00:00:02 John Daub: Good morning everybody. I'm in Miyazaki Prefecture, this is Kobayashi City. It's kind of a windy and cool day, but I'm here in a live stream because I want to introduce to you the Akiya Bank (abandoned house bank). This is a system for abandoned houses here in Japan where outsiders can come and move into a community, sometimes for free. I'm going to explain this all in bigger detail because we're right now in front of an abandoned house. It's such a beautiful neighborhood too. It's strange to think that there was once a house that had no owner at all, and now it does. This is the house right here, and there's Kanai who's going to be joining me on this report.

00:00:41 John Daub: We're going to go into this abandoned house that's no longer abandoned and talk with the residents who moved in yesterday. They just moved in yesterday. So we're going to go inside right now. It's beautiful, right? Good morning. Yeah, you can feel the nature all around it. Fresh air. It's actually like sweet. I like it. Let's go inside where it's not so windy.

00:01:15 John Daub: Alright, we told the owner we would ton ton (knock on the door). We're going to explain this Akiya Bank system to you in as much detail as possible. Here he comes.

00:01:27 John Daub: Konnichiwa. Ojamashimasu (excuse our intrusion). Goben kudasai (please excuse us). Wow, there is a lot of space in this house. Wow, it's huge. It's really huge. There's Minakawa-san again. So we've come here as a team of people. I was really curious about this too. This is an amazing amount of size. Yeah, beautiful tatami (straw mat flooring). Look at this. This is way more space than you would get in Tokyo, and they just moved in yesterday. The owners have come from Okinawa, and they got this off of the Akiya Bank.

00:02:31 John Daub: Just to reiterate, the Akiya Bank—akiya means abandoned house. An abandoned house is a house where there's no homeowners in there. They might have just passed away and nobody came here to take over the house. Maybe they didn't have any children, sons or daughters. There's just nobody to care for it. And roughly 13 or 14% of the houses in Japan—this is what I've heard—are abandoned or they just don't have an owner. And this can be a really big problem for the community if you have abandoned houses all over the place. Nobody keeps them upkept; they can start to rot or decay, they can become dangerous after a decade of sitting there, and they kind of look bad—they're an eyesore, not good for any community. So Japan created this Akiya Bank to try to fill as many of the abandoned houses as possible.

00:03:17 John Daub: Now this was a big news story about a year ago where there were some communities that were giving away houses for free, and I believe there were some places in Tokyo. Just the population was declining and they were doing anything that they could to attract residents. And this is a key word—you're gonna be able to get a place to live for free or extremely cheap, but there are some catches. Nothing's for free, but it is cheap, it's really cheap. I'm gonna put a link in the description below where you can check out the one in Kobayashi. Kobayashi is a really nice place to live and there are a lot of abandoned houses here as well.

00:04:15 John Daub: We're going to talk with the owner who just moved into this house, who's so gracious enough to show us this Akiya—this now not abandoned home. It doesn't look abandoned anymore. It looks like it's somebody's home with the cat waiting there. It's called engawa (veranda). Oh like the balcony here? Yes. Oh I love that. It's usually in older homes you find an engawa. Oh you can't get this in Tokyo, can you? In summer we can sit there and get some beer. You drinking beer? So we can pick some edamame (green soybeans). Ah now you're talking. Very nice Japanese style.

00:05:01 John Daub: I'm really been having a good time. I've only been in Kobayashi for a day but I'm really digging the slow relaxed pace of life here. I don't know, I'm just driving. I've got a rent-a-car. That's the rent-a-car right here and you really do need a rent-a-car in the countryside in Japan. But it's so easy to drive around here. I mean I was kind of nervous about driving but not here. People are nice. They're waving to me. Drivers don't do that—they do that in Japan.

00:05:32 John Daub: All right this is another tatami room. Wow they moved in really fast. They've been really hard at work moving in. Looks beautiful. Wow and this was an abandoned house until yesterday. It's very very interesting. Right can I go this way? They know what I'm doing. This house is built 100 years ago. Oh wow. Yeah but doesn't seem like 100 years ago. No, it's so beautiful. This is a 100-year-old house—looks like it's in pretty good shape.

00:06:12 John Daub: This is the kitchen. Wow, this is a massive kitchen and breakfast table. I can imagine a family having good times here—kids before they go to school. I can see a family living here. Wow. Very nice. I like this a lot. Can you see having a family here? Could you live here Kanai?

00:06:41 Kanae Daub: Yeah yeah of course. Yeah.

00:06:45 John Daub: I could see—there's a TV's on here. I mean it's got life to this house again which it didn't have just a couple of days ago. So I'm gonna go and ask Ayumi and Samejima-san. Let's go find Ayumi and Samejima-san who are in charge. No this house in particular—it's rented out from the city. So the city will find the appropriate people to rent each house and you'll be able to find it and it's a ridiculously low price. So Samejima-san. So we're gonna ask Samejima-san and Ayumi-san some questions about this.

00:07:27 John Daub: So this is Samejima-san and this is Ayumi-san. Hello. And Samejima-san is in charge of the Akiya Bank in Kobayashi. Yeah and Ayumi just moved here from Tokyo. Yeah welcome to Kobayashi. It's a city developer city project. Yes so we come from abroad from cities. We live here and we try to help develop the city in any way we can. Yeah and I'm here scouting out this area. I have never been to Kobayashi before and I'm having a really great time. But this is one of the things that I wanted to research—the Akiya Bank here in Kobayashi.

00:08:14 John Daub: Can anyone, any foreigner, live here?

00:08:21 Samejima-san: Yes, we can.

00:08:24 John Daub: Wow! If they have the proper visa, if they have a job, I mean, the city will sort of have an interview with you and see if you have the right situation to move to Japan. And if you're legal, have a visa, have a job, then probably it's okay. Nothing against foreigners. Yeah that's really good to hear. I think in order for you to live in one of these homes, these Akiya homes, you have to have a job, have the proper—you can't just move in like you can't just come from your country. Uh for example like I have family in India they can't just come here without a work visa and no income and just move into an abandoned house and go okay we're here we filled the house.

00:09:12 John Daub: I can see my family doing that actually—that doesn't happen here because you really have to be checked out. They have to make sure the reason why they—you can get these abandoned houses is because they want to fill the community. That means you got to be here first of all, you have to be here and become a resident of Kobayashi this and pay tax—pay tax of course. Where's the mayor? We shall pay your taxes mayor—yes in hard currency that's important. Uh to contribute to the—because the population of Japan has been shrinking for so many years. Uh it's important to start to fill in the blanks in the communities where they lost.

00:09:47 John Daub: I've been talking with more and more people that grew up here in Miyazaki that are returning to Miyazaki and finding homes here. Akiya Bank is one of the solutions to find especially for a young family that's starting out. If you've got a couple of kids this is perfect—you're in a safe quiet peaceful community with air that tastes sweet compared to the city of Tokyo. We're saying that because we live in Tokyo—is our air sweet? Yes and the water is—is the air sweet in Tokyo? Yeah it is maybe it's not that sweet. I don't know in Tokyo no. Okay what kind of air are you breathing? Well Tokyo's air is not too bad—we have a sea breeze but um it's still like so much better here, a lot better here.

00:10:42 John Daub: Now in Kobayashi how many houses are available right now?

00:10:52 Samejima-san: Like five or six.

00:10:54 John Daub: We know there are a lot of open houses but people don't register. So they have attachments to the house or they don't want to clean up. They feel it's a lot of hassle, a lot of work to register. So they get just left abandoned. So the first thing that has to happen is the house owner or somebody in the family has to register as an abandoned house. When they do that, do they get like a tax break or something? What's the motivation to do that? Just to have somebody living in the house because they have to keep paying the tax, right? Even if there's nobody living there. So somebody covers that for them. And also if somebody is moving in the house, then they receive a certain amount of money to fix the house for that person to move in. The owner gets that money. Yeah. Oh right. Okay. So they fix the house a little bit. So nothing comes out of his pocket so much. The city pays for it for him to fix the house. Yeah. So even a decent state for somebody to move in. That makes a lot of sense.

00:11:55 John Daub: So basically the city is like a conduit, someone who connects the owner with a tenant. Yeah. And turns the house that's abandoned into a source of income. Now this house here that you're seeing that Kanai is very happy to be standing in right—the rent that they're paying is 35,000 yen a month. They're renting this. 35,000 yen a month is about $320 a month. And I got to tell you something that is so inexpensive for the amount of space that you get and to be in this really nice community. That was like the daughter sleeping there. And this is just amazing. So basically this costs $320 a month to rent. Yeah. And the lease is for like a 5-year lease. Yeah. The contract is for 5 years. Yeah. So this cat's going to be for five years. And then you can decide to either buy the house if you become attached to it or you can negotiate a deal with the owner.

00:13:06 John Daub: So every single area of Japan has a different Akiya system. I believe some of the stories that I saw last year was like—I mean, the titles of the articles are like Japanese abandoned homes for free. And of course, everyone's going to click on that. But the reality is that nothing really is for free. There are catches. You got to be resident and you have to pay taxes and you have to be here. The reason why is to be here, to fill the schools, to fill the shops, to build a life here in this city. I think this is great for YouTubers. If you're a YouTuber and you're thinking of like a base to live, you get a studio, you get everything here for a ridiculously low price. I think if you have a very flexible job, it's good.

00:13:48 John Daub: But what I've noticed in the city of Kobayashi is more and more the town is starting to revitalize. And I've been walking into cafes that look like they could be in Tokyo. They're like, I call them Reiwa style—it's like the new generation of cafes. It's pretty amazing to me to walk into. Because my image, I got to be honest, my image of Kobayashi was that it would be really old. It would be like Showa era buildings and kind of retro. It's not retro. It sort of is, but it's not. I can see a lot of younger people have come in here and opened up businesses and people are starting to make this kind of like the paradise in the forests. It's like the paradise. They got caviar here. Like who comes up with these ideas? This is the home of Japanese caviar. Who comes up with this in an old community?

00:15:08 Ayumi: I did, yes. You live in Tokyo, but now you live in Kobayashi. Yes. I live in Kobayashi. We moved out of the blue. We didn't know anybody here, not in Kyushu, not in Miyazaki. We didn't know anything about Kobayashi. And my husband and I were just like, well, let's just move. And we thought Kyushu was pretty good because it's warmer. The idea of living by the beach or the mountains was nice. Yeah. We have two little kids. We just wanted to get out of Tokyo and be more in touch with nature, have a slower lifestyle.

00:15:39 John Daub: Yeah. I can understand that. Because Kanai and I, we're thinking of maybe having a little bit of a break. Maybe having a family and would you be able to raise it in Tokyo? There's lots of questions. It's really crowded. The kids really like living in the city. And I have friends that have moved out of Tokyo as well because they're looking for better schools, less crowded places. They want to raise their kids where there's fresh water and in a safer environment, if that's even possible. And where the taxes are lower too and you can save a little bit of money. But there are challenges. I think I could probably manage if I lived in Kobayashi. Because I can be a YouTuber probably anywhere.

00:16:14 John Daub: And that's very convenient in Tokyo because you got really fast Wi-Fi. I'm not sure if you're even seeing this in HD actually because I'm surprised we have pretty good signal here in Kobayashi. But like here in Tokyo, in Tokyo there's lots of work but in Kobayashi it's a little bit more challenging I think to establish a successful business. I think that's the main problem with Kobayashi, finding a job. If you're a YouTuber, great. You know, if you can have... I think for people that work on the net... Yeah. You know, webs and they can choose where they want to live. So that would be perfect. But if you work like at the city or any other place, the salary, yes, it's not as good as Tokyo obviously. And yeah, so that's what we want to do. We want to open our own business eventually and we'll see how it goes. Yeah. Well, we'll come and visit the new business. Absolutely. We'll come and live stream there and then fill the business with customers. Yeah. Thank you for sharing your story.

00:17:16 John Daub: All right. So this is what an abandoned house looks like after it's been filled after 24 hours. Actually, I'm really impressed with how quickly they moved in. When we moved to our apartment last year, it took forever. I don't think we've really moved in yet. We're going to go outside and finish the live stream outside. A little bit. Yeah. So this is basically what you would get if you're going to Akiya. So the other Akiya homes on the left are the Akiya homes. Are they the same? Well, they're not exactly the same. This place is still pretty. It's really pretty, right? Yeah. This is a hundred-year-old house that's still in really good shape. Yeah. We moved here about 35 years ago. The building itself is about 100 years old. We moved the old building we had to the new building. You can't see it. Right. Yes, it is. It is very cleanly used. And it has been renovated from time to time, so it is very clean.

00:18:43 John Daub: And then find appropriate candidates. And this is not limited to just residents of Japan. You can be a Westerner and get a house here in Kobayashi. You just have to have a job and just show that you can make a living here and be a part of the community. And I got to be honest with you, the criteria is not as high as in Tokyo. It is actually a lot easier.

00:19:15 John Daub: Ramsey Silent writes in, since you missed the free stone, get something nice for Kanai. Thank you so much. Yeah, thanks Ramsey Silent. We had a very rainy night last night. And we didn't eat a lot for dinner, so we are going to make sure that we double that up. The tempura was good yesterday. We did a livestream in Kobayashi yesterday. Farm to field organic tempura. You have to check that out. We went and picked our own vegetables and then made a tempura like right away. And it was a pretty unique experience. A lot of them look like just leaves off of the tree.

00:19:37 John Daub: Kanai, what do you think of this Akiya system?

00:19:42 Kanae Daub: It is nice. It is a nice system. Very interesting. Because many in Japan, so now many elderly people, so we have many empty houses. So yeah, everybody is thinking about what should I do for this house. So it is a good system, Kobayashi. And yeah, sometimes I feel Tokyo, the people who live in Tokyo, so they need nature more sometimes for relaxing. So Kobayashi is very nice and perfect.

00:20:32 John Daub: Yeah, I have to agree. That's one of the reasons why I get happy when I go out to the countryside. I'm like, nature, fresh air, good food, soba. Ah! But this is one of the reasons. I think more and more people in Tokyo, people are moving into Tokyo, of course, but there's a lot of people also moving out. There's a trend now where a lot of my friends have families that are leaving or people that have gone to university are finding that they don't like the work style in Tokyo. And they're moving back to their hometowns like Kobayashi. And they're starting businesses here. And that's why when we're walking around and we're entering in cafes around Kobayashi Station in the center of the town, like we walk in there and it looks like brand new. With wood paneling. These are cafes that look better than Starbucks. We go in there and we sit in there and the food is all organic. We walked in. I'll post a picture on Instagram of Kanai's lunch. All organic. 99% vegetarian because there was some chicken in there. But you can ask not to have that in there.

00:21:28 John Daub: We're going to go to a place later on, I think, for lunch where it's all organic. And there's so much vibe that the younger people have added into this community, like making things that they can resource locally in Kobayashi. And then starting businesses from that, which is something that resonates with people that are my age or younger looking for organic or free range or just a better food supply, a better way of living. You can do that out here. You can do that out here in Kobayashi.

00:21:58 John Daub: So once again, for those of you who are joining us, if you do like, this is a topic that I might go in deeper on the main channel. If you think this is interesting, click the like button just to show your interest in houses in Japan. And I'll do another one. Not just live stream, but maybe something on the main channel. Oh, there's our rental car. That's actually been pretty good. Huge house. Yeah. Clicking the like button tells me that you like the content. That's what the like button is for. Look at these trees. These are sugi (cedar) trees, right? Sugi. Yeah, these trees are awful because they produce a lot of pollen that makes me sneeze. But they are very beautiful, too. And just outside the house, we have these beautiful, looks like lavender or something. Everything that's purple automatically is lavender to me, but it does look really beautiful.

00:22:49 John Daub: And there's just, I don't know, there's just a vibe here. I'm just panning around now. A vibe here to living on the countryside that's becoming more and more attractive to me. The grass may be always greener on the other side. If you're living in a city, you might dream to live out in the countryside. And if you do, for just like, this one is $300. It's like $300 a month, basically. They've got a house for $300 a month. For five-year contract locked in. And if you have a job that's on the net or something that you can make an income, you could save a lot. And the schools here are so nice and friendly. Oh, my word. Like, the lifestyles here, the vegetables are all right off of the farm. You can't get any better living than here. And if I had kids, this is probably where I'd want to live. I don't know if it'll be Kobayashi, but I can see myself moving out if you have a family. Nigel, I am kind of sold.

00:23:39 John Daub: Are there cell phone towers? There are actually convenience stores. I mean, this is one of the things I was freaking out. Like, are there going to be convenience stores out here? Are there going to be stores? Am I going to be able to buy anything? Amazon kind of fixed that for better or for worse. Amazon, you can just get anything delivered to your house out here. So they'll never not have like craft beer, for example. Or if they needed something very unique, they could probably order it on Amazon and Amazon will deliver it here. Probably by drones in another five years. But it's just for me, it's been a pretty cool story to learn more about. Akiya, aka akiya, which means abandoned house in Japanese. And the fact that the country has a bank now.

00:24:21 John Daub: The bank is, now the bank itself, some people might be asking about this. I saw some comments, is it in English? Actually, all of the content so far is in Japanese. But if you use Google Translate, you can probably figure it out and get the process starting. Speaking Japanese is not one of the requirements. But it makes it a lot easier. If you do, especially if you're going to be living in the countryside where probably people are not speaking English too much. But that doesn't mean that you're not going to—you're probably going to learn Japanese super fast here. You're probably, oh look at this, like I'm looking at these pink flowers. Ah, sugi's, sugi's fascinations. Very teacherly, it's a big tree, it's a small tree. Yes, it's a small flower. This is for sugi. It is, I'm just looking at it. I'm attracted to these little beautiful flowers all around the gardens here. I guess the garden came with the house. You can say that.

00:25:22 John Daub: Yeah, those of you who watch the live streams, I get distracted very, very fast. Especially with food on the left and right of me. It's crazy. So there you have it. Are there any questions now? I have now, right here, I have the head of the Akiya Bank who's in charge of doing all of this. So if you have any questions, you can live stream it or add it in the comments below. And I've asked them to go and take a look at it. And they'll be able to moderate some of these questions and answer them directly as well. This city is called Kobayashi. And I put a link in the description to show you exactly where Kobayashi is. It's a Google map and you'll be able to see the whole town.

00:26:01 John Daub: Now there's right now five or six abandoned buildings, abandoned homes like this that are looking for a resident. And they're increasing every day. And in Japan, there's like 14%, I read, was a number on the internet of abandoned houses that are looking for tenants. So there's 14% are abandoned houses. And it just depends on the owner or the family of the house to give it up. The reason why they give it up is because they don't want to pay the taxes. Because you still have to pay the taxes on the house despite you not living there. And the reason why this Akiya Bank is good is now you have people who are paying the taxes that are contributed to the community. And it's just, it's a way to fill in the blanks and get the community revitalized.

00:26:42 John Daub: And the thing I'm getting about Kobayashi after just one day here is that, there are a lot of older people here, but there's also a lot of younger people which surprised me. And it gives it this really unique vibe. I don't know, it feels like you're in a trendy community here in Kobayashi. I kind of dig that. You need a car. You do need a car. Yeah, how do you get water? They have pipes. Like, ito, yeah, they have really good water here actually. Look at Kanai's skin. Show your skin. Look after one day. She was awful yesterday. Look after one day of onsen (hot spring). Look at that skin. I took onsen this morning too. Yeah, you're like 10. I drink onsen water. The water here is great. I feel so young though. I know, look, don't get too much younger. She's already younger than me. Now she's gonna be, she looks like a high school student. This is not good. She looked a lot older yesterday. The water, look what the water did to her. You want to come to Kobayashi right away. It's a fountain of youth, everybody. It really is.

00:27:51 John Daub: What happens after five years? After five years, you look like a princess. Seriously. Kobayashi's water. I don't know the onsen. All right, you know what? On Monday morning, we're gonna do a live stream from the room that we're staying in that has its own private bath. And for the next couple of live streams, we're gonna be in Kobayashi introducing this place. I'm just really excited about it. Just gotta, Elizabeth Cox, thank you very much. Yeah. Ponce de Leon would be, was way off. He should have been here.

00:28:19 John Daub: We have eaten a lot of chicken. Kobayashi and Miyazaki Prefecture is famous for chicken. It's famous for Wagyu (premium beef) and it's famous for good pork. But, but hold your horses because there's no horse here. That's in Kumamoto. Basashi (raw horse meat). True story. The vegetables here are very, very good. And because more and more people, the veg, being a vegetarian is not so popular here in Japan. It's something more in the West. Veggies. Vegans and, and Pesco vegans and all these titles. Gluten free. That's not normal in Japan. And Japan's starting to adjust to the global diets. Halal foods, for example. I'm seeing that more and more pop because Japan. Businesses are very gracious hosts. This omotenashi (hospitality) spirit is making people change to fit in the, the community that wants to come to Japan. So I'm seeing more and more change. But Kobayashi has a surprisingly large number of vegetarian restaurants. Like, like I don't, I would even say like pure veg. And that's for our, my, our friends in India that like pure veg when no meat ever enters the restaurant. I think like one of those restaurants was a pure veg restaurant. It's hard to give that designation to a restaurant. But seriously, there are people here that are very much into like the relaxed yoga, vegetarian lifestyle. I almost want to say hippie, but they've got jobs. Hippies can have jobs too, right? I don't know. I'm not a hippie. Although the beard is not, not wearing well. But I think they're doing well on me.

00:29:46 John Daub: Ah, I have a question. You're paying for the gas and electricity separately, right? Separately. Yeah. Yeah, the gas and the electricity is all paid by the, by the owner. It's all, it's, it's, so 35,000 plus the utilities. Yeah, that's $300. About $300 plus the utility. So it probably comes out. And utilities are probably pretty cheap too. Compared to Tokyo. Yeah. What about gasoline for cars? Gas? Car is not guzzling gas—this is a Toyota Corolla and it turns off at the intersections and then turns on again. It uses a surprisingly low amount of gas. There are hybrid cars as well are increasing. I didn't get a hybrid this time but I got this one because I don't know how to use a hybrid car. This is only the second car I ever rented.

00:31:06 Samejima-san: It's a great question by Nosh—the size of home. Uh so the akia different sizes, different locations, different rent prices. But they're usually cheaper than the regular price. So the salmon goes in is just for this house. Yeah and you get a lot of parking wow.

00:31:43 John Daub: And she told me that if you want to fix something afterwards after you move in because you didn't buy it—you're right—you're right. Yeah but if you talk to the owner then usually you can negotiate something. It depends on the owner—it's case by case. But sometimes they're like oh do whatever you want to pay if you pay for it you know right. You can modify do whatever you want. So it depends on the case. So this is run by the city and the city is is a conduit or like the the middleman to make this happen. The city is the one who will be investigating your background—not really harshly but they want to make sure that you have the visa that you're the proper uh um that you could live here basically. And the criteria is not as it could even be a little bit laxer or it could be stronger depending on each city. Each city has a different way to do it. Each city has their own Akiya Bank right. Each city has their own Akiya Bank so they have their own systems too. This is Kobayashi's system.

00:32:36 John Daub: This is the system um that you can find here and and as more and more owners are entering the Akiya Bank just because they don't want to pay the taxes more and more situations where you could come here and rent a house and live here and be part of this vibrant community which is exciting with young people. She could live here—she's young I'm young for all you know. So I hope you enjoyed this live stream. Well if you have any more questions—is there any move-in fees? No there's no key money, no reiki (customary fees), no shikikin (deposit), no key money no moving money no deposits. It's just get your butt in here. All right I just can't say it any clearer than this—they just want to get you to move in here and be a part of the community. That is their motivation. It's not to become you know like like rich landowners I don't know I don't know but for me I think that the community just wants to get people in here and that's their motivation for giving cheap rent for finding a solution to a problem that's existing in the communities in Japan.

00:33:38 John Daub: Um why is there no bullet train video? You can write that 100 times because bullet train videos require permission and I don't have JR's permission and if you and if you don't get the permission you're gonna get a lot of money and you're gonna get a lot of money and you probably shouldn't put the video on there. So all the people doing it don't have permission although if I do make a bullet train video it's going to be the best bullet train video ever made because I'll have permission and I'm working on that actually. I'm working on that because there's a new there's a new shinkansen (bullet train) line coming um to uh Japan in 2025 and I'm trying to get ahead on that that one too.

00:34:14 John Daub: One last question—is how do you get to Miyazaki how do you get to Kobayashi? You get to Kobayashi um probably by air. But you can get to Kobayashi by plane—for most of you you want to fly in. The closest airport is—Kobayashi is unique it's between Kagoshima Airport and Miyazaki Airport. We came from Miyazaki—it was about an hour drive, hour and 15 minutes if you stop at a rest stop to get a melon pan (melon bread) because I stopped and got melon pan it was pretty good too. So it took us an extra 15 minutes but takes an hour from Miyazaki Airport and takes a little bit less than that from Kagoshima Airport. I like flying into Miyazaki because they have palm trees and it looks tropical. Kagoshima Airport's pretty good too. Kagoshima Airport's kind of far from Kagoshima City by the way—it's sort of closer to Miyazaki's border than it is from Kagoshima City. So either airport's good or you can even fly into Fukuoka uh the airport there and and and then take a bus—they have highway buses that'll come here uh in a couple of hours or if you do fly into Miyazaki flying to Tokyo and then take a plane to Miyazaki or to Kagoshima. There are low-cost carriers that will fill in the blank. I believe the Kagoshima Jetstar is the cheap one and that the price is gonna be like forty to fifty dollars. That's like a bargain right—fifty dollars to fly. It would cost you two hundred and fifty dollars on the shinkansen to go to Kagoshima or fifty dollars on a cheap flight from Tokyo in in a tenth of the time. So makes sense to fly sometimes and Kagoshima is one of those and Kobayashi is one of those destinations that's really really cheap.

00:35:48 John Daub: Yeah no no she's going 500. If you do like what you're watching click that uh like button. Um if you enjoyed this video please subscribe to my channel because that's indication to do more of these Akiya videos. Now the uh to get the Kobayashi rented car is probably the best way. Uh we're gonna go to visit maybe uh some caviar—there's so many things I'm really curious about Kobayashi. We're gonna show you tomorrow the onsen ryokan (hot spring inn), the room that we're staying in which is like amazing the experience that we've had. We're also going to show you some some of the other things. There's a there's a restaurant that that serves—Caroline's not gonna like this but koi (carp)—koi is one of the unique cuisines that they make here. So because the water is so clean here in Kobayashi, the fish is really good too. And we're gonna try some of that later on today. So this is like a live streaming day. So make sure your notifications are on. If you look on Instagram or your Patreon supporter, everyone who gives a little bit on Patreon will get the notifications like 10, 15 minutes before they start. And I wanna make sure that you don't miss any of the live streams.

00:36:48 Samejima-san: Can I give any final comments? See you later.

00:36:53 John Daub: That's a good final comment. Yeah, see you later. Yeah, we're coming back soon in a live stream. See you later. It looks like the weather, it looks like it could rain at any moment. It going in and out of sun. It's a little bit of wind. But I'm gonna end with you this beautiful Akiya house that is no longer an Akiya house. This was once abandoned. And now it's the beautiful home from residents, a couple from Okinawa that moved here. And now they're part of the Kobayashi community. And I'm walking backwards. And I don't wanna walk into the farm. So this could be yours.