00:00:01 John Daub: Greetings everybody! Hello and welcome to Omi-Imazu, the middle of Shiga Prefecture. This behind me is the countryside here in Japan. This in front of me though is the Shinkaisoku (new seasky express train).

00:00:18 John Daub: And this train is coming from, it actually originates here quite often from a station called Tsuruga, which is on the Sea of Japan in Fukui Prefecture. It's a special rapid train! And Kanae and I are riding in the front and guess what? Just like nobody here yet! Which is awesome! Which means we can live stream a little bit and bring you the story on the Shinkaisoku, which is my favorite Kansai train.

00:00:44 John Daub: There's Kanae right there. Stalker Cam. She's sitting in the front. That's where we're sitting. I'm going to show you what the train looks like because that's always kind of special. The train is slightly delayed, which is rare in Japan. It's 10 minutes delayed, but that should not dampen the experience. There's the front of the Shinkaisoku.

00:01:08 John Daub: I love this train. It's about half the speed of the Shinkansen. It typically runs between Himeji and Maibara, the line between Maibara, which is up near Gifu. It's so much fun. It's much more affordable than the Shinkansen. I love it because we have an express rapid train like this in Tokyo.

00:01:38 John Daub: Open the door! You can push the button. You have to push the button yourself to open the door. Is the train really delayed? It's delayed by 10 minutes. Alright, this is going to Kyoto. So we're leaving from this place in Shiga Prefecture to Kyoto. And it's pretty amazing. This is why I love coming out to the countryside.

00:02:01 John Daub: Not because Kanae's standing there on the doorway, but because we were at a place called Kumagawa. Which is this road, this beautiful street on the old Saba Kaido (mackerel road), which runs from Obama City in Fukui all the way to Kyoto. That was in the Edo period. That was the highway between the Sea of Japan to the Imperial City of Kyoto. They bring the food to the Emperor and to all of the aristocrats that were there. And this place is old. There's not a lot of people here. There's not a lot of people running for the trains to get on here.

00:02:38 John Daub: In fact, most of this train, I think it's only like 3% full. But the closer we get to Kyoto, the more and more this train is going to get full. Which is why it is just a really unique opportunity for us. We got this special compartment here. We're going to talk about the limited express trains and also show you the beautiful countryside as we roll through here. We go past Lake Biwa, which is on the Sea of Japan side, which is this beautiful countryside view.

00:03:06 John Daub: Right now we're in the middle of inekari (rice harvesting period). I took some photos on Instagram. Go check that out because it's pretty cool. And then as we get closer and closer to Kyoto, there's also tunnels. And we're probably going to lose some signal there. But that should not stop us from bringing you this express story. Thanks. We have some great moderators too, keeping the peace.

00:03:38 John Daub: A couple of things with the Shinkaisoku. I know this very well. And Kanae was kind of shocked because she didn't know this. But you see these train backs here? If you have four people and friends, you can change it up and pull the train this way. And this makes a seat going... Kanae's like, you didn't know that, right? So you can do it in the countryside. And then this makes it a bigger area for this one. And then in the front, you can push this back. And it opens up the seat so you have four people can sit here and talk.

00:04:23 John Daub: This is also good because when the train hits the terminus, when the train turns around to come back, there's somebody who will move all of the seats back. So then you're sitting this way. No one wants to sit those are the toughest seats when you're sitting the wrong way on the train and going backwards. Not many people like that. But they will move it back. Same with the Shinkansen. On the bottom of the Shinkansen, there's a lever that the staff will push down and then they swing the seats around so that it's going in the right direction. That's a little inside knowledge. Some of the local trains will have this ability. So if you have a family, you can all sit together without sitting in the rows.

00:05:04 John Daub: Now when you sit like this and you have strangers, you cannot eat bentos, right? It's kind of shitsurei (rude). Some people might eat on the train, even the seats like this, but I think I don't do this. Yesterday, though, we were sitting on the seats and a lady who is 79 years old, right? She's almost going to be 80 years old this year. She gave us expensive Shine Muscat grapes and she shared with us her food. And if you share, I guess it's okay to eat. We didn't mind. And they were good grapes. She gave us like seven grapes. A Shine Muscat, yeah. That's very sweet and very expensive, I remember. It's a little bit pricey.

00:06:03 John Daub: So those are some of the things that people asked me about the train. Also, as we go down the Shinkaisoku, when the train gets full and there's no more seats, you can pull these down and create seats. Do you see this? However, you see there's a little panel here. During times where it's too crowded, they will lock this so you cannot open it. So there's more room for people to stand. So they do this based on the time period. JR knows very well when it's going to be crowded. So these little secret seats will be locked and then it will say that here on the thing.

00:06:40 John Daub: There's also, sometimes you'll find restrooms on board, but not very often. This one does have a restroom in the front car. And the restroom is the basic squatter. You have to be careful when it's shaking back and forth, but it's pretty clean. I mean, it's usable.

00:07:08 John Daub: They're saying that it's going to be departing soon. Again, the Shinkansen moves from city to city and it moves so fast. You don't really get a chance to stop and take a look around. You see the stuff moving by. You'll see these houses moving by so fast. But there's something when the door opens and you're on a platform like this. There's something pretty cool about that experience to feel the air of the countryside like this. That's why I prefer local trains to the Shinkansen. I use the Shinkansen to get from A to B. And then you can micro go by the local trains. And that's what Kanae and I did.

00:07:54 John Daub: We came out by Shinkansen to Kyoto. We took this line. This is the first time I've ever ridden it. It goes from Kyoto to Tsuruga through Kyoto, Shiga, and the countryside. JR Kosei Line. Yeah, this is the Kosei Line. You can see K-O-S-E-I. It's a blue line from Kyoto. But it's really beautiful.

00:08:29 John Daub: The place that we went to didn't have any convenience stores. It was really local. I kind of like that. And Kanae and I came here just to check it out. We've never been here. Kanae's high school friend is living there now. Koko, yeah. We came to visit Koko. We're visiting one of her friends, and she's also trying to help the area bring in more tourists, so that was a pretty good opportunity to take a look at what they're doing. And then her friend... Reiko owns a coffee shop, Sol's Coffee, and they built a chain here in the middle of nowhere. There's a Tokyo coffee shop. Yeah, she has a Sol's Coffee shop up in Kumagai [?]. It's owned by one of Kanae's friends, which is cool. Yeah, her coffee is really nice. She's got some really good coffee.

00:09:34 John Daub: So we're going to be taking off in about a minute, so stick with us because you're going to really love the view. This is crazy, isn't it? We got the whole train ourselves. This is called the Kanae Liner. I've named the train after you. I need a bottle of sake to break on the side of the train. Just like we do with boats. Yeah, the bathroom did have toilet paper. I don't know, the Shinkansen restrooms are pretty nice. Especially the new Shinkansen have these multi-purpose toilets. They're huge. It's basically like a room. And it's made for disabled people who... Japan has really made an effort in the last 10 years to make sure that people with wheelchairs can use the public transportation.

00:10:24 John Daub: Since the Olympics... Since Tokyo was trying to get the Olympics from 2010, they've been bidding for the Olympics. They lost in 2012 and then 2016. I remember the 2016 bid and they lost. But from that time, they've been building elevators in all of the local subway stations. They've been really ramping up the ramps. I had to use that one. So there's a great change. And then the Shinkansen also has multi-purpose toilets on it so you can wheel a wheelchair into it. And they have places where wheelchairs can also sit inside of the Shinkansen, which is really good. They're doing a good job of trying their best.

00:11:04 John Daub: Do you ever use the toilet on the local trains? I've done it too. It's usually in emergencies, but it's not bad. They're usable. I'd never used public toilets in the United States. Like, I would just hold it. Or I would go outside or something. You know, find a tree. The toilets in America, they just throw bleach on it all. And that's how they clean it. It's just really not... I remember the bathroom at the American park. The door is a kind of space, so sometimes I can't... Oh, you can see the... There's a gap between the door. Japan's toilets, the doors go all the way down to the floor, right? This is the way it's supposed to be done. There's a lot of privacy. You can't peek in, which is a problem for some people. There's some really not nice people. They put cameras and stuff in the toilets. It's always in the news every now and then. Rarely, but when it does happen, it makes big news.

00:12:19 John Daub: So once the train gets going, we're gonna see a really beautiful countryside view rolling. There's one of the only convenience stores. Do you see it in the middle? Alright, pop quiz. What convenience store is in the middle of the screen? I'm looking at the livestream right now. What convenience store is in the middle of the screen? I'm gonna zoom in in five, four, three, two, one. Nobody knows. It's not 7-Eleven. It's Lawson's. That's the only convenience store in this town. There is a 7-Eleven, but I don't think it was open yet. It's been new. Now everyone's starting to write in the livestream. Lawson's.

00:13:12 John Daub: I like. I don't know. I think when I first came to Japan, Lawson's was my favorite. I don't know why. Because they were everywhere in Okayama. And then I guess it's gonna be 7-Eleven because they make the most effort for the bakery and the bentos are good. But they're a little bit chemical. I feel like they've got chemicals in them. So I try not to eat a lot of convenience store foods. Family Mart's been doing a pretty good job too. Which one do you like? You like 7-Eleven now?

00:14:01 John Daub: The good thing about sitting in the front is I don't have to do anything. I'm just looking right outside and when the train starts moving you get a view from the front and the sides. The Shinkaisoku on this line, the Shinkaisoku runs once every hour. Yeah. 1 hour and a half. But it runs every 15 minutes from Osaka from Himeji to Kyoto. So every 15 minutes there's a limited special express they call it. And on this line it's once every hour. But this is going to a place with this very little population. So it kind of makes sense. This train goes to Himeji if we stayed on. If we fall asleep we'll end up in Himeji. We're trying to meet up with Kevin Reilly. So we're gonna give him a call in a little bit.

00:15:16 John Daub: We're on the move now. Thanks for keeping us company everybody. We're gonna try to keep this live stream going so you can get an idea of what it looks like to be on the Shinkaisoku. Hey, Kanae, Ellis is here. We're on the roll now. Whoa. Oh wow. So this is already... the Biwako, Lake Biwa, is just over there. I can see it in the distance. But it's just so cool to sit. Since Nishino-san is the driver. It's pretty cool.

00:16:17 John Daub: So let's just stand here for a little bit and enjoy a train ride. Yeah, this is really nice. I believe once we get out of this station area, it opens up into some more rice fields. And when there's inekari going on, it's so beautiful. So golden looking. And the color of the rice turns into gold. Oh, there's a 7-Eleven down there. Yeah, it turns into such a beautiful gold. But after inekari, you kind of lose that goldenness. So October is, I don't know, it's golden. It's September. I put some pictures on Instagram. Oh, we're now flying. The light's colored. Do you see it? It just looks like that for miles and miles and miles.

00:17:47 John Daub: Hey Kanae, have you got anything? Gohobi? That's for Kanae. Kiki wrote a message. Kanae, but when you go home, if a gohobi is like Kiki... Oh, why don't you show people the sake? This is a Japanese sake. Koko, remember Koko? Koko gave us sake. Yeah, that's a nice sake. Kumagawajuku. That's from the area that we were in. So we got that.

00:18:33 John Daub: And we're pulling into the station. Shin-Asahi. And when I think of Asahi, I think of Mr. Das. He always gives a super chat for Asahi. I'm going to get on the Shinkansen when we go back. It really is called Shin-Asahi. And even at the station, nobody's getting on. I'm going to just be quiet to be polite. Because I got to get used to the fact that people are going to be coming on. But there's still nobody really on the train except for us.

00:19:14 John Daub: Watch the train conductor point and do safety checks at everything. It's really amazing. And if they point and look and visually confirm, they'll remember it better. And the actions, the physical actions, they're doing it for a reason. Because it does make sure that you confirm. So he'll look at the schedule, do the physical pointing and check. It's impressive. You don't make mistakes. You make less mistakes when you're pointing at things to confirm. And it just becomes a habit. Safety first.

00:20:02 John Daub: There might be a crew member in the back of the train. But for the most part, there's a very very few people on the train. There might be somebody who will get on the train in the more populated areas. But right now, the Shinkaisoku is going through very sparsely populated area in Shiga Prefecture. So there's maybe, I don't know, 30 or 40 people on the train. And it's like 20 cars. So everybody gets their own.

00:20:42 John Daub: So the inekari, the rice harvest has been completed in this area. Oh, it would... A train's coming up. We're going to be getting a train below by us. Oh, there's a bamboo grove. Get ready. Oh, that's what I'm talking about. Look at this. I love the colors. A lot of the fields have already been harvested. The ones that are that golden color, the really, really yellow golden color, have not been harvested yet. There are a lot of solar panels, a lot of renewable energy out here as well.

00:21:38 John Daub: This is not the Shinkansen. This is a limited express called the Shinkaisoku that runs just in the Kansai area. And it's one of my favorite trains. Look at all the bugs on the window. This station is called Adogawa. So if anyone's in Adogawa, come and say hi for five seconds. If you're in Adogawa right now, come and say hi to us and we will say hi to you. We're looking for you right now. Nobody. There's nobody.

00:22:30 John Daub: Everyone's going to Kyoto. It's pretty cool to share the experience with you. I know a lot of people, they just take the Shinkansen and they don't get off of the main route. But I think it's when you get off main route that you start to see more of the soul of Japan. It's not between Hiroshima and Tokyo. It's out in the countryside, out in the Japanese Alps. It's out in the Sea of Japan. Down in Kyushu. Especially down in Shikoku. Getting lost in Shikoku.

00:23:23 John Daub: This is now pointing towards Lake Biwa. And there's nothing really in the distance. That's where Lake Biwa is. Just love the colors. Hey guys, if we can get to 300 likes, I'll keep on going for five more minutes. You have one minute to get to 300 likes. Community button time. Now it's moving fast. We're almost there.

00:24:51 John Daub: Travel with Irvin. Just look at the DJI Osmo Mobile 3. Which gimbal do you use? The DJI Osmo Mobile 3. Use the same one you just got. Alright guys, we're 30 short. Come on. These livestreams are fueled by likes. And love. Oh, there's more people getting on. Check it out. More people getting on. I don't know what station it is. We're 15. We need 15 likes before this train starts to leave. Come on guys. We need 15 likes before the train leaves. We're not gonna get it.

00:26:12 John Daub: We're going through tunnels. Sorry. There's the wide angle lens there. Alright, we don't need it. We're gonna get hit by the tunnels. I just wanna bring you a little bit more of the view. Sorry guys. Now you can see the Lake Biwa, which is what I was telling you about. And just see the view. You can see some of the beautiful lakeside views for the next couple of minutes. Because once the signal goes out, the livestream's over. This signal's really bad in this area. Guys, tunnel is over, okay? That's pretty cool to see the town. That's really neat. That's a pretty cool view. Look at this. The old town with the... Oh, there it is. It's gone. It's a station. It's on the end of the station. Well, it was fun to share it while it lasted. There you go. Thanks everybody. We got to 300 likes. Appreciate the support.

00:27:26 John Daub: I'm gonna see if we can meet up with Kevin Reilly. And we'll do that on Instagram. You've never met Kevin, right? We're teaching her in Japan. So you haven't done it, right? No, I haven't. So we'll bring another livestream to you. We'll see what happens. Let's talk to Kevin and see how much time we have. But thanks everybody for watching and enjoying the beautiful Japanese countryside. Do subscribe if you like these kinds of livestreams that bring you to Japan's corners without any notice whatsoever. We just go live. A little bit of notice. See you everybody. Have a good day. Have a good night wherever you're from. Enjoy the view of the Shinkaisoku.

00:29:10 John Daub: Nosh knows me well. We got a strong signal now. I just know there's going to be more people getting onto the trains. Let's just say it's a present for those who are still sticking around. I end my livestreams by not ending it. That's how we do it. We're coming into the station here. I guess you could call this an encore, right? If the people start clapping, you got to do an encore. This is an encore. That is Lake Biwa. This is the biggest freshwater lake in Japan. It's huge. If you look on a map of Japan, you'll see it right in the middle of the main island. Kyoto's on the bottom of it. It's a really beautiful lake.

00:30:14 John Daub: And this is where I ate the funazushi (fermented fish sushi), which is sushi in a bucket for a year. Fermented fish. It's the original sushi. There's an episode on the main channel about that. It's pretty cool. It is nice for fishing. On the other side, we have the mountains. And you can see Kanae and I's head. Oh, there's a highway. You see the highway going through the mountains over there? The train's headed to Kyoto.

00:31:51 John Daub: Carrie Larson, I would say it would be Peter von Gomm, but I'm impartial. Whose voice is better? Peter or Chris Pepler? Peter. Of course, Peter. Chris didn't come to our wedding. Peter did. There's the final word. PBG has the best voice in Japan. And if I started smoking, I might be up there too. I'm not saying either of them smoke, but apparently it makes your voice deeper. And PBG rocks. We'll see him in Fukuoka. He's coming down with us to ride in a special train in Kyushu in a couple of weeks.

00:33:01 John Daub: I really love the Shinkaisoku. I love the speed. It's half the speed of the Shinkansen, but it goes through. Oh, there's the... Is that Otsu? The city of Otsu that we go by in the distance? And then we go through some tunnels. So this live stream is about a life of 60 seconds left. We're about to tune off. This is an extended bonus scene of the Shinkaisoku heading towards Kyoto from Shiga Prefecture, the countryside. And we're looking at rice fields and Lake Biwa, which is in the distance. And this is the last view of Lake Biwa that we're going to get because we're going to start to go through some tunnels and lose the signal. But it's nice to bring you just a little bit of it before we sign off.

00:33:58 John Daub: Kanae and I came out here to meet one of her friends, Koko, from high school, who is living in a small village. We stayed here for a day to visit her and then we're heading back to Tokyo. It was fun. Fukui was fun, right? You want to go back to Fukui? I like any time you get out of the city. It was a big excuse for Kanae and I to get out of the city, but also to see what they're doing with this little town. And I was impressed. Ah, the Japanese countryside is beautiful. Looks like a jungle down there. Koko's fans are now chiming in. Yeah, I think she knows. She was reading the comments yesterday. Koko knows she's got some fans.

00:35:01 John Daub: All right, guys, this is the last stop that we're going to take. And then as soon as the train gets back, starts going, we're going to sign off for real. But really, could you live in this area of Japan? You need a car. The train is right here, but I think you need a car. Could you live out here right on the lake like this? All these fields have been harvested already. These fields have been harvested. There's some Japanese YouTubers who have incredible channels. Yes, not Saba. Saba is on the Sea of Japan. They have some incredible channels fishing in like they have like half a million or a million subscribers. Some of the Japanese YouTubers that are fishing in Lake Biwa.

00:36:38 John Daub: I bet you all the farmers just go out and get toasted. That's what I would do. I was a farmer. I finished in a cottage harvesting all of your rice fields. Probably go out and get toasted. Drive into Kyoto. Take the train into Kyoto and get roasted toasted. Come back. Do it all over again. The extended extended. We didn't stop. I can't end the live stream until we stop, but we're going real slow.

00:37:36 John Daub: So usually on the above the door, they have the train line. Okay, we're getting there. We'll stop. All right. There's an unharvested field. Do you see how green or how yellow green it is? It's beautiful. Gold right there. There's one that's unharvested and the one with green in it has been harvested a while ago or they're growing something else. Beautiful. Hello from the Midwest in America. I know that a lot of the Midwest also has a lot of beautiful. Beautiful fields at the end of summer.

00:38:15 John Daub: All right, we're here. We're not stopping. This is the Shinkaisoku. That's why limited express the limited super express will not stop and I say the rapid special express. I think it's called. All right, and then we're going to lose all the fields. Now we're back in the suburbs of Kyoto and that's the end of the ride and that's the end of this live stream. The tunnels are coming. The tunnels are coming. All right. Bye. No, for real. Bye. This is it. Blame Toby. Blame Toby for Kyoto's urban sprawl. That's not a passenger train. That's a cargo train going by. It's a cargo train. This land is your land. This land is my land. From Obama City to the beachwood highway. This land was made for you and me.