00:07 John Daub: What a beautiful day in Kochi Prefecture, very far away from the city of Tokyo. And as a result, things are a little different out here. They have their own way of life here in Kochi, especially on the Shimanto River. How you doing, everybody? This is Hiyoshi Yume Sanchi. Here's the sign. This is like a roadhouse or a rest stop along the highway. There's one of these old-fashioned mailboxes. There really is nothing out here, and I'm traveling around looking for a place to eat.

00:46 John Daub: And guess what? I didn't find any, but we were driving and we found this one place. Okay, there's the sign right there. You can see Hiyoshi Yume Sanchi. Meaning a roadhouse, middle of nowhere, just to set the tone. And then I found this art. I guess you can call it art. Well, I'll let you be the judge. Let's go inside this roadhouse and you be the judge. You can see it on the left side of your screen. It doesn't really blend well. Not that there's anything wrong with that.

01:28 John Daub: I drove the car in over here, and the first thing I said when I came through the tunnel there was, wait, what? I was like, what is this? It's right in front of me. Alright, here you go. Take a look. And of course you have this really cheesy music from the 19-whatever. Do you guys know what this is? How do you feel about this? Art usually brings emotions out in people. I'm guessing it might be bringing something out in you. Bobby writes in, whoa. I share the same sentiment.

02:08 John Daub: Alright, this is what's called an oni (demon) or a demon, or just an ogre. Let's just say it's a mother oni, and she's nursing a baby. But this oni just seems... hold on a second. Yes, it's a demon. If you've ever been to any of the Japanese temples in front of Sensoji Temple in Asakusa, Tokyo, they have on the left and the right oni or demons inside of them. And they look hideous. They're made out of wood, dark colored. They don't look really that human. This music does not fit. They should have more erotic, exotic music, I think, to fit with this oni.

02:56 John Daub: But they've made this oni really human-like to a point that it's very nice to look at. This is what we call in the film industry a slow pan. But to find this at a Japanese rest stop is interesting. Very long legs. She's got a little club. The club looks like a baby rattle. It's so small. Usually the club is massive. But this art is very pleasing. It's hard not to feel happy or something. You feel something for this art. Everybody has a feeling. There's nothing in English, but I know it says mother and child oni. So it's a mother and child demon, or ogre or whatever you like to translate it.

04:05 John Daub: But it is an interesting piece of art. And if you want to, anybody out there want to translate this for the rest of us, you can. But I think that here in Kochi Prefecture, there's not a lot out here. So you have to make it a little interesting. Not bad, huh? Hey guys, how you doing? That's it. I'm just driving. Here's the Mark X. You want to see the Mark X? It's right over there. That's a BMW. Mark X is on the other side right there.

05:01 John Daub: I found this rest stop art. I just thought that it would seem to fit in with the channel of bizarreness and why it's out here. And the only explanation that I can come up with is that it's a little bit more interesting. It's because there's not much else out here but trees. And I guess if you're going to show something, it should be this. It's inside. This isn't going to be a complete and total waste. I want to take you inside of this roadhouse a little bit. They do have some food, but the restaurant's closed. So we're still kind of out of luck with lunch.

05:33 John Daub: But if you look to the right, it's not so big. The population is not so huge here. But there are some stands inside of here. Do you see this on the other end? Those are rice polishing vending machines. I'll take you over there in a minute, okay? This is going to be a kind of a long, short live stream. That's what the demons usually look like. They're red. The oni are usually red, but this one looks not red. It's a yaki-imo (roasted sweet potato) stand, and they actually have some yaki-imo. It looks like it's closed, though.

06:24 John Daub: Hey, Connor Brock. Did a 15-day trip in late March and going back in early November for another 18 days. Best autumn food fest for the West Coast? Wow, that's a tough one to answer. There's so many festivals going on in the fall. And I would say Karuizawa is a good place to start. Toyama is also really nice. This area... wow, and they even have the statue on banners. And that must be her husband. Husband does not look happy. So for those of you who are staring too hard at this statue, please keep in mind that the husband is not a nice guy and probably will devour you. The restrooms are very clean, too, by the way.

07:22 John Daub: All right, let's just take a quick look around. Now, these roadhouses called Michi no Eki (roadside stations) are all over Japan. They give people a place, visitors to come and stop and check out this local area. But it also gives locals, residents a place that's kind of like a community center outside of the city. There's a lot of purposes for Michi no Eki. One of them is also you can sell local produce. This is an area where a lot of the farmers will drop off some of their stuff to make some extra money. People passing through almost always stop at a Michi no Eki like we did, looking for animated, strange art statues. Nevertheless, you can also get some vegetables. And you can see the vegetables are right over here.

08:18 John Daub: Local vegetables in the stand here. They also have some bentos. Wow. So they have some kyuri (cucumbers) and shiitake. These are all from the local area here. Oh, there's a bakery here. Shio melon pan (salty melon bread). That looks really good. This toast is here. Yeah, it looks really good. So I might actually, because the restaurant is closed, I might grab one of these bentos and they all look really good. So this is food from this area along the Shimanto River. They have some really good looking bentos. Check this out. It costs about $4 actually for this. That's a steal. This is a beautiful looking katsudon too. Looks so delicious. This is some croquette. And there's some pidofu (tofu?) and fried rice. And there's curry rice.

09:51 John Daub: But what I like about the Michi no Eki, you have a lot of local stuff. Here's some local produce. Some tako (octopus). Octopus is right there. Some salad dressing. Oh, I love this stuff. And you can try it. It's made from the vegetables and kind of sticky. But there's wasabi in there. And Kochi has some wasabi, I guess. So I'm just going to take a little tour around here. And then this is the restaurant, but closed, which is a shame. We're just a little bit too late. Some local handicrafts, some hats, lacquerware. It's nice. Chopsticks from the area. If you want postcards, you got to go to the postcard club. These do look pretty good. That's $5 for a box of these from Kochi Prefecture.

11:29 John Daub: Hey, Wariwi JB. Oh, I didn't. We didn't feel any earthquake. I'll have to check in with Kanae and make sure everything's okay. They do have cold drinks. Again, there's no convenience stores out here, by the way. We were driving around. There's like two or three convenience stores in the whole place. This is Yuzu House, yuzu-flavored ice cream, which is citrus. It's kind of a citrusy taste. But guess what? At this time, it's closed, which is a shame. But I leave you now with one more pass before we go to the next one. So before we go to the rice vending machines in the corner, I just want to say goodbye to the Hiyoshi Yume Sanchi demon mother who looks good. Just don't say it too loudly or her husband, who I showed you earlier, might come out and not be really happy about that. It is a very interesting statue. You would not find this in most rest stops. It is an anomaly.

12:57 John Daub: Now, last thing we're going to do is take a look at this. The rice cleaning vending machines. These you find these all over the countryside. Again, we are in Kehoku Town. Oh, now I know where we are. Kehoku Town. Oh, he's bringing rice to clean. You see that big bag that he bought? So he's going in there to clean. Let's go take a look. Rice cleaning vending machine. First, make sure there are no spiders residing in there. I've seen some big ones. Oh, he's cleaning it. I can hear the rumble. He's even got a cart to carry so much rice. Whoa. He's putting in all the rice.

14:16 John Daub: Make sure you take out all the rocks and everything from your rice. And then you can just go in there and see what's going on. Just make sure it's pure and good. What you do is you come in here with like 10 kilograms of rice apparently or more. That's a lot of rice. And Chunky Glass, hello from Manila. Thank you, Chunky Glass. So you want to put all of the rice in here. And they put the grates in here just to keep the big items from falling into this grinder. Look at that. And I guess it grinds the rice. And it takes off the husk from the rice. It'll clean it inside this machine. And then it comes out here where you collect the polished rice. And if you do make a mess, there is a broom and a dustpan to clean up after yourself. Very good.

15:16 John Daub: Wow. It's so cold. Is it high? You're cleaning, right? Yes. Does it take time? Yes. It takes about 10 minutes. Oh, 10 minutes? Yes. Wow, I've never seen that before. 30 kilometers? 30 kilometers? Yes. Wow. It's a half-billion. In Japanese, it's 60 kilometers. Oh. And that half is 30. Yes. And that's 17,000. Wow. That's the rice that's been ground. Oh. It's so good. It's interesting.

16:13 John Daub: Oh, I can see the rice now. Oh, is that okay? Yes. Check it out. He said I can come in here and film. Wow. Look at this. So it's cleaning the rice. 30 kilograms of rice. And then it's coming into this bag here. And he brings it to polish. And you can pick the polishing rate that you want as well. Wow. This is so cool. And this costs 500 yen, apparently. This is so cool. And you can pick the level of the rice. How much you want it polished. That is badass. Sorry, but it is. This is awesome. You can polish that rice down to just like nubs. Well, that's very nice of him to let us take a look at his rice.

17:04 John Daub: Wow. He's really polished it down. I could watch this all day. If you like this, hit the like button. I'm fascinated by the smallest things. The smaller it is, the more fascinating it is to me. And then there are the big things like this building and what's in front of it. Well, that was nice. So you got a chance to see a rice polishing in action. I've never seen that because I never had rice to be polished. You have to have the rice to be polished.

18:02 John Daub: All right, folks, that's about it. But I want to leave you with a shot of the car because I am driving a Kochi car. And here we go. Check it out. This is a Mark X baby. Nothing but the best. And I found out that if you do drive in Japan, you can get these stickers. These stickers allow other people to know that you're not from around these parts and you don't get in accidents. And people are friendlier to you if you have one. It's a little embarrassing, you would think, but people are friendly when you have one. It's a sweet ride. It's my car. I'm going anywhere. I'm doing it in a Toyota Mark X. X marks the spot.

18:58 John Daub: All right, folks, that's all I got for you. Thank you so much for watching this live stream. I hope you enjoyed this very bizarre roadside art in the middle of nowhere. I put a link in the description. You can find it. It's in Kochi Prefecture, which is so cool because the more I walk around, drive around this area, I find and that is just, I don't know, awesome.