00:00:00 John Daub: Hey everyone, I really don't have a lot of time, but I wanted to show you this site before I leave. This is such a beautiful site, a very stereotypical site of autumn here in Japan. What you have before us is Mount Daisen, which is the Mount Fuji of the West here in Tottori Prefecture. In front is this absolutely beautiful scene of drying rice right in front of you. Do you see that? The farmer has laid it out, just freshly harvested rice. It's something that you'll see all over Japan in the autumn, but I thought while I had a few minutes here in this spot, I would just show you how beautiful this area is in the autumn.

00:00:45 John Daub: There's some running water down there, but I'm going to pan around as we shoot. Here, check it out. Now this is a rice paddy that has not been harvested yet, a rice field. You can see it's very close to being harvested. I'm going to take you down here to get a closer look at the rice. It's gotten so heavy that they're sagging. Do you see that? That's rice, and I think it's ready to be harvested right now. This is a sight that you'll see all over Japan right now, from Tohoku all the way down to Kyushu, Shikoku, and Hokkaido as well.

00:01:44 John Daub: I'm just going to walk around the field. Ah, look at that, with the beautiful golden rice field with Mount Daisen in the background. We're live from Hoktown, Tottori Prefecture. I thought I would just bring you here for a couple of minutes before I make my way back to the airport. We're leaving to go back, maybe to Tokyo tonight. So this is the last chance for me to do a live stream and bring you a piece of the countryside from this area of Japan.

00:02:12 John Daub: For those who missed down here, if I pan down, I did fly a drone here last year. You can see it in a dronecast, a live stream. Wow, yeah, this rice is definitely ready to be harvested. What they do is they harvest the rice and then there's like a cover, a sheath to the rice. They remove that. There are vending machines that you can pour that into and it will polish the rice for you. That's why rice, when it's white, it's been polished. But it looks like that. That's the raw ingredient. And when it turns gold like this and the rice starts sagging like it does right now, that means it's time for them, because the farmers are down there in the field doing it.

00:03:02 John Daub: Now I filmed the opening or the closing to the Wagyu episode for the main channel last year, right here. If you haven't seen that, go take a look at it. It's such a stunning place. But right now, today, we're going to be doing a live stream. We have such amazing weather, so it's just a unique opportunity to go live. I didn't announce this. This is just a spontaneous live stream that I'm doing. If you look back, this road slopes down towards Yonago City, which is about a 20-minute drive from the mountains towards the seaside. This is also like a tourist spot because it is beautiful to take in pictures.

00:04:47 John Daub: This is one of the most amazing walks. I remember when I came here last year just kind of walking up this little side road towards the peak. And then you have layers of beautiful golden rice paddies that haven't been harvested yet. So soak it in, guys, cause I gotta go. I don't know if I'm gonna keep this live stream. I just wanted to share it with you for a moment. This is what the harvested rice looks like. It's been laid out by farmers maybe like a week ago or so, probably from this field here, and it's right on the roadside. So it's really attracting a lot of tourists to come here and take pictures because it's one of the most stunning sights that I've seen in Japan with a backdrop like this. It's similar to Mount Fuji. That's one of the reasons why I like Mount Daisen.

00:05:41 John Daub: But before we get into the van, I'm gonna walk with Mount Daisen on my shoulder here. I'm gonna take you around to the corner and we're gonna look back at the harvested rice to give you just kind of a last feeling of just how beautiful it is to get outside of Tokyo at this time of year in autumn. Autumn is one of my favorite times because the food starts to get really delicious from all the freshly harvested vegetables and foods and rice. Sake is fresh in the autumn because the temperature drops, so that means that the brewing process is going to be a little bit different. It's better in the winter in the fall than it is in the summer.

00:06:24 John Daub: All right, here we go. So we have kind of like a drainage ditch here, so the sound might not be the most beautiful, but with that aside, it's really really nice. Maybe not listen to the drainage. Just enjoy this beautiful angle of the harvested rice on the right and Mount Daisen above it. What I find is that, but probably was like an airplane that streaked and left us on this nice cloud line on the left side. But it is really beautiful nonetheless.

00:07:07 John Daub: Nyonyo asks about how far the Sakyu (sand dunes) is. Sakyu is about, I don't know, it's like two and a half hours, about 200 kilometers that way up the coast. Tottori is pretty big. It's going to take you quite a while. So when you say Tottori, my image is here. But a lot of people's images is going to be Tottori City, which I don't think is as beautiful as the Daisen area. This is a natural place where you hike, where you enjoy nature. And up there in Tottori, they got nature, but it's better here because we got Mount Daisen. But the Sakyu is really beautiful to see. But it is a big tourist attraction, just so you know.

00:07:50 John Daub: Hey, Jim. Thank you for that, Jim. Thanks for showing us lovely views of Tottori again. Have a nice day. And have a cup of coffee on me when you return to Tokyo. Thank you. I will. I'm kind of looking forward to get back to Tokyo so I can finish editing all the videos that I have in the queue. It's hard to do it when I'm out here making the shows for NHK. It's hard to multitask because I'm on the road. It's just different.

00:08:12 John Daub: One thing that you will never see are these poles. So thank you, livestream, for giving us the opportunity to show you what it's like to actually be in the background. No TV is going to show you those beautiful telephone poles. Wow, and a lot of cars are coming here to stop, to pull in. They want a piece of the action. So in Japan, this is funny. When people line up for something, other people stop and go, hmm, what are they lining up for? And then they'll stop and line up to see what you're looking at. And then other people go, well, now there's ten people lining up there. What am I missing? And then they'll line up there too. It starts almost like a riot. So now that we have a van here and we're taking pictures, a lot of other tourists that are going by are doing the same. It's pretty fun.

00:09:01 John Daub: But, hey, Nida, to Otaku, take Kanae out for dinner. Thank you. We will. I'll do that. She's going to be so happy too. I haven't seen her in a week. All right, it's time to go. I hope you guys enjoyed this very short view. I might livestream from Tottori Airport, from Yonago Airport, but I get a feeling that most of you are going to be asleep by the time we do leave tonight. Sure, we might be leaving tomorrow morning. But there you go. There's the rice field. And there's the tripod being put away. And there's the car, which means it's time for me to go. It's beautiful, isn't it?

00:09:51 John Daub: Hey, thanks for that, KWNYU P-State. Make a video with you and friends in a line for no reason and see people stop and get in a line. That's a pretty good social experiment. That's a really good experiment. Maybe we can take a business that's not getting a lot of business, a mom and pop shop, a local shop, and just get a bunch of friends and line up and see if we can start chaos and get a lot of people to eat there. That would be pretty fun to do. Thanks for that suggestion. That was brilliant.

00:10:23 John Daub: All right, guys. Thanks for joining me. I'm walking backwards towards the car. I'll see you in another live stream soon. Bye from Tottori Prefecture.