from the countryside tomorrow. If you guys like this kind of content, you have to like it in order for me to know that you want it.

32:15:00 John Daub: But I stay on a little bit longer for those that are wondering and watching this in playback because people are watching this live. A lot of people will join the live stream at different times. And I want to make sure that everybody gets a chance to watch it. So it's a little peek live. This is what Japan is like right now. It is daytime. All the kids watching the US, it's daytime here in Japan. And the sun has gone around the world or the world has rotated. And we have lunchtime here. Hey, Ramsel and thank you for all the updates. By the way, it is really beautiful. And it was even more beautiful a few weeks ago when these were when the fields were just golden before the harvest. And they harvested the rice. That's what the field that you see down there is. And there's still some places like yesterday, we saw some fields that were just gold from rice. And it's so breathtaking when you see it. Because especially in Niigata and Akita and some of the other prefectures in Tohoku, it goes on and on. The gold is beautiful.

33:23:00 John Daub: Let me see. There were some places down there. You can see where they've harvested some of the rice and put it out to dry in the old style, where it'll dry naturally in the sun. And they use that for the rice down there. I don't have time to go there, but I wish I did. You see those green fields and lines in the center of your screen, those are leeks or negi, like thick green onion that they use here. And it's very famous in this area of Japan. It's so good. In fact, I like to eat it raw like a carrot. It's insane. The director makes fun of me. I love onions. My favorite vegetable might even be an onion. I like the red, the purple onions. I can eat them raw. But it's really famous here.

34:21:00 John Daub: We walked down there about 10 minutes ago. And that's the entrance to the shrine once again, this is Fukuoka Shrine. And I'll put a link in the description so you can watch and play back. But I just wanted to share with you just a little bit of the countryside. It's a different place than we were yesterday. But it's a taste. I mean, if you ride your bicycle or you rent a car or if you walk, even walk, just the beauty of the countryside in any country, but especially here in Japan is just so stunning.

35:02:00 John Daub: Jumbo potatoes in Germany. It's 5 a.m. and you can't sleep. By the way, I'm planning, Kanae and I are planning to be in Germany at Christmas time around the 21st, 20th, the 17th, 18th, 19th, 20th. So maybe see you there. Chris writes, rub some mud on your skin. Nah, I'm not working in the fields today. But just wanted to give you a little taste. And I hope you enjoyed that. Thanks so much for watching and supporting the show. And I will see you maybe tomorrow.

35:38:00 John Daub: We're going to take off. But I will be making a trip to India around December 10th. And I'll be in India for about a week. And then I'm taking Kanae with me, my wife. And then we're going to go to Europe for about six days. I have friends in Paris that they just had a kid and a baby. And I want to go and visit them. And I want to see the Christmas markets in Germany a little bit. And also meet up with some viewers there. We have a lot of viewers from Germany that have been increasing over the last couple of years. The German viewers have been really increasing. So I want to get a chance to say hi to everybody there. And then we're going to fly to New York. Maybe go to London. I'm not sure. And then fly to New York. And then spend time with my family for Christmas. And then we fly back to Japan in the beginning of January. I'll be working the whole time, well, like sort of working. But yeah, that's the plan anyways. I'll have more information on this on Patreon and on Facebook if I do some meetups. So there'll be a Facebook page if you guys want to hang out a little bit. Because I don't know too much about Germany. I think we're flying into Munich. To München. We say in Japanese München. And I might go up to Nuremberg and some of the other Christmas markets in Bavaria.

37:00:00 John Daub: Only in Mumbai. Yeah. I'm going to do, I'm going to see if I can go to the YouTube space in Mumbai and kind of check out. Because YouTube is growing so fast in India. And it's so cool to have a really growing viewer base from India too. Just because watching YouTube from one of the cell carriers is free. So from that, the people watching YouTube just exploded. And that's been really the reason why we have a large growth of Indian viewers. Just because YouTube in India is growing.

37:30:00 John Daub: Alright guys. That's it from the countryside here in Hokitown. I'll put a link in the description. Check it out. You can see where this was all taking place. If you want to come and see this tako shinji, this ritual, you can come on Sunday. Come in the morning like around 9 o'clock, 8 o'clock, 9 o'clock I guess. And there's very little information online. But you know, if you're here, I'll be here. And we'll be able to watch this together maybe. I don't know. Have a good day. Have a good night. Enjoy the last 20 seconds of the countryside and that light chirping sound of crickets somewhere. Good luck trying to find them.