00:04 John Daub: Hey everybody, welcome to Miyazaki. This is Tano, an area not too far from the city. Good afternoon. It's a beautiful day here in Miyazaki. I've flown here from Tokyo today, and this is one of the places I wanted to come see. I love daikon (Japanese radish). This is a daikon farm. I don't know too much about it though, so that's why it's kind of neat to be here on the farm.

00:27 John Daub: What you see over here, this big, big thing in the middle of the farm is like a daikon tower. I'm not really sure what it is, but you see that lovely lady standing right there? That's our co-reporter for today, Arisha. All right, so you're from Miyazaki? You're not Miyazaki-ian? No? Singaporean. From Singapore! So shout out to all you watching from Singapore. What is this thing right here? I mean, I know it's a daikon tower, but is there a special name to it?

01:05 Arisha: It's daikon yagura (radish tower).

01:11 John Daub: Okay. Yeah, which translates to radish tower. I'm liking this very much because it's a kind of unique thing. And I actually walked in it, full disclosure, I walked inside and was amazed by it. So I'm going to take you inside and hopefully you're amazed by it as well. Now, daikon in Japanese is literally translated as dai meaning big and kon meaning root. And you can see here, they are quite long.

01:35 John Daub: Different places in Japan have different sizes to them. Down in Kagoshima, they have like very big, huge ones like a pumpkin. And then in other places, they're just a little bit thicker. But here in Miyazaki, they're thinner, and that makes it really good for pickling. So this area is called Tano. What's special about Tano? What's special about the industry for daikon here?

02:05 Arisha: So it's the largest producer of radish, dried radish in all of Japan. And like 97% of the dried radish that is produced in Miyazaki is produced here in Tano.

02:14 John Daub: Whoa. They like their radish. 97% is produced here in Tano. So they make good pickles, I'm guessing. Wait, are we going to get a chance to eat them today?

02:28 Arisha: Yep.

02:28 John Daub: All right. Awesome. I'm going to take you inside this, I like to call it the Temple of Daikon. This is something maybe you would see Indiana Jones running through. Yeah, it's pretty cool. Strangely though, when I walked inside, the 4G signal kind of cut out. But we can try to go inside. What do you think? Do you guys want to go inside? Well, click that like button. We get to 100 likes, maybe we're going to go inside.

03:01 John Daub: I'm going to put the wide-angle lens on. So let's see if we can get to 100 likes. I'll take you inside. Get the wide-angle lens here. This is my new wide-angle lens, everybody. Now we're wide. 90 meters? How many meters is this? How high?

03:58 Arisha: 7 meters.

04:00 John Daub: Around 6, 7 meters high and 90 meters long. Whoa. So I guess we can go through this, the tower of daikon. Here we go. Check this out. This is so cool. It's so wide, this lens, we even got a part of the gimbal in it. On the left and right, it's just all daikon. It doesn't smell bad at all. It doesn't smell like drying daikon. It just smells like nature. It's such fresh air here. This is pretty cool.

04:36 John Daub: Can you make a guess? How many radishes can you hang on this tower?

04:40 Arisha: How many? I don't know. I'm going to say like 2,000 maybe?

04:45 John Daub: No, nowhere close. You can actually hang, well, for a tower that's about 100 meters, you can hang 60,000 radishes. Given that this is 90 meters, I would say 50,000 radishes.

05:02 Arisha: Yeah.

05:02 John Daub: What? That's crazy. So that's a lot of radish. And every day, that truck is just from today's radish that's in that truck right ahead?

05:16 Arisha: Yeah, that's today's radish. They probably harvest it in the morning. And then they finish all the washing and all that.

05:26 John Daub: So these ladies that are doing it, it's mostly ladies that are out there picking it and putting it, they're working pretty hard. That's a lot of radishes. Look at this. This is the famous. Now, I noticed a couple of things here. Why Tano? You said Tano makes 97% of the radish pickles in Miyazaki?

05:56 Arisha: In Miyazaki.

05:57 John Daub: Why Tano? What makes this place special?

06:00 Arisha: So firstly, because it's near a mountain called Mount Wanitsuka and the breeze is actually very suitable for drying radishes. That's why.

06:10 John Daub: Yeah, there's a good breeze here. You can see there's some hills around there, but there is always a light breeze. Like if I lick my finger and go like this, I can feel the breeze is coming from this direction. That helps with the drying process, which means that this makes it an ideal place to grow and then dry.

06:42 John Daub: Now, ofrainda [?]. I'm not going to go there.

06:45 Passerby: Hello.

06:47 John Daub: Hello. What are you doing in Japan?

06:52 Passerby: Oh, no, I'm not. I'm a YouTuber living in Japan.

06:54 John Daub: YouTuber?

06:59 Passerby: Yes. Do you know him?

07:01 John Daub: I know him. It's John.

07:04 Passerby: John.

07:07 John Daub: It's not Mr. Tube. YouTube.

07:15 Passerby: YouTube. Is that YouTube?

07:18 John Daub: There also there's YouTube. You have two videos online, right?

07:20 Passerby: Yes, it's live. Will you be live from now on? Right now? Live.

07:26 John Daub: It has been live from radio. Live? The Americans are the only ones. Doctors, Japanese foreigners are abroad right now [inaudible]. So they're looking at the world.

07:43 Passerby: Wow.

07:43 John Daub: I think we have about 400 viewers. 400 people are watching?

07:46 Passerby: Yes, we have more now. You are on Japanese TV!

07:48 John Daub: Yes! Very famous! How are you?

07:54 Passerby: Thank you! You are so cute! Thank you! What makes you happy?

08:01 John Daub: It's a great time. We are streaming Tano no Daikon Yagura live to the world. We are streaming live to the world.

08:09 Passerby: How do you introduce this yagura? What do you mean? What is daikon in the first place? There is no daikon in the US.

08:24 John Daub: No daikon. We don't have any daikon in America. The way we eat it is famous for Tano.

08:26 Passerby: Tano is famous for its wind. It's dry and delicious. It's delicious.

08:37 John Daub: I don't know much about it. That's why I'm here. I'm introducing Arisha. I'm happy. Tano no daikon is being broadcast to the world. I think this will be a good way for people around the world to eat the pickles made with daikon.

09:00 Passerby: I see. Is this your first time seeing it?

09:03 Arisha: It's my first time seeing this size. It's about 7 meters. It's amazing.

09:09 Passerby: Did you climb up? I want to climb up. I really want to climb up. Shall we climb the tower of daikon?

09:17 John Daub: Yes! We will climb Daikon Tower and tell the world about Tano and the beautiful daikon and how delicious it is because Miyazaki is awesome.

09:28 Passerby: That's right. That's right. That's right. Confirmation has been done. Thank you. That's great. That's great. That's great. Do you have information about Miyazaki? Or are you going to Tano?

09:46 John Daub: Yes. We are going to Tano now. Tomorrow we will go to Hadaka Matsuri (Naked Festival).

09:53 Passerby: Oh, Aoshima. Aoshima. In Funado City [?]. Are you going to participate?

10:00 John Daub: I will participate. In Funado City. No thank you. I will participate in the Naked Man Festival.

10:09 Passerby: Is that so? Oh, that's right. Well, the times have changed.

10:15 John Daub: Yes, they have. The time has not been decided yet. People from around the world are watching us. In the world, about 440 people are watching. There are more people now. There are more people now. We are doing a daikon tour everybody. So let us find some amazing places in this farm. Next we are going to take a look outside. But there's a lot more that we can introduce to you about the daikon of Tano.

10:40 John Daub: Now, actually, the ladies are pulling them out of the ground. And they have piles of daikon. So, actually, the soil here is really quite brown and good. It's volcanic ash. It looks really nutritious. So, if I was a daikon, I would want to be living here. So, actually, we are currently at the farm of Mr. Kokubu. And this is Mr. Kokubu.

11:14 John Daub: Oh, hello, Mr. Kokubu.

11:15 Mr. Kokubu: Hi. Hello.

11:19 John Daub: So, you're a daikon farmer?

11:21 Mr. Kokubu: Daikon farmer.

11:22 John Daub: How many years have you been growing daikon here?

11:26 Mr. Kokubu: How many years have I been growing daikon here? I've been growing daikon for 20 years.

11:30 John Daub: Oh, 20 years. Wonderful. So, why is Tano daikon so delicious?

11:36 Mr. Kokubu: Tano daikon. I think it's a good combination of the soil and the breeze.

11:44 John Daub: Wonderful. And the camera people are translating the Japanese behind me. All right. Can you take the daikon off the ground?

11:55 Mr. Kokubu: I can.

12:04 John Daub: Let's go pull some daikon from the ground. Oh, watch out. Wow. Okay. Oh, yeah. Please move. Oh, this is a daikon. I'm so sorry. I'm taking you from your warm soil home. All right, let's pull it out. Here we go. Ah, it's not that easy. Okay. Wow. You're free. Freedom. Wonderful. Yeah, it's a beautiful daikon. This is what it looks like pulled from the ground. This is a daikon, a Japanese radish from Miyazaki.

12:45 John Daub: Hold it for a second. I have to try. Turn it around. Yeah, there you go. It's fresh. And then from this, let me talk about the drying process. So see that the tower of daikon behind us. How long does it sit there?

13:02 Mr. Kokubu: 10 to 14 days.

13:04 John Daub: All right. So about two weeks. And then you can eat it?

13:07 Mr. Kokubu: No. And then like when lines fall on the daikon and it becomes bendable, that's when they would take it down and then they would send it to a pickle factory for processing.

13:19 John Daub: So the pickle factory is here in Tano?

13:20 Mr. Kokubu: Yes. Everything is in Tano. Wonderful.

13:24 John Daub: So when does the process start? August? September?

13:31 Mr. Kokubu: September. They plant at the end of August. I guess in September. And they start to harvest in the end of December. And then right now in January. So this is about the end of it.

13:56 John Daub: And then this is also daikon, right? Wow. And then this entire tower is going to be daikoned. So it'll have like a daikon roof on it. But this daikon is 7 meters, right?

14:08 Mr. Kokubu: 7 meters.

14:09 John Daub: So how do you put it on the top? How do you do it? Grandma, you climb about 7 meters?

14:19 Mr. Kokubu: I climb.

14:20 John Daub: No way! Wait a second. So he's saying the old ladies will climb 7 meters to the top. I don't believe him. Really? Really? Really? Eh? Wait, so what do they do with this? Now that we've pulled it from the... I'm like in shock. So he's saying like the ladies over there, they can climb 7 meter towers. I'm blown away by that. That's insane. Jonathan Delgado writes in, that's insane. I'm shocked by this. So yeah. So after we've got the raw ingredients, so what do we do next with it? What do we do after we pull this out?

15:07 Mr. Kokubu: We collect it.

15:09 John Daub: So after they pull it from the ground, they collect it all here into a pile. And then... Tower? So they'll pick two that are of similar size. And then they'll put it onto the machine. Ah! Okay. And then they'll tie it together with leaves. They'll bind it together at the base of the leaves here. And then they'll bring it home and wash it. So the truck will be collected and washed at home. Got it? So they're going to wash it at home and then they're going to bring it back clean and then they're going to set the drying process. Awesome. Whoa. And then tower. Can you go up?

16:19 Mr. Kokubu: Yes, please.

16:20 John Daub: I've been wanting to climb that thing for a long, long time. Trekkerist writes in, climb the Daikon Tower. Alright. I hear you. The people are asking for this to be climbed. Therefore, we must climb the Tower of Daikon. This is awesome. Oh my gosh. I wonder, do you think it'd be possible to race the lady? I don't think I could do it. Alright. Yes, when you're in the countryside, the signal might come in and out. But that's the fun part of being alive. At any moment, you could see me fall to the ground. You know, it was a lot easier going up than it is coming down. This is not as easy. Let me turn it around. You can see what I have to step on here. Alright, there we go. So that's what I'm standing on right here. I got to go step by step. It's kind of... Ah! Oh no! Oh, this is not as much fun. Wait, if I fall, who will catch me? Is there a net? There's no net? Nobody told me this before I started. Usually, coming down from the mountain isn't as hard. Whoa!

17:46 Lady: Kawaii! Kawaii! Kawaii! Kawaii!

17:48 John Daub: She was laughing at me. She was laughing. Alright. Okay, we're almost down here. Now I have confidence because if I were to fall, it wouldn't be that far. Alright, this was an amazing experience. That was kind of fun. Arisha, are you sure you didn't want to climb it? Really? I'll race you. You're driving the car. How did you do? I'm going to hang it, so let's go. Oh! Whoa! Whoa! Whoa! Whoa! Did you see how fast she went? God, you're so fast. She was just laughing at me like five seconds ago and now she's already at the top of the Daikon Mountain. It just happened. It's up there already. Alright, we got to get to the other side. How do we get to the other side? I'm climbing in. Alright. You got to get the story. A good reporter gets the story. Alright, guys. We're going to get the story. Ah! I'm stuck. We're up there. Check it out. That's right. She's Jackie Chan at luck.

19:15 John Daub: Oh, so from the truck...

19:17 Lady: Yeah. I use a rod, and I put it on the radish.

19:39 John Daub: Has anyone ever fallen? Would I have been the first? I'm sure there have been. I'm sure they have fallen. Are you going to see her up there? She's fallen once. Ah, when they were building this thing. Ah, she fell when they were building it. Hey Mr. Das, they're calling her a ninja. They're calling her the daikon ninja. Mom's ninja. We got her laughing. That was good of Mr. Das. She's very very fast. Do you know how long does it take to build this tower?

20:41 Lady: How long? About a week.

20:42 John Daub: They built this entire tower in a week? In a week. You mean with bamboo?

20:48 Lady: Yes.

20:50 John Daub: Oh wow. But it takes only two days to dismantle all of it. Oh, and they can take it down in two days, it takes a week to put it up. Wow, this is so cool. I never thought daikon would be this cool. So they're working hard every day from morning to night. Wow. So they're doing this day to night to get the daikon. And then, 10 days?

21:25 Lady: Yes. About two weeks.

21:28 John Daub: After about two weeks when it's dried, they take it down?

21:31 Lady: Yes. And then they take it to the plant to be pickled?

21:37 John Daub: Do you want to try hanging it? Really? Yeah, it's really not as easy to try it last year. Okay, should we go outside here? Do I have to climb this? Wow, really? Okay. Arisha, come here. Balance, balance, balance. Alright, I'm going to try this here. Alright, Arisha. You can hold the camera. Because I completely destroyed it. Can you see me? Yeah. Don't fall. Oh, good. Good! I did it! Where the string is. I found it. Oh, it's heavy! You're getting faster. I'm getting better. This is actually kind of fun. How was that? I feel like I got a little bit of muscle. Yeah, it's a lot heavier, right? It's a lot heavier than you think. It's like a tsui netsu [?]. Oh, wow! Wow! Pretty strong guy. So, can we try to eat some of this?

23:49 Lady: Yeah, sure.

23:49 John Daub: Do you guys want to eat it? Alright, let's go. Let's get up to 300 likes. Give us the eat this up. We're inside the Tower of Daikon. We're going to eat it outside here, right?

24:00 Arisha: Yeah.

24:01 John Daub: Okay, let's go. We might lose the signal. For some reason, the signal does not like to enter the Tower of Daikon. We're now exiting the Tower of Daikon. And then we're going to have some daikon pickles to try. Like you see here. Oh, right. When the rice starts to foam on the radish. And then when it's very soft. Oh, can I touch it? Oh, yeah. It is soft. It's kind of squishy. And then when it becomes soft enough to be banded without breaking, that's when they would take it down. Okay. Sorry, I left my fingerprint in there. Sorry. Somebody's going to pickle that. Now learn how to make daikon curry. Wow, that sounds good. Pozo. Oh, hello again. Hello again. Ah, yes. Now it's time to eat.

24:59 John Daub: We have a mid-shift table here. Ah, koko ni taberu (eat here)? All right. So this is the final product. It usually comes in a form of like a vacuum-sealed pack. Oh, wow. Look at this. So that is the final product. It's been pickled at the factory nearby. This one came from this farm? Wow. That's pretty cool. Got to take one back for Kanae Daub. And like a company in Tano also created this canned pickled radish. Canned pickled radish. It makes a very good souvenir because it can be kept for up to three years. Three years. So, wow. That can sit on the shelf for a while. Takuan (pickled radish). Very good. So the taste is the same? Well, they have different flavors for it. So this one is like takuan. Like plum flavored and this one is kombu (kelp) flavored. Kombu flavored. A little bit of sea in there. Are we live again? We're live. So we're losing the signal. It's going in and out. But I'm going to put this here. And we're going to try this up here. Okay. Are we able to see? All right. Let's take a look here. So that's what it is here. What is the difference? Why is this one colored pink and this one is kind of a...

26:18 Arisha: So this one is the radish pickles whereas the one in pink was pickled in plum. So it's got flavor to it.

26:25 John Daub: Okay. Yep. And how much is one of these sticks of this daikon pickle stick? You think? I don't know. Do you? Well, I reckon it's less than 300 yen. So it's like $2.50, $3 for one of these. I think if we move the tray like this, we can put the camera up here as well. All right. There you go. Boom. That's what I like to say because now we got a nice angle. We don't have to get in the mud too much. Oh, yeah. Right here. It's good. I like this shot because in the background, we have the tower of pickles while we eat the pickles. This is sort of cruel because we're eating the cousins that came before you. Before you guys get pickled, we're eating your cousins. So I guess we just eat it with chopsticks, right?

27:15 Arisha: Yep.

27:18 John Daub: Okay. Itadakimasu. I'm going to go for the traditional right here. I can't believe you guys have prepared tea, this ocha (green tea) here to wash this down with it. This is really good. You can see it's somewhat translucent. Are you going to go for the pink one?

27:34 Arisha: Yeah. The plum flavor one.

27:35 John Daub: I'm going to get close to the camera because you can hear it crunch. A little ASMR. Mm-hmm. Hjrays writes, where's the sake? Tonight. Tonight. We're doing a second stream, so watch for that tonight. That's really good. Kind of salty. What do they pickle it in? Is it a pickle sauce? Mm-hmm. That's where the carnal secret lies. It's in the pickle sauce. Yeah. It gives it that extra crunchiness. But if you were to eat these pickles as is, I guess there's a little bit of crunchiness to it. I'm not going to pick one off of the tower. That would be unholy and wrong. I'm not going to pick one and go like this. That's not how we do things. Okay. And this one is one that's been sitting in ume (Japanese plum), which is the plum. Yeah. It's a secret sauce. That's good. The plum has a little bit of a different dimension to it. There's a different sweetness. Yeah, definitely. There's a sweetness to it. Almost like the umeboshi (pickled plum), actually. Yeah. But it's sweeter than umeboshi. Thank goodness for that, because those umeboshi, they make you do the face. You know the one like... Oh, yeah. It's like I can't believe I'm eating an umeboshi face. That's my face when I eat it. The old ladies, they're just everyday face. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Wow. Really good.

29:26 John Daub: And you know, if you're in Tokyo, you can get those cans at the Miyazaki Konne Center in Shinjuku. Oh, that's the Southern Terrace South Exit. And at Haneda Airport as well. Oh, the airport? Haneda Airport. So I could have eaten this before I came. Yeah, you could. Mm. This is really good. Now, this is the part of the show where I ask you if you have any questions. I'm not going to ask you any questions. I'm just going to eat. So anything you ask and anything we talk about will become part of the history of this live stream, which will be played back later for the hundreds of thousands of people that might be watching. We don't know. Eat it all, John. Eat it all. It's hard. I can't help myself. So does it snow during the next month? What is the weather like in Miyazaki in the winter?

30:29 Arisha: Well, in this part of Miyazaki, it does snow. So sometimes the water, like the things, get frozen. Oh, the lakes will freeze over? Yeah. So it does get cold. Today, maybe we're just fortunate. It's kind of a warm day.

30:42 John Daub: I can't believe I don't have a jacket on in January. It's crazy. I left Tokyo. It was freezing. And came here. It's like spring. It's still kind of freaking me out.

30:54 Arisha: No, but you're lucky because it's a lot warmer today. Usually it's a lot colder. Like I caught a cold here last year.

31:02 John Daub: What are the health benefits of daikon? Is there something, eating the daikon, is there something good that comes from that?

31:08 Arisha: Currently, the fiber is like double that of the normal daikon. Fiber? Yeah. And there's also like some GABA, they call it like the, some amino acid thing that's quite a lot higher than normal brown rice, for example.

31:28 John Daub: Okay. Yeah. So there's a lot of... I like, typically daikon is grated and then it's put into ponzu or something. And you can also eat daikon in one of my favorite foods, oden. I love eating daikon in oden. This daikon is a little bit thinner, so I don't think it works the same as the daikon in other areas. This one works very well with pickle just because of the way that the shape of it. But in oden, I guess you have the bigger ones, but you can eat daikon in so many different ways. And yeah. This is kind of a really special treat for me because I love negi (green onions). That's my favorite vegetable. I know that's not a lot of people's name. And onions. I love strong, strong vegetables. I'll eat an onion like an apple. Oh, wow. I do. And if I don't eat the purple onions after a couple of months, I start to crave them and I have to eat them. I don't know why. Some people are wired differently. I'm wired in the onion route. And a lot of people here are wired in the daikon route. You know, I mean, if they don't eat daikon, I'm sure that they get a little bit... well, these last for three years in the can. So we got you covered.

32:30 John Daub: All right. Well, thank you, Arisha. You're going to take me to the entertainment district tonight.

32:36 Arisha: Yes, I look forward to that.

32:38 John Daub: Is it like a party going on?

32:41 Arisha: Not a party, but we're going on a food crawl.

32:44 John Daub: On a food crawl. Okay. So we're going to go on a binge, eating binge in the center of Miyazaki. This is going to be pretty cool. I have not been to Miyazaki since 2003. So it's been 20 years since I've been back here. And it's really nice to return. So I want you guys to stay tuned. Probably tonight in... Five o'clock. Yeah, about five o'clock Japan time. So that's, you know, three in the morning New York time. So it's not going to be the best time for everybody. But if you are awake, stay tuned and watch us binge eat Miyazaki. It's going to be a lot of fun. I love street food and that kind of stuff. We're going to say goodbye to the tower for the next 20 seconds. Enjoy the tower of daikon. In here. In beautiful Tano, Miyazaki. Thanks, Gretchen. Thanks, Anil.