QandA Driving in Japan: The Ibaraki Trilogy

00:00:04 John Daub: Good morning, everybody. Good morning. Good morning. Welcome to Tokyo. Welcome to our live stream. John's stomach is made of steel. See, I'm reading the live stream. Thank you very much. It's actually not. I get sick from time to time. I do eat a lot, though. That's why I'm getting a little bit fat. But that's okay because it's a lot of fun.

In this episode, I wanted to break down the three episodes that I made with my buddy Dean in Ibaraki Prefecture. Ibaraki Prefecture is about — it actually starts not that far away from Tokyo. You probably get there in about 15, 20 minutes if you go north and then you're at the border. But to get anywhere really inside of — to get away from Tokyo, you got to go about an hour north. It's one of the prefectures you have to get through to get to Tohoku, which is Fukushima, Iwate, Miyagi, Ken Miyagi Prefecture, Aomori. And then you can go up to Hokkaido. Ibaraki is a very important place.

But one of the things that distressed me last year was that Ibaraki Prefecture was ranked as the least — I think it was like the least desirable place to go for vacation, or it was ranked on the bottom of prefectures with foreign visitors. Just the data was so bad. It's like, we gotta do something for Ibaraki. And people just don't know, I think. And another thing is that Ibaraki is a place. It's like Saitama in many ways. It's just a place where you live in many ways. At least that's what the image is for — for us here in Tokyo, Ibaraki is a place where you just live. You live in Ibaraki and you commute into Tokyo. Come on. That's what it. That's all that's there. But it wasn't the case. And that's what I wanted to find out.

And this is kind of a catalyst for why I went to Ibaraki to produce the Drive Through Sushi and Ramen Fast Food Experience — that episode with the Drive Thru Girl, as you remember, which is pretty unique. We — I also did the Hitachi Beef Japanese Wagyu story where they allowed me into the processing plant. And the third episode that I did on this was a food challenge where we ate this massive bowl of marinated pork on a bed of cabbage and rice. And it was definitely more than a kilogram. But Dean and I tried our best to eat it. And I went back and ate it all again at a Japanese highway service area, which are so incredible. It's one that in itself is an experience.

So, all right, we're getting some things saying that they can't watch it on 240p. How is the signal? Give me some feedback, people. So I need some human feedback in order to get this right. Does it look okay? Guess so. I don't think we're having — somebody wrote in that there's a 240p. All's good. 720 for me. Good. Everybody has different connections so I think for the most part we have been broadcasting at a higher quality with the 4G signal. So that's always kind of good news.

Yeah, so I'm going to break down these three episodes starting with — so these are kind of director's cuts. So I'm not sure how long this episode is going to go. This episode could go for like an hour. It could go for just 20 minutes. Depends on you guys.

So this here is a Japanese drive thru sushi episode and I put this here for security. Someone said that Big Brother might be watching you. I don't know. So I just put that there. This episode was so much fun to edit. It was so much fun to edit because there's so many things going on here. When you're driving in a car for the first time, you don't know how to — you don't know how to set up the cameras. So one thing that Dean and I had a challenge with is we rented a car called the Toyota Mark X. I don't know if you, if you guys know the Toyota Mark X — it's like a luxury Toyota. It's like a mini Lexus. So it was a real pleasure to drive. Rental cars in Japan often don't have a lot of power. All right, we wanted something a little bit cooler because we're going to be presenting Ibaraki to the world. We don't want to drive around a little dinky car. We want something that has some power.

The problem with the Mark X was that the dashboards were so razor thin because it's kind of compact compared to bigger cars. It's a luxury — yeah, a luxury Corner. It could be. I don't know that much about cars yet. I'm still in my first year of a driver's license here in Japan, although I drive in the United States pretty well. Never gotten a ticket. This car had a small dashboard. So I had here, like, tons of these, like, suction cups for GoPro cameras. Do I put the suction cup on the glass on the front? Do I put it on the dashboard? Do I put it on the side window? It took us a long time to try to figure this out. I've seen videos that were set up where the rigs were left, right, and center. But we just didn't have dashboard space. Nothing fit. And I had a big suction cup for the GH5 because I wanted some really good quality video, not just GoPro footage. But the problem was that that was shaky. It didn't work out well.

So inside the car, I had more limited options to use for the cameras. There's a reason why the GoPro is so good. It's so small. And now with the GoPro 7, the stabilization is so good that it works beautifully in car shots like this. You go over a bump — you hardly notice with the internal stabilization with the GoPro. But there's problems with the GH5, which has stabilization. I couldn't use a lot of those shots, which is a shame.

So big city and drove to Tokyo's neighbor, Ibaraki Prefecture. So there I am driving. People been asking for this for over a year, since on this channel I introduced to you my driving experience, getting the driver's license here. I failed twice because almost everybody fails. Nobody passes the Japanese driver's test the first time or even the second. A lot of people have struggled. I'm here with my friend Dean. Yeah, I love doing — I love doing Ramen episodes. Dean is a good friend of mine. I've asked him if he has time to call in using FaceTime. So maybe we'll get some Dean questions in here.

The — the reason why I wanted to have Dean in here is because one, I know that he was available. He helped us set this up. For me, doing these shoots out in Ibaraki is actually kind of hard because you want to get permission to film in all of these places. Yeah, Dean, be still. My PD car. Yeah, Dean's got — Dean is a model. And if you walk around the city of Tokyo, I have a lot of amazing friends as — as maybe, you know, through this series, Dean, you might walk around the city of Tokyo and you'll see Dean on billboards. All right, Dean, he looks like who's the actor from Ted? People have been saying that, yeah, maybe he does, but I think Dean's in maybe even better shape. Dean, you walk around the city and in fact, if you search his name on Google, you'll probably come out with this demo role which has all the work that he's done, which is quite incredible. He's done a lot of really amazing things here in Japan and he's been here for only — what? Like, I think he's been here for 10 years. That's that's quite incredible. And he's got a great career that's going forward. Top shelf. Thank you so much by the way, for supporting Patreon. I saw that today. I've been setting up for this. I'm going to respond to you later on, but I really appreciate it, the support. That's awesome. I just saw that come in. So let me get back to this here. Thanks for paying it forward.

This place, Hamazushi — this is a sushi place that is all over the country, restaurants all over Japan. But in Tsukuba they have an added feature: a drive through. Yeah, they don't have Hama Sushi drive throughs in any place, I don't think, except for here. And I really wanted to do this episode. I remember seeing this on the news. I don't know why no YouTubers found a place like this. Why was — is this the only drive-in sushi and ramen episode on the Internet? It just struck me like, oh gosh, this is an opportunity. And I saw the story, I was like, I have to figure out why did they even have it. Never mind.

And there's Mount Tsukuba, by the way, in the background. You can see that. See right there? That's Mount Tsukuba. It's kind of cool. It's looming over the city of Tsukuba, just like Fuji has Mount Fuji over it. But it was just interesting to find out that the reason why they have it isn't just — just to drive through like McDonald's. It's basically to accommodate families. And because people don't like to get out of their cars when they have kids or when people are in a rush, they just want to get in and get out. And when the weather is rainy, this is just a convenient thing for customers in Tsukuba because everything has a drive through. You have to have a drive through. All right, so that makes it really interesting when you get concepts because to compete, you need drive-through shops that shouldn't have drive throughs have drive throughs. And that's so cool. It kind of changes the way your perception of Hama sushi. For me, Hama sushi now is more than just a conveyor belt sushi. Hama Sushi now is kind of the sushi girl and the service of driving through and having it delivered or handed to you through the window — it's pretty cool.

We asked why the drive thru was needed here in the suburbs. All right, a lot of people were pushing back at me for saying that the sushi grill was cute. All right, I think maybe that was not appropriate in the climate of the United States. But here in Japan, a company would put her out because it brings in more customers. She does an amazing job as a professional. She brought it out to us, she handed the money back. She's very polite. She's a great, she's great at her job, but she's also really cute. And people, the businesses know that. Look, I asked the manager, I said, "Why don't you do it? I mean you're older, you're more experienced, you've worked longer. Why don't you do the interview?" And he said, "No, she looks better than me. We want her to be out here to answer your questions." And I'm like, you're putting a part-time employee in front of the camera for your chain, national chain. That's like if McDonald's puts the drive-through window girl out there to answer for McDonald's in the entire United States, they're probably going to put the cutest girl out there. So they got to put out a really nice girl. But she's really smart and she's really good at this job. So I had no problems with it. But there were some people who didn't like the fact that I called her cute. That's weird to me. I think that there's nothing wrong with that. A little baby can be cute. So why do they need drive-through sushi? I was a little bit surprised, so I asked her a follow-up question. That's why the cuts there. Basically I asked her what — what kind of customers come in and eat here and why they have the drive through.

One of the reasons I think you have to understand is in a place like Tsukuba, people are often going into the shop for takeout. So much so that there's also a line to eat inside of Hamazushi. There's always a wait. All right, there's always like a 15-minute wait. It's at least 15 minutes because it's such a popular place in the city. But with the takeout people and the people waiting for tables, the area to wait is really congested. So Hamazushi also created the drive through to relieve congestion at peak times where people can just stay in their car and they don't have to come into the shop. That sort of makes sense. So now people could wait without having to be stressed out. In Tokyo, people don't have cars, driving up to the restaurant. People just take the train or walk from their neighborhood. Out here, people drive in and they can get quite crowded because there's a lot of takeout, a lot more than usual. And people want fresh sushi — not from the supermarket, not from 7-11. And if you eat your lunch from 7-11 every day when you come here to visit Japan — you're gonna kill yourself because the chemicals in that stuff that you don't see is a lot. I've been talking about this for the last couple of episodes because there's a lot of 7-11 episodes out there. It's not healthy food. Once you get married and you have a beautiful wife that you cook for and who cooks for you, you care more about your body. You stop eating 7-11 lunch. Just saying out there, you might eat Hamazushi instead.

So how does this taste? It is super. Thank you, Jordan. It is. I've got my — I'm glad you got the postcard inside. Just kind of shotgun it and put the soy sauce all over everything. When you have to eat the sushi in the car, I think that's the way to go. Whole plate now. The only reason Dean is such a gentleman — Dean asked me first, and this is what I love about Dean. Dean asked me first, and he goes, "Which one do you want?" And I said to him, "Which one do you want?" And we just were arguing because we knew that we can't get the same thing. And I said, "I don't know, I'll just get the small one with random stuff on it." And I said, "You can get whatever you want. Why not get the unagi or something?" He goes, "No, I'll just get the maguro because that's different than yours." That's Dean. He's such a nice guy. But the maguro looked good. Dean's maguro set has akami red tuna and otoro fatty cuts and minced negitoro with a little ginger. Go for the ikura. First, look at how — look how colorful. I love ikura. I love ikura. It doesn't matter where it's — well, it matters where it's from. But it's so colorful and it's salty. Little balls of goodness. Gosh, I love. Beautiful. It is. That's good. Is that good? Very good. Yeah, I'm impressed — the quality of sushi for the price that it costs. I think you get a lot for your money. Yeah, you can go in and eat. But I was surprised what you said — a lot of the people who come who live here in Ibaraki prefer not to get out of their car.

Yeah, there's a lot of little things that surprised me about this. But Ibaraki has its own culture. This is kind of what I like. I wish I'd get one more episode to just break this all down, which is what this is. Every prefecture in Japan, although it seems like such a small country, like the size of California — every small prefecture, every prefecture is big or small, has its own kind of unique culture, does have its own cuisine, has its own language. They have their own dialect. They have their own kind of way to do things. In Ibaraki you need a car. And I think that's what makes it really hard for foreign tourists. You can take the train. They're the Super Hitachi. I don't — I believe they might — maybe they've changed the name of it since the 1990s. But I used to take the Super Hitachi, which is what it was called, the Super Fresh, which went up towards Fukushima. I used to live in Fukushima in 1999, 2000. And you could take it through Ibaraki and you'd go along the coast. But if you ever wanted to go inland, you needed a car and — you know, this is why rent a car. This is one of the reasons why I got my license, to be able to take you to places like this.

Now this is the drive-thru sushi and the drive through — sorry, the drive through ramen. And I love ramen. But you can't eat a lot of it because it's so salty and it's so fatty. It's not good for your cholesterol. As soon as you hit like age 40, you start thinking about stuff like this and you can't eat it every day. But I have been — so I would, I didn't — I didn't really eat — drink the broth. You eat the noodles, you eat the toppings and you leave the broth. Okay, don't drink the soup. I ask people, "Do you drink the soup?" Nobody drinks the soup of ramen. You can sip it. You have a spoon to sip it, but the spoon is more to collect the good stuff. There's treasure underneath the ramen. There's little pieces of meat. There's like menma, which is the bamboo shoots. You need to get the spoon to get that stuff out. But you don't drink all the soup like this because it'll kill you. All right? If you're gonna eat, especially if you're eating this maybe a few times a week, don't do it. Just get it a little bit and then leave it. You can leave the soup. It's not a waste. They expect you to leave it.

A lot of people ask me for this. Where, where did this camera come from? Well, when I go and film, I'm not doing it like a normal YouTuber. Maybe I am. I don't know how YouTubers do it these days, but I come with three or four cameras. All right, I have different lots of equipment. I put this on a tripod outside and I knew that after the drive thru I would be right there. We have permission to film from the management of the restaurant and the chain. So we had kind of access. When you get permission, you can — it's so important because one, you don't feel like, oh, I gotta rush this, or I can't include people's faces or this. You have more — you're more relaxed. I think when you have permission to film. Very few people do this here in Japan. If you call and get permission, you also get behind-the-scenes exclusive scenes and cuts that you can add value to it. The reason why maybe 314 people view it or this channel is because I like to think I teach you something or show you something that other YouTubers can't do that. And maybe it's because they can't get permission or access to go in there and film. But if you — gorilla shoot is what we call it. If you go in there and not have permission to shoot, gorilla shoot it like a gorilla fighter. You're not going to be able to get the same kind of story. And I wanted to get a story that was able to introduce you to this behind the scenes and show you the full story of drive-through ramen and sushi. Yeah, maybe another YouTuber who's bigger than me is going to drive through and eat the food. But the story is not just that — everybody has — there's drive thrus all over the world. The story is not that Japan has drive-through sushi and ramen. The story is why they have drive-through sushi, why they have drive-through ramen, and how is the quality of the food? How do they prepare it? Is it different? I was surprised at how they packaged the ramen. I was surprised at how he can cook so many things like this. And I was surprised how the lady comes out and takes your money. And there's no second window to do that. Just the service is different here in Japan. There's so many different themes behind this episode that maybe people didn't think about that gives it value to the viewer. To me, that's how I saw it when I was making it.

Anyway, you order the food, afterwards there's a window where you pay and collect your order. And there's no window here. So let's see what happens. This was so cool when the — the lady I drove up, there's an arrow that shows you how to get around. You wait, there's — and then the lady comes out of a ninja door inside. She Moses on over. Here she comes. And she's such a nice lady. She was smiling the whole time we were in there too.

Yeah, this is — in Japan it's still a cash-based culture. Credit cards are not accepted everywhere. Basically you should have enough cash just in case they don't accept a credit card. Or if you rely on your credit card, ask in advance before you sit down. I always say this because credit card companies take 4 to 5% and smaller businesses or smaller chains, they're like, look, our customers are paying 800 yen. They don't need a credit card for that. Japanese carry 800 yen in cash. Japanese always have cash so that you can have digital stuff. But why the restaurant has to pay 4 or 5%? The restaurant would rather keep the prices lower than elevate the prices 5%, which is what you will pay. Every customer pays the credit card tax. So to say when they go in to eat at a restaurant, because credit cards charge 5% for four — like 3 to 5%, depending on the card — for every transaction, the restaurant has to pay that. So restaurants don't like to do that. So what they do is they'll just say, we're cash-based because it's so cheap. You're going to have the cash anyways. Most people are just getting a bowl of ramen. So it's going to be like 800 yen. And even for a family, it's less than $30. People have that cash that keeps the price lower. It's a service for the customers in the other way. We're so used to credit cards now where we're swiping it or giving our pins or just touching it. Now we're — we don't realize the hidden costs that we actually pay more than we used to. That's fine. I mean, it's not that big of a cost. But for Japanese who are living on salaries and normal everyday people, 3 to 5% will add up. And if you could say that, that also adds up.

On the other way, this isn't something that they didn't talked about, but this is something that's also in the back of my mind, knowing how the system sort of works. Hey, Justin, thank you very much. Just about in — boom. All right, how does this thing taste? Convenient. And the ramen is definitely hot. And let's give this a try here. Yeah, it's good. One of the things that I was worried about when I was eating it was not to get the ramen in the car, but we had wet napkins. People were getting upset, like, don't eat in the car. We weren't going to drop it. And accidents do happen, but we had no intention of dropping it. But when you're slurping noodles in the car, it does get on the upholstery. However, we — we washed, we cleaned it off. And the car companies in Japan, the rental car companies, are used to everything. They're used to the cars coming back filthy. They're really good at detailing every car. So we pay for that in the price. We did not — this car was not exactly the cheapest car in the whole wide world. This was like middle range. It wasn't that expensive either. But they cleaned the car, so it's not a big deal.

I saw some of the comments saying, "You're gonna get in trouble." Why? Why would we get in trouble? Why would we get in trouble? Cobra, Bebop. Thank you very much. I appreciate it. Yes, this is right. You're making great videos. I do my best. I do my best, man.

This is another reason why you call and get access. We got to talk with the manager. And let me just turn this up on full screen. And this is a cool part of getting access. When I asked him for an interview, he's like, "I don't know if I want to do it because he's shy." And I said, "This is going to add so much more to explain about your business than if I say it — if I say everything." It's okay as a reporter. Reporters report, but there's some value to a third person or somebody different than me adding the information. It gives it validity, it gives it more. It's more believable. And I want more people who are Japanese in my videos. It's not just me and Dean running around this country. We're in a country, we're in Japan. So the more times I can get people from Japan giving their input, it adds value to Only in Japan. Right? So it was great to have Akira Okano help out and explain this.

The problem with Japan, okay, the other problem with Japan is that people are so shy that when I want interviews for this, for this exact reason, they'll reject it because they're too shy or they don't want to look bad and they don't want to be on the show. And then that makes it look like it's just me and Dean. That's not exactly what you, the viewers, want. You want more Japanese point of view, a little bit at least. And this was really great. So I'm always so appreciative when I get a chance to add in another point of view into each episode.

Yeah, Trickerus is in the house. Do you drive using any of the procedures or techniques you learned at the driving school? You better believe it, Trekker is because I failed twice. That is so ingrained in my mind that I'm looking — there are triangles on the street. When I turn, I make sure I don't touch the triangles. I stop for three seconds. I literally, when I was at the — at the line driving, when you stop, you have to count. I go, "One, like san kuni ichi." And then I go — because I know that there are police officers that are watching to see if you didn't stop long enough at stop signs. At any stop, you have to stop for three seconds. So I do that. And probably the people that behind me are angry, but I followed all it. This is — it's so burned into my mind because I failed it twice, which is maybe a good thing. That's a great question. Thanks for asking that. I — I'll try to get to more driving questions.

Appreciation from Australia. This comes from Jai Mason. "Your videos inspired my friends to go to Japan and we loved it. Thank you for your awesome content." Thank you so much, Jay. I appreciate it very much. Is it J? J? Yeah. Thank you so much for that. And we — this is great because in Australia we're only like two hours ahead. Australia is two hours ahead of us. So we're kind of like both in the afternoon and most of you are in the evening, which is pretty cool.

I appreciate that very much. And yet — and top shelf super chat still there. I appreciate the super chats very much, guys.

So it's it for me, actually. This added a lot of value. And his interview, he also talks about how disabled customers who want a bowl of ramen — people love ramen. When you want a bowl of ramen and you're disabled, you can come. Because disabled people can still drive cars. Maybe they can't walk into the shop. So he knows that there are a lot of customers like this. Not a lot, but there are customers like this in Ibaraki. And he makes sure that the drive thru makes sure that people can get a bowl of ramen whether they want to take it home and have the flavor at home or at work as takeout or disabled customers. I like the fact that he added it in. This is awesome.

And they gave this to me and Dean for free, by the way. We turned them down, like, "No, no, no, we want to pay. We want to pay for this." They said no. I said yes. They said no again. And in the end we just gave up. And I love this chain. I love these people. And to me it was the — and we'll go to the next episode here. To me, it's always about the people. I do this NHK show called Journeys in Japan maybe once or twice a year. I've been doing it for the last several years. And every time I go out on one of these trips, they ask me at the end to break down in 30 seconds or so what my thoughts were of this. And it always comes back to the people. Never mind the food, never mind what you just saw — if the people suck, all right, sorry about — people stink, then it's going to be an awful experience. If the people are friendly, even if what the attraction or whatever you were there to report on or see or do is not that great — the people were friendly. That makes it happen to me, right? I could have really good food and awful service. I remember the people all right. So for me, this was about the people — the set, the staff and the service was so friendly and so inviting. It made me feel really good and it left me with good impressions of Ibaraki Prefecture. And they didn't have to do that. They didn't have to do that.

Next up, if there's any questions on driving, I might not catch it right away. I think that home. Why don't you film in 1080p? It's — YouTube only does live streams in 720p. I don't use a laptop. This is mobile live streaming. I don't live stream on my laptop because there are limitations for that too. So if you want 1080p, I don't — that's not what this is. This is all story based. It shouldn't matter if your eyes are burning out of your sockets. This isn't the channel for you. I'm gonna be honest with you. You don't have to — you're not the only one asking that. I don't mean to tease a little bit hard, but I can't do anything about it. It's — it's all based on this is — this channel was an experiment: Only in Japan Go. Instead of me being in a studio or at my desk like a lot of YouTubers who live stream, I want to make a channel where I'm always going somewhere, where it's on a gimbal, which is technology we have available today. 4G LTE, which is technology that's pretty darn good compared to 10 years ago. And I can take you with me anywhere anyway. People who can't get out of their beds or are sick or in the hospital, people that can't afford a ticket to come to Japan right now, people who just are just too busy to make it to Japan — or people who just maybe like me. I don't know. I can take you somewhere together and we can enjoy a good meal or one city that maybe you wouldn't have gone to. And that to me is really the cool thing about this — like we have 450 people watching and I can take you with me wherever I'm going. That's like you're fitting 450 people in your pocket and sharing that experience. That's awesome. So I don't do — I don't care so much about 1080p. I don't like 480p, but 720 is good enough. For what I'm doing, I think — I think it's going to get better. And the more people who come into this channel and subscribe, the more that this channel is going to — eventually, when 5G comes and we have, I don't know, a quarter of a million subscribers on this channel, you're going to have 4K, I think, in a lot of places like flawless 4K, and we will have understood where we came from. Technology evolves. Technology is always changing.

This is the Wagyu episode. Now, this is gimbal. Sounds like Gumby's cousin. I know, right? I thought that was funny too. I loved Gumby as a kid. He's not as big now, but Gumby was big in the 80s and 70s and even the 60s.

So Japanese wagyu is the — is the beef that everybody knows about. If you know about Japan, you look at cuisine, Wagyu is huge. Wagyu was not that popular abroad 15 years ago. Okay, I'll be honest with you, America — I never saw Wagyu in the discussion in the United States when I was growing up. I think that it's just — it's booming because Japan is booming and it's a different kind of meat. I don't think the US beef industry really loves Wagyu. I think that they're — this is a competitor to them. I think they can try to make wagyu, but they never will because it's too costly and requires love into your work.

And I try in my videos, when I introduce Wagyu to show you another side of what you're eating. A lot of people might not like this. A lot of people might — some people might be offended. They were. But for me, if you do not know where your food comes from, that's a problem. Man, yeah, or woman. You know, if you have a family, even if you just don't — even if you care about yourself and you want to live healthy, you don't want to get sick. You have to know how and where your food is sourced. Where does your meat come from? How was the animal that you were eating raised? Even if you're vegetarian, you care if they're using pesticides or if they're using this. It's the same with livestock. For me, I want the vegetables to be raised without pesticides if possible. But I know that that helps it — from you from getting sick too, or helping the farmer from having diseased plants. But we — we as eaters want to eat healthy. This is what this episode is sort of about. And it changed — I'll tell you a little bit about it as I play the episode. But this episode, the Wagyu episode, we're gonna go by a little bit faster with this. I don't want to get too much into this because I don't know, it was somewhat controversial. I don't mind getting into it, actually. I just — I want to keep this live stream under an hour. I don't think I'm gonna be able to do that.

The way your food is sourced is important. And I though I got married last year. Maybe we'll have a family soon, I don't know. And if I do, I think about these things. And if you're a mother, a father, or if you're a daughter or a son, you're hoping that your mom and your dad are worried about little things like this. And for me, that's a wonderful view of Mount Fuji. That's another thing about Ibaraki — awesome views across — you get Tokyo and you get Mount Fuji and like all looking this direction. And this was with a zoom lens, but it was still on the horizon. It's just so beautiful. Mount Fuji from Ibaraki.

And just to finish this point, I don't want to bring this up again in the video, but you have to be worried about the food and your family's health. And maybe we don't do that enough in the United States. Look, when the United States has milk commercials and milk needs to make a commercial to compete, that's not a good thing. All right? Milk shouldn't have to compete with others — with others like Hi-C, which I don't think they do that anymore. When you have to make commercials to get people to eat healthy, that's kind of sad. In Japan, we don't have that problem so much. There are so many choices. But Japanese have — in school they learn about nutrition. And I know this because I went into a Japanese school and I watched them learn about nutrition because I had to film it for another project that I had. They learn about the responsibility of eating nutritious foods, how to cook and clean. So I mean, it's — it's something that's a part of this culture. That's why the food is good. Why is the food good in Japan? Because people learn about eating responsibly at a young age and it follows them all throughout life. For the most part, not everybody like most people.

Eric Holleran — thanks, John. Field trip to Montana. Woohoo. I'm up for that. Eric. Eric, I believe I have the Vegas going on in the background too, by the way. Have Vegas going on. Faye Williams, I love everything you do, John. After a hard day of work, coming home to watch how much fun you are having really helps me laugh and see a whole new world. Keep up the wonderful work. And you're cute too. Thanks, Faye. Your postcards on the way too, by the way.

So I have a lot — we have about 494 supporters on Patreon. And every month the biggest — some of the biggest support comes from our postcard club members. And I send a postcard every month. I got tons of — tons of postcards like this. And I put up images from the show. Screenshots. That's from the capsule hotel. And I send these postcards out to about 200 people. And that helps keep — keep the — keep the show going nice and nice and smooth. I appreciate it. Faye, your postcards on the way. Hope it makes it there.

So getting back to that — this restaurant was introduced to me through Dean. All right, hey, Mike. Mike's here. Mike is from — also. I thought it was a great episode. Thank you, Mike. Thank you so much. This restaurant was introduced to me through Dean. Dean knows a lot about Ibaraki Prefecture. And when I went there, it was just incredible. Look at the — I don't know. For me, I never see beef like this in the United States. I've never seen it until I came to Japan. Beef that was just like beautifully cut like this. Now I've seen red meat — everything, all the meat to me in the US just looks the same. And then I saw — I'm like, what's with all this marbling? It's like, I don't like the fat. In America, the fat is gristle, right? It's hard. You eat it and then it's like chewy, right? This fat's not chewy. This is the amazing thing with Wagyu and all — this cut of hide tenderloin is just amazing. Look how thick that was. And then here's the prime rib. Oh, man, look at the — like just the — looks like striations like — like a geological event that occurred. I know I'm talking about meat, but it's just like the coloring on this is just crazy amazing.

But to go back — to go back to this, the fat in Wagyu is different. It is — I don't know if I believe — so there we are driving again. I don't know if I believe, like, everything that the beef industry in Japan tells me, I always take it with a grain of salt because it tastes better that way. But I don't believe everything because everybody has an interest, but they say it's the same as the same fat as like salmon, which has the omega 6 and the omega 9 fatty acids that are — that's actually good cholesterol. And I kind of believe it because when you eat it, it's not heavy or there's no gristle in the fat. It's very, very light. It's almost like a light olive oil, like a virgin olive oil to the wagyu fat. And to me, I don't know, it was just different. And when I came to Japan, I was just amazed by it. And now I can eat it because this is part of the job. I don't eat a lot of meat, to be honest with you. Kanae and I, we just eat a little bit and we use it — as in Japan, meat is usually used to enhance the flavor of the cuisine. Meat is not typically the main course in Japan. So not every meal comes with meat. It's something that you would add a little bit of to enhance the meal, to enhance the flavor. But now meat is becoming a little bit more mainstream. So you're seeing — we're seeing more and more wagyu on the market.

But my biggest concern as a human being — and I know people say if you — if you love them, don't eat them. That's not — that it's different. You — I see the world differently, and Japanese see the natural world differently. It's like lions eat deer, but the — the elks — but the elks are not, you know, they're not friends, they don't love them. But there's a — I've seen the lions also walk by them and not eat them. They take what they need. Right. That's what I like about the — when you're hungry, then you'll go after the lion. I'm getting out of the — off the point there, but here I am in front of — in front of the cattle, the wagyu. And the reason why I can go out and do this, I explained it a little bit in this episode, was I don't understand how we, as human beings — I'm not going to talk about this for very long — how we can eat animals that are treated badly. It doesn't matter that they're eventually going to become our food, but if we can't treat our livestock nice while they're alive, at least treat them, treat them well, then I think we're bad people. I don't know. These are still living creatures and their purpose is to be food. And I'm okay with that. All right? But I had no problems giving them a massage and being nice to them until the day happens. They're not humans. They don't think the same way as we think as people. They think as living creatures. They're happy to see you. But maybe after a century of being eaten as steaks, maybe they know what's going to happen. But the bottom line is that I think that they should be treated with a lot of respect until that happens and not be treated as trash just because we're going to eat them. In fact, it should be the opposite. We should treat them even better because we're going to eat them. And this is my — that's the end of my political stand. That's why I can go and give them massages and brush them and treat them nice. Because for me, in my heart — a lot of hearts, I know that I want the chicken and I — I don't mind eating them, but I want them to have — I want them to be happy. And I actually, whenever I see dogs on the street and they're not — they look like they're bored, I'll try to entertain the dog. I'll make faces at the dog. I'll try to do things like go back and forth and do stuff to — just to try to make the dog entertained. I don't know why I do it, but I feel — and for babies too, I like to entertain kids. Maybe because I was like a 10-children's teacher, but I'll entertain animals because they probably have a boring life and they need to see some silly humans every now and then. Like, I don't know. That's just me.

I don't have any problems with this scene. Some people did and — sorry, sorry, you lost — sorry, you lost me for a second. Rebecca writes in here — that's me, your favorite cultural thing about Japan. Hello from your new subscriber. Hey, thank you, Rebecca. Yeah, for me, I don't have a problem with this coming up. I like the fact that it takes — they're so shy, but then they're very lovable too. And I mean, you can keep a wagyu as a pet — in the wild they won't last very long. All right, they'll die from something, so they need to be kept. All right, the one thing that I don't like is that they don't — they don't go outside of the pen very often. I wish they could have more. But this is a natural order of things. Even though they're in there, they should still be treated with a lot of respect, I think. And when I go to visit them, I like to entertain the Wagyu. I like to — to understand the Wagyu. I like to look into their eyes and see — I think they're very smart. I think they're very, very smart. If I look into their eyes, they don't look like — like this — they — they look like they're looking back at me. And if — if they're the eyes of — I don't know if they're the eyes of God, for example — I want them to see something good too, on the other side. I don't know. I'm a weird person. I think in different ways, but I want to — even though they can't speak, I want to give them something to be happy about while I'm there. I don't know. Just me.

This wholesale place — people told me it's crazy. They are — it was really cheap. The same cuts in the UK, I heard were like 300 more expensive. I'm just throwing these numbers out there. They don't mean anything — this is super expensive. These sirloin steaks here — they're not — they're much more expensive than typical beef. But the prices are so much cheaper than in Tokyo. They're just — they just are. For a five beef now, in — typically, the Wagyu that we get in the supermarket in Japan is like a 4 and maybe a 5 — lower end. To get the — the higher end, a 5 is incredible. Look at the marbling on this. It's just — it's beautiful. It's beautiful stuff.

This scene I did not know was gonna happen. This scene is — was like not even in the plans. Okay, this scene was — this. All right, Dean and I had contacted Hitachi Beef to ask about getting access to film a farm. Okay, Dean did this. Dean did a lot of the planning for this and ton of — ton of love for Dean. So when we got there, we wanted to talk with them first. So they took us — so they met us at the agricultural office and they gave us some hot tea, which is what they do. And then they gave me a hat. I don't — do I have my hat? I think my hat's over there somewhere. They gave us presents. They gave us Hitachi Beef curry. They gave us tissues that said Hitachi Beef. They're so nice people. And then they told us about the farm we're going to — Hashimoto San's farm. The guy who I just interviewed, and they said I could use my drone, which is always a good thing to give you an overview of what the farm looks like.

And then there was — like, they asked us, "Do you want to go in the processing plant?" And at first I was like, no. And then I was like, yeah, because this is an exclusive thing. I said, "I don't know if I'm going to use this, but if I did, maybe it would be interesting to go and see." So they made us wear these booties on our shoes because we don't want to track in bacteria or germs. We had to wear masks and we had to wear hats just to make sure that we stayed as clean as possible. But it's still going to be processed — more than meat. So it wasn't a big deal. But this meat had just been freshly — it's just freshly processed. I'll just say the word processed. I think you all know what that means.

When we — I didn't want to be there for a very long time. But when he started to tell me how they grade the beef, the episode for this changed completely. Mark responded here — the episode just changed completely in my mind. I said, now it's not just about going to a restaurant and eating meat. This episode just became special because now we have them grading the meat. This is how they figure out what's good and what's bad. This is how they decide which meat is high quality and which meat isn't. And he's showing me on the carcass. So this is not something that another YouTuber has ever done before. How do I do it in a respectful way? I — all right, all right. This is between you and me, okay? I lost one subscriber. All right? I got to tell you this story. I'm not going to tell you the subscriber's name. He's not in the channel anymore. It's okay. I don't — I don't like to talk about people behind their back. I try not to very hard. It's not good if you do. By the way, never talk behind people's back. But this subscriber had written a comment, so it's no longer talking behind their back. They thought that I was showing the slaughter of the animals. They said, "How dare you show an animal being killed on the Internet."

I saw this, and this is what they wrote: "I saw this, and I didn't watch it. But I — I'm unsubscribing because you killed an animal." I just read it here. I kind of explained it's just a meat locker. I didn't show any animals killing. Why would I ever do that? You wouldn't — you'd be off of YouTube if you showed that. Right? And why would you want to anyways? That has nothing to do with the story of the — of the killing of the animals, how they're — they're killed in a very respectable manner as — as what I'm told. I don't even know that, all right? I just — I care about the 99.999% of the life of the cattle before they get to that one day. And then — I mean, I'm not — I'm not blind to what happens, but I know that it happens. Okay, I just wanted to be as humane as possible, if that's even possible.

But I also wanted to — I also understand people are sensitive. Maybe 1% of the audience is sensitive to something like this, or they just don't want to show. So I put this in here also. It's not a bad thing to put a warning in there. It kind of makes it more epic, like, oh, something bad's gonna be coming. But that one viewer who's just maybe not — maybe a little bit dull — the dullest knife in the drawer thought I was showing killing scenes. That's not what this was. It was just to shows how wagyu beef is graded. Shows how wagyu beef is graded. It shows carcasses. And I won't show too much about this. I'll kind of fast forward through this a little bit. You can decide if you want to watch this later. I will stop here.

This was the most — Faith laughing — Faye, I got you laughing. After a hard day of work, I got you laughing.

The JMGA, the Japan Meat Grading Association, has a grading standard. I didn't know this until this episode because I don't care about the grading, but — but now I do, because we should — we should know how it's grading. There are YouTubers, food YouTubers. I'm talking about Mark and Mikey and like all the food YouTubers who come to Japan — they eat a five wagyu, and they don't even know what the word A5 means. They just know it's the top. All right, that's fine. I think that's cool. They don't live in Japan. I got curious. I wanted to know what A5 means. What the heck is A5? Do they have that? Does this — I know this means the best one, but what about a 4, a 3? How do they get to the — how do they decide what a 5 is? And this is what I came up with.

It's graded. There's — it's grading with an equation that they use, but it's also somewhat objective where experienced people are grading it by visual observation and also by an equation based on those observations. And then they come up with a scientific end result. The most interesting thing for me about this grading — I knew that they have a 1 to 5 like a 5, a 4, but I did not know that within the 5 they have levels. And a 5 can be level 8 which is an A5 bottom A5 and a level 12 which is a top A5. It's just going to be a 5. You don't know which is which. But this level of 12 exists. And if — if you're getting top shelf, best grade, A5 beef, you're gonna want an A5-12. I don't know how you figure it out. They don't write it. Or maybe they do. The best ones go to the best restaurants in Japan.

I have to be honest with you, most — the vast majority of the time you get what you pay for. All right? People don't try to rip you off. Do you know why there are bad people in Japan, by the way? It's not all gonna be — it's not all like saints, okay? But for the most part you do not have to tip in Japan. All right? You don't tip in Japan. So people — the motivation for people giving the services is never money. They're doing it because they want to do a good job with their job. That's the motivation in Japan. The motivation in other countries, it might be to get a tip to get something in return that keeps people giving high quality service. In Japan, the reason they do it is because they want to do a good job and they want a good reputation to move up into the company and to become a top worker at their industry. That's why they do it. And if you tip them, it's like slapping them in the face and insulting them like they're not making enough money and you're a great person and they're here. It's very condescending to tip in Japan. Just don't do it. I know you feel like you want to tip. Never tip in Japan because it's an — it's almost insulting that you think you have more money than them, that they — they need money. Why do they need more money? Actually, there's no — people are getting like 12 or $13 an hour working in restaurants in Tokyo. They're doing okay wage wise. They're not getting $3 an hour like servers in the United States. I think it's awful. I was making — I think it was $3.45 an hour working at waiting tables in Columbus, Ohio. When I was in university, I depended on tips here. The people that are working live with their parents, most likely, and they're — they've got cheap accommodations. They're living pretty good lives. They just need some extra spending cash. It's not like — it's not — it's a different situation. You don't have to tip, basically. That's what I'm trying to say.

Tipping is like an insulting thing. Just so you know. All right, back to meat. Color, texture, fat — a little bit faster. You Hitachi beef — in order to get — whereas we don't put that — I'm gonna run this here. This is — and me and Dean just talked. And Dean is driving, by the way, and he has a seatbelt on, right? And he's — and he's not shaven, by the way. Dean shave gate. We did this over the course of two periods. The beginning of last month, beginning of February, and then the middle of February, in between — the — Dean shaved, and he — when we got the car, he goes, "I shaved." But he's wearing the same thing. But he had shaved. So the problem was that — yeah, I — I said, look, it's — the story is the story. What you look like is irrelevant. People are gonna comment about it, but that's never a bad thing. So what? Dean — and Dean didn't — I don't think Dean worried about it that much. But I try to — to have continuity a little bit. I try to wear the same thing as well, so I can have continuity. Yeah, but this talk was really good. And I thought, this is just our thinking the way we are, and that's who we are. I mean, this is the way we — we talk — we actually talk together, just like this. We're talking about bigger things, like in the scope of life. That's what I like about Dean. Dean's a model. He's — but he's also one of the smartest guys that I know. Okay, I don't know — like, people have misconceptions, and models are — there's some darn smart ones. And he's — he's one smart cookie. He's the most — one of the most talented people that I know. He can do — he could do it all. Dean can do it. I get — I don't have enough good things to say about Dean. I can keep on going for an entire day. Dean rocks. Dean — Dean is — he's the man. All right, it's a privilege and an honor and a privilege to have him on the show.

Yes, so Dean and I are eating the meal. This is our first time ever cooking wagyu on a barbecue. You do not cook wagyu on a grill. I don't know — I've never done it. Wagyu is always cooked in a frying pan and — or a teppan — as teppanyaki on a teppan. Or a gas grill. So what happened was that Dean — and you all know the scene — Dean put this meat on the grill, but he didn't put three — he put it all on there. It's not Dean's fault because I could have been the one who put it there, and I would have been the bad guy. I'm the bad guy for showing you this. I didn't cut it. I think it's important not to cut it because it's important to know that gas is a better way to — gas is pretty good. We did not burn. All right? To the Internet world out there, I'm talking to you. The meat is charred, but it's not burned. You can still eat this. Okay, look, it's still pink. It's just a little black on the top. All right? It's not that bad. We ate — it wasn't — maybe it could have been cooked slower, but we ate it. All right? So none of this went to waste. Trust me, when you're paying what we paid for this, you're not putting it to waste, okay? You eat everything. And the other three cuts, we also cooked it much better, but I didn't — this scene kind of made it hard for me to keep continue with the same day. So what I did was in my mind as a producer, I said, "We got to go back now because I want to eat more," first of all. So I wanted to eat more. And then the second reason was I want to have the manager start off, and I want him to cook it for us. Because the story is not us eating — us cooking the meat. The story is about the meat itself. And if he's cooking it, we don't have to focus on cooking the meat. We can focus on him talking about it and us asking questions and then just focus on the eating part. And I want it to be cooked perfect because I know that maybe a million people are going to watch this. I want it to be good for his business. I don't want to show his meat being burned. I didn't want to show that at all. So I want it to be the best looking cut because as I said, reputation is important.

Look how good this looks. This is better if he cooks it right. This just made sense to me. It was paired with the steak butter. Dean had the first bite. Melting in my mouth. Apparently you're not supposed to say meat melts in your mouth, but I got to be honest with you, it really does melt in your mouth. It's juicy. It melts in your mouth. So, I mean, you got to chew it a little bit, but there's so much melting going on. It's not a cliche. It's true. All right, just gonna put that out there. To all the Mikey Chen fans who didn't like it. Salty taste to it. Just the softest meat I've ever eaten. This may just be one of the most beautiful bites of beef I've ever had in my life. This was shot with an iPhone XS — the one that you're watching right there. Beautiful bouquet. It looks like a more expensive camera. This is shot with the iPhone XS. Pretty impressive, I thought.

There are no words to describe the pleasure that comes — pretty burst of amazing umami taste from an A5 wagyu. This is real. This pleasure is real. I'm not acting. This is how you feel when you eat this. And in the last Wagyu video, the ranger — the farmer told me that the deliciousness of the wagyu is a result of treating them well and giving them love. And in return, they give you love with this taste. That's what he said to me. Makes a kind of sense if you think about it. But if you treat your livestock, if you treat your animals, if you treat anybody good, they're going to treat you good in return. Maybe it's karma, I don't know.

The vegetarians are now going, "But you killed it." And I — I understand that, you know, that's part of life. And it's been going on since the caveman eras where we've been eating meat. I don't know, maybe we shouldn't eat as much as we do. I'm on your side with that. We eat too much meat. But I don't think that — didn't I say I was not going to do this? But if I just think that a little bit is not that bad — I think a little bit is not that bad. And even if you eat a lot, that you're right as a person, you can do whatever you want, but we should not eat as much. But if you do, I'm not going to be against that either. Everybody is — everybody's your own — you're your own people. This is real — in your mouth, your senses. Floating comfortably on cloud nine. This is real. Cooked to perfection.

You can see the camera in the background there. I don't know if you saw that, but there's the camera filming Onisawasan. So this one is the sirloin. He's — and Onisawa San is — was such a nice guy. If you — if you ever come and you want to eat wagyu in Hitachi, beef at the source, you got to go to this restaurant. The whole time he's got this smile, like this little smile on his face. He's just happy. I love that about about him and his restaurant. He's just very, very happy about what he does — selling good food to people. It was a good experience. It's just like a little smile. I like that. Very exciting. He likes what he's doing. You have to notice these little things too, about people — you have to notice when they're smiling. In Japan, we start to notice the people around us a little bit more than I did in the United States. But the little things, I really noticed it.

This is the sirloin. I believe it cooks pretty fast. And it's best to move it to the side after it's grilled on the top. Put it to the sides. It won't burn. Dean ate his with lemon. I love the music. I can't hear them. This — this music is from the — it's free music from YouTube in the Creator Suite. Every YouTuber has an access to thousands of songs for free that you can use. Some of them ask you to put credit into it. Most of them are just go ahead and use them. This is from YouTube. Most of the music comes from YouTube. It's free anymore. Like I said, good food moves the soul. It's true.

I gotta move through this faster. Any comparison between an A5 wagyu and the fatty otoro maguro tuna? I called this — I called the maguro like the wagyu beef of the sea, or wagyu could be the maguro of the sea. I think that there's a relationship with the fatty cuts and the red cuts. I think there's a little bit there, but they're totally different meats. They taste totally different. But you can see this otoro cut, the fatty marbling in it is very similar to maybe a 5 beef. So in Japan, the fat is good.

But the thing is — all right, I'm just talking — I'm just talking here. Enough freely now because Linda wrote in — free for free, Japanese do not eat a lot of wagyu. They don't eat a lot of maguro. They don't go to all — you can eat places and make a mountain of food. When Japanese go to buffets, or baikingu, as we call it here, or buffet, they don't put a mountain of food and eat, take more than they need. Japanese, for the most part, not everybody, they'll take what they need and go back for more if they need it. And then even then, they'll take a little bit. So buffets maybe have better quality food because people are more picky, are pickier here in Japan, and they're also better eaters. They don't eat more than they need.

All right, my wife gets angry at me because I overeat all the time. I'm like, "No, I want seconds because it's so good." But then I don't really need seconds. So you know — I know — I know who I am. Do you know who you are? She knows who she is. She doesn't overeat that much unless it's like dessert and everybody kind of maybe a little bit more. But my point is that this fatty meats — all the wagyu — it's not like we're eating this every day. And when we eat it, we're not eating a 200-gram steak because the pleasure is in the small bites. It's in — you can eat one piece of Japanese cuisine and it gives you — it changes on the different areas of your tongue. All right, so the wagyu is just one area of your tongue. So — so you don't eat a lot of it. You just eat enough to stimulate this. And then there'll be something else on your plate. Vegetables. Whoa.

And it'll stimulate another part of your tongue. This is how Japanese cuisine — how they think about this at the restaurants. Not everyone. But speaking of being picky — feed Jennifer. Yeah, I know I gotta meet up with Jennifer sometime. It's been — it's been a while, but Jennifer's — we've both been pretty busy, so hopefully you can catch up with Jenny sometimes. But that's how deep Japanese think about when you eat. It has to do with stimulating different parts of your senses — your visual, your smell, and then the taste. And this is beautiful and it's delicious. But people don't eat a lot of it. They'll eat one or two, maybe three pieces and that's it. You don't have to eat a steak of it. So that's what I kind of want to get — get between you wagyu — Japanese eaters of wagyu will not eat a lot of it. They'll eat just a little bit. Because I made a live stream with Jennifer last year cooking in my apartment, wagyu. And people got angry and said, "How dare you get a small steak." I gotta be honest with you, I don't need more than 80 grams of wagyu. It doesn't sound like a lot, but for me that's a lot of food. And the purpose for that episode, by the way, was just to cook the steak at home and show you — that wasn't to eat it in front of you people like that.

Wagyu is sort of like maguro — kind of — kind of the red economy in the drive-through sushi, which is a lot of fun.

This is pretty great. I love this music, by the way. I love this music. This is also free on YouTube. I forget what it's called — for food is nothing new. Every region of Japan has its own cuisine. And when it comes to beef, Japan's — I love this song. So I — I used it in the — the next episode.

The next episode is a food challenge, and we're not going to be — I don't have to do this one for very — for very long, but each — as I said in the beginning of this live stream, and if you're still watching this, thank you very much — we're like 66 minutes in. Every area of Japan has its own unique flavor and tastes and cuisine. There's that uniqueness. I think you really need to — to get out of the cities. People — people will come in and stay in Tokyo, and they'll see Tokyo, Osaka, Kyoto, Hiroshima, and maybe Takayama, one other thing, and they go home. That's good. There's nothing problem with that. There's no problems with that. But it's — you're just doing cities for the most part. You haven't really gotten out to where we were just here to go and see how people live. And that's the reason of the show, really, to take you to the places that you wouldn't ordinarily go to. Other YouTubers will show you the touristy things, things that you can — you could do normally, but because I've been living here for 20 years, I always try to find places that maybe you — you don't know about or you can't go to, or maybe just it would take too much time to get there. And I can do that for you. I kind of think on a different level, at least I think — I'd like to think that. I think on a different level.

That's why this is sort of a cool episode for me to show you something that not a lot of YouTubers have done yet, but the Japanese highway service areas are pretty incredible, and you need permission to film in there. All right, next — there are security guards, and you'll get in trouble if you start guerrilla shooting in a service area. So I called — so we called Nexco and we worked with them, and they had a representative come. Nexco is — this is the highway company that owns the highways. They're doing an incredible job, by the way, of making service areas that have — that blend in with the area that it's in. It's awesome. You — the service areas are so cool that they are an attraction. If you go to TripAdvisor, which ranks the top 10 attractions in each city, quite often outside of — of, like, the big cities, road service areas or rest stops will be in the top 10. All right.

And if you ever want to get omiyagi or gift boxes, you want to go to the service area because this is where all of the gift boxes are in one place because this is where all the travelers stop. And out in the countryside, you don't get a lot of foreign tourists. So everyone has a car. So this is just a hub now. And when you go there, it's like — this is local culture condensed into one place. It's awesome. So when you drive on the highways in Japan, you might want to stop in the service area because it's like a local dose of history and culture, which is so cool.

And this place is called a Tomobe service area that I've been to several times. I — I — I filmed in two shows. I filmed one for NHK World called In Journeys in Japan called Daigo Machi. You can watch this on NHK World's Playback. Daigo Machi — Daigo is spelled D-A-I-G-O Machi, M-A-C-H-I. It's a town in the mountains in Ibaraki. And we went there twice to film because we had to come back to Tokyo and then go back a couple days later — we stopped here and I remember seeing this food challenge and I said, "I'm coming back." I'm coming back to do this for Only in Japan. Someday after I get permission, I'm coming back. And I came back and I kept coming back. I kept coming back because the visual of the model that's in this video is so cool.

Wow. 130,000 people. That's actually — this video is doing quite well. I love the opening too. It's Dean and I drove out of Tokyo and we went to the prefecture so we could show you a time lapse kind of the drive. There's Mount Tsukuba just for a second. And then we arrived at Tomobe service area. It's so clean. This drone shot was taken from a public area. The drone rules are 30-30-30-150 — 30 meters from cars, 30 meters from buildings, 30 meters from other people, and then no higher than 150 meters. You have to be on a plot of land where you can get permission or is allowed for drones, and then you can use the footage. If not — if you put up a YouTube video with illegal footage, the government of Tokyo can contact YouTube and have it taken down. They've done it before. Just be careful out there when you're YouTubing. Okay? Gorilla shooting drones in Japan is not a good idea, but you can try it if you want to. I don't know. I just said my two cents.

But this meat challenge — I've been wanting to do this for a long, long time. The purpose of this meat challenge — hold on — I can bring it up on this Mount Tsukuba — is — is — it's not a meat challenge. Actually — it's not a food challenge. It's mostly for families to eat. This is true. I got this in the comments. This is just a thing for families to share, all right? Fathers can order it, and the sons are like, "Whoa, papa, look how big it is. Let's eat it together." You'll get other bowls that you can put it in like this. It's messy, but come on — the model is there. The model is just laughing at you — "You see this big mountain? Looking at you, laughing at you. Try and eat me. Look how big I am." Yeah, I think I'm gonna try to eat you. Okay, you're big. You're laughing at me. You're going down. All right, buddy.

Yeah, so I think this is more of a meat challenge — a food challenge than it is just a thing for families. But maybe the purpose that you might have for doing something can turn into something else because of perception of the way somebody sees it. It's not the way that — look, here's the thing with marketing, and this is good — important for you younger people, all right? LeBron James, who I think is great — he's a great player, he shouldn't have left Cleveland, by the way — he could introduce to you new shoes or whatever, all right? But for me, it's still a watch, and there's still shoes. And I don't care about LeBron James. I care about my perception of what the product is. Marketing does not work on me like it works on somebody else, maybe. I don't know. But for me, the way you think you're selling it to me and the way I should use it — never mind that — I'm going to use it the way I want to use it because I'm the customer. I'm going to eat this the way I want to eat this because I'm the customer. I'm going to put wasabi in my soy sauce because I'm the customer and I can eat it any way I want. And my favorite fast food chain, Roy Rogers, which doesn't exist really anymore — has — it has their fixin's bar, and you can just fix it any way that you wanted. I love that about Roy Rogers, you know? So it was like a salad bar for your burger. I don't know if they still do that, but I eat the things that way — I want to eat it. I don't care about the way the company wants me to do something. So for me, after my rant, this is what I — the way — I saw it as a food challenge. So if you didn't see it that way, boohoo. I did it anyways.

There were people who were angry at me saying it's a family challenge — family food. So Dean — Dean comes in here, I introduce him just like a normal Only in Japan episode. Although we both walked in together, I just have my ways. A lot of times when I make this episode, I have a script, but I don't always follow the script. I think it's important to have the ability to change the way you perceive things based on the experience right now. Because as you're doing it, what you have in the script might be changed because it's just the way you want your content to be authentic, right? And if you're just following a script, you cannot be authentic because you're following a script. So we have natural reactions, we have the natural way to do things, but we just know we're going to be eating this. So that's in the script. The script's like, "Eat, introduce, order, eat. Make sure you finish." That's like the script that was actually — it was much better, more than this. But the model is interesting because it literally says here different than the real dish. I mean, is this false advertising or what? I don't know. I think it's Japan. Maybe they — the — this company commissioned an — very expensive plastic model to be made. Okay. And then the model maker made some mistakes, made it too big, I don't know. And they said, "Look, let's just use it because it would cost $1,000 to redo it. Let's just use it." And then just say it looks different — and then that creates it to go viral. And then I had to eat this because number one, this is representative of a local mountain. Okay? They love Mount Tsukuba, so they made a Mount Tsukuba dish. I love the local passion for this that they made it out of food. Never mind that it's not a bazillion kilograms — it's just cool to look at. And it is big.

Vending machines make it really easy. As soon as you order from this vending machine, the order is in and they start cooking it for you. I thought that was pretty cool. And then they'll call your number, which is San Maruyon 304, they'll say, and you can come and pick up your order. But we had permission to film, so we got access into the kitchen, and a little bit — we — this is through a window, all right. So it's a little bit blurry, so I — I couldn't actually go into the kitchen. It was — and I didn't want to, but I could see enough of it, which is — which is good. And you could see us — they let us film making it. This is so important with food episodes. If you can film making it, you're already showing more than what most YouTubers are showing, especially in — in developed countries that are not cooking out on the street. Whenever you get a chance to go back into the kitchen, I think it's a pretty cool way to see the cleanliness of it and also how the food is made. Maybe not the recipe, but just to see it.

Japanese mayonnaise — we did not need to do that, but we did because it's good, and it looks like snow on the side of the peaks. It was — it was heavier than I thought it would be. I thought that this would be about 1 kg, and that's not that heavy, right? I work out with — you know, 25-kilogram curls, so this isn't that heavy, but it was heavy. So I think it's more than 1 kg. Maybe if they wrote it that was more than 1 kg, people would not order it because it was too much. So I don't know — maybe there's that aspect of it, but I think it was more like — more like 1 and 1 and a quarter kilograms, which is actually more pounds. I think it's more like three pounds of food, which is more than any human should eat in one meal. I did this.

The thing with food challenges is that you don't want to — you don't want to cut it because you don't want to cheat. You want people to think that you finished the challenge. So when you cut a video, people can question whether or not you cheated. But the way I do it is I cut stuff for angles because it's boring. All right, the thing with food challenges is they're boring. So I have one camera and two cameras and three cameras filming us. So I keep cutting between the three cameras. Never mind — the coloring is different. That's just — that's not part of the story. That's all right. I mean, the GoPro camera is a different color. That's okay. But I wanted to have different perspectives to keep you engaged, because changing it every five or six seconds is kind of fun to see it visually.

This food challenge has haunted me for years. This is the 109,600 yen — or about a hundred dollars for this one gyoza. It's massive in the window. The model is bigger than the actual gyoza inside. If you go here, it's still there. You have to order this, I think one or two days in advance. If you don't finish it, it's not free. If you film — as a YouTuber, too many YouTubers have been here. Maybe it's my fault — there have been other YouTubers who filmed this before me, but I was one of the first to film it. And the video went big, like 4 million views.

The — the thing with this 2.5-kilogram gyoza — that's like 6 pounds, okay — is that the — the manager is not always there. It's usually — sometimes the staff. And I think it's still family run. And his son might be there. I'm not sure. I talked to the owner — the guy who I interviewed. He's such a nice guy too. If you're YouTubing this, he knows that you're making big money off of this. Okay. And I had some YouTube friends who finished it and they still were asked to pay. That's not right. So I — I — you know, the owner knows that that's not right. And if you — if you fight a little bit, he'll give it to you for free because he doesn't tell you that before. I — I think it was his son. I don't think it was him who was doing it. But some YouTubers had a problem where they finished it and they still were asked to pay because they're going to make thousands of dollars on the video. So it's not really fair for the restaurant to — I don't know. Well, the restaurant is a family business. They — they — they get other people trying it. So I'm sure that they make their money back. But they also don't see it fair as somebody making thousands and thousands of dollars off of a video and then they have to eat it for free. But that's the risk that you take when you do this food challenge.

I think we're good with that. But for me, I didn't finish it. I paid. I paid. I'm happily paid. Because for me, it was — it was more about — I don't know — not everybody makes it to the summit of Mount — Mount Everest. You don't see the videos of the losers, do you? You don't see the videos of those of the people who don't get to the top. And this is one of those. That was one of those videos where you didn't see the person get to the top. And nor you should you. Because anyone who finishes that is one sick individual because it's just way too much oil. This is manageable. I like this one, but I couldn't get it. I could not get it done. And when somebody said that the thing is the same size as a baby and then you should just eat it like it was a baby — that was — that was pretty crazy to me. Some of the comments on that Gyoza video are — were just insane. People have some creative — actually, I liked it. The people are pretty creative with the way that they leave comments.

So we kept on going. It was around halfway in — are you done? Dean is done. He's effectively done. This big guy — active, athletic — could only eat, I think so — this much. Seven minutes left. Laugh all you want, my friend. Every second counts. I love it. Took me the longest. The hardest thing about this was matching the music with the scene and trying to make it meet at the end of the catch lines and stuff. That's always tough. I don't have too much more to talk about this episode. Didn't I eat this one already? I don't think I'm going anywhere. This is true. Didn't I eat this one already? I think I've eaten some of these already. They magically return. There was so many pieces of meat. We had hit the wall after like five pieces — you're sick, you're tired of eating the meat. But for some reason the meat is still there. And I don't know — they all look the same to me. It was just a lot of meat. Sixteen pieces of chashu is ridiculous. Tsukuba, you know, it doesn't look that way. I wanted to talk about anything except — except for the food at this point. And I talked about Mount Tsukuba. But that was good because I could show you Mount Tsukuba. And then afterwards, Dean and I went to go climb Mount Tsukuba. So that was — says, light's gone. The light is dead. So — so we — we went and climbed Mount Tsukuba. And I thought that was pretty cool to go and — to go and insert that when you're driving around it — when you're — the other day with food as our foot. I just wanted to add the scene with this music again, to be honest with you, because this music was just so cool. I just wanted to play the music again. Focus to travel.

We also took in as much of the countryside as possible. And before this challenge — we went up Mount Tsukuba — cable car is the easiest way. Beautiful views. Beautiful views. Cable car went fast — to Tokyo and even Mount Fuji on a clear day would be over here, but you can see it. We can stand on top of it — but can we finish eating it? Just two minutes remain. Yeah, it's true. The music really is important.

Dean is from the UK. He's not from New Zealand. He's not a Kiwi. He's not a Kiwi. Leopold — he doesn't mind being called a Kiwi. He's from the UK. I forget which town he's from. I asked him to call in, but I think he's pretty busy today. He's got a lot of stuff to do, but yeah, he's pretty — right now he's done.

And the biggest problem with this challenge is you have to eat it with chopsticks and you can't — once you get to the bottom, it's hard to eat with chopsticks. The bowl is too heavy for most people to pick it up now. You don't pick up the bowl. You have to — you have to use two hands for most people. So, like these bowls here — you see these? These are rice bowls and soup bowls. The rice bowls and the soup bowls, you can pick them up and then you eat it like this. Okay, donburi is okay, but these are super sized, so it's not typical to pick these up. The second thing is — that second thing is I knew I wasn't going to finish it because the time was I'd have to go like this in order to finish it. I probably could have if I had five more minutes. All right, I'll be honest with you.

I was pretty disappointed at myself because I knew the vitriol — the — all the comments that would come in from the Internet for not finishing it. That's why I went back and — oh, yeah, I did go back. I did go back and I did eat it again. All right. We weighed it just as curiosity. When I'm filming this end of the scene, Dean thinks that this — the episode is over. I know — I know already. While I'm walking back there, I'm going back there — I know that I — I'm coming back. I cannot leave it. I seriously — that's exactly what I was thinking. So I'm coming back and I gotta finish it. And once you've had it, once you fought an opponent once, when you go back for the rematch, there's a better chance of winning just because you know what to expect. I knew the 16 pieces of pork will be there. I knew that I can convince my brain if I double up the pork that it would seem like one cut. And so the psychological thing of it — this is — like, sped up to like 3,000%, by the way.

All right, I met Randy Santel. Do you guys know Randy Santel? Randy Santel is a competitive eater who is amazing. The guy's in really good shape. He was on a world tour, and he came to Japan last year, and I got a chance to meet him. He contacted me. Awesome, awesome — one of the biggest — gentlemen, nicest guys. Just the way he talks. He's a gentle giant, I like to say. And we went out for a beer afterwards and talked a little bit. Just — I hope he comes back to Japan, I get a chance to meet him again. But he took down like three or four kilograms of noodles in a live stream that I did, and it's going to be on his channel, I think, maybe in a couple of months. He's got so many videos to edit. He's also in school too. Just look at his page if you're more interested in him. But I learned from him that you need to get into a mode, all right? When you're eating a food competition, you need to get into the mode. You have to take it seriously. You cannot take it as a joke — you cannot talk with your buddy about it, all right? You need to be alone or you need to be in a competitive mode. You cannot — you have to be — so he — Randy, I think he turns his head backwards or something, like — and then he goes like this, and he's — he's getting in — in his mode, okay? And once he starts, he becomes a professional in beast mode, Linda. Exactly. He goes into beast mode and he becomes a professional, all right? And that's what he does. And you could see it — that he takes it seriously, has fun doing it, but he's — that's his job, all right?

So I came back to make it my job, and I ate it in under 10 minutes. I can't say for sure — I didn't time it, but this is sped up, and I'm eating chunks for a reason, all right? I know I'm not — I'm not chewing it that much because I know that the faster I eat it, the better chance that I will be able to eat it all. I was taking chunks of meat two at a time. It was the same volume of food. And I think because the ladies liked me, they remembered me — they might have gotten me even more food. So people are saying that this seems like less — it might have been more — because the ladies — I made an impression on the ladies there. Made an impression on the ladies. So there you have it. That is right there — the Only in Japan Ibaraki driving episode. I loved it. It was fun — this — I love doing this for you guys too. Going out to one location and then making three episodes — I think is something I'm gonna do more and more of. Or four. Just focus on an area and find unique themes. I loved it. So we try to just do that more.

How do we know that you don't have a sombrero? Are you putting it in? I don't know. What does that mean? I'm not sure what that means. If you have any questions, I will answer it for a second. Locals don't bring their own because it's inconvenient. Now look, I've just missed all the questions here. Just going back for a second. You can bring your own, but most — most places supply it. So — so — Top Shelf just asked a question. I don't see it here. Maybe Top Shelf can ask again. If you have any questions for the next minute, I'm going to answer them.

How about doing something in Aomori? I have intentions of going back there. I know the people at the prefecture there and I'm just waiting for them to tell me when is the best time. So I will be back in Aomori. Rugby World Cup will be here in 2019. I might cover one of the events — the Olympics — it's — it's getting really, really exciting. I've done a lot of vending machines. I — I have a couple of good vending machine episodes that nobody's done yet. So I might get back to them. My friendly indie John — you should start to do a fan mail video. I don't know — I'm a video producer. When people send me stuff, they usually send junk food. And I don't eat a lot of junk food, so some of it goes wasted and it's hard for me to incorporate it into. But just letters and stuff maybe. But when I get sent stuff, it's usually a lot of candy and stuff — and I eat it all too. But people send me coffee. That was pretty cool. I got coffee from around the world. But I — there's no PO boxes in Japan and I'm going to be opening up an office, I think. So I'm just waiting until I do — I have time to do that.

I will cover the Olympics. I will be here for the Olympics. It would be pretty cool to report for one of the TV channels — coming here, I do know a lot about Japan. I do work for NHK World. I do have experience on TV. So my — might be something that you guys might see. Who knows.

Thought about doing Japanese barber video. I have — actually there's a couple of — I can't tell because other YouTubers are probably watching, but there's a — there's some history behind haircuts in Japan and I — I had an idea to do an episode based on that — etiquette in Japan. A lot of people have done this already. Maybe I'll have my take — but once another YouTuber has done it and if they've done it well, I don't want to go after that topic anymore. There's a million other topics that you guys don't know about. I have to be honest with you — a lot of people are giving me topics that other YouTubers have done and want me to do it. I kind of look at it from a diagonal way. I don't want to do what they did and I don't want to do something that's — that makes no sense. I want us something that's — that's too Japanese but something that is — I don't know — is the way I see it. And maybe I will do it — maybe I will do something like that. I will do etiquette — Japanese rock and roll is — is definitely up there. That's definitely — Japanese music is a title John writes in about the DVD project. An update is actually — I actually made an update video for our supporters but there were error messages coming from Kickstarter and I just haven't been — been able to upload it again. I'll try again today. I'm going to redo — redo the video. Today is — is kind of a catch up with everybody day. I want to sell the video to everybody else — the DVD — hitchhiking video this month or in the beginning after everybody else's supporters have gotten it. So there's more updates coming based on that.

The new intro — oh, thank you for asking about that. The new intro K-pop is — is not big anywhere, I don't think. I don't know. I'm not into it. So the new intro I'm gonna this week — it's Sunday now — this week I'm going to be meeting up with the animators and see the progress of it. I think — I think I have to like bang the hammer a little bit more. But I'm hoping to get this out in April. So we've been working on this since November and it takes a while to make a really good thing.

I had K-pop artists — JARWAR — I had K-pop artists on my show — foreigners that were doing K-pop. I'll be honest with you, I don't care about K-pop. I just don't have any passion or love for the topic, so I probably won't cover it. I don't listen to it. I think it's annoying. It's big. But again, like — marketing doesn't work on me. I don't care what the artist looks like. I care more about the — the talent and what they look like. I don't judge anybody by what they look like. In K-pop — K-pop artists, I think they put a lot of effort into the way they look. I think that that's good, but to me, that's almost like a turnoff. I like — you know, like Bruce Springsteen. He did — he just — he's just Bruce, you know? Like, just be who you are. I don't know. Bruce Springsteen is the best. He's pretty cool.

Baby Metal — I like Baby Metal, though. All right, I'm gonna admit it. Baby Metal is pretty cool. But I think that they have something unique, right? They're very unique. Baby Metal is very talented and very unique. They're different — they're special. I think that they're special, but — not a lot of people have — have you done a video with Simon and Martina? Yeah, actually — now that you mention it, there's a video that some of you might not have seen, apparently, because if you're asking me about it, you might not have seen it — but at Christmas time, at Christmas time, I put a — I made a video where they appear in the video. They're right here. Okay, here we are. There's my friend Joseph. Ah, Joseph. There's Peter. There's Shingo. All right, here we are. Look at that twinkle in those eyes. All right, this is a vending machinery Christmas — the gift vending machine of Tokyo. The CEO — I contacted him — he let me show me everything. He's inside. If you did not watch this, this is the best video because you get to see what's inside.

I just got a message from Dean. He's — he's busy today, so sorry about that. It's nice, and they'll let us know. All right, so I got all these presents. I did my Christmas shopping at a vending machine. All right, it's pretty crazy. And then I wrapped them up and I took them to my friends. Loaded with gifts. It was time to make my Christmas — look, he's got the machine open, right? He was showing me where the good ones — I could have went back and just cleaned him out — all the good things — deliveries. He's a — he's a really nice guy, though.

First up, Simon — so here they get — Simon. Martina — so I met them — a couple — I met them when they first came to Japan. They're super nice people. They didn't — they didn't know too much — they knew about Japan, but not too much. And we just — just friends, you know — there's — there's such nice people. I don't see them as YouTubers. I know — I know what they do. I — I see them as just my friends. They're cool — like, they're really cool and friendly, nice people. I like that spin. And Martina — I gave them the pair of walkie-talkie watches. Look at that twinkling. She's so — faking it — like, I'm never gonna use these again. But — but it was — it was fun. Anyway, those eyes. Yes, they really do work. They did work. Ah, the spirit of Christmas.

Next stop, my friend Shingo. He loves to solve problems at work, so I knew he'd love this one. I — I like this scene, actually. Go back and watch it. But I — I did — I did meet them and they have been in the episodes, but we don't do a lot of collaborations. For me, I don't know — I — I try to — I like working with YouTubers that are not here in Japan already. It has — it has just — it just has to do with having different perspectives and maybe we'll do something together — we — we did — oh, by the way, there was this video that nobody watched. Well, I shouldn't say nobody, but not a lot of people watched — that we worked together on, but we weren't in it — we both went at the same time to Aizu Wakamatsu. This one's called A Fukushima Spy Story. All right, hey, Jordan — maybe a video on Okonoshima. Yeah, actually that's also in the — in the cards for 2019 sometime. Maybe in the summer when the — when the days are longer. Thanks for bringing that up — definitely in the cards.

This one is called the Fukushima Spy Story. When I was here filming this, you have to see this episode even if you don't like me. I thought it was pretty well made — I don't know — this is one of my favorite episodes and Only — only 100 — like in one day, just to put in perspective — in one day, the food eating challenge had 120,000 people watch it. This one's been out there for over eight months and it has — a hundred thousand people watched it. So not a lot of people watched this episode. But at the same time when I was here, Simon and Martina were filming their episodes and we came up together and we — we went back together and it was just so much fun — it was like a field trip to film this. But we weren't in each other's episodes.

Only in Japan — thank you, Peter. The 8am Kinu Express train from Asaka, Tokyo — Peter narrates the whole thing so it's high quality stuff. But this episode — a cringeworthy thriller — a cringe-worthy thriller to show you a unique corner of Fukushima as an international spy with a license to — well, license to what? Why am I yelling? John Daub. One of my dreams is to become an international spy — by — that's not going to happen. All right, it's kind of silly, I know that — a license to eat. Absolutely — I — I know that but I — I thought it was fun to try to — I love James Bond — the way that he traveled for the show. It inspired me to travel too. There's something cool about James Bond — Sean Connery especially. I did like Roger Moore too, by the way, but I — I just wanted to do something different and I — I — I thought about making a part two but because — like I made — I like didn't make any money off of it and — not — it seemed like nobody liked it so I didn't do a part two to this. So I probably won't do it. But this has nothing to do with Ibaraki anymore, by the way. But yeah, this is the fun episode. So thanks for asking that question.

Last question — last one. I'll be honest — I didn't love it. Okay, that's okay to be honest. That's okay to be honest — that's a pretty good one.

Mr. Japan writes in — do you speak fluent Japanese? Have you taken any JLPT exams? I do not speak fluent Japanese. I think if you speak Japanese fluently, you know that I do not speak fluent Japanese. It's conversational. I never went to school. I studied from books and talked to old ladies who corrected me. I never really studied Japanese formally ever. But I understand what people are saying, like 90%. There's some regional words that I don't know and I can speak enough where people understand me and I get around just fine. Japanese are very, very worried about the way that they speak and the words that they use and how they — how they present themselves. I don't care. My focus is to be understood. And if you learn the language and you never use it because you're scared of the way people think about you, this is the same reason why Japanese don't speak great English. They're too scared about making mistakes like they would with their own language — they can't speak — they are afraid to speak English even though that they probably can. So for me, I don't care that much if it sounds like a child speaking Japanese. My goal is to get a story. And it's not the most Japanese thing to do to speak the way that I speak. I speak somewhat rudely to people. I don't care about that so much. I will get better. I care enough to get better at my Japanese a little bit at a time, but not enough to say I just ruined this person's day because I didn't speak in a higher level of Japanese. I don't care. My job is to get the story for you and bring you something unique. The subtitles aren't going to change the way I — the way I speak to it. I don't — and I may never be fluent, but I'm quite happy with the level that I'm at and I'll always get a little bit better. But I don't need to be one of the foreigners that brags about, "Oh, I can speak Japanese and blah blah blah blah blah." That's not why I do it. I do it because the same reason I need to eat and I need to breathe air — I need to speak Japanese in Japan to get a story for you. That's it.

All right, me and my wife — we speak Japanese 80% of the time in English, 20% — because she should learn some English — because if we ever have kids someday, I want them to speak English and Japanese too. So mommy's got to speak Japanese and English and daddy's got to speak Japanese and English. And I — I'm somebody who continuously improves. I learn from my mistakes — DVD project — I learned from my mistakes and I get better at it. I never give up on things. I always — I — I — I always try to improve and I don't know, one day I'll be fluent. But I — I cannot say I'm fluent. A lot of you think that I am — I'm not. But I have fun. That's all that matters. I can communicate. That's all that matters. And that's — that's about it.

Thanks so much for the question, guys. Thank you for watching this hundred-and-hundred-minute episode. This will do a lot of great things for the — the average watch time of Only in Japan. I — you know, just Tabby Eats — those guys are so — so friendly and so nice. I might be doing them — maybe we'll do something together. And Eric serve six — I haven't — I've never really talked to him — we — we leave messages on each other's videos. I'm — I'm extremely busy making the episodes for you guys and — and doing the other things that are going on right now. I hardly leave my house when I'm here and when I do, I want to be with my wife and my family and I — I kind of want to spend as much time my free time with — with my wife as much as possible. So I can't meet everybody who wants to come to Japan. I can't — I know you want to buy me a beer. If I was 25, maybe, but I'm now 45 and there's so many things on my shoulders that it's harder to get the free time to do that. And if I'm — and if I'm trying to drink less too, by the way — I'm trying to drink less and eat less so I don't drink that much alcohol. Almost none — a little bit now — it's probably I'll be drinking none in a couple of years. Who knows — just like every now and then.

But yeah, so I — I hope you understand that. I will be doing a meetup — a little bit of housekeeping — good night — in Atlanta. I'll be doing a meetup just for those of you who are here in Japan on the 25th or 24th or 25th of Japan in Tokyo. I'll have a — a cherry blossom meetup in — in the park somewhere and it'll — give us a chance — it's a bit — an hour — I'll be there and then we can — an Only in Japan Go live stream — you can share your trip — I — I like, I like it whenever we can share your trip or share your experiences about Japan but then share some time together — any of the cherry blossoms. I did this a couple of years ago or last year — was it last year? And we had about 20 people show up and it was hard to find the spot though. But we had a good time. So I'm going to do this again and hopefully everybody who wants to hang out and meet that's here get a chance to do that. Last year — yeah. Thank you very much, Sammy. Yeah, last year and we'll try to live stream that too.

If you have any questions, you can leave it in the comments below. Guys, hit that like button if you haven't hit the like button before. I always appreciate it and I do look at the likes because it encourages me on content that you might want to have done again. So if these director's cuts are useful for you — hit the like button and show me your love for this 104-minute episode. I appreciate it very much. If you're interested in Patreon, this is the postcard for this month. We have 200 really wonderful people who are getting it and that helps us support the channel. This is the biggest thing that you could probably do to support me and I get a chance to send you something this month — we have stamps — I'm sending everybody — I love stamps. So this one is the Meiji Restoration Stamp — 150 years of just Japanese history on a stamp. And this is the stamp that's going on the back of the postcards. So you get good stamps, you get a good postcard and you get to share a little bit of Japan together. You can get that on Patreon. I'll put a link in the description.

Thanks, guys. Have a great day — great night wherever you are. Good night on the east coast of the United States. Hello and good day to you in Australia and in Singapore. I'll see you guys in the next live stream. Maybe, who knows? Tonight, midnight.