00:05 John Daub: Hey everybody, welcome to Nagasaki. This is the city in Kyushu that's famous for having the Dutch settlement in the 16th century. I just arrived in Nagasaki from Tianjin, China. It was a cruise that I was working on to give a presentation about Japan. It was a very exciting experience. I'm going to show you the room that I'm in, which is really like a treat to be able to spend 36 hours aboard a cruise ship.

00:36 John Daub: And then when we get into the port to give a presentation about Japan to people, many of whom have never been before, to share my passion for Japan. It's just a lot of fun. Here's the room. I'm going to go back and show you to the very end to get you an idea of where I got a chance to stay. It's a stateroom, they call it. It's a bed, a sofa, a TV. You can call and get room service and stuff. In here is the bathroom. This is very clean, very nice. Tub, which is pretty cool.

01:07 John Daub: When you look out the window, you're in the middle of the sea and you have all of these nice amenities. It's very, very nice. There I am in the mirror. Hey guys. This room had a closet and I had to wear a jacket for dinner and a suit and everything and I could put everything in this closet and it was neat to be able to put my bag here as well. So if anything wants to go out of the way, there's a lockbox, two life jackets. The bed was super comfortable. Little bit retro. I spent some time editing video right here and I would have the TV on. It's a very nice TV. And unlimited coffee. It's always a good thing.

02:16 John Daub: Yeah! You can already kind of see some of the old buildings right there. Over to the left side is Dejima (出島，Dutch trading post), and I'm going to make a stop there. And if I have time, I'm going to do a live stream over in the Dejima area to give you a little bit of taste of what it's like, the old Nagasaki region. This here is the port. Now in Japan, a lot of cruise ships are now making trips to Japan. It's not just flying in. People are cruising in.

02:49 John Daub: And more and more small cities like Yonago and Tottori and here in Nagasaki have set up special brand new piers to accommodate cruise ships. It's very clean. It's very new. They also have very strong security procedures. So you can exit the ship, and then after you exit the ship, you have to go through this covered area so that there's no escape once you enter. And then through here, you go through customs and immigration. You're processed your passport inside of the building, and then you're allowed to leave.

03:24 John Daub: Every single passenger aboard the ship, once they arrive in Japan, because this cruise ship is going on to another destination, they have to clear customs here in Japan. So everybody has to exit the cruise ship to get off to process. Me, I'm getting off, and I'm just going straight to the airport after I go to Dejima and maybe do a live stream at Nagasaki Station as well. Beautiful day here. The weather is springtime. It's a little bit cooler over in Tokyo. But I bet you the sakura, the cherry blossoms are out.

03:54 John Daub: The Peace Park is also a very nice sight here, as well as if you have time to go up the cable car to the top and see the night view. Nagasaki is one of the most beautiful night view points in Japan. There's three of them. One of them is Hakodate. Nagasaki is in the top three. Aloha. This was super awesome to be on this trip and to be invited to be a speaker on this. I didn't really talk a lot about it. I'm not allowed to, but I can show you the room and tell you what I've been doing.

04:33 John Daub: I love introducing Japan to people. It's just such a treat because I have so much passion for what I do, not just the YouTube channel, but whenever any visitor comes and you say hello to me, if you see me in Asakusa or Shibuya or in Kyoto traveling. It's always nice to talk about sites and things to see. And that's all I did on this job. I just love to talk with the people here that are just so excited to be here in Japan, many of them for the first time. So it was a really, really amazing experience for me.

05:05 John Daub: And they found me through YouTube and I'm getting more and more opportunities through the YouTube channel to do stuff like this. This is like the dream job to be able to use my 20 years of living in Japan and become an expert on life here and talk about the pop culture and everything. That's just a product of being able to do so many things as a reporter and make this channel for you. And I'm so thankful for the audience that we have because that's why I'm here. I'm here because of you guys.

05:36 John Daub: I'm just soaking in Nagasaki. I don't come here that often. It's one of the most difficult places to get to in Japan from Tokyo. You have to fly here. You can take the train, but it's seven hours from Tokyo to Fukuoka to Hakata. And then from there you have to take another train to go around. It's a lot of work. It's not the Shinkansen. So it takes about nine or ten hours from Tokyo to get to Nagasaki.

06:01 John Daub: If you have a JR rail pass, I think Kagoshima might be faster to get to than Nagasaki. So the best way to get here is to fly. Oh, you can see some people are sitting there in the park just chilling. It's nice. It looks so comfortable because of the atomic bomb in 1945. A lot of the city was destroyed and there aren't that many really old buildings remaining. Nagasaki is a fairly new city.

06:33 John Daub: There were lots of problems with the water after the atomic bomb and they didn't have clean drinking water for a very long time. So the city really suffered. It breaks your heart to think about those days, years after what had happened. But it was war. Now it's such a peaceful city and they do have a Peace Park that's similar to that in Hiroshima and they have a museum. I've been to both of them. The museum in Hiroshima is really a lot more—I guess it might be a little bit better than the one in Nagasaki. They're both good to go to.

07:12 John Daub: I think it's good to go to the Peace Park because then it really hits home what happened on that day. But Nagasaki is a city that has rebuilt from the ashes and come back stronger from war. I don't think I would live here. It's just too far away. But it's a beautiful city. I could live here, but I don't think I would because it's just too far away.

07:46 John Daub: Nagasaki is—it's all these Japanese cities are kind of the same price except for Tokyo, Osaka, Kyoto. These are more expensive because there's more tourists there. Demand is higher because this is a little bit off the beaten path. There aren't as many hotels. So competition is not as good. It's great, but there aren't as many tourists in Nagasaki. It kind of is off of the beaten path. So it presents unique opportunities to explore.

08:11 John Daub: Nagasaki has Arita, which is where the porcelain industry—a lot of the Japanese vases from like my friend Kakiemon-san has a factory just in Saga Prefecture across from Nagasaki. It's basically the same, very close. And Huis Ten Bosch is like an amusement park where they've done Holland in one little park. So you can see pretty much the entire country of the Netherlands in one place. Very, very unique. That's worth going to, especially if you're from Europe and you've been to Holland or the Netherlands before. It's super cool to go to Huis Ten Bosch and feel like you're in another country.

08:51 John Daub: You scratch your head when you go there. Like, why would they recreate Holland? I think it was just a billionaire who just wanted to make Holland. And at the time, in the 1980s, we had lots of theme parks. We had Tivoli from Copenhagen built in Kurashiki near Okayama. That's the customs office. It's a brand new building just for cruise ships. That's how Japanese tourism is—not just coming in through the airplanes. As I said, it's coming in through ships. And especially from China.

09:27 John Daub: And this cruise from Tianjin to Nagasaki was so cool that I would like to do this again. I think you can just see on the right side—they call it their own Golden Gate Bridge. There's a bridge that we went under. But I've had a really good time on this trip talking with people about Japan and just sharing the experience.

09:53 John Daub: I think this is the great thing about the Patreon page that I have. We have 500 people in Patreon, and we all really love Japan. And there's a community tab where we all talk about stuff. Kind of the same thing here, where we just were sharing stories. There's a lot of really famous people on this ship. And that was really interesting too to hear their thoughts. Because many of them have been to Japan before. But they were always on the job.

10:28 John Daub: A lot of busy people that come to Japan are on the job. And they never really see the country. Some of them were in concerts. Some of them were here for business. And then this is the first time on a cruise like this that they get a chance to come to Japan and really get into the culture. Now you can't do it when you're on business. It's really hard. But when you're on vacation, it's really easy.

10:50 John Daub: It was too cold though. But I would sit here for about 5-10 minutes and just look out at the ocean and the sea. We went past North Korea in the middle of the night. So I didn't get to see much of that. But we were quite far away. I don't think I would have seen land. But it's pretty nice to have a seat facing the sea. Kind of worth it if the temperature is nice. To sit out there and drink coffee. Again, I have unlimited amount of coffee. And kind of a mini bar.

11:38 John Daub: Alright, I had to get something from the door. I should order room service. They have an amazing menu. Check this out. Some platters. Sandwiches were awesome. I had the Thai curry one night. It was really good. And Kanae wanted me to get the pecan cranberry pie. But I never ate it. It's hard to eat through the room. So I had to get the room service. And because I was here working, I could use the room service for free while I was working.

12:21 John Daub: Thanks UFO Bob. Yeah, hit that. If you like what you see, hit that like button. Oh, there's the trolley going by from Nagasaki. Nagasaki's trolleys are famous. Yeah, if you like this, hit the like button and I'll do another live stream in Dejima. And maybe at Nagasaki station so you get an idea of what this area is like outside of Tokyo. I mean Japan is more than just Tokyo, Osaka, Kyoto. 99% of the content on YouTube from YouTubers seems to be like Tokyo. And this is not Tokyo anymore.

12:52 John Daub: I love the history. I love seeing these buildings from different eras and different styles. That looks like the old port building of Nagasaki maybe built for Europeans that were coming here centuries ago. I don't know what the history is behind that building. But I like what I'm seeing back there. So I'm excited to get off the ship and start to take it all in. That's where we disembark. Have you guys been to Nagasaki before? Any recommendations or ideas? Leave something in the chat and that will become part of the permanent record and everyone will be able to know from your sharing your experience what to do.

13:37 John Daub: That's where I sat. It's cherry blossom season and I got these really delicious cookies from Daimaru department store. And I gave one of these to the Daimyo who are watching on Patreon. I send packages to people and this is inside of the package. This is a sakura waffle. And I've got about five minutes. So I'm gonna unbox this and eat it with you. And then I gotta go. My flight's tonight. I get in pretty late back to Tokyo.

14:15 John Daub: Sakura waffle. Now the taste of sakura has a slight floral taste to it. It's not like strawberry at all. It's like cherry blossom. There's like a little piece of the petal in there. See that? It smells sweet and floral. This waffle has a really delicious cream inside. And I got this at Tokyo station. Really nice. I don't see any cherry blossoms. I'd love to do some hanami. Just kind of see what cherry blossoms are like in Nagasaki. Because every park is different. Every layout is different.

15:04 John Daub: What are you talking about, Kanae? See, I am looking. Please do a video on Zen meditation. If I'm meditating, how am I gonna film that? It's not that easy. But many of the people on this ship were very interested in meditation and Zen culture. And there's not a lot of information on that. So it might be something I do on the main channel. I set this video as age restricted. Could be. I didn't have a lot of time to set up this livestream. I just kind of pushed it. Yeah, I could have accidentally... There's no way I can change the age restriction now. So just you guys are privy.

16:27 John Daub: I haven't been back to Nagasaki for a while. Last time was about 15 years ago. And I took a Seishun 18-ki Kippu (青春 18 きっぷ，youth 18 ticket), which is a local train pass from Nagoya. And I traveled a day and a half, 36 hours to get here. Champon! Yes! That is a local food of Nagasaki. It's very good. So is castella. Castella is an amazing sponge cake. And it's famous because the Tokugawa Shogunate, the Shogun Tokugawa, gave castella to the emperor as a gift.

16:59 John Daub: Because it was a very rare and difficult and very expensive dessert. Because sugar was extremely expensive in the 17th century. So the present, when he gave it to the emperor, it's a gift that I can buy from Nagasaki and give to my neighbor or give to my wife's family. And that's like the same present the Shogun gave to the emperor. It has that kind of symbolism. So castella is a very popular gift in Japan.

17:25 John Daub: The red building behind me looks like a hotel. Again, like because the Dutch were here in the 16th and 17th century, a lot of the buildings are like this. So I'm going to look for some of the bridges and try to film for B-roll in case I ever want to make an episode on Dejima. Get as much video footage as I can of this area because it's really hard to get to Dejima. These cookies are so good. If you go to Tokyo right now and you go to the department stores and supermarkets, you'll be able to find a lot of sakura cherry blossom flavored foods. It's pretty delicious, I think. You feel like it's springtime when you eat sakura and green tea flavored things.

18:31 John Daub: Difference Engine writes in, Nagasaki is always overshadowed by Hiroshima. Forgetting about Nagasaki. It's good not to forget about Nagasaki. Absolutely. Because Hiroshima was the first and it's also one of the closest. It's closer to Tokyo and easier to get to. It's on the Shinkansen line. So people don't come to Nagasaki enough. Nagasaki is a beautiful city. I'm telling you, the people are very friendly. It's a port city. It's got amazing night views.

19:19 John Daub: Sam Baker writes in, he's going to Nagasaki in October. Can't wait. Yeah, you're going to love it here. So try to tune in in about, I don't know, like an hour, hour and a half. Or make sure you have those notifications on. I'm going to go into the city and start to live stream some of the areas. Maybe I can find some street food or something. But I'm going to show you a little bit of Nagasaki later on today. If you're interested in this. I won't age restrict the next one. I'm sorry if you can't see it because of the age restriction. My bad.

19:51 John Daub: I am packed and ready to go. I actually bought that as a gift for some of the staff, but we never... Oh, they're telling me it's time to go. They said the staff is waiting for me. All right, guys, I got to go. I'll see you a little bit later on in another live stream in Nagasaki. It's good to be back in Japan. I'm so excited. I'm so proud of Japan, this country. They did such a great job with the docking. Orderly. They really looked good doing it. And a big contrast to China. Not that there's anything wrong with that. But this is Japan. I'm just always amazed whenever I come back here. See you guys.