00:00:05 John Daub: Welcome to Hakata Station. This is Fukuoka City's main train station. It's massive. It kind of has this really big design just like Kyoto Station. But inside of this is a shopping mall. There's lots of shops. There's lots of places to see and do inside of here. And there's the entrance right in front of us. Up there is the Welcome to Hakata Station sign.

00:00:33 John Daub: How you doing everybody? Welcome to another livestream where we're going to be walking around the station and introducing you to an important station here in Kyushu. This is where the Kyushu Shinkansen will start and the Tokaido Shinkansen from Tokyo ends here. It's about 7 hours from Tokyo to get down here by Shinkansen. Smart people probably fly, but if you have a JR Rail Pass, you're probably going to take that because you have a JR Rail Pass. It's free. Well, to get down here. Kanae and I flew. We flew with Jetstar, which is a budget airline. Typically it's about $50 to fly down here with Jetstar, which is ridiculously cheap compared to JR Shinkansen, even though it takes longer. But if you have a JR Rail Pass, again, it makes sense to come to Fukuoka by rail just because you get a rail pass.

00:01:26 John Daub: So we're going to go around the station. We're going to go inside here. But before we do that, I want to take a look at the ekimae (station front). The area around here is packed with things to see and do, lots of shops. There's a Daiso 100 yen shop inside of there. You can see some of the stores available. There's an underpass. Again, there's more shops downstairs and a Sun Plaza, they call it. Buses are right in the front going all around the area. And this is the morning rush hour. So people are coming to work. You can see the foot traffic is arriving.

00:02:07 John Daub: Over there, that building in the distance is called the Kite Building. Kite meaning stamp. So it was created by the Japan Post. And inside of there is a lot of shops. On the ninth floor, there's some restaurants and cafes. It's a pretty neat building. Lots of things to do in there as well. And then this roof here is an overhang where there's events that are usually taking place underneath there. Yesterday, they had something for the Rugby World Cup. And here, they also had like a little makeshift coffee stand. People were lining up for last night. It's closed off for now.

00:02:41 John Daub: The inside of the station has not changed much over the many years. Here's a map of the area. Right here is Hakata Station right in the middle. And I want to point this out because I think you can see it better on this map here. The airport is ridiculously close. It's one, two stops on this subway. It took Kanae and I six minutes to get from the airport to the central station. And our hotel was right here. You cannot even compare that with Tokyo. Fukuoka is just a really convenient place to fly into. Anyways, this is the domestic and then this is the international terminal. So it might be a little bit harder to get around on the international terminal. But still, here's the subway from the domestic terminal. It was so fast. We were in our hotel room like 25 minutes after we had arrived. That's crazy, right? You arrive and you're in your hotel room in the center of the station in 25 minutes.

00:03:43 John Daub: Alright, let's go up here. Before we go into the station, and this tour is estimated to last about 35-40 minutes, I want to show you the view of the area. And the best way to do it is to go up. So this beautiful iPhone 11 Pro is going to bring you some HDR color. Beautiful shadows. And yes, they have escalators outside here. You can go all the way up to the fourth floor. And we had a really amazing view.

00:04:15 John Daub: Justin, thank you very much. Thanks for all the great info. Looking forward to my first trip to Tokyo next month. Buy a couple of drinks. Justin, I will. And PVG is here right now. He's not going to be in this livestream, but he is in the same city. We're both riding the same train. And yeah, we're going to put that to pretty good use. I'm pretty sure of it. And we'll put some photos on Instagram. Only in Japan, TV is my handle on Instagram. So we'll share some of that with you.

00:04:43 John Daub: We're going to do the not typical entrance to Hakata Station. From the second floor, you can enter in and take the escalator down. On the base of the stairway is a pretty interesting statue of the Rugby World Cup. Not everybody is a rugby fan, but maybe they'll be a fan of this amazing art that's in the lobby. Most of the major train stations in Japan are in the lobby. And Japan has received an upgrade over the last 5-10 years. Nagoya Station. This sort of reminds me of that with the colors and everything.

00:05:34 John Daub: And this road between the buildings here, if you go straight, will take you to the yatai (ramen stands) on the riverside. The Naka River. It's really a nice area. It's fun to walk around there. That's also where all the hotels are, Kanae and I discovered. And in the distance, again, this will take you down to another side of Fukuoka. So the roads from the station will lead in different directions and I like that. Fukuoka is a well-setup city. It's got a really young vibe. And we saw some cafes here that were huge compared to Tokyo. Kanae and I were looking at each other like, we can live here. We could live here.

00:06:18 John Daub: Alright, let's go see this funky Rugby World Cup statue. It's in the thumbnail that I initially posted. This elevator is going up until the top. It's on the 10th floor. So just a quick look. Again, on the top of the building are tons and tons of restaurants. See, there's McDonald's and Starbucks, the usual suspects. And then you get into more different kinds of cuisines. Here's some unagi (eel). Here's some Kagoshima kurobuta (black pork Berkshire pig from Kagoshima). That stuff is so good. There's some sashimi. There's some wagyu. So you have everything here. Mapo tofu from Sichuan in China. And there's a lot of Chinese tourists here.

00:07:17 John Daub: And then look at this old-style escalator. Sometimes they should show you the stuff going on inside of the escalator. I like that. Little wheels inside of there. So let's go into the heart of the beast now. This is the main throughway. And on the left side, you can see this massively wicked statue. And I got a lot of stuff to say about this. Hey, Fei! John, you are still my favorite person. Thanks for showing these wonderful videos and livestreams. Thanks, Fei. How cool is that?

00:08:04 John Daub: They've got the crazy oni (demon) eyes. Oni being like the demons in front of Japanese temples. You can see they got like crazy eyes. And if you compare it to some of the pictures that you see of the Japanese Buddhist temples, the statues there, it is very much similar. Hey, folks. You're back. What creeps me out with the statue are the eyes. And then the mascots for the Rugby World Cup above there just smiling like clowns at them. It's somewhat creepy to me. But that statue is pretty cool. And it's here just for the Rugby World Cup. It looks like something that you would see at a shrine to pray. Let's move on and get out of this dead zone. Right now, the station is completely packed. You can see tons of people coming to work. And we're walking against the grain right now.

00:09:18 John Daub: Most of the posters on the left, on the digital posters here, are of the Rugby World Cup. And our flight was really expensive to get down here. Typically, a Jetstar flight to Fukuoka is about 5,000 yen or $50. Ours round trip was 30,000 yen or almost $300. So it was unheard of for Jetstar. But because of the Rugby World Cup, we had to pay to get down here. Because we're taking a special train. Here's the tickets to buy tickets to get into the Rugby World Cup. Tickets to buy the Shinkansen for the Kyushu and Sanyo line to get back to Tokyo. And we might do that. I might get a platform ticket so that you can go in and take a look at some of the Shinkansens. They are a little bit different. Here's the digital Rugby poster. The next match is on the 12th, Saturday. Ireland versus Samoa will be here.

00:10:38 John Daub: Oh, check this out. Daimyo. I have a Patreon supporter level where I send stuff from Japan. I'm gonna send you this, I think. Check it out. This is one of the things I'm gonna send you. These manju (steamed buns) are so good. They're like sweet potato cheese. Good morning. Actually, I can try that. Why don't I buy this and try it, huh? I mean, why not a little bit of street food, right? I gave Kanae all my money yesterday. I think they take credit cards. Hold on, let me ask. Because these are so good.

00:11:30 John Daub: Again, they have lots of gifts that you can buy here from Fukuoka. This is where I bought the exact same thing during my hitchhiking trip when I was going through the station. They were so good and I sent them to Kanae, so that's why. Good morning. Can I get a credit card? No, you can't. I'm eating now. Thank you. This is a gift card, right? Thank you. All right, I got one. Are we gonna try this? With perhaps a coffee or something from the vending machine, huh?

00:12:34 John Daub: Tommy Lee Jones is still the boss. This guy has been representing this brand for like as long as I can remember. Look at that little, teeny cappuccino he's got. Tommy Lee Jones, we love you, brother. It's nice to see a fellow American here in Japan. Anytime I look at a Boss coffee, I see America. America right here with Tommy Lee just a happy guy. Coca-Cola is also representing Fukuoka welcome to this city and they have Hakata Coca-Cola cans. Every single city in Japan has their own representative Coca-Cola can. These little teeny Coca-Cola cans have a Rugby World Cup design that's kind of neat too. When they specialize stuff this Georgia coffee has an anime character on it. Those who are fans probably know it's Gundam. Very cool.

00:13:32 John Daub: All right let's make our way outside to the other side of this the exit and then we'll try this. Oh that looks so good. It's tebasaki (chicken wings). Tebasaki is the chicken wings of Japan, usually got a really nice teriyaki taste to them. Those are the manju that I bought and they got a strawberry variety of the manju as well. Check that out but I'm gonna eat the original one right now. More gift shops. That's exciting and they have over here on the left side this Hakata Omiyage Mon Ichiba (Hakata souvenir market). And inside of there you can buy even more gifts from the Fukuoka area. Kyushu is really famous for its food because they have such delicious raw ingredients like the produce here is incredible. They have the best chicken, best pork. Extremely delicious Miyazaki gyu (Miyazaki beef) has is a very good A5 wagyu.

00:14:45 John Daub: This is the other side of the station so when you're coming to Japan just to eat you might just want to come to Kyushu. Kyushu has it all. Hey John. Michael Walker hey John how you doing pretty good pretty good pretty good how you doing pretty good pretty good you doing pretty good pretty good. I'm not feeling too great I'm sorry you hear that man. Dedicate this to you. We can have some of these manju for our friend John Michael he's not doing too well.

00:15:41 John Daub: Fukuoka, a good place to see cherry blossoms in the spring, or is there another city nearby that you recommend? That's a great question. Fukuoka, when I was here hitchhiking, I went to a couple of really nice parks. I think it's a short subway trip away. It takes about 5-10 minutes. But if you look at the map of Fukuoka and Google Maps, you're going to see a ton of parks. Most of them are really good. I can't think of a bad place in Japan to see the cherry blossoms, except for Ueno Park, which is actually good. And I say it's bad because it's really, really crowded. But wherever there's cherry blossoms, there's a spirit to it. And whenever there's spirit, there's a festive experience for all. So I can't say that there's going to be a ton of places all throughout Kyushu that is going to be really good for that. Thanks, Professor. We love you.

00:16:31 John Daub: Like this pink taxi cab here. It loves us too. That's a really nice cab. How you doing? Did you see the hubcaps on that thing? It's awesome. Oh, man. All right. John Michael, let's take a look. So here we go. These are the Hakata Torimon. Torimon, sorry. And I'll read the label here. The spirit of okashi (snack), which gives a peaceful and pleasant mind to the human race. All the time, man seeks romance. The okashi. We have been working hard and carefully to weave the romance and the fancy into each okashi. This, at last, we have made up the Hakata seiyu wagashi (traditional Japanese sweets). If you taste the feeling and the spirit of the okashi, which values tradition and living in it at times, there is no pleasure better than that. I love this. It's for the human race. It's all of us. And there's five in here. And I'm going to send something like this to all of our Patreon Daimyo supporters, along with a bunch of other goodies that I do each month.

00:18:07 John Daub: Let's open this up and have some. This is part of the Fukuoka experience. As you see the ground of Fukuoka Station. Here you go. It's opened up here. They're good until November 14th. So plenty of time. About a month. I am opening her up. Oh, you can smell it now. Once you open up the package. Aha. It smells like Fukuoka. Sweet, soft, very delicate manju. One bite. You're going to love these. Sweet potato mixed in with cheese. You're going to love these. These are so good. Hey David, Kimura. David's here. Nice to see you, David. So there you go. That's what this is. And that's what our Daimyo are getting this month as one of the main items.

00:19:37 John Daub: So we have about 15 minutes left. And it's livestream. And then Kanae and I are going to go get ready because we're going to ride the Seven Stars train. And the platform is on the third floor of Hakata Station. I'm going to see if I can get you a Shinkansen ticket to go inside and then go and see the Shinkansen. Because I haven't seen the Kyushu Shinkansen in a long time. Just for a quick overview. This is the other side of the ekimae. Or the back side of it. There's some hotels. There's the Oriental Hotel. Nico Nico Rent-A-Car. That's one of the cheapest Rent-A-Car companies. I still prefer Toyota Rent-A-Car. But that's not bad either.

00:20:35 John Daub: Shizuoka Prefecture is a place I might go to in the future for sure. I was thinking of taking the Seishin-Yatsugatake (Seishin-Shizuoka?) for the local train pass. And just spending a couple of days wandering around. I don't know if Kanae is going to have time. But if we can just wander around. Oh look a touch menu. Touch. Whoa. Everything changes from English to Japanese. That's pretty cool. It's good to see the buttons. You can see where the restrooms are. Yeah that might be a good idea then. I think we'll do a livestream from our main channel episode. In Shizuoka sometime. I saw some really good Japanese green tea matcha episodes from there. You have to get it when it's in season.

00:21:33 John Daub: Alright let's go in here and see if we can get inside of the Shinkansen. So we need to get a noriba (platform) ticket. The noriba tickets are inside of here. Oh that's right. You gotta go to the ATM. This is awful timing for this. Let's see if I have the right change. Alright I might. I might be able to scrounge it up. Nice shot of the lady's shoes. I might be able to scrounge up a platform ticket. It's like pocket change. It literally is pocket change. There's English here. You can see here admission ticket. One adult. 150 yen. I think I might just have this. Oh I can't use 5 yen. Please take your coin. Ahh. Oh I got it in the other pocket. Okay. Admission ticket. Boom. I just had enough. 150 yen in admission ticket to go see the Shinkansen. How beautiful is that? It's a thing of beauty. So for about $1.25 you can go in and see the Shinkansen. And we're gonna do that right now.

00:24:08 John Daub: This is so cool. The Shinkansen entrance everybody. Let's do this. Entrez s'il vous plaît. Merci beaucoup. We are in. So let's go take a look at the Kyushu Shinkansen. Just for a little bit right there. The Sakura 540. Bound for Kagoshima Chuo. Awesome. It leaves at 9:04 track 15. Let's make our way there. Stand on the left. Walk on the right. That guy's breaking the rules from Osaka. Traffic jam. Again it's admission tickets are like a big secret. Not a lot of people know about it. But for 150 yen at all of the Shinkansen stations you can go in. The reason for the platform tickets is because if you have a friend who's coming and you want to meet them on the platform. You can do that. And that's really important. Especially if they're a foreigner. A westerner or someone who isn't familiar with it. You want to be able to get on the platform to greet them. So they don't get completely disoriented.

00:25:41 John Daub: Awesome Kyushu Shinkansen. I feel like I'm back at Tokyo Station. Oh that guy's running for a train. That's how I'm usually. Go dude go. This one's going back to Tokyo. Kanae. See you Kanae. I'm not going to leave her. So these are the Sanyo Shinkansen. Where's the Sakura one? I went on the wrong platform. That's so cool. So I could go back home. If I just take one of these Shinkansen. Let's say goodbye to the Shinkansen. As this guy peeks out of the window.

00:26:32 John Daub: My channel is called the ASC91. Hi John thank you for the channel. I went to Japan last year for a month. And I relive it very much by watching your videos. Thank you. FeisLife. Aw a unicorn Fei. Cool. And Cobra Bebop. Another anime emoji. Angela. Hi John first time catching you live. Wanted to say thank you. Thank you, all of your videos have helped so much in planning our honeymoon in December. Ah, Angela, it's great you're coming here for the honeymoon. Very romantic. Kanae and I, we have a, every time we travel in Japan, it's like a honeymoon. Alright, let's say goodbye to the Shinkansen. It's about to leave. This one is going back to Tokyo, so a lot of, I kind of, I'm glad I'm not on this train because I'm not done my mission here.

00:27:24 John Daub: Oh, here, is this the, that one is going, that's the Sanyo Shinkansen that you don't see in Tokyo. This is the Shinkansen going, and we're going to go see the Kyushu Shinkansen in a second. Go, go, go! Ah, she's this thing of beauty. I love her a lot. There's another one of the Sanyo Shinkansens on the other side, and I'm looking for the Kyushu Shinkansen, which I think is down here. So let's go take a look and then I'm out of here. For once, I don't have to run to the train. Okay. So inside of Hakata Station, in the Shinkansen platform, you do have a 7-Eleven. You do have ekiben (station bento) and all the other really nice stuff, the shops that you'll find in every other Japanese Shinkansen station. The flavors are different than the ekiben here. So they've got some more local stuff. The ekiben do look good. A lot of meat, a lot of pork here, because it's very famous in this area. Again, there's those manju. Joe Michael, that's the one I just ate.

00:29:06 John Daub: Alright, this guy's going towards the Kyushu Shinkansen. Let's get a nice shot of the Kyushu Shinkansen. There it is! Oh no, this is the Sakura. This train is a Kodama going towards Okayama. It's a little teeny shop on the platform. Open 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. 7-Eleven. Alright, so this train is on its way out, everybody. So we're going to say goodbye to this Shinkansen. And coming now is the Sakura Kyushu Shinkansen on the way in. So bye-bye as this train makes its way towards Kokura and Okayama. It's a beautiful looking Kodama. There's Hakata Station up here. And then let's make our way to the front and then we'll see the Shinkansen coming in. I turn into like a school kid when I see trains. There's nothing more exciting than trains in Japan, I'm telling you. There's the front of the Shinkansen right there. I am totally a train otaku (train geek). Trains are always going somewhere. They're going somewhere fast and that's exciting. You always wish that you're on one.

00:31:30 John Daub: It smells like ramen on the platform. It really smells like ramen. Alright, so we're going to see right now the Sakura Shinkansen come in. And then we're going to skedaddle. Take a look at some of the other things inside of the station. Maybe look at the gift shop a little bit and then, I'll take any of your questions. If you have any. This is a pretty cool station. There's lots of things to see and do inside. Look at it. It looks like a spaceship on the other side. It's awesome. Look at that. The Kyushu ones have like this kind of blue color to it. If you've ever seen the nose open up. The nose opens because then it can connect two Shinkansens together. I've seen them kiss. The Shinkansen kiss. It's pretty cool. Train otaku are the most dangerous of them all. And here it comes. Ah, look at her. Those big shoulders. Look at all those people on the other side. And this Kyushu Shinkansen going towards Kagoshima. Exciting. The train staff has to be a little bit more cautious because there are no electronic doors on this Shinkansen. So people could fall in. So they have to be a little bit more cautious. The double Shinkansen shot. That's pretty sweet.

00:33:45 John Daub: Hey guys, we might have lost a little bit of signal there. Actually not getting on the train. I just came here to say hello to it. This is a platform pass that allows you for $1.50 to go in and just see the Shinkansen. And now we're back. All right, let's get out of here. Thank you, Shinkansen. It feels like I've gone somewhere. Although I didn't really go anywhere. I just came in to share with you some Shinkansen love. Bye bye, Shinkansen. I totally bowed to the train. Welcome to Fukuoka, Hakata. Welcome to Hakata and Fukuoka.

00:34:55 John Daub: Let's take a look at the ekiben. And then got a scram. Wow. Look at all the colors here. That's huge. This one's got some volume to it. There's some mentaiko (spicy pollock roe). Mentaiko is spicy fish roe. Kind of the egg sack. It sounds gross, but it's totally good. And you just smash it up into the rice. Man. I'm always looking forward to getting on the train and riding the Shinkansen. Shumai (steamed dumplings) is also... All these are different kinds of ekiben. Very colorful. Very big variety. There's some shumai. Very cool. All in all, very cool Shinkansen experience. I love it here.

00:36:21 John Daub: The signs are marked pretty clearly. It says Subway right there. So you can go straight from the Shinkansen to the airport so fast. Again, the Rugby World Cup is going on. So you see the signs welcoming visitors who have come here for that reason all over the city. Alright. So we were just part-time, short-time visitors for $1.25, $1.50. You can get in. Say goodbye. Welcome back to Hakata Station. And there you go. It's very, very cool. There's some omiyage (souvenirs) and gift shops. Hiyoko (baby chicks with cream inside of them). Those are pretty good. And we're going to make our way through the station back to the other side. Those look so good too. They're just like confections all over the place. Rugby World Cup and confections.

00:37:50 John Daub: For those of you that have been here before, have lived in Hakata, in Fukuoka, in this region, it's really nostalgic to go back and look through the stations. And somebody asked me, why do you do all of these stations? So there's coin lockers over here. Restroom, information center in English, the station master. The information center is right here. Everything's in English. The ladies speak both. They speak Chinese as well because there's a ton of Chinese tourists who come here. That's a strange omiyage. It's just a mikan (mandarin orange) frozen, I think, inside that box. Mikan are like tangerines. They're really famous in this area as well. Delicious freshly baked croissants. You cannot experience the smell like I have right now. In my nose. The smell is divine.

00:39:26 John Daub: Here's the central entrance to the local trains. And we'll go take a look at the platform and the machines here. Now, if you do buy an IC card here, it's not going to be Suica or even Icoca. They have their own. Every region in Japan has an original one. And this is the Hayakaken from Fukuoka. And here's Suica. So this is the local one from here. And then Sugoca was Kagoshima, I believe. Each one is different. Here's the local train line. Compared to Tokyo, this is really manageable. Like, you could remember this in a couple of days. Nagasaki line over here. Basically all of Kyushu. Sasebo line. Kagoshima line. Wakamatsu line. Nippo line. And then the Fukuhoku Yutaka line. Like, I've seen this for the first time. There's the creepy Rugby World Cup with the crazy eyes statue. It's nice to see this if you're in Fukuoka for the next month. You'll be able to see this amazing Rugby World Cup that has a Japanese influence to it.

00:41:20 John Daub: And then we're out the entrance that we came in. 40 minutes, everybody. What a tour. What a tour. I always get excited about train stations because it's loaded with food. It's loaded with gifts. It's a place to get from A to B. Millions of people every week will be passing through here. If you've lived in this area, this is the one place that everybody has been to many times. So for that, that's why I bring you a lot of these train station tours. And there's also the Shinkansen. How could you pass that up? All in all, I think we've been to most of the major train stations. I still got to do a tour of Sapporo station and a couple other ones. But we've been pretty good. Pretty much on every one of all of Japan's four major islands, we've hit major train stations. On the Only Japan Go channel and we'll keep bringing you different station tours. I think it's useful. And when you do come to Japan, you get a chance to experience a little bit of what it's like when you do come. Because train stations are going to be important for you too. And if you look around, you might just find something inspirational. Like this Hakata dancer. How you doing? See everybody. Have a good day. Have a good night. Wherever you are in the world. We'll be back in a few days after we finish our train trip. Bye from Fukuoka.