00:03 John Daub: Hello everybody. Right there is a sign saying Beijing, China. And that's where I'm going to be going for the next adventure. I'm flying on an ANA flight going towards China. And I'm going to be in Beijing just for a night and I'm coming back to Japan. It's a very short trip, but it's a very special trip. And I'll let you in on more information a little bit later on.

00:32 John Daub: I'm going to do a live stream in China. Who knows what you can do when you get to China. It's going to be pretty interesting. But if you're an American, trying to get your visa to go to China from Japan, it's a little bit challenging and that was tougher to do, but not impossible. Japanese do not need visas to go to China, which is interesting. They can just go with their passports and vice versa. Chinese who visit Japan do not need visas. They're visa free. And I've been working just a little bit while talking with people in different levels to try to get people from India to be able to come to Japan visa free. And I think that'd be pretty cool in the future. But more and more people are coming to Japan without having to have visas from an embassy because Japan has a target of having 40 million tourists next year, 100 million by 2030, which is pretty crazy.

01:33 John Daub: And I do have a VPN, by the way. It's very, very necessary to have one of those. I'm going to take you around Haneda Airport just a little bit. And then I'm going to be boarding my flight at 8:35. They have here it says confectionary. So I thought I'd take you in here. That might mean candy. Because when I send packages to my Daimyo members on Patreon, I have to write in the contents. Confectionary is one of the words that you can use.

02:07 John Daub: Oh, wow. So you can see they have already the Hokkaido Koibito (white chocolate sandwich cookies from Hokkaido). Oh, I should get some of those for my friends. Wow, they got a lot of confections indeed. Check it out. Why buy one Kit Kat when you can buy an entire box of them? This one has green tea cherry blossoms. Tis the season, right? Get a whole box is 1,500 yen or about $14. That's a kid's dream come true. There's like 10 packs of Kit Kats inside there. This one is a special Uji matcha Kit Kat, which means it's like a little bit more concentrated. And the boxes are smaller though, but it's half the price.

03:37 John Daub: I always like to come to the airport and check out what people are buying. So what are the gifts that Japan is marketing to foreign tourists to take home? This green tea. This is a green tea container. It's about $30 for two. And there are different levels of green tea. Here's some senbei (rice crackers). And you have different kinds of senbei in one box, each one individually wrapped so they stay fresh. I like that. I like the wrapping on this. And the thing is, Japan is so good at wrapping things. Everything comes in a box that looks almost aboriginal. Here's a mini castella (sponge cake from Nagasaki). Honey castella. Very interesting. Castella is famous from Nagasaki. It's a pretty light cake. It's not really offensive to anybody. Everybody likes it. Just like everyone loves red bean paste, right? That's anko (sweet red bean paste). And a dorayaki (pancake sandwich with anko), I believe that it is, and it looks like a dorayaki to me. This is the famous brand of castella. If you ever go to Nagasaki in Japan, this company people seem to really like it, but this is a good gift to give to people. Everybody loves a good castella cake and it's only good for a week so you got to give it quick. Looks like this, it's really good, it's nice with coffee.

05:06 John Daub: Okay what are these things, I've never seen these before. Uh oh okay these are like sponge cake with custard inside. I don't know this company but it looks really interesting. I love it, everybody loves custard, who doesn't like custard you know, like vanilla custard. Harry writes in, hey John, have a Chinese viewer passing by, I absolutely love your videos and you're my favorite YouTuber, thank you. Hope you have enjoyed my hometown Beijing. I'm only gonna be there for a day but I'm really looking forward to it. I'm staying not too far from the center so near Tiananmen Square. Hopefully I'll be able to live stream with a VPN or something, that'd be pretty cool to bring you Beijing even if it's just a hotel.

05:48 John Daub: Oh this is yokan (sweet jellied red bean confection). If you guys don't know what yokan is, it's like the red beans but it's sort of made into like a mochi consistency, it's hard but it's not. Yokan is one of Japan's signature sweets loved for centuries by Japanese. Get to the point, the key is anko which is the red beans sweet bean paste, right? And yokan is like more processed to where it's down to like a gel almost. It's so good and it's lightly sweet. It's neat to find yokans in these sizes and different flavors of yokan, I guess this is what the different colors signify. So it's pretty, this is a pretty good present actually. I'm always looking for stuff for my Daimyo. That's a pretty good one, that's a decent price.

06:44 John Daub: All right interesting oh and then there's the ubiquitous Tokyo Banana. I think they use like bananas that are expired or priced, I cannot be for sure but it doesn't really matter they're just so good. They look like this, what do they taste, they taste like this so good. Tokyo Banana has diversified and created different flavors like strawberry and this one at Haneda Airport only, check it out honey flavored. Oh hi honey, so I guess that's how you're supposed to say it. There's a Tokyo Banana bear, I guess he's the mascot. I've never seen this one, Tokyo Banana but it's spelled with the different kanji, castella that's like the custard cake but inside is banana with maple syrup. Well they are really innovative, Tokyo Banana, check it out they have innovated, they've taken their Tokyo Banana gifts to another level, hands down. Hands up, I'll have one oh these are good. I sent these to my Daimyo, the supporters on Patreon before. These are sugar butter sand trees (sablé cookies), they're so good like a sweet wafer with a wonderful cream inside or as they put it creamy white chocolate sandwich between two crispy multigrain biscuits made from a blend of finest ingredients. That's better than I would have said it, I'm glad that they had a native spell check it. This is I've seen some pretty bad English here. These are called Koibito, Shiroi Koibito and it's the gift of Hokkaido, it's like one of the most popular gifts that you get and everybody gets these in Hokkaido. Each one is individually wrapped, most of them usually come with white chocolate but they've got this dark one that's available. I just prefer these, it's so good and they're like very delicate but buttery, it's really nice. The cookies aren't that big but you don't really need a lot of it.

09:01 John Daub: This is a baumkuchen (layered pound cake). They have a sakura (cherry blossom) flavored one now because it's cherry blossom season so you're seeing more and more cherry blossom gifts out. This one is a sakura baumkuchen, it would be pretty interesting, the taste of sakura is kind of floral. Oh check it out over here. Alright I like to shop, they put a good concentration of gifts. This one Japanese sake pokey (Pocky). That's interesting, huh? They've taken, I guess, a nigori (cloudy sake), which is a creamy sake, and amazake (sweet fermented rice drink). Okay so it has amazake. So it's Tokyo amazake. Wow that's actually such a good idea. This is 800 yen. I've never seen that flavor before but Pocky has really gone for it, man. They're going deep. Look at this. They have chestnut, green tea, melon, and Shinshu Kyoho (grape variety). So many gifts. I don't know what to get.

10:32 John Daub: Oh you can check it out. Look at the concentration of matcha in this. Rich-tasting langue de chat (cat's tongue cookies) tea. You can see that they've put in a whisk in here to make it look like it is a deep concentration of matcha. One bite and matcha explodes in your mouth. It's the way it should be. Oh these look nice too. Look at that. You get 15 and there's mochi (rice cakes) covered in matcha powder with anko. And in the center just a little bit of custard cream. And then here's some strawberries. These are dried strawberries that have been covered in chocolate. And these are good too. Oh man. There's some that are covered in green tea matcha.

11:40 John Daub: Last but not least, my favorite of them all. Chocolate-covered potato chips. I'm telling you right now you can get these in New York but they're super expensive. I saw a Royce shop there. You've got to get these when you're here. And because the flavor of the chips are so good but the quality of the chocolate with the chips are incredible. It's really really worth getting. And right now they have Sakura Berry Chocolate which is pretty interesting. Actually this is a pretty interesting gift isn't it? Sakura Berry Chocolate. That's smart because no one really wants to buy strawberry. But if you put Sakura between March and April everyone's going to buy it. That's smart. Good job Royce. Kudos to you. So there you have it. Just a little bit of... Hey Lenny's in the house. Hey Lenny. Not only do they have the Umeshu (plum wine) ones but they also have the Tokyo Banana Kit Kats. They've combined one with another. You have now combos. Very cool. Hey Lenny, thanks man. Oh guess what? And by the way because this is sort of a business trip I'm flying business class. So I can board my flight right now. Should I just try to take you on right now? All right let's see if I can do it.

13:43 John Daub: Oh that's me. She said business class, that includes yours truly. All right let's see if I can take you on there. We're in. That's awesome. I didn't buy anything. Oh check it. Here's the plane. There's my bird flying to China. Awesome. Let's see what business class looks like. I'm going to have to retitle this: Let's board an airplane and fly business class. I've only flown... I got upgraded once like 15 years ago to first class because I was helping. I was sitting all the way back and the flight attendant felt bad and put me in first class which is awesome. One C, that was a Continental flight. We are this way. You go that way. You're not worthy. I'm not worthy. This is the first time ever flying business class. I always fly economy. This is so cool. I'm getting on my bird. Good morning. Please turn right at the China Expressway. Yes. All right guys here's my seat. Two three four six. Here it is. Seven. Hey this is my seat. Wow. I got a lot of space. I never thought I would get this much space.

16:46 John Daub: That was fun. Oh wait a second I can go wide. You guys want to go wide? All right. This is incredible. This is very incredible. This is the most space. Kanae is going to kill me. She's going to be so jealous. Kanae are you watching? She's going to be so jealous. I wish she was coming with me but this is a very special trip. I will try to do a live stream from Beijing. I don't know if that's possible. I am staying in a nice hotel. This is all paid for by clients. So I will try to do that. But hey look I got on for all these people. I never get on for everybody. This is so cool. H young nine to eight says you can't. There's the great firewall. That's all right. If I can't I can't. I might try but I don't want to do anything that's bad. It would just be simply for showing you Beijing a little bit. Only in Japan Go China. Only in China. Maybe that's why nobody's done it before. Top Shelf. Hey Top Shelf. Hey I sent you a message on the Patreon. But if not I will do when I get to Beijing via VPN. So you know it's been a pretty crazy day.

18:40 John Daub: One of the things I want to say is if anybody is on Kickstarter I haven't been able to update it but I will be sending out the DVDs on March 26th. So that's going to be some information for all of you who are backers. I just can't upload a video to Kickstarter for some reason. So there's so many exciting things that are happening right now. I'm going to be back in Tokyo on March 19th in the evening. And hopefully Kanae will be able to meet me. Hey everybody we're back again. How you doing? Sorry the signal's going in and out. This is pretty cool. Check it out. I get my own little TV in front here. It's row seven eight number seven eight. I have like a little desk here. I can put my feet here. How cool is this? I've never had such luxury before my entire life. I'm glad I'm not paying for it. I don't think I could afford this.

19:42 John Daub: Look at this. What is this? They said push. It says something. I don't know. Well I can put stuff in there. That's kind of neat. I don't know what I would put in there. Get the panel and everything here. Slippers. What? It's only like a four hour flight. I think three four hours. I have my own headphones. These look pretty nice too. Yeah this is awesome. We got some people who are joining streams for the first time. That's really great. Thanks for joining. I didn't plan on doing this. I'm not planning on doing this one but if you do want to see this stream usually on Patreon I will share the link but I didn't do it for this one so it just kind of happened. But I'm flying an ANA business class which I've never done before to China for a couple of days. I'll be back on the 19th. Look for the PJs. That would be awesome. Do they have that? Do they have a blanket? I don't think they have... Maybe they get pajamas when you go on long-haul flights. This is just a couple of hours.

21:01 John Daub: Oh hey guys you know what? The voice of the seatbelt safety video is Peter von Gomm, my friend Peter von Gomm. So I'm going to get to hear my friend Peter tell me to buckle my seatbelts. That's going to be pretty cool. Oh nice to meet you. I'll be taking care of the projection. Oh nice to meet you. Thank you. Thank you. Do we have many people sitting here today? No. Today is 8:41. Wow. Oh I'll try to keep you busy then. Yes. Yes. I'll be taking care of you. Please. So I should put my bags up here maybe yeah? Okay. She said that she's my... She will be assisting me today. And she introduced herself. Just in case the flight leaves and I'm not ready I'm already buckled in. My wife is probably very upset. She totally wanted to go. I'm going to have to like fly her business class to Austin and economy to make up for it or something.

23:03 John Daub: And it was actually pretty hard to get the visa to go to China. But yeah people everyone was very friendly. So it was just a little bit challenging to do it outside of the US to get the visa. So I was trying to get the visas in your home country because it's always harder. But you know the strongest passport in the world right now is the Japanese passport. It's stronger than the American passport. Japanese and I think there's one other nationality maybe Swiss. They can go visa free to the most places. Japanese and one other nationality maybe Norwegians. I forget. Very powerful. Singapore is also very powerful passport. But the US passport yeah it's up there too. UK England. Yeah very powerful passports out there. I got a visa for China next month in Osaka. It was pretty simple actually. Good. Yeah. I think I have a 10 year visa. So it's different maybe. And Germany also has very strong passport. Any of the I think most of the EU passports are pretty good. The Dutch are oh no the Dutch are one of the blessed. There's certain and Australians for Japan and Canada. I think you can have work holiday visas up to 30 years old. And you can come here visa free for three months. It's one of the blessed countries to come to Japan. And the Dutch don't need I think the Dutch driver's license you can just exchange it for a Japanese driver's license. They're also considered the blessed in terms of that. Where I had to take the driving test the Dutch in certain select you don't have to take the driving test. So there's advantages I guess just being nationalities of some countries and disadvantages to some countries. Right now I really hope that Japan opens the doors to India. We will see a lot more people from India here. That'd be pretty cool. It's a little bit tough to get the visas there. Japan is ranked number one. My wife's passport is stronger than mine. It's not fair. She doesn't brag about it. Maybe she should.

25:21 John Daub: So there's a lot of activity going on outside. So there's another ANA flight that's going to be leaving destination unknown to me. But Haneda Airport has three terminals. Terminal one terminal two and the international terminal. The international terminal is very new. And before you go through the gates before you go through security gates you have to go upstairs to the second floor. And they have loads of restaurants and shopping. And it might even be a better experience than after you go into the gates then you're kind of stuck there. Oh the other thing I wanted to tell you before I leave is about the ANA lounge. I got a chance because of the ticket. On my ticket it says lounge. And the lounge was really crowded. But I was able to find a seat and they had curry rice. They had all you can drink beer. Like they had a beer vending machine. Like you put the glass and it goes and it pours the beer like this and it's a perfect pour. They had that in the lounge. Just people the Western people were drinking it. It's an arrival and departures card for China. It looks like the Japan one except the JAL-O. Yeah maybe the JAL Sakura lounge is better. Kiki writes in. I don't know I haven't been there. My wife's been to more lounges than me. I'm not a lounge guy. I kind of like to walk around and shop. She likes to lounge. But they had all you can drink beer and sushi and sandwiches in there. And it was pretty cool. You can just take what you want. The problem is like it's all you can drink beer. And there's some dudes in there they were really trying to empty the keg I think.

27:30 John Daub: We don't have a lot of people. And if you're available the seat next to me is open. Like right there it's open. So you can do that. I was kind of hoping to share my friend Peter von Gomm's seatbelt announcement but I don't think I'm going to be able to do that. I think I'm probably going to have to end the live stream because there's a lot of people that are going to make me put away electronic devices. They get pretty strict about that. So I'm going to China for a business trip. I have a client in China. I do other stuff besides YouTube a little bit. I've basically been kind of tapering down other jobs just focusing on Only in Japan. But right now I'm on Wi-Fi. I don't think it's strong enough to live stream though. Or is it? All right. Maybe I'll try. If I can get in-plane Wi-Fi and it's strong signal maybe I'll show you the sky. I did try it once from JAL over Mount Fuji and it was too weak. Yeah. I think when 5G comes maybe it'll be better. But the Wi-Fi was pretty weak on the airplane. But it was pretty cool because I could send pictures live to Instagram of Mount Fuji but I couldn't do video streaming. But it's pretty cool that we even have Wi-Fi on airplanes. I don't know if we have it over the Sea of Japan because to get to China we fly over the Sea of Japan. I think when you fly over water you might not have the Wi-Fi. I'm not sure. But it's pretty cool we have those options.

29:13 John Daub: Of the two airlines ANA and JAL, ANA we call it ANA. I think it's hard to say which one is better. It just depends on what color you like maybe. Maybe blue. If you like blue you're flying ANA. If you like red you fly JAL. But I think both of them are really top notch. If we fly to the US we try to fly Japan carriers because with the service it's just a little bit better and we're more relaxed. Yeah. Harry writes in ANA might be better. It could be because they got Star Wars on their side. I don't think they do. It's paper. People still read those. You realize you're on an ANA plane right? Yeah. I don't mind. I don't mind talking about the enemy on an ANA plane. If they're not really enemies they're all friends right? You should ask. I think maybe some of the flight attendants work for JAL and vice versa. I don't know. Get your drink. Do I get champagne? It's like dine in the morning though. It's 9 a.m. Do you get champagne? That would be pretty sweet.

30:51 John Daub: Oh there's a button on the screen. Okay. You can get higher resolution. Why would you pick low resolution if there's a higher resolution? Why even have an option like that? Oh cool. It doesn't pinch out. I like the ANA music though. I think ANA wins for that soothing. They have a good tune. We're going over Pyongyang. That's awesome! Wow we're going over the north! Japanese style or western style please. Wow! I'll take the Japanese style. Thank you. Alright guys I ordered the Japanese style meal. It has anago (sea eel) on it or is it unagi (freshwater eel)? I don't know I only saw the English it said eel. So try Japanese style. Wow so take your order. I'm business class it's pretty cool. Alright this is my entire route. You see we're flying over to North Korea to get to Beijing. That's going to be pretty cool. I've never been to North Korea. I never will be because we'll be going over it. But maybe we'll get a picture of it for Instagram. Hope you have a wonderful day from Queen of Tacos. I've been following for quite a while. Keep up the great work. Just don't forget to relax. Thanks Queen. I'm pretty relaxed. I'm pretty relaxed now. Yeah this is a business class from ANA flight going to Beijing.

33:14 John Daub: So here's the compartment next to me. You can see it's like basically empty. Check it out. That's what it looks like but where I'm sitting. And actually I was going to be sitting there. They had me sitting there but I changed this morning when I woke up. I said why am I sitting there? I can have a window right? It's my window. I decided to fly. Yeah I know. Ian writes in I never flew business. Me neither. This is my first time. I flew first class once because I got upgraded from New York. Like because I was helping a flight attendant. And he just said that it was annoying that I'm helping other passengers. We have to do something about that he said. And I go oh. So he put me in first class. That was pretty cool. That was Continental Airlines from Newark to Tokyo. And I've always loved Continental just because the flight attendants are pretty cool. Yeah I never got moved. I was sitting on that aisle in the back where you can't put the seat back. You're up against the toilet in the very back of the plane. There's nothing for me to do. So I got up and I started pretending like I was a flight attendant helping people. Said oh you're in seat 33A. Can I help you with that baggage? I was putting it above and the flight attendant came and upgraded me. He's like we're putting you in first class. I'm like I like that. So it pays to be you know good sometimes.

34:36 John Daub: Anyways guys thanks so much for watching. I will try to do something in Beijing. If not I'll upload a video and see how that works. But I'm staying in a nice hotel and I'll be back in Japan on the 19th. Show us your amenity kit. I don't know if I have one. This is the seat. I don't think we get one because we're just flying a couple of hours. I have a blanket. There's no amenity kits. I don't think so. I have my own magazine. I have a plane rack. What's this? Whoa. Whoa. I'm going to try to get a deck of playing cards too. The flight attendant is going to have a good laugh watching me try to get a seat. Did you see that? It goes all the way back. I never sat in a seat. Then I remembered that you could go all the way back. I might need sleep. If you sleep though isn't that like a waste? Shouldn't you try to enjoy every second of it right? So I can't sleep. But I want to sleep. Maybe I'll sleep for like one hour. I got to divide up my time properly. I'll sleep for like one hour eat for one hour play a game for an hour and watch a movie for an hour. Maybe. 180 recline. It's like a bed man. It's a bed.

37:20 John Daub: All right guys. There's no amenity kit. It's just a short flight. I am flying first class back. So maybe I will show you that experience. Okay? I've never flown first class ever. Except for the Continental flight. But that didn't really count because I didn't. That was like such a long time ago. I don't remember. But I always fly economy in the back because it's just crazy to spend money on something that gets you to the same place for the same amount of time. Why would you spend ten times more for I don't know. So it doesn't make sense to me. But when you do it's pretty special. It's pretty special. I was hoping that I could. I was kind of delaying this to try to get Peter von Gomm's voice because if you do fly ANA listen for the seatbelt guy. The English voice for the seatbelt guy is Peter von Gomm. And that'd be pretty cool. Did it from Newark to Tokyo this past fall. Love biz on flights. Yeah. You know if you're going to fly long haul business class might be pretty good or at least premium economy. I think my family when they came for our wedding in April flew premium economy because it was just a little bit more. But it makes the ride so much better. You're not as tired because 14 hours from New York or Boston to Tokyo is really long. And to sit in cramped seats for 14 hours is hard. So if you have a chance to upgrade to premium economy for like $100 if you're already paying $1,000 it might be worth it so you don't waste a day trying to recover because you need a massage when you get back. Some people do. And that could even be more money than the premium economy. Massages in Japan are not cheap. I've never gotten one though. I'm just doing it from what I've heard from other people. Yeah. The premium economy is worth the price. But from what I'm experiencing of business class in ANA it's really awesome.

39:38 John Daub: All right guys I'm going to show you. Okay. So I'm going to put away electronic devices. This is kind of fun. I didn't think we would be doing this for 40 minutes. That's pretty cool. Ladies and gentlemen the cabin attendants will conduct the safety duty. If you need assistance please wait a moment. Thank you. Oh yeah Peter's voice. Let's see if we get Peter's voice. Cabin attendant stand by at the door. If we get Peter's voice that's going to be really awesome. Hey somebody contact Peter and tell him we're going to do this safety video. Cabin attendant set the slide bar. Please stand by for the safety video. I get reports it's about $350 to upgrade the premium economy. That's kind of a lot. It might be worth it I guess. It just depends how old you are. If I was in my 20s I wouldn't pay. But if I was in my 40s I might pay. You guys have got this. I'm not even kidding. I'm sorry. Yeah if I was in my 50s I would pay. Because yeah. We will see Peter. You are in your 40s. Don't remind me. I know. I'm in the middle of that too. 50s totally worth it Johnny. I'm with you on that side. Do you have a way to get around China's firewall? I have a VPN but I don't know. I'll we'll see what happens. I have a VPN. And if the flight attendants tell you to turn this off then I'm good with that too.

42:26 John Daub: So we just got a... Alright we gotta turn it to airplane mode. Alright guys. We can't see Peter this time but I will try to record it and upload it on Instagram later. Alright. So have a good day. Thanks for tuning in for this long. See you guys. I'm going to Beijing. I'll be back on the 19th. So have a good day. Good night everybody. Bye. Bye from business class.