00:00:00 John Daub: Hey everybody! Welcome! This is another livestream director's take on the video that just dropped yesterday. The Japanese drive-thru sushi ramen experience. Thanks for joining us. On the phone right now is my friend, the passenger in the car that you're looking at, Dean Newcomb. Dean, how are you?

00:00:29 Dean Newcomb: I'm glad to be here.

00:00:31 John Daub: I'm going to introduce this video in a couple of minutes, but I think the biggest question, Dean, I think you've already read online, right?

00:00:38 Dean Newcomb: Yeah, it had me kind of laughing out loud, right?

00:00:42 John Daub: Right. People with really good observation skills notice that, hey, one moment he has a beard, and then he doesn't. What's going on? What is going on? I thought it was really funny, somebody said, Dean's facial hair grows really fast, you know?

00:00:59 Dean Newcomb: Yeah.

00:01:00 John Daub: But that's not it, of course.

00:01:02 Dean Newcomb: No.

00:01:03 John Daub: Do you want to talk a little bit about the process of shooting? So basically, you just shaved it off, and it was hard to do continuity because one day he had it, and then we filmed this in the beginning of February, and then a few days later, and then a couple of days after that. And yeah, Dean lost the beard in between. And it's really difficult to shoot everything in one day, right? Because obviously, with your show, you want to add so much content to make it look good. And you want to make it that much more special, right? And we were really careful as well with the continuity to wear exactly the same clothing. And then I think it was literally the morning of the shoot that I was like, hang on a minute, I don't have a beard anymore, you know?

00:01:50 Dean Newcomb: Yeah, you need to think about that.

00:01:50 John Daub: That's all right. I think though that only the people that are laser focused on you really can tell, maybe. I couldn't tell. I think that's how you know who your real fans are, Jon, you know? They check out the details. They pick up that one.

00:02:07 John Daub: Right. Before, I know we're leading with this, Dean, because you have a meeting to get to. But Dean's channel is called Runaway Japan. I'm holding up this sticker, the animated sticker that you gave me a couple of years ago.

00:02:20 Dean Newcomb: You're the man. Thank you.

00:02:21 John Daub: Yeah, that's how I know Dean. I know Dean actually through NHK we met, not on the show, but we do this show called Journeys in Japan. He does some episodes, I do the other ones. But you've been in Japan for what, 10 years now?

00:02:34 Dean Newcomb: I have, yeah, exactly. One decade. Who would have thought it? I never expected to be here after 10 years.

00:02:40 John Daub: Yeah, I never expected you to be here for 20 years. But one of the things that I like about Dean the most is that he always ... You were one of the first people I know that went up to Tohoku to help as well. I remember-

00:02:50 Dean Newcomb: Yeah, that was an amazing part of my life and also the reason that I'm still here now, really.

00:02:55 John Daub: Yeah. And you also went down to Kumamoto as well after the earthquake there.

00:02:59 Dean Newcomb: I did. I did, yeah.

00:03:04 John Daub: So I'm really grateful to be able to do it one more time.

00:03:05 Dean Newcomb: Yeah. Let me know, I'll join you.

00:03:09 John Daub: We should definitely do that.

00:03:10 Dean Newcomb: Yeah. Let's not hope for a disaster.

00:03:10 John Daub: But Dean's a good man and I do encourage you to check out his channel called Runaway Japan. You're almost at a thousand subscribers and you definitely deserve it.

00:03:25 Dean Newcomb: Yeah, we're still a baby channel. I started making the content directly for TV. So I'm actually on a train now, so forgive me for the small voice.

00:03:33 John Daub: Okay. But yeah, I think it's all on from now. I'm really kind of inspired by what you're doing with your channel and I'm excited to make YouTube kind of part of what we're doing now. Dan, Dean, thanks. I know you're on the train. You can't talk. Thanks so much ... Dean's actually going to be in two more episodes after this, a Hitachi Wagyu beef episode and then we drive and do a food challenge together. Thank you also so much for the help and being a part of this.

00:04:03 Dean Newcomb: Thanks, John. You made the show so much better without the beard and with the beard. Thanks, John. I enjoyed so much being a part of it.

00:04:11 John Daub: Thanks, Dean. Have a good day.

00:04:12 Dean Newcomb: All right. See you, John.

00:04:14 John Daub: All right. Bye-bye. See you, everybody. Bye.

00:04:15 Dean Newcomb: Bye-bye.

00:04:17 John Daub: All right. Yeah, I know Dean didn't really have a lot of time and I thought it would be pretty cool to add him into this Director's Cut because he was the co-reporter for this episode. Yeah, I know Dean through NHK and we've known each other for years. I think he's a great guy. Actually, I believe I may have even met him. I also went up to Tohoku, not as much as him after the earthquake, but I went up there about five or six times bringing up food with my friend. I have a friend named Mike who is also a very thoughtful person who thinks about others and we drove up a couple of times with beef from Aussie Beef and sponsored the run. That was pretty cool to go up there and barbecue. Dean is one of those people that really goes out and helps others, so I like it. That's why I encourage you to subscribe to his channel, Runaway Japan.

00:05:04 John Daub: While everyone is joining us, I wanted to take some of your questions and talk about drive-through ramen and sushi and drive-through culture, Japanese car culture, this episode which dropped yesterday. If you have any questions, let me know. I'm going to share some inside stories over the next 15 minutes with you. This might be something that you want to try out when you come to Japan. It's pretty cool. All right. We got one more. All right. I'm looking right now at the live stream, so go ahead and ask away.

00:05:38 John Daub: Now when we were filming this, we had about three cameras running at the same time. We had a GH5 which was sometimes too shaky video to use and then there was a GoPro on the side and then I had a GoPro attached to the car. I cut between the three shots, but because the GH5 video was shaky for some reason, I thought the internal stabilization would do a better job. I didn't use that as much, so you saw a lot more GoPro footage than normal, but that doesn't make it bad. This video was, I think that was, I used this DJI Pocket as well, which was pretty useful in making this.

00:06:19 John Daub: Now somebody asked me about permission to get to film in these shops. Some person commented they were really angry. He said, How dare you film people who don't want to be filmed? Well, I get permission from both the ramen company, the manager who we met and did a business card exchange. This is the proper way to do videos, man. So whenever you film an episode like this, you want to get permission, especially when it's very sensitive, like after somebody had posted a video of a GoPro going around the conveyor belt sushi. There's a lot of eyes on foreigners filming in sushi places. So we called and got permission. And it turned out to be a really great episode. I mean, if I didn't get permission, why would the window girl come out and do an interview? And why would the ramen shop give us an interview and allow us to film them? It wasn't a guerrilla shoot. A guerrilla shoot is when you don't have permission and you're just kind of secretly filming. That's not what this was. We had permission to film in all of the locations. I almost always call ahead. Sometimes I don't, just based on time. But, yeah. I think when you get exclusive behind the scenes shots, it makes the episode so much more special. I think that's what my feeling is.

00:07:41 John Daub: Drive-thru culture. So I got a question about drive-thru culture. Drive-thru car culture is so big in Japan. It's more than I think international visitors realize. We have the Shinkansen and we have really good local trains. The train system, Japan Rail, is awesome as well as the private companies like Keihan down in Kyoto, Osaka, which I was riding just a few days ago. Now these… the trains are so good, but there's a whole network of highways and roads and the majority of Japanese outside of the cities drive a lot. In fact, if you don't have a car, you cannot really survive. That's why around the car culture, there are like an infrastructure built to make it convenient in the Japanese way.

00:08:30 John Daub: You all know about Tokyo because a lot of YouTubers do a lot about Tokyo. The convenience stores, the vending machines, just the ultimate convenience of life in the city. And then you get outside the city and there's not a lot of content on that. And this is just part one of a lot of things that highlight what it's like to live and drive and experience the countryside the way that they do. Not on a homestay and not as a tourist, but this is something that people do in the countryside. They don't have convenience stores always near where they live. So instead of buying a bento from a convenience store, which by the way is not very healthy convenience store food, although it looks good and it tastes good, it's pumped full of chemicals. I think you really need to know this for full disclosure. I still eat it, but it's not something you want to eat every day. So all the YouTubers that are showing the beauty of convenience, convenience store food, please realize that people do not eat this really every day. And it is fast food and it's pumped full of chemicals, which isn't good for you. Which is why people do take out at restaurants like Hamazushi or Yukimura-tei, a chain that's in four prefectures in Japan, and they get like almost home cooked meals from there. And the price is just almost just a little bit more than the convenience store, but it's made to order. And I think that's a big deal because quality is a big deal for people.

00:09:58 John Daub: Any other questions we got here? The car culture is very prevalent in Iwakuni. Yes. Tim, I see that comment. Iwakuni is another place where you need to get a car. There's a amazing restaurant up in the hills of Yamaguchi Prefecture, not far from Iwakuni. I think they have four or five shops. I went there when I filmed the dasai Japanese sake episode from Iwakuni. I went there to Shinkansen and then we drove out to this amazing restaurant. And you can only get there by car. So car is the way that you feel. You really can see Japan from a different side if you rent a car. And that's one of the reasons why I got my license, to be honest with you. I did that so I could hit and visit these places that you just cannot do with a train. And the best thing of it all is I could put all my luggage and camera gear inside the back seat. I don't have to carry it.

00:10:54 John Daub: I'm looking for more questions here before I wrap into some more background stories. I got tons of back seat stories. Is there ketchup in Japan? Yeah. Ketchup is pretty much limited to like burger fast food places and like omelette rice places. You might find it in omelette rice places. People eat ketchup with eggs. But it's not a condiment that's as popular as in the West.

00:11:21 John Daub: Was it weird being behind the wheel so long? Writes in I4A. Yeah. It was pretty weird. To drive. On the other side of the road. Now I've been walking. It's not as weird as you think because I've been walking on the left side of the road when I walk. Because people walk the way you drive for the most part. So mentally you're kind of already in that zone after 20 years of living here. So my problem is when I go back to the U.S. more than here actually. But what was weird for me is driving an automatic car because I've always driven a stick shift. And then to drive with this hand with the stick shift is just a little bit weird. This was an automatic so I didn't have that problem. But when I took the test with a manual transmission it was a little bit weird. I have to be honest with you to shift with this hand. The hardest thing is the signal is on the other side. So instead of the blinker I would be activating the windshield wipers. That was hard when I took the exam as well. Those are reversed.

00:12:24 John Daub: Trecherous writes in what other kinds of food are offered through drive-thru? Oh wow. I'm not sure. Well we all know that McDonald's Japan is pretty unique and has a pretty incredible menu. So Dean and I did drive through there and I have some footage. I don't know if I can show that to you. I have some footage from that shoot. Let me see here if I can get out. I can open up the project. And that was pretty amazing. Because I don't know. Even the experience of drive-thru menu, the drive-thru McDonald's Japan was pretty unique. I don't know. I think it's just because the Japanese staff, they have such a really positive and polite and respectful way of taking money and doing things.

00:13:16 John Daub: A lot of people noticed in this video that when the window ladies were taking the money or the not window lady. She actually ran outside of the ninja door in the back. When they're running outside of the shop, you can see. And this is the timeline for the episode. You can see that they don't take the money the same way as they do in a shop. Because it's just really inconvenient to do it in that polite way. So sometimes they will hold out their hands and hold out the money with two hands. They always hold out notes with two hands. Like a business card, you always hold it with both your hands to show the importance. Never hand it casually like this. Always do two hands if you can. Yeah. These were really, really interesting experiences to me.

00:14:04 John Daub: So it was on day. Which day was it? On the 5th. I usually use three or four cameras when I film. And I believe this one I film mostly on my iPhone. Because the iPhone X has really good video. Let's see where did it go. iPhone. There it is. I believe we filmed this on the 2nd. At the end. The McDonald's shots. And Dean. Is that it? This is the end. This is where he was. And then after this I believe we went to some more ramen places. But overall. Okay. Here's a project window for all of us. But overall they have drive-through udon which is Yoshinoya. That was pretty cool to get to open up your thing. And there's this amazing bowl of udon. But they also put a label, a sticker on top of the bowl of udon.

00:15:03 John Daub: Now I didn't, I think this would be a great video for somebody to introduce. Like drive-through gyudon (beef bowl). Because that is actually like the cheeseburger of Japan. Gyudon. Let me see if I can find this really quickly here. This is on the 3rd day. Dean and I went. This is all behind the scenes footage. Okay. Dean and I, we did drive-through a McDonald's drive-through. Which is right here. Let's see if I can bring it up. Try to make it larger on the monitor. There's another drive-through. This is stuff that was not on. Not in the main video. You can see that there. Move the monitor in the middle here. Alright. This is Dean getting the gyudon. Hi. Hi. Come here. Come here. He got rid. You can't use your credit card in most of these places. So he had to pay by cash. He's driving now by the way. The great thing is that on the menu they have pictures. So it makes it easier to order if you can't read the. The kanji or the katakana. That menu is all in Japanese right? There it is. Thank you. Gyudon. There you go.

00:16:23 John Daub: Alright. This is the scene with the label on top here. I think. Okay. I think we started here. If you look on top of the bowl of gyudon. They have what you ordered. They order who made it. The name of the person who made it. The address of the shop. The phone number. The location and the date of the order. The date and the time is stamped on top of the gyudon. So you know exactly all the information about your order. I love this. I don't know why more fast food restaurants don't put this sticker on it. So then you know who made it. Where it was made. What time it was made. And what exactly your order is. It's just a simple printout sticker that you can do. I wanted to add this in. We just ran out of time. But I might do more drive through stuff in here.

00:17:12 John Daub: I'm looking at the comments here. The paper isn't flying around. Simple and sweet. John, is there a restaurant you wish had a drive through? I don't know. I think, gosh, I go to Japanese bakeries a lot. It would be pretty sweet to have a Japanese bakery. You could drive the car real slowly and just take the bread that you want. And then pay when you exit. That would be pretty cool. Gosh, there's a lot of restaurants. I'd love to see a Japanese bakery. I'd love to see a Japanese bakery drive through. That would be just really, really interesting. Because there's so many varieties of breads in Japanese bakeries. I would probably think about that.

00:17:52 John Daub: Is food poisoning common in Japan? I don't know. What do you mean by common? I know it happens. I've had food poisoning where something I ate was not good. That's why I try to eat at reputable shops and not places that look run down and old. Places with lines usually have a good turnover of food. You won't get sick. I've gotten food poisoning from ramen. I've gotten food poisoning from supermarket bentos, which I think might have used old ingredients. I don't know. I've gotten food poisoning the most from ramen when I travel. Often, actually. In the 20 years I've been living in Japan, I think five times I've had food poisoning from ramen. So, yeah. Just be careful with where you go and make sure you're going to a reputable place. Especially if you're an international traveler because your stomach isn't ironclad like some of the people who eat it regularly.

00:18:49 John Daub: Do they have coffee drive-thrus? They do. Actually, Dean and I went through the Starbucks. You guys want to see this? Oh, here's the McDonald's one. This might be interesting. This is the McDonald's drive-thru. I didn't include this either because this one was gorilla shot. We didn't have permission to film. Hello. What do you want, man? Up to you. Get something like a ebi katsu burger or something. Yeah, that was good. Do you have an ebi katsu burger? Please. We only got one. There's the menu. This is the Japanese McDonald's drive-thru menu. The ebi katsu burger we ordered was here. It's ebi filet. So, they have shrimp, like a fish filet made of shrimp. Which was really, really good. McDonald's Japan, you can't even compare it to McDonald's USA. It's just a completely different experience.

00:19:59 John Daub: Let's see here. Oh, here's the drive-thru window. Which one do we go through? Yeah, there are two windows. They do it more like American style. Oh, and then he put his hand out there to call us. This window. That was funny. So, then we took the burger. And Dean and I were going to add in a bonus scene. This is the gyudon from Yoshinoya through the drive-thru. It looks really good. But, I don't know. The thing with Yoshinoya is that they... Okay. Just drive to the corner here. The thing with Yoshinoya is I don't think that they use the best beef. I'm not sure. But I always prefer the competitor actually. Matsuya. But they're both really good. It's not even... It's just a little bit better, I think, at Matsuya. So, yeah. I'm not sure. It's like, do you like Burger King or McDonald's? And you can't really... It's hard to compare.

00:21:01 John Daub: Backing in here. I knew it. You're a backer. That's another thing. I go in face first. I got this fancy schmancy camera in the back of my car. So, yeah. Don't even leave. So, in Japan, when you park, in the US, we park, we just drive in. Japanese, everybody backs in to the parking spot spaces. I noticed this like 20 years ago when I first came to Japan. It's just something that they teach you back in to drivers up in the parking lots. I don't know why. Maybe it's easier to get out. But it's pretty interesting culturally.

00:21:37 John Daub: Here's the Ebikatsu burger. I kind of... You have to do the opening up. Kind of weak on the lettuce. Kind of weak on the lettuce. That's shrimp in there. I always take two or three versions of the shot because I know that there will be one that is better than another. All right. I took a bite to show the shrimp inside. It's actually really real shrimp. I mean, I don't know. My image of McDonald's is, is it real? It is real. It was real shrimp. So, that's kind of a behind the scenes look. I get a lot of footage that never makes it in to the main episode. You have to cut stuff. And that was something that was cut. Yeah.

00:22:32 John Daub: Any other questions here? John is... I saw something. John is there food where you never get from a drive-thru? Right, Diana? Food that you never get from a drive-thru? I don't know. I think if it's fast food somewhere they have a drive-thru. One of the places that I wanted to go to in this episode but we couldn't find it in time was Takoyaki drive-thru. And the chain Gindako has a drive-thru in Kanagawa which is another part of Japan. Just other side of Tokyo. But not every chain has a drive-thru which is kind of disappointing. Because I think every chain if you're outside of Tokyo you need a drive-thru because it's just so cool. It's just so cool.

00:23:27 John Daub: The thing is that Japanese drive-thrus which surprised me, people don't eat it in their car. I don't... Like I would... The reason why I get a drive-thru is because I just don't have... I'm on the go. I don't have time to eat. So I would drive-thru and if the drive-thru is too long I would go into the shop and pick it up. This is my habits normally. And then I would eat it in the car. I would drive and eat. Drive and eat. Who never did that, right? Probably not the best thing you should do. You should have your hands both on 2 and 10 o'clock. But I would drive and eat. And I would save time, right? That's normally why... The only reason I would go through a drive-thru. Even in the US, in the countryside in the US, I would not drive-thru. I would go into the shop because it was usually faster. And then get out. And I don't know. That's just me. Drive-thru is not something that I would do often. Unless you just really were lazy.

00:24:26 John Daub: But here, I was really interested to... I learned a lot because the sushi girl whose name is not known to me. Her true name. Let's call her Ai-chan. Ai-chan, she told me that in the interview and afterwards when I asked her about it before filming, that a lot of families are the ones who use the drive-thru. Because this area of Tsukuba, this area of Japan in Ibaraki Prefecture is very much family focused. A lot of people move outside of Tokyo to raise their families. They don't have a lot of time. And the kids can be like... They usually have more than one kid. So there's two or three rugrats running around in the back of the station wagon. I'm talking about me and my brothers as an example. My mother probably didn't want to take us into the shop. I'll be honest with you. Three boys running around throwing stuff. I wouldn't take them in either. Just keep them in the car. Keep them penned up. Then you can go through the drive-thru.

00:25:25 John Daub: Those are some of the reasons why the drive-thru in Japan exists for maybe the same reason that they do in the United States. But it was interesting to me that fathers... Mothers, parents would go inside the shop and order or call and order. And then instead of going into the shop, they would just pick it up at the drive-thru. So they would call... Japanese people often will order takeout and call ahead and just pick it up because it'll be ready. They don't go there and order like we do in the US because it's not really fast food. All right? Japanese food is not really fast food. Maybe gyudon, you can cook it kind of fast. But it's not like the burger style because the quality still has to be really high. Ramen still takes a little bit of time to make. Sushi took... She says it takes up to 10 minutes to make. They try to get every order within 10 minutes. Ours came out in about 3 or 4 minutes. But they make it to order. All right? So it's not really fast food but they made the sushi to order. It wasn't already finished and sitting there. And I think that's the quality.

00:26:29 John Daub: So in order to get a pack of sushi that... You saw, I think, on the menu there were 50 pieces of sushi in one of the packs. That takes a lot of time to make. So you go into the shop and you order it and then the sushi restaurant, the sushi chef will say, please come back in 30 minutes to pick up your order. That's when you will... You can go and do your shopping and run some errands and then you'll come through the drive-through to pick up your order. So when you get up to the window, you go, ah, this is Suzuki-san. I ordered the blah, blah, blah. And then you go, oh, thank you, Suzuki-san. And then they'll communicate through the window and you can pick it up and pay for it. Grab it, take it back to your family. You didn't have to wait in the shop for them to make the sushi. I like that system a lot. This is the convenience of Japan. It's not exactly for the same reasons that they have drive-through windows as in the United States but it's kind of similar. Kind of similar.

00:27:24 John Daub: And if you like these director's cuts, definitely click the like button. Thanks, UFO Bob. I appreciate you bringing that up. Let's see. I'm looking back here at the questions. Sorry, I might have missed it. Oh, Spectre1065, best place for pizza. Whoa! Spectre1065, that's a hard one. Okay. I do like Devil's Craft Pizza in Tokyo. These are not drive-through places. Devil's Craft Pizza has Chicago-style pizza in Tokyo that's really good. And Pizza Kaya, like Izakaya Pizza Kaya is a chain. It's a chain of friendly people who work near, I think the shop is right near Roppongi Hills. That place is pretty good too. They usually have like this, I think they had a Santa Fe pizza with all this stuff in the middle of it. It was like, I don't know, it's not tastes that I usually get in Japan. They're doing a really good job of making like a California-style pizza there. It's hard to find good New York-style pizza here but Domino's is actually running New York-style pizzas that are 40, like massive sized. So I might order that and do a live stream about it. Good question. You're very welcome. Thanks for the super chat.

00:28:46 John Daub: Pronto Pizza. Pronto is not a bad restaurant. I usually go in there just for business meetings because they're all over the place. Pronto. Do McDonald's, oh that's a great question by M. Dinella. Sorry if I pronounced that wrong. Do McDonald's in Japan have playgrounds for kids? With slides and the ball pits? I've never seen the ball pits. I don't see that often actually. I have seen a few with playgrounds but they were a little bit different than the ones in the US. I don't think, I don't know. But I've seen them but I don't see them as much as in the United States. I don't think that having a playground is the reason why people come to the restaurant. I believe people eat and they get out. They don't linger in restaurants. And typically the turnover is very fast so people don't stay in a restaurant. Like in a ramen place, it's extremely rude to go into a ramen place and sit there and chat like you're at a cafe. It's very, very rude to go into any fast food restaurant in Japan and sit there and not, except for McDonald's because people, that's what McDonald's is there for. In a Japanese style fast food restaurant, you go in, you sit down. It's very tight. The turnover is fast. You eat, you get out. Udon is very much the same way. You sit down there, you get it. You got about five minutes typically. You eat your udon and you get out. And that's the way that they make money. But if there's people waiting outside, you have, you can sit there all day but it's the rudest thing that you can do is don't sit at a Japanese restaurant and not, and think it's like a cafe. After you've eaten, go to the cafe. That's, that's the way. That's what you should probably do. And then people will like you for it.

00:30:36 John Daub: 50 style drive-thru in with the waitresses. Larry, I'm sure that exists somewhere in Japan and if it does, I will find it. They still existed in the 1970s when I was like five years old, 1980s. Some of them still existed. I think just a typical McDonald's drive-thru put them, a lot of them out of business. But I remember, yeah. When we would drive up, even the drive-in movie theaters, we would drive into the movie theaters and you'd have to put, take the speaker and put it into your car window and then close the window to the speaker. You could hear inside the car. I love those days of the 19, late 70s, early 80s when I was a kid with the different driving culture they had back then. Drive-thru movie theaters is the biggest shame that we don't have that. And we enjoy the movies in the safety of our house. But we lose that kind of, you know, that sense of, you know, you're driving in a movie theater and you're walking into that building. That's a good interaction with people and walking to the concession stand to get that really bad popcorn and hot dog, roller hot dog. I do miss that. I know they had drive-thru movie theaters in Japan and it had the same fate as in the United States. They just couldn't, couldn't last.

00:31:47 John Daub: James Beckett writes in, hey, James. Hi, John. Considering vending machines I've seen in your videos, is there something odd, maybe not food that would surprise most of us at the drive-thrus? Yeah. You know what? This is a great question. I'm glad you brought this up. I probably wouldn't have talked about it. One place that I'm interested in, maybe in a future episode, is... I have to bring it up on the screen because you might not even believe me. There are some YouTube videos here. They have... Hello and welcome. I don't want to do it. They have some places that are really bizarre. This place is a drive-thru funeral parlor. This is a drive-thru funeral parlor in Thailand. Whoops. No, this is Japan. Japan. Japan. Where is it? Oh, here it is. They would bring the ashes here. I'm not sure how it works exactly, but you would be able to drive through and pay your respects. The idea is not as eccentric as it seems. Around 28%. You drive through and drive through funerals. I mean, why wouldn't we want these, right? It's over fast. You pull in, pay your respects, and get out. And then you can go about your day. I think that that's... Yeah, good. Maybe. Maybe not. I don't know.

00:33:25 John Daub: They have drive-thru glasses places. I think you can get fitted with the glasses. I don't know how they do it, but everything is through drive-thru. Drive-thru liquor stores are not new or exclusive just to Japan. They do have that here as well. I saw drive-thru... What else did I see? Drive-thru bookstore? Drive-thru... They do have the drive-thru... I believe they have the drive-thru banks like we do in the United States, where you can go to the teller and talk to them the same way. But it's not as... It's not as often. I don't see them... I don't... I don't... I think I've seen them, but I didn't see them on this trip. But mostly with food. But that doesn't... That doesn't restrict it to things like drive-thru maid cafes would be pretty cool. Drive-thru takoyaki, they do have in Kanagawa Prefecture. Drive-thru booze, they do have. So they do have these things.

00:34:21 John Daub: Italian food in Japan or a mix of sorts. I'm not sure what you're asking, but I think the Italian food in Japan, is Japanized. I like the fact that they use mentaiko, like spicy fish eggs. They use Japanese ingredients, which makes the Italian food kind of interesting. Drive-thru tea ceremony, that would be weird. Because I don't see the... I don't... The thing is, though, with Japan... And this is the thing. The drive-thru is also like an unusual thing that kind of adds a little bit of marketing prowess to your restaurant. It's not necessary in every restaurant. And Hamazushi, this chain that was really nice to let us film, not all of the Hamazushi restaurants have a drive-thru. Hamazushi is all over Tokyo, this chain. But they do not have drive-thrus because it doesn't make any sense. And most of the experience of going to a kaiten sushi (conveyor belt sushi) or a sushi go-around or a conveyor belt sushi, there's many names for it, is to go in there and sit and then have the sushi come to you. But it's kind of funny when you're driving the car, it's like, now we're going to get the sushi. We're going around to pick up the sushi. So I thought it was kind of ironic. I was laughing in this episode a little bit.

00:35:39 John Daub: And one of the reasons I was laughing... This is inside information. If you haven't seen the video, go back in and watch it. And definitely leave me a comment below if you would. And I will try to respond to it. I usually do in the first 24 hours. So leave me a comment in this video, and I will try to respond. But there's a scene where I go to pick up the sushi. And when I do, I'm like laughing. And it's just because... And the reason why I'm laughing is because it's just... To me, I was laughing because it was ironic. Because we sit down inside this restaurant and the sushi comes to you. And here we are in a car and we're driving to pick up the sushi. I don't know. That was my humor. But I didn't explain it too much. I was surprised with the quality of the food here. I have to be honest with you. I was surprised.

00:36:33 John Daub: Are there drive-thru smoke shops? I've heard of this, Andrew. I believe they do exist. Especially for places that have more exotic tobacco. But the vape places are increasing very quickly in Japan. So there are some places. Drive-thru onsen. How do you get that in the car, though? Drive-thru onsen. Thank you. We have permission to film this. Dean is filming with my iphone XS. This is all staged. I think I did it twice, so I would have enough footage to get it. I took it from many multiple angles to give you complete experience. That's a car wash. Yeah! That's funny! Oh, wait a second. Panathenia... That's right. If you wanna drive through onsen, just need to get into the car wash. Roll down the window. Sorry. and the soap is for free, I guess. That's pretty funny!

00:37:34 John Daub: The car washes in Japan, though, are pretty cool, too. There's the car washes where you would drive through. You remember? They were kind of long. And then there were the car washes in Japan. They're just like a gate, and the car wash will move left and right of your car. You don't have to drive at all. And then at the end, you can either go through the gate or back up, depending on if there's anybody who's in the line. I thought that was really cool. I remember the first time I was walking through the countryside, and I saw this car wash. I'm like, whoa, how come we don't have this in the U.S.? And I keep saying that even today. Like, why don't we have this in the U.S.? Why don't we have this in the U.S.? Maybe there are reasons behind it. Mr. T-Man, here's my first super chat to you. You deserve it. Thank you. Thank you so much. I appreciate that, Mr. T-Man.

00:38:25 John Daub: If you have a valid concealed carry permit, and a state will allow you to eliminate the... Oh, that's like something... I don't know what that's for. I'm reading some of the comments here. I'm going to do maybe a couple more questions and finish with one more story. Do you think they had that sushi pre-made? No. H. Acera writes in, do you think this is pre-made? No. We had to wait about four to five minutes, so I'm pretty sure that they make it pretty quickly. It's made to order. Once again, like the sushi shop, she said that fathers will come in, they'll order at the drive-thru, or come into the restaurant and say, I want like a 50-piece sushi platter. And then they would go and shop, and then they'd pick it up 30 minutes, because it would take like 15 minutes to make that. So everything is made to order and fresh, because the restaurant has its own reputation. That's why the drive-thru window is pretty unique. Most people won't do that, because a sushi restaurant does not pre-make the things unless you're in a supermarket, or 7-Eleven, or a convenience store. So those are the... reasons why. This is not a supermarket. They are proud of their quality for the price. I think they do a pretty good job. And it's all made to order. I think that makes it special.

00:39:38 John Daub: Super Mr. Crazy Man, what are your favorite restaurants? Oh, wow. I'd have to say that Pizza Devil's Craft place is up there. And the place that my wife took me for my birthday, which is called... dare I say the name, maybe it'll get crowded. It's called... T.Y. Harbor. And that place is probably my favorite place to go, because it's one of the few restaurants on the Tokyo Harbor, on the water, that you can eat. It's just such a beautiful place. Specter 1065 burritos. Red or green chilies? Wow! Can you have both? Can you have both? I like the red ones, but I will not pass up the green ones. It's very hard. Good burrito place in Harajuku. Gomez E. Gomez, I think it's called, from Australia. Surfer chain. Nathan McSprane. Sup! How you doing? Thank you, Nathan. I appreciate that. It's pretty cool.

00:40:35 John Daub: Andrew Cousins in PA, Pennsylvania. We had a couple drive-through pe... What? Ooh, Andrew. TMI. No, no. Actually, I remember the first time I drove out with my father to go to Ohio State University. That's where I went to college. I was living in New Jersey at the time. And we drove through Pennsylvania. After you get through Pennsylvania, and Valley Forge, and you get onto the Thruway, there's some pretty weird stuff out there. It's pretty... It's neat, though, because it's different than what we got on the East Coast. So I think maybe Pennsylvania is very similar to Ibaraki Prefecture that we drove through in this episode. I think it's a place where you definitely need a car. I think the U.S. is a country where you definitely need a car.

00:41:26 John Daub: Michael Kelly writes in, How do you stay focused on Japan and what you do? I think this is not about... This is a general question, but after being here for 20 years, it's very easy for me to see some of the things that are unique to me because I've been exposed to a lot through traveling. So it's very easy. Japan seems like a small country on the map. And I don't know if I'm... I hope I'm answering this question right. It seems like a small country on the map, but it's actually just packed full of thousands of years of history. And lots of different culture. So each prefecture, each area of Japan has its own unique culture, has its own unique food, has its own dialect, has its own kind of way to do things, which is just different enough from the other places to make it unique. And it's very much like the United States, but maybe not like Europe, which has different languages completely. The United States is... Like Texas is so different from New York, for example, as Texas is different from Washington State or Wyoming for that matter. So it's very different cultures all inside of Japan. And that is so fascinating to me. It's really fascinating.

00:42:40 John Daub: Good night, Spectre1065. Yeah. I went to bed at 4 a.m. after I uploaded this video and did some of the social media stuff. So I'm operating on five hours of sleep. It might take a power nap. Yeah, Texas is another planet. It's pretty much another planet. Thank you for answering. The answer very much speaks to passion and interest, which is why I love only Japan. Thank you, Michael. Yeah. This is like the dream job. I think I was made to do this. I lived in Japan. I came here in 1998. And between 1998 and 2005, I had moved apartments 17 times and lived in so many different cities. So I think I was kind of, because of the job before, kind of made to do this introduction type thing. And I think I'm doing this type of job because I've just seen it all. I've seen a lot. And it feels so good to share something on YouTube like this. So I appreciate it. It really makes me happy that you guys like it.

00:43:44 John Daub: All right, cool. So I hope you enjoyed this director's cut. I don't want to keep you. I know it's getting late in the U.S. People on the West Coast are probably in bed. And even California guys are starting to get your pajamas on. So I want to say thank you so much for supporting this show. Definitely watch it again. YouTubers always have to say that. But it does mean a lot to me that you take the time out to leave a comment or you take the time out to watch this. So thank you very much. Andrew just came in with a super chat here. Thank you. Andrew from Port Arthur, Texas, headed to be bed soon. So last question, your opinion on American. All right, Andrew, I'm going to end with that one and then quickly with a story. What makes you happy? What made you want to go to Japan? I made that. This is from Cookie Cat. I made a 360 video on the main channel that answers all of the questions about why I'm in Japan. But I want to thank all of you for really being interested in the content that I make because that's why a creator creates. That's my passion, to tell a good story and then hear that tell a good story that I think will stand the test of times and create conversation about a topic. So it's always been a dream of mine to do something like this.

00:45:00 John Daub: So Japanese food or American food, you really cannot. I think I could say like Monday, Wednesday, Friday, American, Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday, Sunday, Japanese. And Japanese gets an extra day because it's just a little bit healthier. I think they don't use a lot of cheese. They use less meat when they do eat Wagyu steak. It's like just a little bit compared to the bigger portions. I'll probably stay alive longer eating Japanese food. But I still cannot stop eating them. I'll never give up my pizza and burgers. Don't even try. I'll bite your hand if you try to grab it away from me. You cannot take the American out of me at all. So I will always keep that. But when it comes to drive-through food, yeah, I don't know. Japan's pretty unique, but America is just a drive-through culture. I don't know. You can't compare. It's just different purposes, different reasons. They're slightly similar, but they're just different. And that's the best answer. It's an awful answer, but that's the best answer that I could think of. What does Kanai feel about pizza? She loves it. I met Kanai in New York. So pizza people. We're pizza people.

00:46:11 John Daub: The last thing I want to share with you is just one more Director's Cut story. I wanted to go through this. But let me talk to you a little bit about the ramen, okay? Restaurants and pork refectures across Japan. I knew about this place for years, actually. This is a place that did a drive-through ramen. This has been around for a while. And I just love the concept of it. And my feeling was, does it still taste good? Does it still taste the same as normal Japanese ramen? And the answer is, the noodles are harder. So they get soft and normal tasting after about 10 minutes. And then they have a longer life. Whereas noodles that you eat in a Japanese ramen place, fresh, you have three minutes to eat it. All right? That like, literally, they say after three minutes, the noodles start to get soggy and it changes the taste. So I don't even drink the broth. I'll drink it once and then until the noodles are gone and then I'll have a couple sips of the broth, eat the ingredients or whatever the toppings are and get out. That's sort of the way it works.

00:47:19 John Daub: But the drive-through ramen, people don't want cup noodles all the time. Even Japanese know cup noodles is not good. It's not healthy for you to eat every day. So what they want is the taste of a ramen shop and be able to take that home or a taste of the ramen shop and take it to their job to eat that for lunch. So that's why this place exists like this. And they do really good business with the drive-through during lunch hours. They don't just have the restaurant popping like all the seats are full, but they got like five or six cars waiting outside. So they found a way to serve customers beyond the capacity of the restaurants. I think that that's just genius. That's just smart to do. The restaurant chef had already started preparing our order. So if the restaurant is full, pull up to the window, make your order and they'll bring it out to your car and you can still get it even though there's no place to sit down. I love that. Keeps the business popping, right?

00:48:15 John Daub: Hello. All right. I asked the chef. You can see the GoPro camera on his chest if he'd be okay with this. And he's like, yeah. And it was pretty cool because I've done this before with another ramen shoot, I believe, or another food shoot in Iwate Prefecture a couple of years ago. It comes out really, really interesting. When you see it from a first person's point of view of what the chef is doing, I think it helps you remember how they're making it too by seeing what they see. But the chesty cam was the best one instead of the head cam, I thought, for this because his head's moving like left and right too much. I love that. I understand that he had a lot of work to do and he had to do all that for his customers in Japan. All right. Cut. That's where I cut it and then this is from a different shoot because the chef's right there. After we'd eaten and done this, that's when I filmed him cooking the food. So, often when you're doing this kind of production, you're putting the story together. You have to do one part of it and then film another part of it and then you put that in front. So, you use the ability that you are cutting to put the story together.

00:49:23 John Daub: And, I think, that's what makes this job really interesting because you have to add more details. to me and will never get old because I'm consistently, it's like a puzzle. Like how do I, I get this story, but how do I make it work that people are going to want to watch it? And you can put the pieces together and you come up with something that's just a really beautiful story that you can tell people. That's, and when I upload the video, there's no better feeling in the entire world than releasing a video of a story that you worked really hard on and then just hoping that people watch it. But once I upload it, my, my job is done and I let nature take its course. And I, I, some videos do extremely well and some videos don't. Some videos that I hope do well, don't. And some, and some videos that I think they're going to do great, do poorly. And some videos that I just shoot quickly do like, like viral. So it's, it's hard to predict how they do, but that doesn't matter any, any more to me.

00:50:17 John Daub: I think it's after you, you get to a certain level on YouTube, it's just about producing a good quality story that you feel good about. And if you feel good about that story, I think people will watch it because you're proud of the work that you do. And just like the chefs that make the food in the Japanese restaurants, we, we want, we, well, I, as a creator want to put something out there that tastes good, that looks good. You don't, you can't eat it, but it's the same concept. It looks good. It feels good. When you watch it, you're happy. That's a, that means a lot of work. And I think that's a, that's a, that's a, that's a, that's a, that's a, that means that makes me happy. Just like when it makes a chef happy, when somebody compliments them on their food or they take a bite out of the burger and they go, or they slurp the noodles. This means that the audience or the customer is happy. That's the greatest pleasure for someone who's been doing this job for a long time. I think, I think not so much the view count, but was it a good show? And I think this is a good show. I think this is a good show.

00:51:20 John Daub: And the next one with Dean is, we have two more episodes coming up, Wagyu. And the third one is a monster food challenge that we ate, this massive bowl, but it's the bowl. Actually the food challenge is not so much the attraction as something else. So I'll, I'll tell you what that is in an episode coming up. And I think about that one will be released in about a week from now. They're going to come really fast because I filmed this a couple of weeks ago. Yeah. If you have any questions, you can leave it in the comments below or better yet, leave it on the main channel. I'm going to go ahead and post it on the main channel. Because there's a lot more people watching that and I might not be the only one to answer your, your questions. Thank you so much for watching. I see a lot of Patreon supporters in here. I sent out for everybody in Patreon. This is this month's Patreon postcard. So I send out these postcards every month if you're a Patreon supporter and you get first dibs at watching the show because I do an early access kind of thing. Adrian, thank you very much, Adrian. I appreciate that very much.

00:52:20 John Daub: I'm going to use these superchats and buy something for Kanae Daub. Get some flowers. I know Tim, Tim gave me some super chat to buy some flowers with. And when I did, she was so happy. So I'm going to, I'm going to do that. She's working. She had to get up at 6am and I went to bed at 4am. So I'll probably buy something with all the super chats. So thanks, guys. I really, really appreciate that. Yeah. Thanks a lot. See you in another live stream. I'm sure to do one this weekend. The Only Japan Go channel has been a little bit light with content just because February is the busiest month for me. There's taxes. There's a DVD, project that I'm finishing up. There's some other filming engagements and both Kanae Daub and I had influenza, which really made it even worse. But we're, we're back again. And spring is coming. So it's pretty exciting. Michael Kelly, it shows that you love your craft and we appreciate it. Thank you, Michael. Oh man, that's really kind of you. Great. Thank you, everybody. I hope that you have a great day. Great night. If you're on the, in the United States.