00:00:04 John Daub: Good evening everybody. Welcome to the Port of Kobe. That's the Port of Kobe Tower right here. A lot has changed since 1995. January 17th, 1995 is when the Great Hanshin Earthquake took place at 5:46 in the morning. It was a Shindo 7, the worst on the scale of 7 here in Japan. Magnitude 6.9. Over 6,000 people perished. 40,000 injured. Hundreds of thousands displaced. $200 billion worth of damage. And it was three years before I arrived here in Japan.

00:00:53 John Daub: And Kanae was in elementary school. Yeah, you were in elementary school. But this is a memorial that you'll find here on the waterfront in the city of Kobe. And I've been here several times. I used to live nearby in a place called Kakogawa. And I would come on the weekends, Sundays and Mondays when I had off and would walk around. And this was one of the places where I would come by often because at that time it had just been about five years after the earthquake. It was still pretty fresh. The city was still rebuilding. And now we are so far over 20, 25 years from that point. But still when I come here, I remember you can see here with the light posts that are just displaced. You can see they're at an angle because of the earthquake.

00:01:36 Kanae Daub: Now the tide is in. You can't see it.

00:01:36 John Daub: But coming here at night a little bit with some of the rocks sticking out here. But at night, this is what it looked like at 5:46 in the morning. People at that time didn't have a chance. Just everyone was asleep. That's what made it so awful. But more than that, now you get an idea of what it looks like here at the memorial. This is a part of the minato (port) here that was just devastated. And you can see it's still in the condition it was in 1995. It's now underwater because the tide is up. But when it's down, it's just a way to remember what it looked like on the day after. They put a walkway around it as well. So you can get a look and see. And on the right side here are a lot of pictures and a lot of things both in English and Japanese that explain what happened that day. What happened afterwards.

00:02:46 John Daub: A lot of people lost their lives on that day and it was just about two weeks ago I got a chance to experience in the simulator the strength of the earthquake. I relived the Great Tohoku Earthquake and then once again that one was pretty freaky because the simulator had every single jolt exactly the same but I also got a chance to experience what people had experienced here in Kobe. And when I compare the two between the Great Tohoku Earthquake what happened in 2011 and what happened here in 1995 this was in many ways worse. The way that the simulator did it was that where it was kind of swirling a little bit for the Great Tohoku Earthquake and I remember that so well including one big jolt for the Great Hanshin Earthquake it was going up and down it was coming from below and just pushing it up every single time and it was wild and you could see the earth and the sun and everything like that and it was more jostling more jerky more violent than the Great Tohoku Earthquake um which was a lot more recent and again at 5:46 in the morning nobody had a chance and that's what makes it so tragic.

00:04:04 John Daub: How are you doing aman akash joshi i love your channels i love and greetings from india thank you so much i appreciate that so we're going to spend a few minutes just taking a look at this. This is something that could happen in Tokyo. That there's a Kobe Port Tower for everybody who's joining us. So we're at Kobe Port along the water side. And this is the earthquake memorial, Port of Kobe Earthquake Memorial.

00:04:44 John Daub: Now, you can see the highway bridges here have had a massive amount of damage. A lot of them have collapsed, right? They've all been rebuilt and they look really good. And you can see it wrapping around. But on that day, that morning, they had collapsed. Many of them. And people, this is one of the most terrifying places. There are also a lot of fires that take place. Whenever there's an earthquake, there's a lot of fires. And that also is, people don't lose their lives just from things collapsing, but from the fires that happen. You can see a lot of the cranes, a lot of the things on the port had fallen down. It was the same in the Great Tohoku Earthquake. When I was here in 2011, lots and lots of, there were some fires just across the river in Chiba from where I was living.

00:05:44 John Daub: This is what the damage looked like on that day right here. And this part is still, I believe it's this part. It looks very much like this, what we're looking at where the water is right now. All of the damage to the area, the earthquake caused the damage to the Port of Kobe was particularly devastating. About 116 kilometers. The port's shoreline was broken and some parts completely ruined. Also disabled were many of the harbor facilities, including 239 large boats, unloading docks amounting to 23 kilometers. The port's warehousing facilities, open-air storage areas, cargo handling equipment, and most of the private-owned warehouses. It really hit Japan's economy. The port's shore protections were fractured or destroyed, which allowed part of the land behind the seawalls to be submerged. It created a lot of damage.

00:06:38 John Daub: Just, if you see some of the pictures from the TV footage, it, you know, in many ways it was like the San Francisco earthquake that happened during the World Series. But this one, just the earthquake was a lot stronger. The Japanese don't go by magnitude, they go by shindo. And shindo tells you the violence of it, right? How it shakes, right? It's a different way to measure here in Japan. We use magnitude in the United States. This was magnitude 6.9.

00:07:20 John Daub: Oh, they got some sort of, uh, you want to push it? Oh, you watched it before? Yeah. Oh, they have English. So what do you do in case of an earthquake? Um, I was talking with people at the fire department, and the answer is that you do get underneath the table and protect yourself. Locals might not, but if you do the right thing, no one will laugh at you. 5:46 AM on January 17th, 1995, causing the worst damage since the Great Kanto Earthquake. A strong local earthquake with its hypocenter near Akashi Strait, and with a magnitude of 7.3, sent violent tremors of seismic... The hypocenter was very close to the city. Look at that, it got trains off of the tracks. Causing another building to collapse. Railway lines and live trains... It shows down here. So you know where the fires are right down there. Loads and loads of fires. That's the highway here!

00:08:53 John Daub: They were building the Akashi Kaikyo Bridge (Akashi Strait Bridge), the great, the long suspension bridge at the same time. Wasn't quite complete, and they made it really well. It survived the earthquake. But it did create some delays. Wow. Look at the damage of the port here. Just entirely destroyed.

00:09:22 John Daub: This happened once again, 1995, January 17th at 5:46 in the morning. Earthquake damage to the Port of Kobe hit almost all areas.

00:09:38 Kanae Daub: Did you feel it in Tokyo, Kanai?

00:09:40 Kanae Daub: No, I didn't.

00:09:41 John Daub: No, you didn't. I remember a lot. It was on TV for years after... Yeah. When I came in 1998, it was still on the TV. And 1998 was when they opened the Akashi Kaikyo Bridge, the Akashi Bridge. And that, just the finishing of that was a huge success and a good feeling for the people here that they completed this even during the, before, during, and after that earthquake. So it was a sign of pride and rebuilding.

00:10:17 John Daub: And they constructed a heavyweight caisson. All right, that's a long video. And the information of these was mainly in... It's nice that they have the information in English so everybody can understand what happened that day. If you have any questions, or you, leave it in the comments below. If you were here, you have some stories to share. Absolutely. I think it's good to, for people to share information and learn about and remember the people that lost their lives here.

00:10:48 John Daub: Just because in, yeah, here, in Japan, the thing with Japan, it's, Tokyo is one of the safest cities in the world. It was marked that recently. But at the same time, at any moment, an earthquake can strike. And that worries both of us, right?

00:11:02 Kanae Daub: Yeah.

00:11:02 John Daub: That kind of worries us a little bit. Yeah. I'm worried about it.

00:11:06 Kanae Daub: I am too, a little bit.

00:11:07 John Daub: But you just kind of take the good with the bad with that. You can't control everything in your life. And that makes us remember. We're here just for a short amount of time. There's the information there from Kobe. It says magnitude 7.3 here. And there's a lot of information. They put it in a timeline here. And this also is associated with the reconstruction of Kobe Port. So there's a lot of really good information here. And it goes all the way to 1997. The memorial ceremony. So it's not a really big thing. It's not a big memorial. I think it's not like Hiroshima or it's not like in Tohoku. It's just something in Meriken Park (Meriken Park), which is what this is called. A place where you can come and sort of remember because you shouldn't forget. Especially it's only been about 25 years. So you shouldn't forget that day in Kobe because it really hurt the country badly.

00:12:26 Kanae Daub: I'm laughing to hide because it's sad.

00:12:29 John Daub: It's sad. It's very sad because I've been through an earthquake like that too.

00:12:31 Kanae Daub: In Tokyo when we had the 9.1 in Tohoku.

00:12:36 John Daub: And just you are so helpless in that situation.

00:12:45 Kanae Daub: You're helpless.

00:12:45 John Daub: There's nothing you can't control what happens. All you can control is where you go and what you do afterwards. The port is such a beautiful place here. Kobe really reminds me a lot of Yokohama in many ways. It's a beautiful place. Very romantic on the water. Despite the memorial, which is a place of remembrance. It's also a place to make memories too. And I like that.

00:13:19 John Daub: What is that building? I remember them building this way, way long ago. They were building this thing. But I don't know what it is. Is it like a theater or a restaurant?

00:13:31 Kanae Daub: Oh, it's a museum.

00:13:33 John Daub: Okay. The Marine Museum. Above it all is Hotel Okura. And I filmed here with Denmark Radio, DR, which is their TV station. They use DR, Denmark Radio. And that was a pretty good shoot. We filmed up there the view because you have a wonderful panoramic view of the city from up at the top of Hotel Okura. And we're going to walk you all the way over to the Port of Kobe Tower. You can see it up there. This building also is an important building here in Kobe. It's a monument. You know. It's one of these places where you come to Kobe. And Tokyo has Tokyo Tower, right? You've got Skytree, Tokyo Tower. There's always a tower. In Japan, every city has a tower. We have the Nagoya TV Tower, the Sapporo TV Tower. Fukuoka's got a tower. And Kobe's got its own towers. And Yokohama's tower looks very similar to the one in Kobe. It really does.

00:14:42 John Daub: Across the harbor here is a place called Mosaic. Mosaic, yeah. You can see it here. I used to hang out here 20 years ago. Was this even built 20 years ago? I just remember hanging out here. Yeah. I guess they built it down back that long ago. Now there's an Anpanman Museum in there. Yeah. But I remember coming here in the year 2000. When I lived in Kakogawa. And coming down to the city. I remember coming down to this area. It was beautiful because it was all been rebuilt after the earthquake. And now it's in pretty good shape. It's a lovely park.

00:15:28 Kanae Daub: It is, isn't it?

00:15:30 John Daub: And you can see over here with the Kobe Tower. Port of Kobe Tower. Coming into view again. This is beautiful. It's very much like a Tokyo Tower type of international orange-red kind of a color. So helicopters don't fly into it. I think that's why Tokyo Tower was painted like that. That red. So planes and helicopters could see it clearly. Because that was a TV signal that transmitted all across Kanto. The Kanto Plains. And now the buildings are in the way. That's why they needed the Skytree, they say. But you can go in here, actually. You can go inside there. And it's not that expensive. You have a decent view looking across the city. But the thing is that we learned doing TV shoots was the view is a lot better in Hotel Okura. So we went up to Hotel Okura. Sorry, Port of Kobe Tower. The buildings have also gotten a lot bigger around you. So, too bad. But it's still nice to go in there. I don't think they charge a lot of money to take a look around there.

00:16:39 John Daub: I want to take you to the waterfront here. This Mosaic is a really nice shopping mall. They've got decks. It reminds me very much of Odaiba. The decks. There's two shopping malls in Odaiba where you can walk along decks on the beach and the waterfront. And you can sit over there. And I remember getting... Actually, I would get some beers at the supermarket. There's a supermarket in there. And I would sit in a chair on the deck and just look across. Yeah, look across at the city as the sun was setting. You can do that over there. It's pretty nice. Very much like Odaiba vibes.

00:17:30 Kanae Daub: Yeah.

00:17:32 John Daub: But it's... I think there's some Odaiba here. But there's a lot of Yokohama, right? I can really feel like... Very quiet here. Very, very quiet. You can't... Very relaxing. Right. If you were to compare this to Osaka, there's no comparison. There's nothing to compare. It's like the opposite of Osaka. It's very laid back, subdued, pretty. It's not dirty. It's really clean here.

00:18:00 Kanae Daub: Yeah, it's very clean.

00:18:01 John Daub: Very clean here. It's very hard to compare. I can't compare Kobe to Osaka, but you can do it to Yokohama because Yokohama is very much a really quiet, beautiful port city that I like very much.

00:18:19 Kanae Daub: Yeah.

00:18:20 John Daub: We're here to visit Awaji Island tomorrow. We're going to go over there. It's an island between Shikoku and Honshu that has some attractions and has been becoming revitalized over the last couple of years. We're going to go see how that's doing and check out some of the attractions there for two days. There's going to be a bunch of live streams coming your way. If you want to see some more, click that like button. We like your likes. Encourage us to do some good or some bad. Like eat. Because we came through Chinatown to walk here and we saw some amazing nikuman (steamed buns).

00:19:06 Kanae Daub: Yeah.

00:19:06 John Daub: Next time we have to do a Chinatown street food episode. The thing with some of these memorials is it can get you down, but it's good to remember it. And just remember that this area should also grow again. It should see those happy memories again. That's why a lot of people will come here on dates and you'll see people holding hands. I think that's good. That's how you know if a place has recovered from a tragedy like what had happened on January 17th, 1995. So there you go. That's Mosaic on the right. That's the Mosaic on the water. It's just beautiful. Also, it also reminds me a little bit like Baltimore Harbor. If you've ever been to Baltimore Harbor near Washington, DC, one of my favorite places when I was a kid. So the National Aquarium is really peaceful. Lots of nice restaurants there. Kind of a Baltimore vibe a little bit. The harbor side. Maybe a little bit Pittsburgh. This is the vibe at the Port of Kobe. It's so beautiful.

00:20:30 Kanae Daub: Yeah, I saw the moon was out. It looks quite big.

00:20:36 John Daub: The full moon today.

00:20:41 Kanae Daub: You're going to dance.

00:20:42 John Daub: Can I? You are going to dance for us?

00:20:45 Kanae Daub: No, no dancing.

00:20:48 John Daub: People are just chilling out. They're not actually, I think most people aren't actually going to sleep here, but they might. All right, this is what happens. They drink a little bit and they just take a nap and then they go back. This is Monday. This is a Monday, which is a holiday, right? So people are on holiday. So it was quite packed on the Shinkansen. So much so that we were lucky to get seats. Most of the ride from Tokyo to Shin-Kobe, people were standing in the aisle of the Shinkansen. They didn't have seats in the juseki (non-reserved seats). So I thought that was too bad for them. I'm not going to give up, unless it's a grandma or a pregnant lady. I'm not giving up my seats. Maybe even not to the grandmas, because I really, I really, I would give it up to the grandmas. But they're pretty aggressive, getting their seats, most of them. But in Tokyo, they're pretty docile, so you got to respect everyone who's older than us. In Japan, we respect the elderly very much. And that's, I noticed that as I myself got a little bit older. Seriously. As I got older, I found that people, even in my 40s, are like a little bit, treated me differently than in my 20s.

00:22:08 John Daub: There's Kobe's tower. It really is an interesting red, isn't it? See that? It's beautiful. It's not very tall. It's not very tall, but it is a very scenic tower.

00:22:25 Kanae Daub: Yeah.

00:22:25 John Daub: The color is this red. I am now touching the tower. Touch it. Paint. You want a drink? You want a Boss or a Coke? You're going to support America? Well, Coca-Cola is American. Coca-Cola? Yeah, you guys support America. So let's take a look at this vending machine. So Mu, Mu writes in America, we are actually at Meriken Park. I'm saying that because right there is Meriken Park. If you search on the map, I put a link in the description, you'll see. You'll see that Meriken Park is this, named after America, I guess, right? Meriken Park is after America? Must be, right? America. America Park. So you get the usual suspects. No, you don't. That's like a Coca-Cola is making like a Red Bull. I've never seen it like this. It's not that good. Reports are that like millennials like it. Don't know what that means. It's cappuccino. Cappuccino? The blue ones? I've never seen the blue ones before. You can shake it and they make foam. Wait, what? So if you shake this can, it makes it colder? No, shake it and creamy and make foam. Oh, wow. So by shaking it, it makes it a cappuccino. So when you drink it, it's got some cream on it, some foam inside. I think it's yours. Yeah. Do you want that? No. Let's see. The caffeine will keep me up. I can't. I can't. Yeah, no, I'm not going to do it. All right. Tomorrow morning, maybe. All right. Cappuccino. You're getting tomorrow morning. We can't do you now. Do you later?

00:24:46 John Daub: Yeah, there's some see some a lot of couples come down here. Getting here usually is best by walking. You can either walk from Motomachi, which is Chinatown. I walk through Chinatown to get here. It's about a 15 minute walk. Or there's another station just a little bit past Motomachi that will take you to Harborland. To take you to Shin-Kobe. And that's where we're going to go right now because tomorrow we leave early in the morning to Awaji Island.

00:25:18 Kanae Daub: Yeah.

00:25:19 John Daub: Any questions? We're happy to take your questions right now. No, nobody. Get some chicken. What is it? Whenever you read the comments, it sometimes goes a little bit. Does Japan celebrate Mooncake Festival?

00:25:40 Kanae Daub: I don't. I never heard of that.

00:25:42 John Daub: Any food around?

00:25:43 Kanae Daub: No.

00:25:44 John Daub: It's pretty deserted. What is good in Chinatown? What was good in Chinatown? The ramen. Ramen.

00:25:51 Kanae Daub: Ramen.

00:25:52 John Daub: The nikuman, which are like steamed dumplings. What is the one? Shoronpo (shoronpo, soup dumplings), which is the dim sum. What was the buns with the big pork sticking out of it? Oh, yeah. The... It's butaman (butaman, pork bun). Yeah, there's. They have these. Steamed dumplings with massive pieces of fatty pork. Like the pork was how thick. Yeah, it's not thick. It was like 500 and they have peking duck. Beijing peking duck. This is peking duck in English, too, as well for 500 yen. So Chinatown is pretty, pretty good here. I don't know. You can't compare between Yokohama Chinatown Kobe Chinatown. But pretty good. I think Kobe's is a little bit smaller, it seems. But there's some pretty good deals. Kobe's Chinatown. It's pretty bright and lively as well.

00:26:45 Kanae Daub: Yeah.

00:26:47 John Daub: So, Simon, that's how we would probably compare it. Nagasaki Chinatown is pretty vibrant, too. I've been there a couple of times, but I haven't experienced Nagasaki. Can we make this light? Okay, let's do it. Follow the holding their hands. Follow the romantic people. In general, though, like the Chinese food, all of the ethnic foods, including Chinese food and Korean food, they've all been like Japanized. Japanized. So they have a taste for the local market. And it's the same in the United States and everywhere else around the world. It's just interesting that things like kimchi is called kimchi here and it's not quite as spicy. All right. I know where we're going. We are totally. This way? We got to go this way and then over this way. So there you have it. One day we're going to take you to the Kobe Chinatown and do a street food run. Maybe when we come back. I don't know. But tomorrow. We have a very early morning. We can cross here and probably I'll bring it two or three live streams from Awaji Island because I myself haven't experienced how this island is now. I did. I was there many years ago when I lived in the area. It's been a long time. So it'll be interesting to cross over the bridge. Well, manhole. They got some pretty cool manhole covers here. It says Kobe in English. So there you go. Port of Kobe. A lot of memories here. It's a good place to enjoy yourself. Have some fun. Take a boat tour around the harbor. But it's also a place where you can remember what happened on that day on January 17th, 1995. I keep saying it because I don't think anybody should forget it. If you come to Japan, that was a day that we'll always remember.

00:28:52 John Daub: So anything to say, Kanae? You like Kobe?

00:28:58 Kanae Daub: Yeah.

00:28:59 John Daub: How many stars?

00:29:01 Kanae Daub: How many stars?

00:29:02 John Daub: I've been asking recently. How many stars? It's a strange question. Well, no, I don't think so. Because I asked you how many stars is your bento. You said four. And then I said out of ten. And then you said ten. Ten? No, no, no. You said five. And I said, how many stars is your bento? And she goes, five. And I said, well, how many stars out of ten? She goes, eight. And I said, eight? Wait a second. So that's like 4.5. Your number system's off. So you have to ask. Yeah, I know. So how many stars? How many stars is Kobe? Like, ten stars out of how many?

00:29:37 Kanae Daub: Ten of ten?

00:29:38 John Daub: So it's 100%. No, eight. So it's okay. So now she says eight. All right, how about out of 100? No. How many out of 100? People want to know. It's not me. It's in the chat.

00:29:51 Kanae Daub: She said 80.

00:29:52 John Daub: All right, your proportions are correct. So I guess you pass. It's pretty funny. I don't want to compare. She doesn't want to compare. I'll compare. Yeah, everywhere is like. It's nice. Everywhere is like. Hey, Zato71's here. Nice to see you. There's a Hotel Okura, which is very beautiful. They have a good mix of Japanese rooms and Western rooms in there. Beautiful, beautiful hotel. We took a look at some of the tatami rooms in there to film. Oh, my. Very pricey, but it's worth it if you want to view and relax in Kobe. And here's the city. This is the highways here that were seriously destroyed but rebuilt after 1995. I know one of my friend's company makes the rubber that is used to help to stabilize the highways now. And that's something I'm thinking about making an episode on, how Japan stabilizes the highways. And make sure that if another great earthquake happens, it doesn't get destroyed. Yeah, very much so. But he said that he would give me access and I'd be able to show. So I'm looking forward to that at some time in the future. You can see the moon right up there.

00:31:10 John Daub: No, Callum, we're not going to book a love hotel. We have a hotel. We don't need to be a love hotel. Callum, I saw that comment. There's nothing wrong with love hotels, though.

00:31:21 John Daub: Have you been to a love hotel?

00:31:23 Kanae Daub: No.

00:31:23 John Daub: Have you been to one?

00:31:24 Kanae Daub: No, I haven't.

00:31:25 John Daub: See? Callum, look, you've made her blush. I'm blushing, but I'm normally this color. That was funny. Alright, guys, have a good day, have a good night. We're going back to the hotel. Got an early morning tomorrow. Kobe's for breakfast. We're not eating at the hotel. We're going to have Kobe's Bakeries. The Isuzu Bakery is one of the most famous ones in Japan. Kobe's baked goods are some of the most famous in Japan and maybe even the world because of the foreign influence here. So we're looking forward to that. I don't know if that's stream worthy, but I can guarantee you this. We'll be streaming from Awaji Island tomorrow. Have a good day. Have a good night. See you then.

00:32:10 Kanae Daub: See you.

00:32:11 John Daub: Can I just see you? See you. There's where we were, straight ahead. Bye bye.