00:00:00 John Daub: This water is just stunning and I hope you can watch it in HD in 1080p. There you go. The water is stunning. Just look at the blueness of it. They call it Bonin Blue and they actually have a name for it which was really curious to me. But Bonin is the name of the island before Japan renamed it Ogasawara in the mid-1870s. They changed the name from Bonin to Ogasawara.

00:00:30 John Daub: Dude, friendly people, pristine beaches, awesome scuba diving, and views like this. Drone shots! It was really beautiful. I had to get special permission to get the drone shots. It's hard to believe this is part of Tokyo. I launched it from a boat here. You can see it here. The Ogasawara Archipelago truly is one of the jewels of Japan. Here's the boat again. I had to launch the drone from the boat. That's the only legal way to do it.

00:01:19 John Daub: It all starts with the ferry. A 24-hour trip from the city center. The boat is always a welcome sight in town. I lost one of the SD cards. This is the SD card from the last two days. So I lost some video from a sushi shop that I filmed with Island Sushi and these boat scenes. But thank goodness I always take video with the iPhone as safe backup. Including my departure. I had a lot of video from the boat looking at people jumping into the Pacific. I only had the video from my iPhone which I used in the ending. Better to be safe than sorry.

00:02:09 John Daub: Arriving passengers are given an island welcome. Many people turn out for the once-a-week event. It was very emotional to arrive and see all the people waiting for me. But it was even more emotional to leave. And you're gonna see that at the end if you haven't already seen it. After a full day on board, it's a pleasure to finally arrive. It really was. 24 hours is a long time. I was really happy to get off the boat. I'll be honest with you. What an amazing trip. We're finally here. Ogasawara.

00:03:19 John Daub: You get off the boat. You're greeted with music. It's a really warm welcome. And just looking around you can see tons of hotels. Tons of dive shops. Everybody was there to meet you except for my hotel, Townhouse Mitsui. The owner Kenny. He doesn't come to the pier. It's warm people and warm temperature. Except for my hotel owner. While I make my way to the hotel, I actually did get a drink.

00:03:51 John Daub: Let's see where exactly Ogasawara is in Tokyo. There's the metropolis spread out. I always like Google Maps. The ferry departs weekly from Takeshiba Port near Hamamatsucho Station. Then you have to travel 1000 kilometers from the mainland out into the Pacific. Passing all other Tokyo islands like Hachijojima and Aogashima. We are really far away. The archipelago is referred to as the Bonin Islands. And only two islands are inhabited. Chichijima with about 2000 people. Ogasawara Village on Chichijima is the heart of the local government.

00:05:07 John Daub: Here's where the story starts. My hotel was also the first hotel on the island. NHK was here in 1968. There was no place for NHK. This hotel has not changed much since 50 years or before that. They said that the gate for this is where the US Navy had the gate. Now there's a story that I gotta tell you that's behind the scenes. This mountain here also housed the US Aegis missile. The nuclear warheads aimed at the Soviet Union until 1968. The Japanese government kind of knew about it. This housed the US nuclear missiles pointed at the Soviet Union, which is pretty badass. And then inside of here, this mountain, there's a secret entrance where you can see some weird structure. I didn't put it in the video because I don't want people to go in there, but it's very weird. One day I will show you what we found inside that mountain. Because the owner of Townhouse Mitsui showed me.

00:06:40 John Daub: Townhouse Mitsui is where the US military gate was in the 1950s and 60s. And where journalists stayed to cover the island when it opened up after the handover to Japan in 1968. Simple, but it's comfortable and locally run very close to the port. This is also where I realized that the island was once San Francisco, California. A lot of the islanders didn't even know this. This is the only address marker from 50 years ago that's still around. And you can still see if you look San Francisco, California, 96636.

00:07:24 John Daub: The island is by motorbike. You can rent 50cc bikes with an international or Japanese driver's license. Motorbikes or scooters offer... I could only get the motorbike for four or five days out of the ten days. Less than half of the time I had the motorbike because you have to reserve it at least a month in advance. It was one of my friends on the island that I met who called me. And they called the owner and they had a secret motorcycle somewhere that I was able to use.

00:08:23 John Daub: I guess I want a village that's much bigger than I thought it would be. There are many restaurants, izakaya (Japanese pubs). Two supermarkets on the island. Fresh fruits, vegetables. The town is comfortable. Parks and places to relax. Several amazing picnic tables for lunch. That is the swordfish sashimi bowl that we did a live stream on. And it's never too far from a beautiful beach. This is right in the center of town by the port. There's a monument to Commodore Perry, who stopped here on the way to Edo in 1853. The history of the island starts as a whaling town.

00:09:08 John Daub: The European and Pacific Islanders have lived together for generations in peace. A reason why the islanders here are so friendly to outsiders. This came all from Shoseibori's photo album inside here. And there's Sho right there. It's one of the newest hotels on the island and has a delicious western menu. I sat down with Shoseibori, who is the sixth generation of Sabori to be born on the island.

00:09:52 John Daub: He was really nervous because he was speaking English. But in the end he relaxed more because I didn't have a whole camera man and crew. It was just me. So I said, just let's talk like we're normally talking. And it came out a lot better. After World War II, the U.S. took over the island and Sho's father's generation learned at American schools until 1968. Because my fourth generation, my grandparents cannot speak English, so my father talks with them. But when go out of house, so many U.S. Navy, when their children also went to the school with island together and then speak only English. So your father's generation, all of the people on the island from your father's generation, can speak pretty good English. Almost native English. You can see his personality when he speaks in English.

00:11:36 John Daub: This is when things turned a little wicked in the video. I wanted to focus on some of the World War II stuff that I was finding. But I didn't want this to become too much of a story because it could have been a separate episode. So I only added in a little bit. There were a couple of really fascinating stories, including the one with former President George H.W. Bush that nobody ever really focuses on in the videos on Ogasawara. They look at the beaches, they look at Minamijima and the sites and the blue water, but they never focus on the history. So I started talking to the locals about the stories about George H.W. Bush, about how he was shot down in 1944. And he came back in 2002. A lot of the people were telling me that this was kind of a secret story that CNN came with them, but it was never really highly covered. George Bush himself did not want to overly publicize this. There wasn't a whole media crew. There was no Japanese media at all. Just a couple of people that were alive and on the island when his plane crashed and was shot down. And at that moment, I heard George Bush really became emotional.

00:13:54 John Daub: His crew was part of the Chichijima incident, which is something that people don't like to talk about, but it's just a part of the history. You can't escape it, but you can move on from it. And George Herbert Walker Bush went in 2002 to move on from this. So that means it wasn't until 2002 that he could move on from this ordeal that had been tormenting him. Dude, guys, I wanna tell you one story that I heard. There was a time during George Bush's presidency, I think he was in Japan, and he threw up. A lot of people said it was because of the food. But I heard that there was a joke about eating people. And all those memories from the incident in World War II just affected him mentally, and that's what made him throw up. Because it was such a horrific thing to live through, and then to know that your crew was cannibalized. That's part of the background of the island.

00:15:23 John Daub: There's no excuse for it. But that was when somebody made a joke about it, that was why he lost his lunch. So man, I got chills being on the island and hearing these things. But the incident makes me very sad too. This is an air raid barracks from World War II. You can't run away from your past or your history, but you can learn from it. These reminders are special to the islanders as a reminder of where they came from. Most of the islanders were evacuated from the island. They had to go to Tokyo, and then they returned after the war. They weren't here when this bad stuff was happening, but they had to live with the aftermath of it. A lot of people don't want to move the wrecks and the cannons and the guns from there, because it's something that they learned from.

00:16:35 John Daub: You'll also find a lot of wrecks, cannons and guns in the jungle. Like this one. The exact same gun. But they lie where they were left, a reminder of the island's past. It was at that time that former president George Bush, a pilot in the US Navy, was shot down. He was the only survivor of a horrific ordeal on the island, but President Bush returned to Chichijima in 2002 to remember those that were lost on that tragic day. This is a CNN news crew, was the only crew that was there. He didn't want any other media there. There's no video, and there's only pictures that islanders took on Chichijima. It's a story that's so buried that nobody really knew about it. You can clearly see that's President George Bush giving a hug to the mayor of Ogasawara, and he also met with other World War II veterans on the Japanese side that were on Chichijima the day he was shot down. I can't imagine what was going through his mind.

00:18:08 John Daub: A lot of life was lost during the island's war days, which is why islanders now are very protective of the life around it. Over the course of the last ten days... I always do some kind of silly insert in videos like this. Ogasawara had the death mount, death hill. This one had the tunnel. And it was just something, the longer you stay on the island, the more you walk through, you start to walk the path that the locals walk. And this tunnel is just so creepy. And at night, this is how I had to walk to go to eat dinner and then walk back to the hotel. I've had to walk through that tunnel about a dozen times. And every time has been, especially after dark, nerve-wracking. Because somebody told me that in there are ghosts. This tunnel is a shortcut. It was created by the Japanese army about 75 years ago, and it cuts straight through to the ferry terminal from Chichijima. It's so convenient and yet so scary. The tunnel doesn't seem to have any background story. But it's a reminder of the island's purpose during the war. Until 1968, the island was used by both Japanese and US military.

00:19:56 John Daub: This is Eco Village Pudula, located in the island's jungle. The owner is Shimizu-san, who used to be a Japanese salaryman (office worker) in Tokyo, but moved here out of concern for the condition of nature and the oceans, and changed his life to live sustainably to protect it. He's inspiring others to do the same with his guest house. Everybody can change their life.

00:20:30 John Daub: I didn't make an advance reservation on the island. I kind of did this maybe a week before I went. Now there weren't a lot of places to stay on the island. And when you don't make a reservation, especially in the high season, there's just not a lot of accommodation there. Townhouse Mitsui had a cancellation. That's why I could stay there for three nights. The diving place wanted me to dive there, so I had a place to stay for a few nights while I was scuba diving. And then Shimizu-san opened up a room for me, and I'm always going to be grateful for him. But I didn't even spend the night there. Wait, I spent one night there. It is really in the jungle. I remember I went out to the toilet. Next to the toilet, there's the bucket toilet, and then there's another like normal toilet. But standing next to the toilet was a spider, I kid you not, about this big, looking at me. This is like one in the morning and I had to go pee pee. And there was like a tarantula right there. It was looking at me. I turned around and I peed in the bucket instead and I went back to the room and I propped my bag against it because I didn't want that spider to come in.

00:22:02 John Daub: Now it's not for everybody to live in the jungle. And just because you want to live an eco-friendly life, please consider that there's no air conditioning. It's hot. The rooms are rough. They're not like finished rooms. It's basically like a cabin. It's kind of a cool experience if you like camping. But I had all my camera equipment with me. I had to edit video. I had to charge a lot of stuff. I was there for work, not for camping. So the next day I moved to another hotel for the last two nights. A cancellation opened up and I got a chance to stay in the city again because I had to finish the video. Shimizu-san is awesome. He is a jewel. The guy's got a heart of gold and a smile so big. When you meet him, it's hard not to like him. And I highly recommend it. Spend a night or two at Eco Village Pudula. It's kind of worth it to see the uniqueness. And it's also near this cafe, this coffee shop which makes their own coffee from bean to glass.

00:23:28 John Daub: One of the activities that you can do on Chichijima is jungle trekking. You have to leave town for that. I love this view looking down at the village. When you do come upon trails, you have to have a... but it's so pristine. Minamijima is so beautiful. Marine life can be explored. This is my favorite part of the video. You gotta finish strong on every video, and you gotta make a compelling statement at the end. We'll explore Minamijima next time, where the turtles lay their eggs. Part 2. Marine life, part of why this is called the Galapagos of the East. Deep into the sea in search of adventure. No telling what we'll find down there. Honestly, the sea is like an aquarium here.

00:25:03 John Daub: When I was editing this, spoiler, the whole time I was editing the scuba diving part with the music change, I said, I got to totally change this up. And this is when I came up with that music called March of the Moles, which is free music available from YouTube. And yeah, it just fit perfectly because I was a big Johnny Quest fan. It's an old cartoon in the United States from the 1960s. Johnny Quest was an animation where he would go out and do scuba diving and do crazy stuff.

00:26:12 John Daub: One other thing before I finished, jump to the end. They grow and roast their own beans. It's classical music. I looked at a lot of different songs and I don't listen to popular music. I listen to royalty-free music. When you cannot fit a music with a scene and there's not an appropriate music, flip the opposite way and make fun of it and find a way to look at it from a different point of view. Coffee and coffee shops can be posh. So kind of make it like an upper-class type of thing. Here I'm in the middle of the jungle and here's a cafe. How can there be a cafe in the middle of a jungle? This is high-class stuff. So I changed the music to this. It just sort of fit.

00:27:53 John Daub: When I was editing this, there were a couple of times where I was in tears. I was really sad because I had made really strong friends with people that were living on the island. I felt really connected to the people there. And to say goodbye, I know I'm not going to be there again for a while. Saying goodbye was real. And it's so far away. There's no airplane. It's faster for me to get on a plane and go to India or to the United States than it is for me to go to Ogasawara. Ogasawara is more inconvenient to get to than for me to fly to New York. It takes me 14 hours to get to New York. It takes 24 hours to get here. If you miss one ferry, you've got to stay to the next one, which was 10 days later. I really connected with the people here.

00:29:16 John Daub: There's a scene where people were really going itterasshai (go safely), the little kids. I'd met a lot of the little kids there. And they said itterasshai. And I yelled out ittekitasu (I will go and come back). The guy in the pink is Mana-san, a really nice guy. Mana-san is the one who made the headband and the necklace, the wreath for me. In the green shirt is the jungle guide. There's the lady from the tourist office. I see a lot of people that I've met. After ten days... This breaks your heart. When everybody starts walking and they can't go any further than the edge. It just breaks your heart. A part of me wanted to jump off of the ship and say, I'm coming back.

00:31:18 John Daub: This is also a tradition. You can't take the island with you. Leave it there. And it'll float back. And it's a part of you. When somebody gives you something, it becomes a part of you. So if you give it back to the island, that means a part of you is back on the island. I received this from Mana-san. It was a really amazing gift. Totally unexpected. He put it on my head. He put it around my neck. And it made me feel really good and special. By throwing it back and seeing it go back to the island, it's a part of me going back there. I didn't see it as a waste.

00:32:38 John Daub: I think I'm going to step foot on Ogasawara for another warm embrace. Now, I had some background sounds of people still yelling. But the music, by the way, I got to give the artist credit. An amazing talented writer for this song. And it just moves you to hear it. It seems every available boat is ready and waiting to escort you safely out to sea. Why do they do this? They go to another step to really stab you in the heart. And you're already sad to leave. Locals will jump into the sea, sometimes flipping with daredevil moves. So you will not forget them. It's always the last thing you see from the boat of the harbor. Central Tokyo 24 hours away. But I already know. I'll be back someday. To Ogasawara. My voice is cracking. I'm really sad to say goodbye to the island.

00:35:19 John Daub: Hey guys, thanks so much for joining me on this very weird day. I did not think that I would abandon the premiere. But I did because of Scotty. And I gotta reach out to Scotty and say thank you for saving it, maybe. When I make a video, when I make something that I put on YouTube for the main channel, I wanna put a lot of love into it. It's like a chef. You really get your hands into the dough. And when you make food, you make it from somewhere special. That's why if you buy something frozen in the supermarket, it doesn't taste as good as when mom makes it. And I think it's the same thing with the videos. When you edit it yourself, you put a little bit of extra and you put who you are into your work. And you can sense that in what I put up there. I hope that you got that sense too.

00:36:55 John Daub: I don't know how much longer I can fight it out and make video content like this. Cause it kills me to make each one. Especially long ones like this one. But when you watch it, I hope you get a sense of where it came from. The episode came from Patreon, believe it or not. A lot of the people supporting on Patreon, without the extra funds, I can't go. It was $500 round trip just to get there. Plus the hotels. Plus the scuba diving. Plus a lot of costs. In the end, it was close to about one month of what I would make off of Patreon. The video came from a place of great care. I want you to see the work. And feel what I felt when I was there.

00:38:10 John Daub: Directors don't do their own editing. They rely on many other people and teams to execute their vision. I've been doing this since 2003. Making something and editing it. Because no one would ever hire me to do anything. So I said, I'm just gonna go out and do it myself. I've been making travel videos before YouTube back in 2003. It's really a lot of hard work. But I'm still really enjoying what I'm putting up there for you guys. And I'm proud of this video. I don't mind if it gets a million views or a thousand views. It's something that I can always go back and watch myself. And in the future when I'm older, I'm always gonna go back and look at this video. It's very emotional. To see the connection that you can make with people. And then say goodbye. Now that it's up here public, I'll always have that memory for myself. And to share it with you is just a dream come true.

00:40:28 John Daub: That's why I bailed on the premiere. And that's why this episode is half premiere and half why I bailed on the premiere. If you're YouTube watching this, I'm sorry that your premiere stinks. Scotty did a lot of work on his episodes. Anytime you work really hard on a video, and they don't break 5% of the subscriber base, you feel like you're doing something wrong. But when things don't go your way, you put it behind you. You close that door. And you move on to the next one. And you think of a new story. Not every video is gonna be a breakout video. But whatever happens in the past, put it in the past. And you move forward. That's what you gotta do as a creator.

00:42:19 John Daub: Share the video with your friends, guys. Like the video. Leave a comment in the video. These kinds of things really do help. If you had a connection with somebody's work, share it. Thanks everybody. Have a good night. I'm glad that we can share this experience together. I wanna thank the Patreon community. You guys make stuff like this possible by backing and believing in me. And that really is everything. Because YouTube as a profession is not as stable as this desk. Alright, thanks guys. Have a good night. I will see you maybe in a livestream tomorrow. But I hope you did enjoy it. Have a good night, and see you next time.