00:00:02 John Daub: Oh yeah, this is pretty crazy. So this is a tarai-bune (traditional barrel-shaped boat). You can see the one on the left there straight ahead. Hana and I are now riding in a tarai-bune, a traditional boat in Sado. They look like barrels. Check this out.

00:00:43 John Daub: You guys nervous? Yes you should be. 50% of the people don't come back. Just saying, hey everybody. So once again, those of you joining us in this adventure, it's a last-minute, last-second type of decision that we made. We're going to do these tarai-bune in Sarugashima. The way they steer it is very interesting. Check this out. It's a left and right motion. It does look like a one-on-one.

00:01:40 Kanae Daub: It does. It's pretty cool.

00:01:40 John Daub: Thank you, Mr. Das. This boat needs an Asahi vending machine. Yeah, it absolutely does. Oh man. This is along the Sea of Japan. Really clear, beautiful water here. The water is quite warm too. The great thing about these boats is you're not that far off the water. Sea of Japan is very warm here in the summertime.

00:02:07 Kanae Daub: It's a little cold.

00:02:10 Kanae Daub: But this reminds me of a boat out of a fairy tale.

00:02:14 John Daub: Right? Very much so.

00:02:23 John Daub: Do you have your camera, Hana?

00:02:25 Kanae Daub: What?

00:02:27 John Daub: Tiara has it.

00:02:29 Kanae Daub: What?

00:02:29 John Daub: I know. Why are we? I didn't know we were doing this. How did this happen?

00:02:35 Kanae Daub: I don't know.

00:02:35 Kanae Daub: Five minutes ago I was eating at a restaurant and then everyone said we're taking a boat.

00:02:42 John Daub: How did this happen? Why am I here? How did this happen?

00:02:44 John Daub: It just happened. Life happens, you know. Live streams just happen, folks. Sometimes there is no warning. Behind us you can see another boat. And a boat. Dan from Drum Talk TV is staying afloat over there. His lovely wife enjoying themselves. I don't think we're going to be crossing the Sea of Japan towards Korea and China in this boat.

00:03:09 Kanae Daub: I would love to try.

00:03:11 John Daub: I think thankfully the typhoon that came through yesterday is long past. It's up by Hokkaido, Russia. So we won't have to worry about big waves. Yesterday this was canceled. And the reason why I think that I said yes to this is because we had another viewer who said that they wanted to try these tarai-bune. T-A-R-A-I-B-U-N-E. And he couldn't because it was raining and I felt bad that I wanted to experience this.

00:03:44 John Daub: Lost the signal for a second. Sorry, may have lost the signal for a second. We're back. If we do get stuck or the currents take us out, there is no motor to bring us back. We would just be out of luck. So for the next 10 minutes or so, enjoy this beautiful boat ride. And I will insert my commentary as I do on every livestream, talking more than I need to.

00:04:25 John Daub: You're by yourself? Ahoy!

00:04:30 John Daub: Are we back again? Are we back? Alright, press refresh on your screen. We should be back.

00:05:14 John Daub: Alright, let me try it again. We're back. It seemed like we were stranded out there in the Sea of Japan but this is what it's like. Oh, it's so beautiful. The sound of the waves crashing on the black volcanic rock, the shore over there. The trees in the background surrounded by nature as the other tarai-bune makes its way back to shore. It's extremely hard according to the driver to steer this. So you just kind of go with the flow and the flow is taking us back now. He found a way to turn us around. It's very interesting.

00:06:08 John Daub: There is a lot of seaweed here. It's funny to see behind us. We look like rescue boats. Life boats, I guess. See the people behind us. Sometimes speed is not something you want. We came by Shinkansen and then jetfoil. I prefer sometimes going a little slower. So it's really cool. They said they used to use these to go fishing or to use the nets to go get fish. And it's very rarely used, but some do. I know our driver—for our car—his wife used these sometimes.

00:06:52 John Daub: All right. Save the planet. That's a huge fish. All right. We brought in some plastic that was here. Good eyes.

00:07:03 John Daub: That was going to go to the Great Pacific Garbage Patch.

00:07:10 John Daub: Wow, a relic. Can we put that in the museum? There's a museum of everyday items that we can put it in.

00:07:16 John Daub: Wait, can you use this one hand? Oh, wait. You can use this to see what's inside?

00:07:21 Boat Driver: Yeah.

00:07:21 John Daub: Okay. Make sure you don't... All right. We can use this to see... Whoa. We can see under the sea.

00:07:30 Kanae Daub: Come back.

00:07:32 John Daub: All I see is my reflection.

00:07:34 Kanae Daub: You have to really put your hand in...

00:07:36 John Daub: Hana, I can't see anything.

00:07:38 John Daub: You really got to shove your head in there. And I can't do it with the gimbal. Why don't you shove your head in there? Okay. And then report back to us what you see.

00:07:47 Kanae Daub: Okay. Awesome.

00:07:57 John Daub: Do you see it?

00:07:58 Kanae Daub: Yeah.

00:08:00 John Daub: You saw seashells?

00:08:01 Kanae Daub: Seashells. Seashells.

00:08:02 John Daub: Did you see seashells down by the seashore? Did you see Sally... Seashells. Anyone named Sally down there?

00:08:08 Kanae Daub: Seashells.

00:08:09 John Daub: Sally saw seashells down by the seashore?

00:08:12 Kanae Daub: I don't know.

00:08:12 John Daub: Did you find that? It's like two meters deep.

00:08:14 Kanae Daub: It's about two meters deep, which is how many feet?

00:08:16 John Daub: Because we have North Americans here.

00:08:18 Kanae Daub: Oh, no. Hey, come on now. Feet.

00:08:19 John Daub: How many feet is two meters? A meter is... It's like three... Almost three feet. So it's like six feet approximately.

00:08:28 Kanae Daub: Eight feet. A little bit more.

00:08:32 John Daub: Weren't you born in America?

00:08:34 Kanae Daub: No.

00:08:35 John Daub: Well, you grew up in Hawaii though a little bit, didn't you?

00:08:37 Kanae Daub: A little bit?

00:08:38 John Daub: No?

00:08:38 Kanae Daub: No? I was always in Japan.

00:08:41 John Daub: You were always in Japan?

00:08:42 Kanae Daub: Yeah.

00:08:44 John Daub: Yeah. I like the metric system. It's easy. Everything's divided by ten.

00:08:47 Kanae Daub: Yeah.

00:08:50 John Daub: Binary is easy too. Just zero and one.

00:09:07 John Daub: Hobo? Hoboken? They're from New York. There's some people down there. There's a barbecue going on.

00:09:14 Kanae Daub: Do you see on the other side?

00:09:17 John Daub: I'm very curious. Are they stranded? Should we save them? SOS?

00:09:23 John Daub: SOS stands for Save Our Souls for young people. If you ever get stranded on an island, that's why you want to put it on there. Save our souls.

00:09:30 Kanae Daub: There's a barbecue probably.

00:09:37 John Daub: You're not allowed to have... They wouldn't be able to do this in Tokyo. Tokyo is a very, very small island. Tokyo has a very strict no-fire, open-fire policy. So no barbecues. That's why people go to Takoshinshi across the border to Kanagawa to barbecue. Just saying. I know a lot of things about non-important stuff.

00:09:54 John Daub: So we have a caravan going on here. Out of time.

00:10:02 Kanae Daub: Out of time. Yeah.

00:10:06 John Daub: Is barbecue actually Hoboken?

00:10:08 Kanae Daub: No, no.

00:10:10 John Daub: Barbecue is barbecue. Thanks, Mr. Das.

00:10:12 Boat Driver: Thank you.

00:10:13 John Daub: Hey, how'd you guys get ahead of us? Don't beat them. We want to win. Right now we're in last place. If this was... Do they have races? Do they have races in tarai-bune? They don't have any of these boat races. The tarai-bune boat races. I think that would be pretty awesome.

00:10:44 Kanae Daub: Really? Really?

00:10:48 John Daub: That's not a fair contest because you just won. You're a lot lighter. Although you didn't eat it. You just ate an omori curry rice.

00:10:54 Kanae Daub: True.

00:10:56 John Daub: So... I ate omori too.

00:10:56 Kanae Daub: We both did too, but curry rice is pretty heavy.

00:11:02 John Daub: As you can tell, they're a little bit deeper in. And his is a little bit higher off the water. So there's less surface tension. There's less surface... So this is just... For those of you who are watching right now, this is a tarai-bune riding experience that we're doing in Saro. Saro Island. This is something that you can do just in Saro. It's a park. And it's pretty interesting to do. Once. Because at any moment we could spill into the sea.

00:11:40 John Daub: The dust comes in with an animated emoji. Speaking of emoji, you will find Hana's emoji on our Discord server.

00:12:00 Kanae Daub: Of course. In various hair colors.

00:12:03 John Daub: Thank you. That was fun! Now watch as we... Alright. Okay. Watch Hana fall into the sea. That's pretty cool. Check out... Because I think this isn't going to be the end of the live stream in a minute.

00:12:40 Kanae Daub: I'd rather kayak right in the Italian bombshell.

00:12:43 John Daub: I would not disagree with that. Kayaking, you have more steering.

00:12:47 John Daub: How was that? Describe it. Describe the experience to our viewers.

00:12:51 Kanae Daub: It was beautiful because you could see under the water. And you could see the forest that's under the surface of the water. I loved it.

00:12:58 John Daub: Did you see any fish?

00:12:59 Kanae Daub: I saw a few little fish. It was great. Little tiny silver ones.

00:13:03 John Daub: Wow. Did you?

00:13:03 Kanae Daub: No. I couldn't get my head deep enough and it was very bright and I couldn't see.

00:13:07 John Daub: You have to really dig your head into that thing.

00:13:11 John Daub: Here's a gentleman who made this thing.

00:13:13 Kanae Daub: He made it?

00:13:15 John Daub: Okay. Hold on. Let's interview him.

00:13:20 John Daub: Ah! Ah! I've been exposed. My eyes! Ah! It's so bright out here. Keep it up here. Wow. So these are pretty big buckets. Yeah. I'm not sure if I can fit in here.

00:13:48 John Daub: Why is the tarai-bune shaped like this?

00:13:51 Boat Maker: Because it's a bamboo stick. Originally, bamboo sticks were used to pull the bamboo stick up. That's how it is. Bamboo sticks are round. Round bamboo sticks are easy to spin around, so they're made a little longer. Because they're round, they're very easy to go around from different sides of it. Traditional. They're easy to build. It's easy to make, right?

00:14:27 Boat Maker: It's easy.

00:14:30 John Daub: There's information here. Austin, did you find the information?

00:14:34 John Daub: Wow! He's the maker. Oh, the maker. Yeah. He makes them. Wow. Interesting. Yeah, yeah. This is what this guy is making. Wow. He's the maker of the boats here. He makes these boats.

00:14:54 John Daub: How long does it take to make one?

00:14:57 Boat Maker: About half a month.

00:14:59 John Daub: Half a year?

00:14:59 Boat Maker: No, no. Half a month.

00:15:01 John Daub: Half a month. It takes about two weeks to make one of these boats. Which is very cool.

00:15:10 John Daub: Does he have model numbers on them every year? There's upgrades? They're just basically traditional. These are questions that I like to ask. Like, if it was a car, you'd have a... This is the 2017 Lexus.

00:15:27 Kanae Daub: Oh, yeah.

00:15:27 John Daub: This is the traditional methods. Traditional, yeah.

00:15:30 John Daub: This is the Saddler? Douglas.

00:15:33 Kanae Daub: Oh. Oh, is he from overseas?

00:15:34 John Daub: He's from the United States. Wow, so there's an American who's building these boats here. He's using this data to make these boats. Very interesting. He's using the traditional ways of making the boats. Wow. There's an American guy who's making them in the traditional ways. That's great, that you see... And I love that a lot of Westerners are coming to Japan to learn the traditional ways of Japanese culture. And that's a way how Japan, because of its declining population, will protect its culture. It's us. Us Westerners and non-Westerners and people, just international people who are doing it.

00:16:24 John Daub: Yeah. Thank you.

00:16:26 Boat Maker: Thank you. Thank you.

00:16:27 John Daub: So you can try this experience. Hold on a second here. You can try this experience for 500 yen. Sorry, for adults 800 yen. So it's about $7.50. It was a lot of fun. And it's right here on the pier. Here's the map. What is this area called?

00:16:46 Boat Maker: Shukunegi.

00:16:48 John Daub: Shukunegi. So at the Shukunegi area of Sado.

00:16:54 John Daub: How many, one to ten, how was this experience?

00:16:58 Kanae Daub: Ten!

00:16:59 John Daub: What did I teach you last time? No, I'm an awful boss if I did not teach you. I'm not even a boss, I'm a leader. So no, I told you when someone says, you have to say 11.

00:17:13 Kanae Daub: Oh shoot, dang it. You forgot already?

00:17:15 John Daub: Of course, of course. How was this experience, one out of ten?

00:17:16 Kanae Daub: Twelve!

00:17:19 John Daub: See, now you're learning! And then I say infinity because you can't beat that.

00:17:23 Kanae Daub: Infinity!

00:17:26 John Daub: So that's how. Oh, okay, I think I'm on the other side. You're on the other one? Alright. Take it. Take care of my bag.

00:17:29 Kanae Daub: I can take my bag. You just take the tripod?

00:17:33 John Daub: Okay. Awesome. Good job today.

00:17:35 Kanae Daub: Thank you.

00:17:40 John Daub: Alright. Okay, I'm coming in this. Perfect. I'm coming in this vehicle hot. We have a lot of people. I don't know if this vehicle can transport all the people that are watching right now. Technically, I'm bringing a large amount of folks with us in this extremely high-tech minivan. There's a sunroof that you can pop your head out of. There's like a DVD player. There's a footrest.

00:18:11 John Daub: Did you find the footrest?

00:18:13 Kanae Daub: No.

00:18:14 John Daub: That right there. You can take that out. Get out of here.

00:18:16 Kanae Daub: Oh, that's awesome. I look at that. Very nice.

00:18:20 John Daub: This is like first class on an airplane.

00:18:22 Kanae Daub: Yeah.

00:18:23 John Daub: You can blast off.

00:18:24 Kanae Daub: Blast off.

00:18:26 John Daub: This is a pretty cool car. It's extremely hot outside right now. It's beautiful. But it's pretty hot.

00:18:32 Arizona Guest: We live in Arizona.

00:18:34 John Daub: Oh, you're from Arizona?

00:18:35 Arizona Guest: Yeah. We're all relatives.

00:18:36 John Daub: The humidity is not too high. But we... It was before we came here.

00:18:41 Arizona Guest: Yeah, two days ago it was really high.

00:18:43 John Daub: This is our transportation. At 2 o'clock, I'm getting the rent-a-car. So we had to compromise because there was just nothing available. This is the high season for this area. And for those who are joining us on our two-hour livestream yesterday, you kind of would have seen this drive because this is the same area as the Flamenco Taiko Dancer Lady. Mr. Das, thank you. This livestream has been brought to us by Mr. Das. Thank you very much. Much appreciated.

00:19:14 John Daub: Yeah. And if you did see the livestream yesterday, then you would have seen this is about where the signal died. And then the livestream did not end. It kind of just went going for eight hours. And people were coming in thinking that there was a livestream taking place and there wasn't. YouTube. It doesn't always work. Livestream doesn't always work. Livestream is an imperfect science.

00:19:39 John Daub: Outside the window, one of the things that I love about Sado, just before we end here, it's just driving around. Look at the green. We have beautiful blue skies today, but this is rice. These are rice paddies. And it seems like half of the island is filled with them. And that's what makes this place, the long views of nature, makes this island one of the reasons to come and visit. As well as the sea. And just this really amazing harmony with nature makes me feel... After a couple of days, you start to feel a connection with the island, I think. I've noticed that with all islands, the longer you stay on an island, the more you feel a connection with it. And yeah, I'll be here just long enough to have a kind of connection like that.

00:20:32 John Daub: Look at the green, right? It's amazing contrast to the city of Tokyo. That's why I tell people, stay a couple of days in Tokyo. Go and get out. Get in the countryside. One of the places that should be high on your itinerary is Sado, because I'm here now. But if you were watching the livestream last month, it was Kochi, which should be high on your itinerary. And then two months ago, Miyazaki. It's always changing. But the great thing about places is you're always going to be able to discover a new place that offers something that you're looking for. And that's kind of the purpose of the Only in Japan Go channel, to give you a glimpse into those. So let's go to the destinations and see maybe that's a place that you want to go. This might be a place.

00:21:14 John Daub: This is the high season, so it's very hard. Oh, you can see the ocean here. Now I'll be able to show you a glimpse of the sea, I think. Oh, no, that's just a hill. But yeah, if you do come, don't come and you're not coming during the Earth Celebration, it's a pretty good place to rent a car. Not a lot of traffic. It's easy to drive around. And with the car, you can explore a lot. You can also rent a 50cc motorbike with an international driver's license. And you can chug around on a little 50cc motorbike, which still does about 40 miles an hour. So you can get around pretty good. But there's no traffic. It's a very easy drive, even though it's on the left side for Americans, so you won't get into an accident. Just take it slow.

00:22:04 John Daub: So there you go. Thanks so much for watching. I'll try to bring you another really fun adventure. Have a good day. Good night, wherever you are in the world. Ciao.