00:03 John Daub: Hey everybody, so I actually have an ekiben. I'm riding the Shinkansen and I'm going to Osaka today. This is, I like to call it the creatures of the sea bento. This one has ebi (shrimp), unagi (eel), kohada (fish), and ika (squid).

00:29 John Daub: I'm going to unbox this for you together. We're going to try this. I gotta do this before we get to Shin-Yokohama too because a lot of people are going to be coming on the Shinkansen, but I'm going to Osaka on this trip. But I thought this was a good time to share one of these Shinkansen unboxings. We don't actually start to hit high speed until we get past Shin-Yokohama.

01:01 John Daub: I'm always really excited to do these ekiben unboxings with you. It's hard to do it because we have a crowded Shinkansen today. A lot of people are traveling for the holidays. So this one cost a total of 1,380 yen or about $13. You can see here, chirashi sushi, which is sushi, but I guess it's kind of like fried rice. There's lots of different seafoods in here.

01:31 John Daub: These are four of the main ones here. And you can see in the ingredients, there are chemicals in bentos, by the way. So even though Japanese food is quite healthy, sometimes if you read the labels, you find out that it's not exactly as healthy as you thought it would be. Oh wow, it just comes out of the box. Oh wow, look at this. This looks great. So it came with a wet tissue called an oshibori (wet towel).

02:03 John Daub: So make sure you clean your hands before you start. This train started at Tokyo Station. And this is a non-reserved, you always get a seat at non-reserved at Tokyo Station, except really, really crazy busy times. All right, there you go. Look at this. It looks like tamago (egg). Maybe it is. Let's take a look.

02:28 John Daub: It is. So it looks like an omelet on there. But underneath there, there's got to be something really good. I'm excited about this. And I'm also hungry. Itadakimasu. Okay, so it looks like an omelet or something. And then underneath there, oh, you see it? The seafood is underneath the egg.

03:01 John Daub: All right, I'm going to perform some surgery then, just to show you the sushi here. I'm going to put the egg onto the cover. This is so neat. It reveals itself. Underneath the egg is squid, shrimp, fish, and unagi. And that unagi looks incredible. And underneath the unagi, there's like a layer of lettuce, I think, or a leaf that keeps it from getting too much into the white rice.

03:41 John Daub: In Japan, we eat a lot of white rice, just plain. It's really, really delicious. But this unagi looks absolutely incredible. All right, let's try this first. And then I'm going to put the egg back on and eat it like it's supposed to be eaten. It's not supposed to be eaten like this, I don't think. Very good.

04:17 John Daub: I think it's just a challenge to do this on the Shinkansen. That's why I do it. The chopsticks are actually shorter than the ones I would eat at home. They're maybe two-thirds the size. Here's a piece of squid. The white rice is really good. But this bento is cold.

05:53 John Daub: Most of the bentos are cold because when you get an ekiben, you don't want the food to smell or be overpowering with the smell. So you don't bring McDonald's onto a Shinkansen because then the whole place is going to smell like McDonald's. The cold bentos are really good because it doesn't offend anybody from the smell of it. If you heat this up, it'll start to smell a little bit and then it might offend the people around just a little bit. They're not going to say anything, but it's not polite.

06:30 John Daub: So we get these bentos that are served cold and it's up to the chef to try to make them appetizing. Not all the bentos that are cold can be appetizing. So sandwiches are really good as bentos. And this sushi is really good as a bento as well. We're pulling into Shin-Yokohama. And then actually I can't see Mount Fuji.

06:48 John Daub: Usually you can see Mount Fuji this direction and you want to sit on the right side from Tokyo Station. But it's a cloudy day so there's not going to be any Mount Fuji available. But it is fun to ride the Shinkansen. And if you do, you've got to get an ekiben. Typically you can find vegetarian ekiben. You have to look and ask. But it's going to cost you anywhere between $8 and about $20. You can go even higher. But that's sort of the average.

07:28 John Daub: I like to spend about between $12 and $14 for a bento because I think you get what you pay for. You get a really good quality. And you can always get something from the bento. This is a vending machine. It's about 120 to 150 yen or $1.50. I got the Mount Fuji water. So it's pure. And especially since we're going to be passing Mount Fuji, it's got a deep meaning.

08:11 John Daub: So there you go. I hope you liked this ekiben unboxing. I'm going to let this go for a couple more minutes just so you can see. A lot of people are going to be getting on this train. So I don't think I can keep this live stream going anyways. But this unagi is so good. I just think it's really interesting they put that layer of lettuce underneath the unagi and the seafood to keep it from going into the rice.

08:40 John Daub: I've kind of made a mess out of it. But it's a really good bento. I'm pretty satisfied. The creatures of the deep bento. You can find this inside of Tokyo Station. It's quite good. Yeah, I recommend it. Hey, this is a postcard. How cool is that? Who wants this? I'm going to send it to one of our Patreon supporters. Creatures of the Sea postcard. That's pretty cool.

09:26 John Daub: Not a lot of people got off at Shin-Yokohama. So I'll be able to keep live streaming for a little bit longer. But I think it's pretty cool. Yeah, this is, believe it or not, this is Yokohama Station. So we went between the time I started from Shinagawa to here. And then I think we start to enter some of the tunnels.

10:04 John Daub: And tonight I'm going to be doing a midnight snack run in Osaka at the Dotonbori in the Namba area. It's going to be really exciting because I haven't done a midnight snack run in Osaka yet. So stay tuned for that. And I'll probably do another live stream in a few hours of some takoyaki. And then we'll do another live stream tomorrow from Osaka. So there's like four live streams coming in like 36 hours. It's insane. Just before Christmas too.

10:42 John Daub: Kanai and I are really getting ready for Christmas. Got to get the Christmas cake. Last night we ate some gyoza. We had a gyoza party at her house. That was a lot of fun. So we're getting a midnight snack run tonight. But for now, I just have this bento. And I'm going to be eating this as we pass Mount Fuji. It's really good. I do like the egg. Just a little bit of seafood topping on top of it. It is pretty good.

11:13 John Daub: But I do love the quality of the rice. And the ika is also quite nice. Ika gets hard when it's cold like this. You see? So when you eat it, it takes on a really chewy taste to it. And the fish here is really nice as well. There's some ginger here. I guess it's like chirashizushi. Sushi because it's fish on rice. But it's bento.

12:11 John Daub: Yeah, that's right. I'm headed to Osaka right now. They do have Wi-Fi on the Shinkansen, by the way. But I'm using the 4G signal. The bathrooms are in the back. I'm actually riding the Nozomi. And if you have a JR pass, you can only ride the Hikari. So be careful. You cannot ride this train if you have a JR rail pass.

12:40 John Daub: I'm surprised there's a lot of foreign tourists on this train. I wonder if they know that or not. Mount Fuji would be straight ahead. But today it looks like we're just not going to get a view of it. Maybe as we get closer, it'll come into view. But usually it's towering. Even from here you can see it. Mount Fuji is very fickle. Even if it looks like it's really clear, it could be totally gone. Just disappeared in clouds.

13:35 John Daub: Tunnel. Alright, got a clearing. You can't see it. It's just covered in clouds right there. Alright guys, have a good day. I'm on my way to Osaka to see Kevin Reilly. See you in another livestream really soon. I'm going to go back to my lunch. Wherever you are in the world, have a good day, have a good night. This is what you subscribe for to get the notifications. Mount Fuji is covered in clouds up ahead.