Only in Japan Go — Transcripts
Summaries + full diarized transcripts
2019-09-18 · Ep 534 · 1h 31m

Eating Hello Kitty Luxury Japanese Cuisine

HyogoRegional revitalizationHello KittyChinese cuisineLocal ingredients
Summary

Eating Hello Kitty Luxury Chinese Cuisine on Awaji Island

Overview

John and Kanae Daub travel to Awaji Island in Hyogo Prefecture to visit Hello Kitty Smile, a unique luxury restaurant shaped like the iconic character's face. This video explores a regional revitalization project aimed at bringing tourism and energy back to the countryside through pop culture attractions. The couple enjoys a multi-course Chinese-influenced meal made entirely from local Awaji ingredients, including famous onions, fresh seafood, and handmade tofu.

Beyond the food, John discusses the changing landscape of rural Japan, where depopulation is being countered by new businesses and attractions that encourage travelers to stop rather than just pass through. The video features stunning views of the Seto Inland Sea, the Akashi Kaikyo Ohashi Bridge, and detailed insights into Japanese dining etiquette, Hello Kitty culture, and the quality of local produce. It is a blend of food review, travel guide, and cultural commentary on how Japan is renewing its countryside.

Highlights

  • 00:00:02 John introduces Hello Kitty Smile on Awaji Island, a regional revitalization project.
  • 00:01:18 Tour of the restaurant interior, featuring glass walls with ocean views.
  • 00:04:00 The full course meal is revealed on a rotating turntable.
  • 00:10:05 Hello Kitty gold paint details on chopsticks and spoons.
  • 00:13:04 Trying kurage (jellyfish), described as soft and crunchy.
  • 00:15:08 Discussion on Awaji Island's famous sweet onions.
  • 00:22:13 Shark fin soup served with local shirasu (whitebait).
  • 00:25:32 John's tips for learning Japanese hiragana and katakana.
  • 00:38:13 Explanation of tako (octopus) vs. takosu (taco) and Taco Bell's history in Japan.
  • 00:40:51 Deep dive into tofu quality and regional differences.
  • 00:53:12 Learning the word okawari (refill/second helping).
  • 00:59:21 Drone view of the Hello Kitty Smile building from the sea.
  • 01:03:06 Final course: Chahan (fried rice) served in a cup.
  • 01:17:51 Hello Kitty shaped dessert manju and daifuku.
  • 01:26:44 John emphasizes this revitalization model exists in Awaji, not Tokyo.

Timeline / Chapters

  • 00:00:00 Introduction to Awaji Island and Hello Kitty Smile exterior.
  • 00:01:18 Entering the restaurant and meeting Kanae.
  • 00:04:00 Overview of the full course meal on the turntable.
  • 00:10:38 Beginning the meal with eggplant and pork.
  • 00:13:04 Tasting jellyfish and discussing Awaji onions.
  • 00:22:13 Shark fin soup course with shirasu.
  • 00:25:32 Language learning tips and viewer Q&A.
  • 00:31:40 Chopsticks vs. fork and knife etiquette.
  • 00:38:13 Taco Bell history and tako vs. takosu.
  • 00:40:04 Tofu and fish course with chingensai.
  • 00:49:19 Sweet and sour shrimp course.
  • 00:53:12 Vocabulary lesson: Okawari.
  • 00:58:23 Intermission and drone view outside.
  • 01:01:42 Final courses: Chahan and desserts.
  • 01:26:44 Closing thoughts on regional revitalization.

Japan Travel Tips

  • Getting to Awaji Island: Buses leave hourly from Shin-Kobe Station, Osaka Station, and Kansai Airport. The trip from Shin-Kobe takes about an hour.
  • Reservations: Reservations are not strictly required at Hello Kitty Smile but are recommended to secure a spot, especially for window seats.
  • Transport: Crossing the Akashi Kaikyo Ohashi Bridge is an experience in itself; it is the longest suspension bridge in the world.
  • Dining Etiquette: It is acceptable to ask for a fork and knife in Japan if you cannot use chopsticks; even some Japanese people request them.
  • Shopping: Highway service areas (SA) on Awaji Island are excellent hubs for buying local produce and gifts before leaving the island.
  • Accommodation: Glamping sites like Grand Chariot offer comfortable "cocoon" style stays that are popular for families.
  • Best Time to Visit: The sea is clean enough to see dolphins in April; autumn offers comfortable weather for dining with views.

Japanese Language & Culture Notes

  • Regional Revitalization: John explains how pop culture characters like Hello Kitty are used to draw tourism to depopulating rural areas, encouraging young people to return.
  • Itadakimasu: Said before eating to express gratitude for the food and life.
  • Okawari: Means "refill" or "second helping." Used for rice, drinks, or additional portions.
  • Yabai: Slang term meaning "amazing," "crazy," or "dangerous." Used here to express how delicious the food is.
  • Slurping: Acceptable and polite for noodle soups (ramen, soba, udon) to cool them and show enjoyment, but not typically for non-noodle soups like shark fin soup.
  • Tako vs. Takosu: Tako means octopus. Takosu is the loanword for taco. John explains Taco Bell initially struggled in Japan because people ordered takoyaki (octopus balls) instead.
  • Chingensai: Japanese term for Shanghai bok choy, often used in Chinese-inspired dishes.

Food & Drink Guide

  • Eggplant Nimono 00:10:59: Simmered eggplant with savory sauce. John notes it is not spicy.
  • Pork Chinese Style 00:11:54: Distinctive Chinese flair with sourness and pickles.
  • Kurage (Jellyfish) 00:13:04: Described as soft and crunchy.
  • Salmon and Onion Roll 00:14:54: Features Awaji's famous sweet onions.
  • Shark Fin Soup 00:22:13: Thick soup containing local shirasu (whitebait).
  • Tofu and Fish 00:40:04: Fresh handmade tofu with fish and chingensai (bok choy).
  • Sweet and Sour Shrimp 00:49:19: Heavy batter with pineapple sauce.
  • Chahan (Fried Rice) 01:03:06: Served in a cup with edamame.
  • Hello Kitty Manju 01:17:51: Steamed cake shaped like Kitty.
  • Coconut Daifuku 01:21:56: Mochi dessert with coconut flavor.

People

  • John Daub: Host and creator of Only in Japan Go. He leads the tour, explains cultural contexts, and samples the food.
  • Kanae Daub: John's wife. She joins the meal, provides Japanese cultural context (e.g., onion fame, tofu quality), and samples the dishes.
  • Chef Hiroyuki Yamashita: Mentioned as the chef preparing the courses.
  • Viewers/Chat: John interacts with live stream viewers (Carlos, Dorothy, Ellis, etc.), answering questions about travel and food.

Key Takeaways

  • Revitalization Works: Awaji Island is successfully using character attractions to stop being just a "highway through" destination.
  • Local Ingredients Matter: The quality of Awaji onions, tofu, and seafood significantly elevates the dining experience.
  • Cultural Flexibility: Restaurants in Japan are accommodating regarding utensils (forks/knives) for those who cannot use chopsticks.
  • Hello Kitty Appeal: The character attracts diverse demographics, from children to adults in their 60s, fostering joy and tourism.
  • Beyond Tokyo: Unique luxury experiences like this are found in the countryside, not just in major cities like Tokyo.

Notable Quotes

  • 00:00:02 "This is part of a regional revitalization project that I really like. It's bringing in Japanese characters and a lot of energy from the cities back to the countryside."
  • 00:15:08 "Awaji Island has some of the best onions in Japan."
  • 00:25:32 "Once you start to read, then you can start to remember the pattern, the phonics, the sounds. What it sounds like. And you understand why Japanese sounds the way it does."
  • 00:38:13 "Taco Bell failed initially in Japan. Because everyone went there looking for takoyaki."
  • 00:45:44 "You can tell how long a foreigner, a non-Japanese has been in Japan. Like a westerner. If they say all rice tastes the same, they haven't been here long enough."
  • 01:26:44 "This is not in Tokyo. This is in Awaji. Hyogo Prefecture. Awaji. Let that sink in."

Related Topics

  • Regional Revitalization in Japan
  • Hello Kitty Sanrio Attractions
  • Awaji Island Travel Guide
  • Chinese Cuisine in Japan
  • Glamping in Japan
  • Japanese Food Etiquette

Search Tags

#only-in-japan-go #awaji-island #hello-kitty #hyogo #kobe #japan-travel #japanese-food #regional-revitalization #luxury-dining #family-travel #shark-fin-soup #awaji-onion #japan-countryside #sanrio #food-review


Full Transcript

00:00:02 John Daub: Greetings! Hello everybody, welcome to Awaji Island, Awajishima. This is Hyogo Prefecture, not that far from Kobe, just across the Akashi Kaikyo Ohashi (Akashi Strait Bridge). And this place that I'm behind me—it's hard to see, but if you look real closely, you might recognize the character behind me. The nose and the eye, there's no mouth. That is Hello Kitty. This is part of a regional revitalization project that I really like. It's bringing in Japanese characters and a lot of energy from the cities back to the countryside. Building places like this makes it really more of a reason to come here. Check it out. Look how beautiful the sea is. That color. It's such a clean place.

00:00:48 John Daub: Over there on the other side, I'm guessing, is Akashi, the city of Akashi. And if you keep going that way, you'll get to Himeji and eventually way down there, Okayama. But I just wanted to give you a little bit of an overview, the orientation. A beautiful place. You can really see this Kitty-chan. If you take a drone out there and look back, you get an amazing view of this entire little complex. I wouldn't even say it's little, right off of the coast here. Let's go inside. Kanae is waiting. We're going to have an incredibly nice lunch made with ingredients from here.

00:01:18 John Daub: They call it an oriental restaurant. I don't know if that's politically correct anymore. I don't really mind, but it comes from Chinese cuisine, meaning also Hong Kong, Taiwan. This area, all made from ingredients here on Awaji Island. And of course, heavily influenced by Hello Kitty. You can already see it from the amazing flowers on the roof here. Check this out. We're going to be walking through diamonds. Whoa. Impact. Look at this. They've gone the extra mile. All the little details make this place a little bit more special.

00:02:20 John Daub: All right. We've gotten access to film in here, and it's before everybody else can enter. It's kind of neat to be able to film in here. You can see it's kind of a classy place. You have here on one side, there's a lot of green. And then on this side here, you have the beautiful blue sea. How you doing, everybody? Kanae is waiting on the other side. Pretty high quality, high class kind of a place. Here's the kitchen. There's actually a really nice cafe on the other side. It's all made out of glass because that gives you amazing views of the sea. If you're a fan of Hello Kitty, you're going to love this kind of place. But even if you're not, it's a pretty special place.

00:03:29 John Daub: There she is, Kanae.

00:03:30 Kanae Daub: Hi.

00:03:32 John Daub: Yeah, I know. Sorry to keep you waiting. You like this place?

00:03:37 Kanae Daub: Yeah.

00:03:37 John Daub: Hello Kitty smile.

00:03:39 Kanae Daub: Yes.

00:03:39 John Daub: The smile matches the Hello Kitty smile. But she doesn't smile because she doesn't have a mouth. Let's not talk about that. Jason says hello. Now, as I said, this is kind of jazzy. It's Chinese-influenced food here. A lot of tourists will come here, but locals come here as well. And the cuisine looks really good.

00:04:00 John Daub: They brought out everything for us in advance so we could take a look at it. And they gave us this neat turntable just like in China or Taiwan or Hong Kong. You get a chance to turn it. There's some shrimp. Oh, this looks so good. This one I'm really curious about. What is this? I guess this is like a dessert. And here is what? Oh, that looks good. Very elegant. Hello Kitty likes it high class.

00:04:30 Kanae Daub: Yes. And then very good food here.

00:04:36 John Daub: So we're going to be eating this little by little over the next 30 minutes or so. But they brought this out in advance so you get a chance to see this and see if you want to stick around for this live stream. What an incredible view. And again, like we are in the middle of the countryside, right? We had really bad weather. We had a signal yesterday. So I had to make the live stream unlisted from a night walk. Just kept cutting off. But if you look out the window here, you'll be able to see we're pretty much in the middle of what used to be nowhere. But now it's somewhere because they put Hello Kitty here. And a lot of people here—look at all the cars. It's kind of crazy. We're in this high class. We got the whole place to ourselves.

00:05:25 John Daub: Yeah, I showed them the ocean view from the other side before we got in here. I wanted you to get an idea from the start of what this is like. All right, let's give this a try. Yeah, so we're here on Awaji Island for just like 24 hours to check it out. And we kind of wanted to get an idea of what's been going on here and see how everything is changing really quickly.

00:06:00 John Daub: Now, Awaji Island is a place just like a lot of places in Japan where the population has been decreasing. And the younger people who do grow up here typically will go to Osaka or Kobe for school, for university, and they don't come back because there's not a lot of opportunities here. It's really nice to see some businesses coming here, setting up places that younger people like to go to. And that means there's going to be more tourism. And more of an economy. That means that people are starting to return, come back here to live. And if people live here, then the economy starts to turn around. And then there's a little bit more money, things get renewed—old buildings become new buildings. Today, we saw a school that's been renovated into restaurants. Yeah, it's pretty neat shops, things like this. It's just little by little. I think it's going to take about five or 10 years before it really starts to sink in.

00:06:56 John Daub: But you already see cars that go on the highway usually from Kobe across the bridge and just continue on to Tokushima are starting to stop in Awaji Island instead of seeing it as just a highway going through it. I think that's kind of a neat thing. They're taking the food away because they brought it out to show us the entire set for us so that you would get a chance—if you like what you saw, click the like button. And also stick around because that's what we're going to be eating little by little. This again is called Hello Kitty Smile. And you can see the link in the description. If you click the link, you'll be able to join us on Google Maps and check out what this place looks like. It's pretty highly rated and it's amazing. We went to a place yesterday called Hello Kitty Showbox, not too far away from here. And that was like a miniature Disneyland.

00:08:05 John Daub: Are you hungry?

00:08:11 Kanae Daub: Yes, I am.

00:08:19 John Daub: A wet towel. Hey, Chloe is in the house. Thank you. Hey, you. All right. Check this out here. Look at the plates here. You see the food that's eggplant right there. But look behind the eggplant. Kitty is peeking around a tomato. This little teeny saucer. Look at my hand right here has little teeny Hello Kitty all around it, the silhouette right there behind some. Kanae is noticing it for the first time. What's this here? Is that onion? Ah yeah, this could be Chinese something. Karage. Kurage. Yeah, a famous Chinese food. This one Hello Kitty must be underneath that gravy. There's a little piece of beef and this is all made by the chef Hiroyuki Yamashita. Maybe pork. Looks like pork. And you can see Hello Kitty on the plate here. And there's one more plate that we haven't seen. And Kitty-chan is probably underneath there laughing, or can't breathe. Help me! Get this lemon off my face.

00:09:38 John Daub: There's some onions, lemon, and a piece of salmon on top there rolled up with some sprouts inside of it. Looks really good. Yeah, I'm really curious about this eggplant here. All the stuff here, and we have Kitty-chan watching us with the sea in front of us. All of the ingredients are sourced from here, right?

00:09:54 Kanae Daub: Yeah, all the ingredients are sourced from Awaji Island, which is really good.

00:10:05 John Daub: I like to eat the food that's been grown right here in the origin. It's usually a little bit better. Ah, can you see this? Check this out. Secret. How do they do that? Just paint, I guess. You see that? It's like in gold paint. Hello Kitty on the chopsticks. Oh yeah, the spoon's nice. Kitty chose lemon. That's for the soup later on. All right, itadakimasu.

00:10:38 Kanae Daub: Itadakimasu.

00:10:52 John Daub: What should we start with first?

00:10:52 Kanae Daub: Eggplant.

00:10:59 John Daub: All right, we're gonna start with this eggplant that you see right there. This is like a nimono, I guess. There's a sauce on it, like a pickle. Can you eat the stem? That's good. No, not spicy. It's got a real salt and savory taste to it. Cutie, she doesn't like cucumbers. Like pickled, put a little bit of sauce in there. Really nice.

00:11:54 John Daub: Contributing to the Hello Kitty sake. Do they have sake? I think downstairs in the cafe, they got something down there. Hello Kitty beer. I'm so in. All right, you might want to hang on till the end. Let's see what happens. Next up, we're gonna try this pork right here. Mmm, very nice. This is definitely not Japanese food. It has a very distinctive Chinese flair to it. The sauces, the sourness, the pickle. I've never had it in Japan like this.

00:13:04 John Daub: Now, this is kurage. It's like jellyfish.

00:13:12 Kanae Daub: Yeah, I think it's jellyfish. Yeah, crunchy. Soft and crunchy.

00:13:30 John Daub: Mm, it's good. Me like some jellyfish. So good. We've been eating a lot. We just had breakfast three hours ago. It's part of when you travel you have to eat. In Japan especially when you travel, the more food, the more cuisines you can try, the better. It gives you a feeling of the local area.

00:14:20 John Daub: Yeah, the hotel that we stayed at was really interesting. Yeah, I've never done something called glamping before. Has anyone ever glamped? It's glamorous camping and it was the places were called cocoons, called the Grand Chariot. Very nice inside. I wouldn't consider camping there. More like bungalows, I guess, but it was very comfortable stay. I'll try to post some pictures up on Instagram later.

00:14:54 John Daub: Next up, let's try the salmon and onion. Salmon and onion, yeah. Onion is very famous here. Mmm. They have very sweet onion. Yeah, Awaji Island has some of the best onions in Japan.

00:15:08 Kanae Daub: We're famous for our onions. I guess so. I love onions.

00:15:30 John Daub: So, three second rule. You know, samgyeopsal. Yep. It's sweet. It is very sweet. On the way out of here, they have a service area. It's a highway service area. At the service area, you can buy all of the gifts and I heard that they have a lot of the produce from the farmers. They sell it there and it's the easiest way for travelers to buy local goods and service areas. They're kind of like the tourist hub because they're so easy to get in and out and there's one right before you get onto the bridge on the way out of here.

00:16:21 John Daub: Next up is shrimp. Mmm. Good?

00:16:40 Kanae Daub: Yeah. It's very fresh.

00:16:50 John Daub: Very fresh. Finally, I think this is chicken. It tastes like chicken. Take a break and if this is your first time here, we're going to use the Chinese food table to take you in a little panoramic tour. Panoramic tour around the table. It's just the inlet sea, right? This is the inlet sea. It's really nice. There's cargo ships going by.

00:17:42 John Daub: Yeah. We wanted to eat outside but it's too windy. If we eat outside, not only will the wind affect the audio, it'll probably blow us away. Blow her away. Although she had a big lunch, a big breakfast. You had okawari gohan?

00:18:10 Kanae Daub: Me too. I had okawari gohan.

00:18:13 John Daub: Yeah. Rice is good too. Mmm. Now, I was told—there's a link in the description. You can see where we are right now. Awaji Island is kind of like a bridge between Honshu, which is Japan's main island, and Shikoku, which is Japan's fourth largest island. Awaji links the two. It's a bridge with two bridges on either end. So it's kind of a neat place.

00:18:53 John Daub: So I was saying yesterday, if there is a zombie apocalypse, we just bomb the two bridges on the side, just wipe them out, and then nobody can get in. This would be one of the safest places away from Kobe and Osaka. Nobody can get here. And on this island, they have tons of solar panels and windmills and farm fields and unlimited sea, and they have really good wagyu. Some of the wagyu here are chosen for Kobe beef.

00:19:18 Kanae Daub: Yeah.

00:19:18 John Daub: So we did pretty good. I want to be here if there was an apocalypse. I think because we watch too much TV, this Walking Dead show, we think about that. It could happen. All right. So I guess we just wait for the next course.

00:19:39 John Daub: How long do we wait? I think we have to ring the bell. There's no bell. Hey, Zoe, did they just bring the next course out?

00:19:59 Kanae Daub: Yeah.

00:20:05 John Daub: It's like the Orient, and 100 years ago, you would ring a bell or something. We don't use that word too much in the United States anymore because it just means Asia. But yeah, I don't know. They use it in Japan, Oriental. Pretty nice place. Any questions? Ask away. Japan looks lovely as usual. Kanae looks lovely as usual. Looks so kawaii.

00:20:38 Kanae Daub: Thank you.

00:20:41 John Daub: Aw, that's cute. So how do I get to Awaji? You can get here by bus. There are buses that leave every hour.

00:20:51 Kanae Daub: Really?

00:20:52 John Daub: You can get by ferry, actually, from Akashi. I think they cease it twice a day or every hour. They're pretty rare. You can get here by bus. The buses leave hourly from Shin-Kobe, Osaka station, Shin-Kobe, and Kansai Airport. It'll just come around and bring you in. We came by bus.

00:21:11 Kanae Daub: Yeah, we came by bus from Shin-Kobe station.

00:21:26 John Daub: It's just only one hour?

00:21:27 Kanae Daub: Less than that. We stopped because from Shin-Kobe station, it also stops at Sannomiya.

00:21:34 John Daub: Whoa, the soup is here. From Sannomiya, we had to wait a little bit, so probably half the time was just waiting. But the best part of it is we got to go across the Akashi Kaikyo Ohashi, the Great Akashi Bridge. The longest suspension bridge in the world. You get to cross that to come here. That's another reason to come here. It's a beautiful bridge. Oh, you can't smell it, but we can smell it.

00:22:13 John Daub: All right. So this is shark fin soup. These are shark fins. They're locally sourced, so don't worry. I don't think that's a problem. Kitty-chan is on the bowl. That's cute. I like that. The soup looks good. Shark fin soup. Yeah, I ate shark burger once at Ogawa Sawa. And the internet crucified me. It said, how dare you? Sharks are good. Leave the sharks alone. I don't know. I just eat what's in front of me, but I understand. So poor, poor shark. Look, you know what? It would be awful to waste it. All right. Don't waste your food. Let's try the shark fin soup. Oh, it's thick. Jim, look at this. It's thick.

00:23:28 John Daub: And oh, I found this inside of it. You probably didn't see this. Check it out. Inside of it. If you look really closely are the white shirasu.

00:23:36 Kanae Daub: Shirasu.

00:23:39 John Daub: Yeah. I always get that messed up. You can see the little teeny white shirasu. This fish is very famous here.

00:23:49 Kanae Daub: Yeah, they're famous for and they're so good.

00:23:51 John Daub: These little teeny white fish just total protein. This is like the plankton that whales eat. You know what I mean? Little teeny. Good. Is it good?

00:23:59 Kanae Daub: Yeah, you've been there twice.

00:24:01 John Daub: Whenever Kanae covers her mouth and says it's so good, it's really good.

00:24:24 Kanae Daub: Really?

00:24:33 John Daub: We slurp ramen, right? Is it okay to slurp this soup? Like should we slurp it, Kanae?

00:24:45 Kanae Daub: Just ramen.

00:24:51 John Daub: The reason why you slurp the soup in Japan is it cools the noodles when you slurp it. But they say it also notifies the chef that you like it. I don't think the chef really cares that much. They're pretty busy. And a lot of these places are chain restaurants. So I don't think they care too much. But slurping is something that's considered polite or just part of the culture of eating ramen. Ramen and soba. And soba as well. And udon. But not shark fin soup. But it's not noodles. No noodles. They say it's not Japanese food. Only noodle soups. Chinese?

00:25:30 Kanae Daub: Yes. Chinese.

00:25:32 John Daub: Tips for learning Japanese. First thing I did was learn katakana and hiragana by using flashcards. Memorize A-I-U-E-O, KA-KI-KU-KE-KO. Every single symbol. Then you can start to read. Once you start to read, then you can start to remember the pattern, the phonics, the sounds. What it sounds like. And you understand why Japanese sounds the way it does. After you understand that, then it's easier for you to learn the language. You've cut it in half. Because Japanese is consonant, vowel, consonant, vowel, consonant, vowel. Understand that principle, learning Japanese time has been cut in half because you're not thinking in Roman letters you're thinking in katakana and hiragana. That's the biggest tip I can give you. This cilantro is really good. Hey J, Jersey girls here, hello from Salt Lake City Utah 9 p.m. eating sushi burritos. What? Please do a video on the new Airbnb rules in Japan. Okay that's a good topic thank you for the suggestion. That's a really good topic. Yeah Airbnb rules are different here in Japan a little bit. It's good to get into.

00:27:05 John Daub: Oh man I feel guilty though because all those little fish have two eyes in them and every time you look in and take a bite they're looking back at you. They're not alive anymore but it's just a little bit crazy. I like it. Good. You Sean how is it? It's still creepy looking, staring back at you. Jim writes are you talking about the food or Kitty? You do. I believe you need reservations.

00:27:53 John Daub: Zoe do you need reservations to eat here?

00:28:03 Kanae Daub: Okay you don't need reservations but it's better to have them so you can't call ahead. Um again this is called Hello Kitty Smile. I think if you Google it it comes up with the page right away.

00:28:17 John Daub: The prices are typically a little bit higher than normal cafes I think because you know it's Hello Kitty. But you're sitting in the middle of nowhere in the countryside and you have a really comfortable place like this with a balcony that looks like a tropical resort. It's just kind of a special place like that and whether or not you like Hello Kitty it's just a nice place I think. And the cafe that we went to right before we came here tonight was really nice. I really liked it. Some really good questions here. Does Hello Kitty make an appearance? I don't know. It does if you have a drone. If you fly it out here you can look at the Hello Kitty Smile restaurant you can see the entire face because we're so close to here. But that's not what you're talking about though. The actual mascots it does not make an appearance here yet but people like that right. However the human form Hello Kitty is really a fancy thing like a cat in the house a little bit unusual. It doesn't look as cute.

00:29:20 John Daub: But if you go to the other Sanrio Puroland, they'll make an appearance but I don't know. To me, it's scary actually. I prefer just the cuddly bears. Do you like Hello Kitty, Kanae?

00:29:33 Kanae Daub: Yeah, I like Hello Kitty.

00:29:39 John Daub: Do you love Hello Kitty?

00:29:47 Kanae Daub: Yeah, when I was a child, I really liked Hello Kitty. Everything was Hello Kitty. T-shirts and all pencils.

00:29:54 John Daub: I did not know that. So you loved Hello Kitty?

00:30:02 Kanae Daub: Yeah. My friends loved it too. I have. But now, I'm getting old.

00:30:09 John Daub: Wait. There's no age limit on Hello Kitty. Of course, I still like it. I met a lady in her 60s who has Hello Kitty everything. She has just never grown up. She looks so happy. So it may look weird to honestly, it's weird. It looks weird to me. It's a little bit unusual. But when you see how happy she is, since she's 60, I really don't care. I just see the smile. And if that's her passion, that's really amazing.

00:30:51 John Daub: Whoa. All right, this is what we got in front of us now. Wow, each course like ups the game here. This looks like beef sauteed with vegetables in a really savory sauce. And I think you can eat the shell. Yeah, I think it's beef and a little kitty down here. You can eat this kitty-chan cracker. I might not eat it. One thing I do eat is the parsley. I always eat the parsley. Like parsley. Yeah. Vitamin we say in Japanese. All right, go ahead. Do you use it with chopsticks or with the fork and the knife? They give you the option of using a fork and a knife.

00:31:40 John Daub: Here's something I can tell you. In Japan, you will be surprised. Not everybody can use chopsticks. Not every Japanese can use chopsticks. I met it's like a small percentage of people don't know can't use it. So they ask for forks and knives. So it's not considered rude or strange to ask for a fork or knife if you need to in Japanese restaurant. Japanese kids can't use chopsticks, right? Kids can't use them.

00:32:10 Kanae Daub: Yeah, I learned how to use chopsticks when I'm a child. None of them. I probably four or five. Yeah, my mom and dad teach me a lot.

00:32:26 John Daub: So you don't feel weird if you ask for fork because kids can't use chopsticks in Japan. So it's perfectly okay. I like chopsticks. Very easy. Easy and useful. I always learn stuff from the chat here. Parsley is good to eat at the end it cleans the palate. Thank you. I still have two pieces. Let's just say I cleaned the palate before I started this. I did not know that. That's a good piece of advice. The chef has done a good job. Compliment to the chef. You can pick up the bowl. I'm the type of person it's like an ice cream cone, right? I will just eat it like this. I love hand held food. But it's confusing to me like, could you do that with this? How far do you take it? It's a classy restaurant. If it has forks and knives that look like this. I'm saying no, I wouldn't pick it up. But a part of me says, why not? Food is more fun when you eat with your hands. Something I learned in India.

00:34:02 Kanae Daub: Yep.

00:34:05 John Daub: Yeah, we ate curry by hand. This isn't Hello Kitty silverware. I did not know that Hello Kitty's dream is to become a piano player. Yeah, she wants to be a pianist. Actually I didn't know that before. Somebody said she's English. And she's a real girl. Yeah. There's a lot of things I don't know about Hello Kitty. She's made in Japan, but she's English. She's actually a girl not a cat. But her heart is world peace. She's into world peace. She should get the Peace Prize. She brings people together. Of all ages. It's hard not to like. No war has been started because of Hello Kitty. Except in Hong Kong. I remember at McDonald's they had this limited edition Hello Kitty goods and people were fighting over it. I'm just saying. It started a small war in that McDonald's. But not to worry. Here, there's a gift shop. And they have some really luxury. I don't know if we have time. They have some bling. Like Hello Kitty bling. It's like $4,000. It's pretty neat. And apparently somebody bought one of the bags recently. So they do sell.

00:36:06 John Daub: Hey! Carlos is here. Thank you for Carlos' channel. You know about fork and knife in Japan. I can't use chopsticks because of disability. Yeah, Carlos, don't worry about that at all. And if you want to, people bring their own chopsticks. They have a case for it. You can bring your own fork and knife. I've seen people do that. It's like a high class type of thing. Like you remember in the James Bond movies? They'll offer Mr. Bond a cigarette. And Bond says, no thank you. I prefer my own. And then he'll open his cigarettes and start smoking. Kids never smoke. Okay, don't smoke. The point is that you can come with your own fork and knife set. And that's kind of a really cool thing. You open up the case. And you can just start eating with that. That's probably okay too. But you gotta carry it around with you. That's kind of a high class thing to do. Good morning to AK, Jacob Hood. My cousin does that all the time. Your cousin is high class.

00:37:27 John Daub: How do we eat this? I think you can like it here.

00:37:47 Kanae Daub: It's so good.

00:37:51 John Daub: Good? It's got the sauce in it. That's why. It's a taco bowl. Like a taco bowl.

00:38:04 Kanae Daub: It's a bowl?

00:38:13 John Daub: Kanae brings up an incredibly important piece of information. In Japan, tako is an octopus.

00:38:19 Kanae Daub: You're right. Tako is an octopus. In Japan, we would say takosu. That means taco.

00:38:27 John Daub: And I've told this story before, but Taco Bell failed initially in Japan. Because everyone went there looking for takoyaki. They go to Taco Bell, and they'd go in the drive-thru, and says, yes, we'd like some takoyaki. The people didn't understand why they were ordering takoyaki. And the American president of the Japan Taco Bell scratched his head and go, what can we do? Should we change the name to Takosu Bell? They couldn't do that because it was like a trademark thing. I guess there's somebody else in Japan had Takosu Bell for takoyaki. So in the end, they folded up in 1999. I was there for one of the test stores in Nagoya. They folded up house and they came back about 12 years later. And it's still kind of struggling. Taco Bell in Japan is too expensive. It comes with cabbage.

00:40:04 John Daub: Good timing. This here is tofu and fish. That looks so good. You see this tofu? And I think it's fish on there, right, Kanae?

00:40:22 Kanae Daub: Yeah. Yeah, it's fish. Oh wow. And this green is called what?

00:40:27 John Daub: It's called chingensai. Chingensai. It's kind of like an Asian spinach. Bok choy. Shanghai bok choy.

00:40:51 John Daub: Hanshi writes in, I don't like tofu. Yeah, bok choy. Tofu? I'm going to give you some information on tofu. When it's handmade tofu and it's fresh, tastes different than what you buy at the supermarket. It tastes totally different. Some places it'll still taste a little bit green, like fresh vegetables. And that's the tofu that's really good. You can eat it raw or just put a little bit of soy sauce for saltiness. It's so good. But tofu traditionally takes the taste of the sauce it's in. It doesn't have a flavor of its own. Hot, freshly made tofu tastes so good, though. But the ones you get from the supermarket, often it's made to the taste of the region and the country that you're going. In Australia, I noticed when I lived on Bondi Beach for three months as a tourist. And I would go to the supermarket to make dinner and one of the things we got is tofu. It was like really hard and rubbery. We never got good tofu in Australia, but people like that really hard and rubbery meat-like tofu. Instead of the soft tofu. Because if it was heavier, people saw more value in it and paid more for it. In Japan, we have many kinds of tofu. There's like a hundred different kinds of tofu.

00:42:29 John Daub: Let's try this here. Itadakimasu. Whoa. It's fish. Very soft. Do it again, Kanae.

00:42:45 Kanae Daub: It's really soft.

00:42:49 John Daub: Okay, I cut this one again. Ready? Wow, that's so soft. I just touched it. You just looked at it and it fell apart. How many stars out of ten?

00:43:16 Kanae Daub: Ten? Whoa! Wow. How many stars out of a hundred?

00:43:28 John Daub: Five hundred? Yeah, yeah. Out of a hundred. Sometimes your star system is off. It's melting. Wow. Oh, really? That fish looks so good. Local caught fish. I'm sure you're gonna be shocked.

00:43:52 Kanae Daub: Okay. Yeah. It's so soft.

00:44:15 John Daub: This tofu has been fried. This is fried tofu because you can see the skin around it. It's a little heavier than normal tofu, which is used in cooking. For cooking, you can't really use soft tofu. You use a little bit tougher. Very good. It's like white rice. The longer I live in Japan, the more I can taste the differences between white rice. When I first came here, rice was rice. But I guess it was around ten years in, I can start to taste the difference. Oh, this is really good rice. This rice is okay. When you've had the best rice, you know that it's good. Because if you eat it a lot, tofu is the same way. The more you eat different kinds of tofu, the more you can start to differentiate the quality and what makes you feel different and feel good and taste good. It's just from experience. White rice is something that I really like now. Just white rice. If you've had good white rice, that's enough to say I love white rice.

00:45:44 Kanae Daub: He knows very well. You can tell how long a foreigner, a non-Japanese has been in Japan. Like a westerner. If they say all rice tastes the same, they haven't been here long enough. That's how you can tell. Usually around the ten-year mark, they can start to tell the varieties of rice.

00:46:04 John Daub: Just a test. This is too nice. I'm starting to think Hello Kitty is Chinese. This food is too good. Hello Kitty—Kitty-chan is a world citizen. She gets around. So I know that Kitty-chan respects all nationalities. She didn't say it in words. She says it with her eyes. Right, Kitty-chan? Are you an ambassador to the world? Look at her eyes. The answer is yes. Anyone who's getting your answers from an 8-ball, throw your 8-ball away, just get a Hello Kitty doll. The answer is always yes. If you're asking her to do something bad, then that answer would be no. Should I steal this bag from the department store? The answer is yes. No, it's just. Just let me make sure, kids, if you do have a Hello Kitty doll, the answer is sometimes no. Think about what your mom would say. No, I'm just kidding. Whatever your mom would say, that's what Hello Kitty is saying to you. Safe. Yeah, because people can take things literally on the internet. I don't want to get in trouble. Kids, whatever your mom says is right.

00:48:11 John Daub: Can you eat it all?

00:48:36 Kanae Daub: Just a little bit.

00:48:42 John Daub: Massage it down. I did this with Kai when we ate the big gyoza. Yeah, you know what? I'm pretty full. And we're supposed to do an ekiben. But she's so. Do you know what I have on my sauce? It's like a sweet and sour sauce.

00:49:10 Kanae Daub: No.

00:49:19 John Daub: Ugh. There are a lot of dishes. Too many. David Kim and they even have Hello Kitty Day at baseball games. That's true, David. That's actually true. Look at this. Sweet and sour shrimp. Whoa. You can eat the tail, right? I always eat the shrimp tail. Somebody says it has calcium in it. It's good for your bones. Nice. This is what we're going to be eating now. It smells sweet and sour, so therefore it's like a sweet and sour shrimp. It's a totally different level than I'm used to eating. It smells so good. Let's try this. Whoa. Whoa, Kanae. This is heavy.

00:50:29 Kanae Daub: Pineapple sauce. A little sweet and sour pineapple sauce. It's heavy.

00:51:06 John Daub: It's heavy. Yeah. I like the vegetables. The vegetables around it. Alright, let's eat Kanae.

00:51:24 Kanae Daub: Ew.

00:51:39 John Daub: Making her laugh. Mmm. Good. Good? That's our transition. Yeah, just give her a minute. Let her enjoy it. Come on over here for a second. New background. This message has been brought to you by Hello Kitty Smile. What is it? It's really good, right?

00:52:17 Kanae Daub: Yeah.

00:52:19 John Daub: This has a little bit of pineapple to it. The sweet and sour sauce. I guess the sourness is some vinegar in there. And the sweetness comes from the pineapple. The color of it is definitely pineapple. You can see there's kind of a yellow color to it. It's good. Very good. Very good. It's been battered and deep fried to give it real good volume to it. But on top of that, they've just like smothered it in the sauce and it is extremely voluminous. Like voluptuous. Is that the word? It's just heavy. One is enough actually for an average human. But we're not average. I'm John and she's Kanae. Therefore we eat until we cannot eat. What's so funny? That's not a joke. No, you're always doing okawari.

00:53:09 Kanae Daub: Yeah.

00:53:12 John Daub: This is a good word for you to know. Okawari means like refill or one more helping. Like I want another one please. You say okawari kudasai, right? You can point to your water glass and go okawari kudasai. Your beer? Okawari kudasai.

00:53:31 Kanae Daub: Okawari kudasai. Okawari kudasai. One more please. Oishii. Sugoi. Very soft. It's too good. Yabai.

00:53:56 John Daub: Yabai? When something looks too delicious they say yabai. Do you want one?

00:54:07 Kanae Daub: Yeah.

00:54:30 John Daub: Pineapple very sweet too. Yeah. Thumbs up for that. So I'm just giving a little bit of change in the angle because we've been doing this livestream now for 55 minutes. Zoe, are you on the coffee now?

00:55:04 Kanae Daub: Me? No.

00:55:09 John Daub: Oh yeah, ok. It's a lot of food. Is there anything else to this? Just this? Ok, good. That's Zoe over there. Oh, ok. That big? Oh! The chow mein on the rice. Ok. Oh, the dessert. And then we're done. Whoa, Kanae, are you gonna be ok?

00:55:39 Kanae Daub: Yeah.

00:55:40 John Daub: Oh my gosh. Did you eat the shippo? The tail? I always eat the tail. It explains a lot.

00:55:51 Kanae Daub: Explains a lot.

00:55:54 John Daub: Miss any? Hey Trekaris! Inquiring minds wanna know. What is Kanae's skin regimen?

00:56:01 Kanae Daub: What?

00:56:03 John Daub: He's not serious, but yet so serious. Yeah, how do you get such nice skin, Kanae?

00:56:09 Kanae Daub: I don't have such a nice skin. What's your secret? No, I don't know. Inquiring minds wanna know. My skin is kind of sensitive. Ah. Because I had asthma when I was a child. I have cat's allergy. Wow. I can't use very strong. Strong. I don't like that either.

00:56:38 John Daub: She has to use natural products. So if I use too strong chemical. Yeah. Chemical things, I'm gonna get something. Yeah. So I'm using very natural, organic things. This skin message has been brought to you by Trekaris. Because inquiring minds wanna know. This is very envious. No Shiseido, sorry. But I'm not sure it's organic. Do you use Shiseido?

00:57:04 Kanae Daub: No. DHC? No. I'm just using. Kanai bo? Cream? No Kanai bo? No, I'm just using cream. Okay, cream from the refrigerator. That's what it is. You're talking about like refrigerator cream? Like reizouko, you know, like milk cream? What kind of cream? Just moisture. Oh, like a moisturizing cream. Like basic. Moisture cream. Basic.

00:57:38 John Daub: Thank you, Trekaris. Thank you. That's why I love live streams. You can pick out questions and it takes a completely strange turn. Alright, I'm gonna show you the sea a little bit now. Because we gotta wait for the next dish. Give Kanae a break. I can go on a live stream for like 20 hours, but Kanae, she needs some time. Just looking back at the table we've been eating at now for the last hour almost. If you wanna see our dessert, cause I don't know if we're gonna live stream for more than an hour, but give us a thumbs up if we can get to 400 likes. Maybe we'll do the dessert. I'm not sure how much longer we're gonna do the live stream.

00:58:23 John Daub: Okay, I think they're bringing out stuff. Stay here, Kanae. Wait for dessert. Chill out a little bit. I'm taking Niani outside for a second. Oh, that's nice. Ah, intermission. Very unusual to take an intermission. Okay, this right here, you see Hello Kitty's ribbon on the end of this little teeny resort. I think we need a break, right? You've been watching us eat and devour stuff for an hour. Shame on you. We'll devour this with your eyes. This is Hello Kitty's smile. And you can see her from the sea if you do a drone. I'm gonna get my drone out and we're gonna drone this thing and give you a view looking back at it. Yeah, very nice view. You can see the color of the sea is so beautiful. And they were telling me in April they saw dolphin coming through here. So the sea is quite clean in this part of Japan.

00:59:21 John Daub: The sea's always been very important to Japanese cuisine because of the seafood. So they take a little bit extra care, especially down here. Maybe not so much in Tokyo. The seas were really polluted in the 1960s and 70s and into the 80s. But it's cleaned up a lot now. But this has always been clean here. You can see some of the old houses, countryside houses. This is part of a regional revitalization project. And Hello Kitty is sort of saving Japan. There's no beach here. But I've seen, there are some beaches on Awaji Island. But there's no beach here in particular. People just drive by here. They'll stop and have lunch and be on their way. And you get a little bit of a smile. There's a bunch of Hello Kitty relics. They didn't bring it out yet. It's kind of nice fixing the Hello Kitty. Yeah, they haven't brought it out yet. If I go past here, we'll disturb all the other eaters. They're looking at a nice view of the sea and then they're going to see a guy with a camera. How you doing? It's a beautiful afternoon though. We'll be back in Tokyo at sunset. This is part of the job, you know. You come out here, see some beautiful places in Japan, make a story out of it, and then you're back home a couple hours later off of the Shinkansen. It's crazy how fast you can get from place to place.

01:00:57 John Daub: Although flying and driving I prefer now to the Shinkansen because I've been taking the train so much. You get like Shinkansen lag. It makes you tired. After two hours of riding on the Shinkansen, my body gets worn out. I'm quite used to it now. Two hours to Tokyo to Osaka is good, but anything more than that, I prefer to fly. Actually. Flying is a little more comfortable. But it's hard to pass up that Shinkansen pass if you're just one or two people. But if you're a family of four or five, renting a car makes a lot of sense. Renting a car is an easy way to get. Oh! Okay, they brought it in. Alright, we're back in. It's over.

01:01:42 John Daub: Woah! Fish in the car! Show me. Excuse me. Ah, that's so cute! Fish out of water. Gotta refill that real fast. Thank you. That was nice. Hey guys, we're back. Sorry about that. Transitioning between the outside and the inside makes it lag a little bit. Click refresh on your browser and you should be back to normal. We got really blazing fast WiFi here. Alright, check this out here. Alright. Boom! Oh, you unboxed it! You like opened it up. That's a very un-YouTuber type of thing to do. You're supposed to do it in presentation. That looks good. Alright. Nothing was moving. That means it's all dead. Here we go. Three, two, one. This is the YouTube way. Oh. Sorry, this is the way they do it. We have to do it in NHK like this. You unbox it, open it, and the cameraman takes a shot in like that. Okay. No, seriously, that's how they do it in NHK. You can see, nothing's moving. That means it's good to go. Ah. That's not dessert. That's not dessert! What?

01:03:05 Kanae Daub: No, I think it's last one.

01:03:06 John Daub: Oh, it's the last course. Then, next—it's the happy ending. Yeah. It's the last. Last but not least, chahan. In a cup. I wanna—can you do it like this? No, you can't. Honestly, it's very confusing. This is the rice comes in a cup like this. I wanna shotgun this right now, but. If I did do that, that would be just—I'm trying to show off because there's 500 people watching. That's not nice. But if I was 10 years younger, I would do it because I have no sense of what's right and wrong. Now I do. Ah, spoon? So you don't use chopsticks when you eat rice like this. Put your chopsticks away and grab a spoon. It's good chahan. It's edamame. Oh, they got edamame in there. No way.

01:04:16 John Daub: Now, in Japan, when people eat food, they make weird noises and facial expressions. And I remember doing a shoot for NHK. And I just ate it and I reacted pleasantly and I said exactly what the taste were. And the director asked me to do it again and to speak more with your emotions. Like, what? And it basically did it in a really cringy way, which is the way they do it in Japan, like Mmm! Oishii! Ooh! Yeah, it's really—ooh, this is so good! And it doesn't translate well outside of Japan, you know. It looks fake. It looks fake, right? No, it's basically a fake way because you don't know how to react. People just eat. This is how a normal person eats the food, like, seriously. They'll eat it. Oh, look, edamame. Mmm. It's good. That's it! That's it! Right? Like, you don't do a big thing over it. Like, have a moment of pleasure over your food. Nobody does that, like, normally. It's not normal. I tried to tell them. For ten years, I looked like an idiot drooling over my food. The best—there were some other co-reporters that I would do it with. We would just have fun with it, though. We were more making fun of it than we were actually doing it for real. Because if you can't do it for real and make it look good, do the complete opposite and do it and fake it really over the top. It's much more interesting that way. Seriously, yes. We would just fake it. Everybody knew that we were faking it, therefore it works. Either do it naturally or just go over the top and make it ridiculous. Words to live by. Oishii.

01:06:20 John Daub: It's like my friend Jennifer. She's not Japanese, but when she talks and describes foods, she's doing it in Japanese. Because she's been here for so long. In the kaiten sushi episode I did last week that I put up, she's going sugoi! Oishii! What? Jennifer, nobody knows what that means. But you do. But you do. I've liked Jennifer for a long time. Everybody likes Jennifer. Except for like two people. Two trolls don't like her. I keep looking at Hello Kitty's nose. It looks like a yellow edamame. Doesn't it? Two beans and a yellow edamame. Like a non-ripe edamame. Yeah, our audience knows the word.

01:07:31 John Daub: Nosh is right. History? You know the history?

01:07:36 Kanae Daub: No, but we can say Hello Kitty's memory? In downstairs? Oh, right. Defined kind of Hello Kitty 1998? I don't know when it happened, but generation. Generational Hello Kitty. Hello Kitty getting defined? I remember I got a Hello Kitty pencil case in first grade. And kids made fun of me because it was a girly thing. So I didn't like Hello Kitty for a long time. That was 1981.

01:08:23 John Daub: Ronald Reagan versus Jimmy Carter presidential election was on. And all the kids. I remember the teacher, Miss Reinfeldt, she asked everybody who's voting for Jimmy Carter? And every kid in the class raised their hand. And then the teacher said, who's voting for Ronald Reagan? And I was the only one to raise my hand. And I won. Ronnie won the 1980 election and became president in 81. So I felt pretty bold as a first grader because my great uncle was helping Ronald Reagan's campaign. So I thought that was pretty neat. He also helped Roosevelt. He helped a lot of presidents way back. He had documents from the presidents thanking him for the help and stuff. But he would work for both Democrats and Republicans. So it wasn't a political thing.

01:09:33 Kanae Daub: Oh my god. Muy.

01:09:46 John Daub: You eat it all?

01:09:48 Kanae Daub: Yeah. You want okawari? Do you want okawari?

01:09:51 John Daub: No. Okawari? No. No more. We're well below our like threshold for dessert. We're not even close to 400 likes. It's up to you. This livestream could suddenly just end because community participation is at an all-time medium. It's about average. The like count is a little weak. 400 is what it takes for dessert. And coffee. I could go for coffee and then we'll try to appease Mr. Das downstairs with a Leji beer brew. A Leji beer is really good. They have their own craft beer here. It's pretty good stuff.

01:10:46 Kanae Daub: How would you know? Can I just say yeah?

01:10:47 John Daub: Because you said it's pretty good. So you're just agreeing with me? How come when we're not live, you don't say yeah? I drink mikan juice. Japanese orange juice last night at the hotel. It was very nice.

01:11:10 Kanae Daub: No, it wasn't.

01:11:12 John Daub: I'm just disagreeing. I'm just disagreeing. Why? Because sometimes you have to disagree. It's more fun. You can't always say yes and go. It was so good. I wouldn't know. I didn't have it. No, no. It smelled good. It looked good. I would love to shoot the craft beer. They had one. It was like an English craft beer. I don't know what it was. But I had it for dinner and it was really good. There was one in the refrigerator, a Pilsner, of the glamping cocoon that we were in. I want to say bungalow, but it's glamping cocoon. And it was really good beer. That one was okay. But the first one was really good. There's seven kinds that they make. Awaji beer company. And that one was good. I have five more to go. Oh, look at that. We're almost at 400. Kanae, we're almost at 400. What can I say? If you do something hella cute or something.

01:12:15 Kanae Daub: What? No.

01:12:17 John Daub: Yeah, yeah, yeah. We learned something from Hello Kitty yesterday. Plant it in the ground. Watch it grow really strong. Oh, there's more. And then watch it grow really strong. I think some people took their likes away. I saw the likes go down for a second. Plant the seed. Watch it grow up real strong. I think some people took their likes away. Oh, we're still at 400. Good. Some people are taking their likes away. You can't make the internet happy. More and more cute. How do you say it? Nyaa, nyaa, cute.

01:13:06 Kanae Daub: Nyaa, nyaa, cute.

01:13:10 John Daub: That's what they do at the maid's cafes. Do you know? Nyaa is a meow sound for the cat. I've never been to a maid cafe.

01:13:18 Kanae Daub: Oh, you've never been to a maid cafe?

01:13:20 John Daub: We'll try to set that up. Nyaa is meow in Japanese for cat. Nyaa, nyaa, cute. Nyaa, nyaa, cute. What does cute mean? Like just throwing a sound of magic coming at you? Cute. Dorothy writes in, I'm 57 and I love Hello Kitty. Good. I'm going to do this for Dorothy as we wait. Dorothy, this is for you. That's all. That's all, Dorothy. I hugged a kitty for you. In Japan, the cultural home. You can be 100. If you like Hello Kitty. Nobody else can do that. That was just for Dorothy. If you try to copy Dorothy and tell me how old you are and that you love Hello Kitty, I will not go back and hug the Hello Kitty. Just so you know.

01:14:26 John Daub: Once again, we're on Awaji Island. For those of you who are joining us, Awaji Island is between Kobe and Shikoku. Tokushima. And it's a beautiful island. I think that a lot of people missed and didn't stay because it was basically just a highway that went through rice paddies and onion fields getting to Shikoku. But now, it's like getting revitalized. The population has been decreasing for years and years. And now, pop culture is starting to make its way here. New attractions are coming. And that's pretty exciting. It makes you not just drive through it, but stop for a while. This is this kind of place. This Hello Kitty Smile is a place where you can stop for a while and have lunch and kind of feel good about yourself. And then move on to another attraction. There's a lot of stuff here. And yeah, it's worth. I think if you're coming from the Kansai area and you like Hello Kitty or you like Naruto, or you like Crayon Shin-chan, if you like these characters, they have special attractions that you can come and visit. And maybe it's worth staying a while in Awaji.

01:15:37 John Daub: Why don't you try some fishing? That's not a bad idea. Can I bring a cat? Can I? Be on your best behavior. So then they give it. They won't take it away from you. Don't make eye contact. Don't make eye contact. Just sit there and be good. And your dessert will come. Don't make eye contact. Be good. It's jiggling.

01:17:51 John Daub: Alright, we have this Hello Kitty snack. I'm gonna pick it up. That's cute. That's a manju. It's got some volume to it. It's heavy. And there's a yellow nose. Very cute. Look at this thing. It looks like a little fat pig. Watch it jiggle. Earthquake. Earthquake. Small earthquake. Now violent up and down one. Violent up and down one. What? What? What? I'm sorry. Okay. Sorry. I forgot we're in a restaurant. I didn't forget. Alright, you gonna eat yours first? Alright, go first. And chopsticks, cause they give you a fork. Mango pudding? Mango. Mango pudding. That looks good. How is it?

01:19:04 Kanae Daub: Yeah.

01:19:05 John Daub: Ellis wrote in, Kanae. Ellis writes in, although my alliance is with another cat. Ellis, yeah. Hello Kitty has a place in my heart as well. Need to do a petition for Doraemon Cafe. We totally need Doraemon here. I think he might be next. Yeah, just for Ellis and David. I wonder if they have Hello Kitty and Strawberry Beer. That would be pretty good. Strawberry Beer. It's almost dessert time. Tap the like button. Thank you, Gem. That actually helped a lot. Cobra Bebop. Dessert. Thank you. Carlos wrote again. Thanks again for showing my wife and I around Hibiya. Hey Carlos, thank you. I remember. I remember that. That was pretty cool. And thanks Carlos for waiting too. You waited for like 30 minutes for us to leave there. So I appreciate it. It was good to meet you. I guess you're back home already, right? Yeah, we love Ellis. Ellis is like family to us. Ellis is like our family.

01:20:15 John Daub: Alright, here we go. How do I eat this without being violent? Is there a polite way to eat this? Like I could rip, just eat the eye but that's painful. If this was, if look. I'm gonna be honest with you. I'm always honest with you. If this was a zombie apocalypse, we have to get a knife and put it through the head first. Therefore, it disconnects the zombie from coming back. It's mochi. Yeah, that's probably the best way to eat it. And it's not cruel to do it. I think that might be the best. Eat it from the side. Tanya writes, just bite it. Tanya has no patience for that. Safety first. Alright, safety first. Tanya, did you take a picture? Oh no, did you take a picture? Alright, hold on a sec. Wait, wait, wait. Safety first. She won't come back to life now. Good. You have to do that. Just to make sure. It's the polite thing to do. You don't want them to come back. And then, uh, oh, you can show the guts. That's what it looks like. It looks good. Can you eat it in one bite? Oh, daifuku.

01:21:54 Kanae Daub: Yes!

01:21:56 John Daub: Daifuku. Custard daifuku. That's so good. How many stars?

01:22:05 Kanae Daub: Out of ten? 8.5?

01:22:10 John Daub: The polite thing to do after you've de-zombified her, probably just eat it all in one bite. But we're not gonna do that. It's just the way we do it. Right down the middle. Oh my word. Happy Halloween, everybody.

01:22:37 Kanae Daub: Happy Halloween.

01:22:38 John Daub: Eat it. Here we go. How are you supposed to eat this and not do that? I'm just saying. Maybe you're not supposed to laugh wickedly like Lex Luthor. So good. Number one. Mochi. Number two. Custard. Number three. There's like some sort of sweet icing chocolate thing on the whiskers. There's nothing bad. Except that we had to cut it into pieces. I'm not gonna lie. And then they gave us like really well done Italian coffee. Oh man, it's nice and bitter. Yabai. Yabai. Too good.

01:24:23 John Daub: Alright, Kanae. Oh, you're gonna cut your pig? I wanna show the world that Kanae isn't all fun and games. She knows how to cut a good. Oh, you totally right in the middle? That's so cruel. You're going for the back end first? Strange. It's interesting. I did not know that about you. Coconut! Interesting. Very interesting. Big bump. It's not too sweet, but very strong coconut flavor.

01:25:12 Kanae Daub: Yes. Coconut butt.

01:25:15 John Daub: The great Con Julio. Oh, you totally did it. I knew you were gonna. You can't not do it. Horror show. The problem with doing character with food is that can no one ends up being a good guy unless you leave it on the plate and then you're a wasteful person. There's no winning. You cannot win. Cleaved. Exactly Italian bombshell. Are you still Kanae's number one fan? Italian bombshell? Or has your opinion changed? Has your opinion changed because you cleaved a pig in half? Vegetarians everywhere is going, how dare you? And yet, it's vegetarian. It's ironic. Vegetarians. It's ironic that this is vegan friendly. I think. Is this vegan friendly? Maybe it's vegetarian friendly. And yet, it's the destruction of a girl cat. Y'all, bye. You didn't try mango pudding. You better try. Diet starts tomorrow.

01:26:41 Kanae Daub: Yes. Always.

01:26:44 John Daub: Diet starts tomorrow, always. dun-dun-dun. dun-dun-dun. dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun to see sorry it's Hannibal Lecter jiggly pig is down jiggly pig is down um coconuts yeah i'm going full body how many stars out of what 7.8 7.8 it was good mango pudding don't ask me what happens if we get the 500 likes i don't know i do not know i'm just saying i don't know that's pieces of mango yeah bye yeah bye mango that's a happy ending meal right that was a pretty happy ending meal if you're a fan of hello kitty this is a must okay number one you like hello kitty you've got to be here it's just this is this is made for you but more than that though for us this is about seeing how an area that i came to 20 years ago when i lived across the harbor across the sea in kakogawa a place i can kind of just see it from here right now i came through here it was just farm fields it was onion fields and rice paddies and some ranches with wagyu now it's starting to be revitalized and it's nice to see that the japanese countryside can have a second life after the population decreasing people are getting older and young people people are starting to come back and that makes me really happy um that's what this is all about yeah we had some fun yeah the food is really good yeah and like i don't know it's like yeah what else the sea is beautiful yeah we're you know here just for a short time but the point is um this is just one of these new attractions and if you're if you've already been to japan once before and you've done the kyoto tokyo uh osaka thing hiroshima thing it's time for you to try something else and this is one of the things that you can add to your list you're never ending lists because you watch only in japan you're always learning something new and uh that's the point of this not just eating and having fun but learning a little bit about how the countryside is changing and that and this is actually an option in awaji not tokyo this exists in awaji not tokyo okay just you want to point that out let that sink in for a while that's why i said it twice you know politicians have to say things over and over again so it sinks in this is not in tokyo this is in awaji hyogo prefecture awaji let that sink in sink in and then you're gonna have the last 20 seconds right now because i'm running out of battery here and mr das if i see something downstairs i'll instagram it say goodbye to kanai everybody

01:31:32 Kanae Daub: Bye Kanae thank you and i did a good job she's now a youtuber after you've done beautiful day in hyogo prefecture awaji island link in description click the like button if you like this kind of content and see in the next live stream everybody

Related Episodes