00:00:03 John Daub: Hello everybody. How are you? I hope everyone's doing well. I am in the United States right now and we're doing this live stream away from Japan, but that doesn't mean that I can't still talk about topics that are related to Japan, right? Camera's over here. Yeah, it's always fun to do these live streams on the road because we're in a different time zone. Right now I'm in the east coast of the United States in the state of Vermont, and I'm going to be here for, I don't know, a few more days before I head back to Japan. But while I'm here, I thought this would be a great opportunity for me to look back on an episode that I uploaded last week on scuba diving in Japan. And if you're a scuba diver, or even if you're not a scuba diver, there is so much information that I think is really information about Japan in this upcoming episode. So, let's get started.

00:00:59 John Daub: So, let's get right into it. This is a director's take on the scuba diving episode. The link is in the description. Definitely check this out if you're interested in scuba diving in Japan, especially because of the location. Do you guys know where the location is? You can also look in the live stream. There's a live stream chat going in. The live stream, so we have about 150 people here. It's Ogasawara. Ogasawara is Chichijima, Hahajima, and it's like a family of islands. 1,000 kilometers into the Pacific from the city of Tokyo. You can only get there by ferry, which means that it is super special of a place. People who go to Ogasawara are serious about it. Like, so much so that they will take that ferry one full day to get there. You cannot fly. There are no flights. Even if there's like a heart attack or an emergency, it requires the Japan Self-Defense Force to fly an airplane there, get you, and fly you to the place where you're supposed to be. So, you can fly you back to Tokyo, and it's probably pretty expensive. But that's kind of how reclusive this is, how deep into the Pacific this place is. No flights, which made me so excited when I went there last year to film this episode. All right, I'm going to give you some notes on this, and as we do this, I will be looking at the live stream a little bit, be able to give you some catch ball. At the end of this, after I tell you about some of the stuff that you see in this video, question and answer. You can also follow along in Discord. If you're not familiar with the Discord server, it's an app that you can download, and we can talk. We have about 2,500 members on there that are talking 24-7 only in Japan, question and answer. So, it's pretty exciting. Let's get to it.

00:02:47 John Daub: The opening. I always try to pick the best shots. I always try to pick the best shots that encapsulate the episode. Those were it in eight seconds or less.

00:03:04 John Daub: This is the Pacific Ocean. This is Ogasawara called the Bonin Islands. This island in particular is Chichikima, and all around me, surrounded around this boat is the Pacific Ocean, the sea. We have so much beautiful marine life underneath the ocean here. This is called the Galapagos of the East for a reason. There's so... It really is the Galapagos of the East because it's so far away from all the other islands in Tokyo. It's so far away from everything. It is kind of very separated. A lot of the islands here just act differently. Maybe not to the point where there is as friendly as... I don't know if you've ever been to the Galapagos. I've been to the Galapagos back in 2003. The most incredible experiences that I've ever had in my entire life where the animals would come up to you. Where you would go scuba diving in the Galapagos. I did that, I think, four dives I did there. One of them was in the cities, in the main town's harbor. And the sea lions would come up to you, and then maybe within like a foot or, I don't know, like 10, like 20 centimeters away from you. They would look up to you underwater. We're like 18 meters under. Look at you. And then they'll just be swimming all around you and they come right up to you. It's the most amazing thing, looking eye to eye with a sea lion. That's how friendly and curious the animals are on the Galapagos. And they're just sort of the same here too, which makes it kind of unique. It's just this little paradise in the Pacific, on the other side of the Pacific. The term is relevant.

00:04:47 John Daub: Ogasawara is a scuba diving jewel in the Pacific. It's a 24-hour ferry ride, 1,000 kilometers from central Tokyo. Ferry is the only way to get there. No flights, so you have to be committed to staying for a week. It makes all trips to Ogasawara very special. There are dozens of dive sites around. Yeah, this is very true. I've never done an episode like this. Usually, no, always. It's on land. Sometimes I've seen people then skydiving episodes. You can do it in different space shuttle episodes. I don't know. And then there's that one place that not that many people have explored, which is under the sea, right? There's a whole world under there.

00:05:30 John Daub: And I don't know how many people that are watching are scuba divers. I have a dive master's license. I've been scuba diving, wow, for, I don't know, 15, about over 15 years now. Hundreds of dives. I've been all around the world, from the Maldives to the Galapagos, as I told you, to Honduras. Wow, Bali, Thailand, the Great Barrier Reef. I've been able to do dives in Tahiti, Easter Island, I did dives. So I've seen a lot of the oceans. And I was particularly excited about this. In Japan, the diving in Okinawa is pretty good. I did three or four dives with Kanai two years ago in, where is that, down there? It's another island in Okinawa. Gosh, my mind is carrying away. Okay, Ishijima. Ah, it'll come to me. Beautiful island. I think the thing about diving in Japan is something that I get into a little bit later on. And it's something about Japanese culture. It's not just for diving. It's one of the most annoying aspects of this type of activity for non-Japanese. And I'm going to get into it in a minute. It comes up over and over and over again by Western divers in Japan. So it'll be interesting to discuss that.

00:07:01 John Daub: From Ogasawanaville. This brings back so many memories of the episode I uploaded last year. The island history is international, tied with whaling. But since it was returned to Japan in 1968, it's become a sanctuary for wildlife. And it shows with the incredible diving under the Pacific. I left with dive company Fisheye in the morning. They have a pension available for... Yeah, this is really... Fisheye was a really good dive company. I don't rec... I guess I can recommend them. They were really friendly. They were really friendly, but not a lot of English. None of them did... The dive masters are younger, usually in their 20s. They can speak enough English. But the thing is, if you know the codes, when you're underwater, you can't speak anyways, right? So as long as you have a communication with your dive master and you know how to signal for help, how to get his attention, and you have a buddy who's just constantly... not constantly, but looking after each other, then you're always going to be really safe under the water, no matter what country you're in.

00:08:07 John Daub: Japan, probably... this is the annoying thing with it. I guess I can get into it right here. Japanese dive masters and dive companies, I've never... and I've been in only... Ogasawara and Okinawa. They're overly protective, so much so that it hurts the fun. And it's just absolutely overly conservative, more than they need to be. Because they don't want to have an accident. They don't want to have an accident. And that's not a bad thing. That's not a bad thing at all. But you can tell it just kind of kills that fun vibe that you get when you are scuba diving in places in the rest of the world. You come to Japan, and they've done all of this stuff for you, first of all. The dive master almost doesn't trust these recreational divers to set up their own rigs, which I think is just bizarre, because we should be able to do that if you are an open water or an advanced diver. You should be able to set up your rig. Any diver should be able to put their BCD and the regulator into the oxygen tank, check the O-ring, be able to set up their gear, right? In Japan, they do that for you. It could be because of the service that they want to give you to make you feel like you're very... that you're getting a lot for your value, for what you paid. Or it could be to make sure that you're getting the best, because the dive master is checking everything. He's doing it. He's accountable, so it's his job. Whatever it is, just that little thing of them doing it, is so annoying. So I always undo it, and then I do it myself. Because I trust me. I'm the one using the rig. I'm the one using the tank and making sure that the oxygen is set up. Not him. Not her. So it's very important for me to do that. And I get a lot of stares from them, and I don't care, because for me, that's what I do with my buddy. This is the way I learn through Patty. And I think that there's not a lot of laughing. There's not a lot of people having fun on the boats. It's more subdued. That's not a bad thing. It's just different style. But don't let that... And then here's the thing. And this goes beyond diving. Just because this is the way that they're acting in Japan, on these boats, does not mean that that's the way that you should act. If you're not having fun, then they've failed as a dive company, because it's not just to keep you safe. Recreational diving should be fun. So do what you gotta do if you come with friends. Have some fun. Just be responsible. But you can smile. You can laugh. You can come out of the water going, woohoo, because that's what I do after I see a shark and dolphins and stuff like this. I get excited about stuff. Maybe your dive master won't because he's worried about the job, but that doesn't mean that that should impact the way, the fun that you have. And this goes not just to scuba diving, by the way. Anytime that you go on a tour and it looks like everyone's shy in this and you're not a shy person, do what you want to do, okay, and have some fun with it. And I think that's what you're paying for. Don't let that, woohoo, right? Don't let that ruin your experience. So I only say this because I've seen so many negative comments on scuba dive from non-Japanese scuba dive companies about this. They're overly conservative, and it's a complaint. And look, maybe they are, but do things your way too. You don't have to do it their way. All right.

00:11:28 John Daub: Number 56. What's up, Bob? This is a submarine chaser. It is what's on the bottom of Futami Bay, as I just said in the narration. But it's one of the most intriguing wrecks because it's so close to the shore. It was sunk by the allied forces in a bombing raid. I believe by, was it torpedoes? I'm not quite sure, but I know that the deck is completely obliterated because you see that in the shots when we were about to go underwater. This is number 14. The one that's underwater is number 50, and they're basically the same. The first 28 were made. They were called, I guess, like the class 28. And then the next ones were another class, but they're basically the same. All right. They just had different numbers on there. So I get a chance to show you what it looks like under the water. Safety check. Mask. Regulator. Let's dive. All right. You always check with your buddy. All right. When I jump in, I did something with the editing. All right. When I get into the water, you can hear the music muffle. I don't know, just a little teeny detail. But you can hear like as though the music is playing on the boat, right? And then it muffles as soon as you get into the water. I don't know. Tell me if you can hear the difference.

00:13:00 John Daub: I like that. Just a little detail. I don't know if anybody picked up on that. Descend slowly and equalize the pressure by one second. And then the music fades away. And then we get to it. The music changes. Finding the music for this episode is very, very hard. Making it match, fit, and feel. Visibility is good, but it gets a little tougher to see near the bottom where the wreck rests. This kind of, I don't know if you've seen the movie The Abyss. Just an underwater mysterious place. To me, that's my first experience getting into the ocean, to the sea as a scuba diver, was just a mysterious place. It's got all that blue. The colors, the first color that you lose underwater is red. All right? So you start to, the deeper you get, the more colors you lose. So that means the world is, lacks color. It's mysterious. And I say red, okay, if you're not a scuba diver. I remember I cut my finger on a rock. I was about 12 meters under. And the blood was coming out of my finger, just a little bit. And it was green. And I was freaking out. This is my third dive. I was freaking out, like, where's my green blood? Did I get, like, stung by some alien fish and now I've got green blood? And then it struck me, wait a minute. Red is the first color that you lose underwater. Okay? So my blood is green underwater because there's no red color. That was pretty cool. Although very scary. So scuba diving is kind of fun. It's just a different world. So you have to have the music fit it.

00:14:43 John Daub: That's cool. The ship has been taken over by the sea. I believe this metal object used to lower rescue boats into the sea. I wasn't really sure what some of this stuff was. All I could do is look at those pictures that I showed you and estimate what it was, actually. Except for the funnel. Some of the parts of the ship, you clearly tell what it is. But some of the other objects. The bomb seriously destroyed the deck. Penetration diving is impossible here. No. You can't dive into the wreck here. So it's non-penetrable. You usually can go inside of wreck diving. It's pretty cool, but not this one. The 76.2 millimeter gun is the most notable feature, standing tall like it did when it was built more than 75 years ago. This ship had only been built seven months before it was sunk. It didn't see a lot of action. So I don't think this gun was fired much. Wreck diving is one of the most fascinating reasons to explore under the seas. It's just awesome to see how the sea has grown on these man-made objects. It hasn't aged very well down there. But divers very much respect things like this.

00:15:54 John Daub: I can see something rather large circling towards the bow. It's hard to find this music. It fit perfectly. It looked three meters long, almost 10 feet. Something eerie about the view. We were perfectly safe. I might have played it up. A little bit. Now they say they're harmless to divers, but I see a shark. I try to get out of the way. But I've lost sight of them. They could be anywhere down here. 25 meters below the surface. I really couldn't find them. They're nowhere near that side of the boat, nor on deck. All right. I was filming with a Sony RX5. I don't know. It's a little portable camera in a waterproof housing. There's no screen that I can flip out to see myself. So I don't know what's behind me. I'm just filming myself and I'm looking around for the sharks. And I didn't know that they were behind me. I really didn't know until it was too late. And I didn't know how close that they came. That was creepy. That was creepy. You're going to see that right here. Never panic when scuba diving. Eventually they'll reappear.

00:17:20 John Daub: All right. I was slightly creeped out there. It had come pretty close. In fact, there was a shot. Later on when I get out of the boat that you're going to see this in about a minute. The shark did get quite close to me, to my camera. I had the camera extended like this and the shark came about, I'd say one, one, maybe a little bit more than a foot away. And here, I think it was about two feet away, but it looked quite, quite close. And if you see the shark, the teeth on these things, you don't want to get close. The tiger sharks are often here in late summer. You know, hanging around the wreck yard. They're not hungry. Seems like a place you'd find a shark. Just don't bother them, you know, stay out of their way. They move slow in and out of the silt between the metal and the wreck. Yeah.

00:18:19 John Daub: Hey, Fay. Thank you. Yeah, we made it. We made it safe here to the US. Thank you for that.

00:18:32 John Daub: Japanese divers. All right. They're really the most boring divers in the entire world. When they see something amazing, they seem they have, they're like poker faces. Like nothing had happened. Me? I go crazy. I'm like, this is the greatest thing ever to happen in my entire life. I want to tell everybody about it. I can't keep, I can't keep my mouth shut. I could be in a no talking, I could be in a library coming up out of water into a library, you know, like Indiana Jones did that. It's like comes out of the, of the manhole cover. You're supposed to be quiet. No way. I'm going to be shouting. I just saw a shark. This is how diving should be. I think when you get underwater and you see some amazing things, you should have this kind of feeling. This is what you pay for. This is what you want. You want to do a lot as an, in an adventure. So for me, this is how I, this is how I react. I'm wild. We were down there for, it wasn't dangerous. We saw, um, they were not one, not two, but three sharks down there. Very big ones. Sand tiger sharks. They're going to be here for just a couple more weeks. They're here. And why are sharks here? I don't know. Samé means shark in Japanese. Samé. Yeah. So the sharks are going to be here for just another couple of weeks. They're actually pregnant. So they've come here to give birth, which makes me think that they might want to protect their baby. This is the close shot right here. Cause it's not every day that you get within, I think it was like 15 centimeters or like six inches of it. Just take this. This was the closest. I didn't have any zoom lens or anything like this. I'm just holding the camera like this. Trying to keep still to get the shot and the shark sees me. We make eye contact and then the shark just kind of goes around. I'm not threatening to the shark and the shark doesn't feel threatened. They're just moving out of the way. Kind of like I would do if I saw another diver. I don't want to run into the diver so he just kind of turned. Right behind me I was somewhat nervous. They had big teeth. Did you see the big teeth? But as I reflect back on my own life there's still a lot that I want to do so maybe let's just not do that again. Yeah. But it was still pretty cool. Don't do that. I didn't dive that spot again. Ten minutes later I was still pretty impressed. That was just awesome. I was talking about that for a while. The beauty of this island is not just below this. Yeah so wreck diving is something I think that just like in the Pacific Ocean because of World War II especially in the North Pacific there's so many amazing wrecks to discover. Even down in Bali there's an amazing wreck I believe on the east side of the island that's you can dive in from walking in from the beach. You can walk in and dive. I think it does get down to about 25 meters but it's an amazing wreck dive. That's one of the best ones I think in the world the World War II wreck dives but Japan has tons and tons of wrecks and it's interesting to see World War II from a different side from the Japan side because the allies had done a lot of bombing raids in Chichijima. In fact this is where President Bush, the first President Bush, his plane was shot down in 1943 or 1944 and a couple of planes were shot down and his crew was captured. Everybody was captured in his crew except for him. He escaped. A US submarine picked him up. There's some video footage archives of it but almost all of that crew was eaten, cannibalized by people on the island because there was a lot of water, wasn't enough food on the island so they ate the prisoners just it was survival and um you know he could have been among among them so he lived with that for all of his life even during his presidency okay uh he'd come to japan a couple of times he got sick once eating food they say because of an off-color joke that somebody meant it wasn't just because of the sushi we're not really sure this is just what i've heard and um he came in 2002 after uh his presidency back to this island to chichijima to make amends he hugged um people that were islanders locals that were on the island i don't know during the war but they had been repatriated to the island islanders during world war ii were sent back to tokyo sent back to japan and then after the war they were repatriated to chichijima so um it was it was a war zone island so president bush came back and there's very little information on on this secret trip but i got a uh some photos from locals and cnn came with president bush to kind of bring the story that it has to do with the seas all around the island so there's a lot of wrecks you might even see the world war ii airplanes that were shot down off of the coast down deep into the water there's tons of dive sites but the water was so deep that it was... oh man deep blue color of the pacific here is beautiful look at that cone in blue there's even a name for it there's a name for this water bonin blue it's beautiful it's a blue that we see in our dreams with white sandy beaches this is worth the 24 hour trip very easy to fall in love with the ogasa water islands oh man what am i doing here i want to go back to ogasa water all right quick note the color is amazing it's freaking unique i'm just like i'm not sleeping bucks alex if you know it's like a It's neat to do this.

00:24:23 John Daub: Oh, hey, John Michael Walker. How you doing? Long time no see. The drone shots. This is very important. You cannot launch your drone legally from Ogasawara. They have a law against launching drones from the island. It's a protected place. It's a World Heritage Site, the whole island. Because as I said, it was the Galapagos of the East. They are very serious about protecting the wildlife. They don't want drones disturbing the nature. They don't have airplanes, so they don't want drones, right? They don't want helicopters. They don't want anything in the air except for nature. They want to really preserve this. So you cannot fly drones from the land. So, so you can fly drones from the boats. If you are out at sea and you hand launch your drone, or you can hand catch your drone, you can take those drone shots that I saw, that you saw on here. All of them. All the drone shots for this episode and the episode before were taken from the FishEye boat. Because FishEye's captain is one of the skippers, boats that you can take that will allow you to launch drones. I think there were four or five other boats, the five operators that let you launch drones from boats. So you can get views of the island and the seas nearby. Japan and the island itself and the main island is also very protective about drones. There's a lot of places you cannot use drones, like in the cities, of course, near airports and things like this. But this island is particularly protected, even though there's not a lot of population and you probably could get away with it. But I live in Japan. I have to really make an effort to follow the laws because I'm a resident of Japan. So you follow the laws, right? You don't want to in your own home country. This is my home country because I'm a resident. I live there, even though I'm really happy to be back in the United States. You don't want to break the laws and you don't want to lead an example for other people to break the laws. So I have to follow the laws most of the time. Most of the time. All the time.

00:26:34 John Daub: Nature has expressed its love with the hard rock. I love this hard rock. You do see it. You do see it, right? It's beautiful. The captain was taking us around to an island sanctuary accessible only with a licensed guide. This southern island is called Minamijima. It's where sea turtles go to lay their eggs and a wildlife preserve for birds. Highly protected place. Very, very beautiful. Very natural. You can only only 100 people under the rock arch. Only 100 people can get entry in here. But one here is a warm 27 degrees Celsius, 80 degrees Fahrenheit. You have to go with a licensed guide. It's there. There's nobody really there to enforce it. But the islanders. Enforce it. Meaning if you did go and did that by yourself, if you do try to show your face around the island, it might something might happen. I don't know what you're saying. Follow the laws. So we snorkeled into here. This is Minamijima and it's famous for that.

00:27:53 John Daub: Joe Michael, do you know if Japan has a Special Olympics? So just really quickly. Yes. Japan has a Special Olympics. It follows the main Olympics. It's called the Paralympics and the Paralympics has its own logo. The Tokyo Olympics has done. It's a round logo with with the pieces of blue cut around it. And the Paralympics is half of that. It's an incomplete one, but it looks like almost like a crescent moon. And it's just a really beautiful shape to it. That's the Paralympics. And I'm really looking forward to the Special Olympics or the Paralympics because of the technology of it. Thanks for asking about that. I appreciate it. But the turtles will lay their eggs and when they hatch, there'll be a lot of these little baby turtles making their way into the protected sea through. I want to go back here. Over there. And it's just an amazing sight to see. We won't get to see that today, but with our guide, we can scout around the island for about 30 minutes. Again, it's a very pristine, clean, very few people go in here. So it's a special area that arches there. It's very famous for the Augusta. A lot of islands in the Sandy, like a little desert. Perfect for laying eggs. If I were a sea turtle, you got to be careful during the breeding season. I guess the guides know where to go so you can see the eggs and things like this. But loads of turtles will be coming out and making their way to the sea during the breeding season. When you see one little guy, when we when we were there, I have to tell you this story really quickly, OK? When we were there, we did see a lot of turtles that were not going to make it. They were going to die. And our first reaction is to pick up the turtles and to save them and to put them into the sea so that they make it to the sea. And live. And I'm not going to say whether or not I did that. OK, that's for you. If you know me to put the pieces together on how this turtle got into the water. But I know the turtle made it to the water. OK, and he made it out to the open sea. And that made me really happy. But you can never, ever touch the wildlife, no matter how much it hurts here. That the wildlife is dying or you see a bird pick up a baby turtle and fly off with it. You don't want it. You cannot get a slingshot and sling the slingshot that bird down. Don't try to save the little turtle, even though you want to. All right. Don't do it. Don't touch the turtles, even though you want to. All right. This is it because it is a protected thing. And oh, man, it's there were loads and loads of little dead baby turtles. But that's nature. And you just can't mess with it on this island. So I respect that. So I didn't show any other scenes that I might have. I might have cut some scenes. Might have his way into the sea. It's important not to disturb the wildlife in any way. So we cheered him on. The nature take its course. It's not easy to swim through the waves to the open sea with those little arms. But with a lot of effort and we saw him leave us heading north. I guess soft spot for baby turtles. I'm sorry. Any babies just you got to help them travel. But you can't looking at you. The captain spot to see the captain. What is friendly as visitors? He's a drone captain to travel 30 minutes to the north. He has he knows his drones and he knows the scuba diving. So it was fun working with the fish.

00:31:19 John Daub: I do you see their fins above the water? You can see the dolphins here. It's just like you have to look at it. This is the first shot of the dolphins. You can see them just here. One jumps so high that I thought she was trying to fly. Now the drone, my drone. I had when the dolphins came out, I ran. I ran my drone out and I launched the drone into the sky and into this dolphin area because I know we had five or six chances where we encountered dolphins swimming through there. So I had the drone and you don't know where they're going to be jumping. You don't know where exactly this is all going to happen. But in the corner, one did jump. So I enlarged it to 300 percent. The quality isn't as good, but I moved it over here in this box. And you can see it quite clearly. Just this beautiful, perfect ten jump in my books. It was a perfect ten because, yeah, I got it. I captured it on film on a drone. You don't see too many drone shots of the dolphins, right? Usually they're underwater. So I thought that was kind of unique. Dolphins here enjoy their stopover around the Ogosa Wana Islands. Playing in the delightful bone in blue water. Drone shots of dolphins playing. A few came right up to us. This is from the boat now. It's very hard for me to get those perfect shots of the of the dolphins. It's very hard to. Get them to stop. Usually when they see you, if you don't make eye contact with dolphins, they'll just ignore you and then move past you. If you can make eye contact, they'll start to play with you. It's all about them feeling comfortable with you. And that's why eye contact and maybe snorkeling or free diving is the best way to go with with dolphins.

00:33:05 John Daub: John, what is the one thing that you miss about the United States? Oh, that's a great question. I'm going to come back to that. And David Kimura. Hey, David. Snacks and gifts. Thank you very much. I appreciate that. I'm going to answer that at the end of the live stream in the question and answer. OK, so this is one thing that I miss about the United States. And there's a lot of stuff. So like the first couple of days, you do all those things that you miss. First of all, a couple of things here. You can see how beautiful the water is here. That bone in blue, how beautiful and untouched. It's such an unspoiled place in the world. I always I just feel like we're losing places like this. So. I appreciate it. Join them for the party down below. I get excited when I see dolphins. I just jump in there and that's the wrong thing to do. You should go in there nice. I should be doing the audio. You should go in there nice and smooth and beautiful because dolphins want to play with with other beautiful, beautiful dolphins are beautiful. They want to play with other beautiful creatures. And I jump out like this dolphin, like this. They don't want to play with me. They just move the heck away. But other divers that are more experienced with dolphins and are not overly excited and more poker face, like a lot of Japanese divers, they get quite lucky with the dolphins like these video from fisheye. Some of the other dive masters for fisheye took these the shots and they're beautiful and they let me use this for this video. So I was very thankful for that, which is why I'm plugging. Little bit because hey they gave us some beautiful video right live stream won't be too much longer usually it's about 45 minutes right beautiful shots of dolphins and of course snorkeling in Ogasawara is very nice some of the places are just like aquariums I'm just gonna go through the next footage really quickly there's not too much more I want to talk about this the price for scuba diving in Japan is also quite expensive I think that you're paying for the services and just the costs of Japan are more than they're gonna be in Thailand or Indonesia of course I'm even Australia the cost in Japan are gonna be higher so the prices reflect that and there's not as many divers in Japan you don't think scuba diving when you go to Japan you just don't so there's not a lot of international divers that are going to Japan for scuba diving which is a shame there should be more The President of Japan is saying that scuba diving is not a good thing I had to add these shots on the island the amazing interaction between the stingrays this could have been its own episode I was debating that I had a lot of content on this so I just inserted it I maybe made a mistake with that because the connection between the locals the connection with the locals and some of the marine life here is incredible the way that I've never seen like you've been to SeaWorld where the the trainers have this interaction with with killer whales and dolphins and they just train them but rather do all the things that other Veronica but I just locals have done with sting rays that come very frequently into there this is Saka Saka Jura beach and every time I wrote a my motorbike through there you can see this wreck jutting out of the water because it's very shallow and you can see the boat just deteriorating over the last 75 to 90 minutes because it's very shallow it was sunken very shallow waters and you can see the boat just deteriorating over the last 75 to 99 minutes which is an incredible It's current situation so if you've joined people how could not yourLC Chem and friends and friends regularly get involved in the process then that's something to make sure that you sign up to the interview. Years. You can snorkel from, you don't have to be scuba diving to go to check out this wreck. There's some people sitting on the wreck that are snorkeling there. You can see it in some of the drone shots. Anybody can go to this wreck and check it out. I thought that was pretty cool just to drive around Ogasawara and you're just constantly seeing that wreck when you're going around the bend of the bay of this beach, Sakaiwara beach. The last part of this video, I'm just kind of putting together a lot of the shots that I had for scuba diving. Basically, it was the wreck diving, it was Minamijima, it was the dolphins, the blue water, some of the stuff on land, and then random stuff just to show you how beautiful the water is in Ogasawara, like this more il. Well, you'll see them just about everywhere, but this one was particularly big. It was quite big, so that was neat to see them, see him going away. There's some very unique manta rays. This is a white-tipped reef shark, and we did have an encounter with a normal tiger shark, which are very aggressive. Tiger sharks, you don't want to mess with them. Sand tiger sharks are different than tiger sharks. Tiger sharks are very aggressive, territorial, and you don't want to see them. If you see them, you kind of want to just get away and give them their space. We encountered one while we were there. It came out of nowhere. It came, I don't know, about 50 meters, 75 meters away. We could see it. I zoomed in with the shot here, and then it just went back. We are not considered, scuba divers are not food for them. Dives, you'll see the shot in a second. There's some beautiful manta ray. Surfers are food. They look like turtles on the surfboard. That's why a lot of surfers are attacked by sharks. They look like turtles. Scuba divers do not look like that. By the way, this was not a magaro. I made a mistake on that. It's okay. I'm not the best with fish identification. The trumpetfish, they look like buddies. He's actually using that fish to hunt. I like that little story. Here, this is where we saw the tiger shark. Again, it's rare in these seas to see one, and when you do, they're very ferocious. This one, you want to be a little bit scared of. The ones that we saw before, they're very ferocious. They're very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very. They're more docile. You know, they're not going to attack humans. That attacks humans. Tiger sharks are not, you know, fun. You don't play with them. You don't play with any shark. What am I talking about?

00:39:32 John Daub: Cave diving is also something that I did a lot of in other parts of the world. It's just sort of neat to go into it. Usually it's good to have a local dive master who has been into these caves several times who can show you things like lobsters and little corners where marine life might be. He usually will bring a flashlight and know how to search it. That makes the diving unique. That's another thing about hiring a really good dive master, having the local knowledge. Just like any guide, you need a guide when you're underwater. That's just really neat. I don't actually need a dive master. I just need a buddy. I have enough dives under my belt to be able to navigate a map and then a compass and be able to tell left and right and north and south and things like this. I'm underwater using navigational tools. There's just something really nice about having a local dive master and having the orientation before you go diving to get you prepared for it. That makes it more fun. When you go to a place like Ocasawara and you have that local knowledge, it makes it so much more interesting, I think. Diving, scuba diving is one of the great things that you should do if you do make this trip 24 hours to go diving. Two dives, I think it was like $150. It's very expensive with all the equipment. Probably, yeah, like $150, $160 depending on the exchange rate for two dives. You might be able to get a package if you try to do more dives than that. But all in all, I absolutely love Ocasawara and it was not enough time. It was not enough time. I'm going to take some questions and answers now and talk about Ocasawara or Japan or anything like this. I just want to say thank you. John Michael, one of the things that I miss the most about America is my family. And then I will miss the food. I miss driving on the other side of the road. Now I have a license, but I always miss driving. It's just different, you know. There's a different energy in the United States than there is in Japan. People are more talkative. I think Americans are more friendly. And that's kind of neat to be able to wait in line. Or just walk around and you can talk very casually with people. We don't do that in Japan, so I kind of like that too.

00:41:55 John Daub: When you say cave diving, do you mean in the cavern? Yeah, where you can see exit and sunlight and actually have cave or no sunlight. I have been in some caves, but I never really go too deep into caves where you cannot see the light. Usually they're caverns or places where you can, underneath cracks. But sometimes you can go in a little bit. And if you're an experienced diver with very good control and there's enough space for you, you can go into some of these caves and see stuff. Maybe you'll see an octopus in there. You'll see some unique marine life. So cave diving is one of the things that I do. It is a little bit scary because you could be worried about getting your equipment stuck in rocks. Things like this. Or you don't want to touch anything. You might touch something like a sea urchin. That might have poison at it. Or a fish. Or a disturbed coral. Or things like this. You have to be very careful not to touch anything. That's the thing. So when I'm scuba diving, I don't move my arms almost never when I'm scuba diving. Except maybe when I'm holding a camera. My arms are like this. I'm scuba diving like this. And my arms are like this. And I'm perfectly buoyant. I don't touch anything. Alright? I can go up and down with my body without having to use my arms. And your arms just get in the way. And that's a mark of a good diver. If you're paddling with your arms, then you're not going to be a very good diver. You're going to be a disruptive diver. Diving is all propulsion from your fins pushing you along. The style. I go like this usually. Not like this. I go like this. And just like this. Just go very slowly. And see as much of the marine life as I can. Yeah. If you do have your own equipment, it will significantly reduce the price of it. If you do more than 10 dives, it will significantly reduce the price. If you're a dive master, you're supposed to get a 10% discount. A practicing dive master because there's value to having a dive master on board. But not a lot of the places will do that unless you're an actually practicing dive master. I'm not. I'm a dive master, but I'm not a practicing dive master. I have not renewed my license in many years. But I'm a dive master level. Yeah.

00:44:26 John Daub: Hey, Phone Queen. Thank you very much for the contribution. Mike, how you doing? Mike Hemphill. Cheers, John. Keep up the great videos. Thank you very much for the support. I really appreciate that. So scuba diving in Japan, I think it's not just limited to Ogasawara and Okinawa. But those are the biggest places where you can scuba dive. Some of the other. Other islands have scuba dive shops. You can actually scuba dive quite close to Tokyo on Ojima, which is one of the big islands, not very far from the mainland. Has some good diving. You can dive in the Sea of Japan, but it's much colder on that side. So you might want to bring your own wetsuit or like a thicker wetsuit, maybe seven millimeter. And then, of course, up in Tohoku and Hokkaido, they have dry suit diving. You can go and see the great snow crabs underwater if you have a dry suit, which will keep you much warmer because the seas there are quite cold. I haven't been been fortunate enough to dive there, but one day you might see me dive in looking for crabs. That would be fun. Okinawa was a lot of fun. Okinawa is cheaper than Ogasawara because there's so much more connected with tourists. There are more tourists. There's more volume. There's more competition. So Okinawa is a lot of fun. Okinawa is slightly cheaper than Ogasawara as a dive destination. And it should be because Ogasawara stuff comes from boat once a week. There's no planes. There's no flights. There's not a lot of connection.

00:46:01 John Daub: Let's see here. Any other questions? We're wrapping it up now. Anything on scuba diving? Getting your equipment. If you are thinking about buying scuba diving equipment, Tokyo has some pretty reasonable prices. But I would still think that the United States is going to be a good place to go. The United States is going to be the cheapest place to buy scuba diving equipment in the world. I should probably, now that I think about it, buy some stuff here while I'm here and bring it back. I probably should. Danny writes in, Hey John, how you doing Danny? How you doing? Actually not too far away from Danny up in Montreal. Phil's Gundam kits. Awesome video. Keep up the good work. Thank you very much Phil. I very much appreciate that. Equipment. Yeah. I'm going to go get my equipment. Yeah. You can rent the equipment, but I always think that it's good to have your own. I have my own mask. I have my own fins. I should have my own regulator, wetsuit, and BCD, but I don't have any of that stuff. I just have that. I have my own dive computer and compass. But I don't have a lot of time to go out diving. The thing about living in the Pacific area, the rim here, including Japan, is that there's so much phenomenal diving in the Pacific Ocean that you really have to take advantage of that and get a dive license. The best place to do it in this area is going to be Thailand. There's no doubt about it. I mean, it's not, I shouldn't say best. I should say cheapest. And the volume of people going there to study scuba diving is amazing. And therefore the prices are super, super affordable. I think that I'm pretty sure they've gone up over the years. But my dive master license was like $500 or something. And when you do a dive master's course, you can do as many dives as you want. And you can be a dive master for as long as you want until you sign off. So you can get a thousand dives. And this is all about getting experience, right? You want to have a thousand dives and then people will hire you because you have a thousand dives. So Thailand was a great place. Although the dive sites were a little repetitive, I think, it was a great place to learn diving. And I did my dive master course there for a year. I did it for a little bit less than six weeks. And yeah, I got well over a hundred dives during the course. I probably should have stayed there for another month just diving and giving people tours and gathering more experience. But I was pretty sure I wasn't going to do that for a career. So I stopped at about a hundred dives. And yes, your hundredth dive must be done naked. If you're at any reputable dive location in the world, except maybe Japan, when you have your 100th dive, you're supposed to do it naked. You can't have a BCD in a tank, of course. It's slightly embarrassing. Not everybody does it. But if you're cool, you might consider it. People really do do this too. It's just sort of a tradition. Naked 100th dive. If it is your 100th dive and you don't want to do it, don't tell anybody. Like nobody. You might get away with it. If not, the peer pressure can be a little bit rough. You know, for men, shrinkage. I'm not saying that that happened. It's bound to.

00:49:25 John Daub: Oh, hey, Coaster Crushfield. Hey, hello, John. Hope your evening has been great. Very good. I am in the United States. I'm here visiting family. Right now we're on summer vacation. I'm in a lake house, actually, and just enjoying a few days here. There's some beautiful swimming. We have a boat. A chance to go out and sort of relax and reset. I'm still editing videos. I'm editing one on Hiroshima. The Hiroshima anniversary is coming up in a couple of weeks. And I want to have a video ready to release about the history of that. I've been working pretty hard on this one. So that's something that's coming up. I also have another ramen episode that's coming up. And oh, wow. There's going to be a ton. I've been editing a lot of videos. I just have not released them because I'm working pretty hard on this Hiroshima one. So get ready for some massive releases. If you're one of our Discord. If you follow us on Discord, the community, I release a lot more information there. And on Patreon, of course. And on Patreon. Yes, ramen is going to be one of the episodes. And I've got a couple of new angles that nobody has thought about with ramen. So I've got about four or five good ramen episodes that are about to come out. Over time. I'm not going to release them all together. Ramen is good. But the world does not revolve around ramen. Although it maybe should. But ramen is very, very good. Very good food. It's a whole galaxy in there. Yeah. Thank you, Jim, for promoting the Discord server. Jim just provided a link right there if you're interested. It's 24-7 all about Japan, only in Japan. An amazing community. We have some great moderators that keep the chats pretty good, well moderated, perfectly moderated. So I appreciate all the work that everyone's doing with their Discord server. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You know, in this winter, I will probably go back up to Hokkaido. I wanted to do more Hokkaido summer episodes, but I just didn't have the time at this time. It's very hard to hit the seasons right and visit the certain places of Japan. There are just too many. In July is the best time to visit Hokkaido for summer. It's just spectacular with the flowers out. And I missed that window this year. So I've got to do it before the Olympics next year, which is going to be really hard. The Olympics is going to be crazy, everybody. The Olympics is going to be crazy next year. Just from the start of the year, the buzz and the hype behind it all is just going to be absolutely crazy. I do appreciate all the support, everybody. Any last questions? I'll take one more. When will you guys be back? We'll be back in the beginning of August. We'll be back at work. I'm still working, setting up location shoots for the month of August with the team. Hannah, who's helping me out right now with that.

00:52:26 John Daub: Oh, congratulations to Solares, who is one of the moderators on the Discord server. He is working for the Walt Disney World news site, the biggest Walt Disney World website on the internet. He's a reporter there. So congratulations for hitting that position. He's my go-to guy for all the information on Disney. Spencer Lloyd. So thank you very much, Spencer. Spencer Lloyd. Congratulations. Thank you for helping and moderating. Yeah, so I'm back in the U.S. I'm not doing any meetups or anything like that. It's just me and Kanai visiting family at this time. Just kind of doing that, you know. I mean, I think it's very hard to do this job 52 weeks out of the year. And I have a lot of respect for people who can keep it up like that. But we also have to remember that not everybody lives a YouTube life. My family does not. And it's important to be able to turn it off, which is hard when you're a YouTuber to turn it off. But you have to. And it's also good to do it. Even though I'm doing a live stream now, this doesn't count, right? But you should turn it off and be able to reset. And it also helps you with the mind, with the creative process. So you don't get burned out as well. So it's all part of it.

00:53:49 John Daub: John, what is the one thing that you miss much about the United States of America? I already answered that, John Michael. I answered that as soon as I started this Q&A. The one thing? Probably pizza. My family and pizza. How's that? And I've seen and had both of them in the first day. How about them apples? How about that pizza? Yeah, I miss that a lot. And driving. There's three. You only asked for one, too. Did you get New York pizza? No. No. You know, and I have to tell you something. I don't know if New York pizza is the best. I think it's pretty good. It's one of many good pizzas. I don't know. I like Chicago pizza, too. I like that deep dish. New Yorkers won't even call that pizza. They'll call it like a pie, maybe. I don't know. But everybody has their own kinds of pizza. New York pizza is pretty good. But I don't know if that's the best. It's pretty good. Detroit pizza? Yes. Sure, pizza. If you live in the Midwest, you have access to it. It's not just in Detroit, but Detroit's reputation as a pizza city is very well known. Thin crust. I prefer pan pizza. But I actually, you know what? I don't, I'll eat any pizza. When you're in Japan, you don't really have as many choices. You take what you can get. Although, over the last couple of years, the choices have really increased. Especially with the Olympics coming. I don't know. Every brand in the United States wants to be in Japan for the Olympics. So, I'm just seeing an explosion of brands. Like Shake Shack has 10 locations in Tokyo. Crazy. Are there really that many burger eaters? I guess so. If Shake Shack sees something that I don't, with Japan.

00:55:43 John Daub: Faye writes in here, are you planning on visiting any amusement parks while here? I totally wish I had that time. I probably would. Faye, I don't, I'm thinking of going, probably, well, go to at least a great adventure. A Six Flags, maybe. I think. I know my nieces really like Six Flags. I think they have annual passes. So, I might go and do one of those. Every time I come back to the United States, I want to go back to Cedar Point. I went to Ohio State University. Other Big Ten schools probably just stopped watching. Especially from the school up north. But, Cedar Point in Ohio State. In Sandusky, Ohio State. It's by far the most amazing roller coaster theme park in the entire world, like, times ten. I don't know if there's anything even close. It's just sheer roller coasters. Cedar Point. Write it down. If you come to the United States, go to Sandusky, Ohio State and hit Cedar Point. Rent a car and get up there. It is the roller coaster. It's just amazing. And it was 20 years ago when I graduated from college. And we went up there. And gosh, I haven't been back since. And some of those roller coasters from 20 years ago are still there, I hear. There used to be one called the Magnum. It was just amazingly fast. Wear the goggles. I was wearing it today in the water. So that's why they're still on here. They don't really fit that well. These would be great for driving the car. I have a convertible. So if I'm going to drive the convertible around, it's much cooler to wear goggles than to wear glasses, I think. It just freaks out the other riders. And I need a driving cap. If I get one of those driving caps, like an Aviator, that would be a lot of fun.

00:57:41 John Daub: I actually rented a convertible. It was a little bit more, I don't know, it was just maybe like $15, $20 a day more for a convertible. And we just had, I don't rent cars when I come back to the United States. So it was just, Kenai and I have been really enjoying that. Yeah, the cap with the fur ear flaps. Right, right. That's exactly what I'm talking about. And with the goggles on it, that'd be a lot of fun to drive around with. It's still too hot for that, though. Even with the wind blasting by in a convertible. Yeah.

00:58:14 John Daub: Any driving tips while in Japan? That's interesting. I have a, I'm glad that you brought that up. One of the episodes coming in August is one on driving. And I know a lot of other YouTubers have been doing this over the last couple of months. But I... I have my own version of it that's going to be coming out in August. And that'll give you a lot of tips. The one tip I can tell you is that it's on the other side of the road if you drive in North America. And you have to sort of program your head in a different way to take left turns and right turns differently. And understand some of the main important laws of driving in Japan that are different. And that's what that episode will set up. Kenai is asleep. Jet lag. And I'm very jet lagged, too. But I'm so excited to do live streams. My excitement and love for you is keeping me up. I said that in a way that I know you know I meant it.

00:59:18 John Daub: Hey, Cheryl Phillips. Enjoy your family time. We're looking forward to those five kids. I know. Kenai brought that up today. I know. She did bring that up today. And it's funny that you bring that up as well. Because we were driving in the car. And she's like, we have to hurry up. I hope she's not listening in the other room.

00:59:43 John Daub: Okay. So thanks, everybody, for this. I really appreciate this. I am in. Hey, John Michael. Thank you very much. I am in your time zone if you're on the East Coast of the United States. And that is really cool to share, finally, a time zone with you. Because I know we're 13 hours, 14 hours ahead. Because we don't do daylight savings times in Japan. So this is a nice time where I can connect with. People on the East Coast and in California on the West Coast. Just a lot of people are up right now. All right, everybody. So thanks so much for the support. Thank you so much for listening. If you do go to scuba diving, I do highly recommend Ogasawara. Even if you're not into scuba diving, it is one of those islands that's like once in your life. It is the kind of place that you have to go to. Like Easter Island. I've been to Easter Island. You've got to go to Easter Island once in your life. Galapagos. You've got to go to the Galapagos once in your life. Just you. You have to find a time. Drop everything and just go. Ogasawara is also one of those places where you just have to stop and just go. And you have to make like two weeks out of your life to go and do these things. There's probably stuff in Australia. You just have to stop and you just have to go out to the desert or something in Australia. There's places in the world. You just have to do this. Do a safari in Africa. You've got to do some of these things. Take like night trains in Eastern Europe or something like that. There's certain things in the world. There's certain things in the world that you have to do. Bucket list items. This should be on your list. Ogasawara. And if it isn't, go back and watch the first episode I made on Ogasawara. It will change the way you see this island and it will be on your list at the end. Just to say goodbye is a reason to put it on your list because it's the most beautiful goodbye I've ever experienced in my life. And from a ship. A ferry. I think it's a ship. So.

01:01:36 John Daub: Thanks everybody. If you have any comments, leave them in the questions below. David, I appreciate this last second live, last second super chat. That's so nice of you. I don't have the opportunity to do a lot of live streams when I'm here. So it's kind of neat to be able to do that. We've got some fireworks in the background. They knew that. Oh, that's so cool. Look at that. You see this out the window? Awesome. Totally not planned as I'm editing, ending this live stream. Totally not planned. So that's those fireworks are for you, David, for that last super chat. Let's see how we pay it forward. Right. Well, I don't have a lot of opportunities to do live streams while I'm here. I might do one or two more. Kanai and I were thinking about teaching some Japanese classes, teach you some survival Japanese in a live stream in the future. So that might come up in the next couple of days. But we'll be back in the beginning of August to do some more live streams. And we're going to release a ton of new episodes on the only Japan main channel. We have a lot that are coming to you. Do comment. And if you like this kind of video, the director's cuts, please hit that like button. Because if these types of videos don't get a lot of love, then I'll know where to invest my time. And this is a great way to break down these episodes I put on the main channel. Because I do put a lot of work in the in the main channel videos. So click that like button if you like it. I appreciate it. I can see you pushing it right now. All right, guys, I'm going to bed. If you're on the East Coast, you know why. We're on the same time. But we're also jet lagged out of our mind. Have a good day. Have a good night. Whoever you are in the world. If you're in Japan, have a good morning. And I will see you very soon in another live stream. Hopefully with Kanai as we report back to you on our trip to the United States and maybe even grab some Japanese food here. A shout out to my friend, Chef David and Ellis for the really wonderful bento that they prepared for us. We met up with them for just a very little bit of a time. So thank you very much for that. And we will see you soon. Good day. Good day.