00:04 John Daub: Hey everybody, welcome to Yamagata Station. It is a Shinkansen stop on the Yamagata Shinkansen. Yes, they have their own Shinkansen line. It's not really a Shinkansen line, I'll explain. But this is a regional city, the capital of Yamagata Prefecture, one of 47 prefectures here in Japan. This is the main street from the station leading out. You can see how quiet it is compared to Tokyo. This is crazy. This is the main street. Where are all the people? I guess they're working.

00:39 John Daub: But I haven't been here in about 20 years. It's changed a little bit, not that much. If you used to live in Yamagata, this is going to be a trip down memory lane. A little nostalgia here. The Dokoma building looks new. They're building something in front of the station as well. And we're going to go inside. Right now, Kanae is just buying some of the packages that we bought for our Patreon supporters.

01:05 John Daub: How are you doing, everybody? We just got done a wonderful three-day, two-night trip at Ginzan Onsen. And we're changing here. I haven't been here for a long time, so we wanted to stop here. Kanae has never been to Yamagata Prefecture at all. We wanted to stop here and just take a look around the station, show you the layout, just in case you ever use this as a crossroads to get around. This is the biggest station in Yamagata Prefecture. And it's, well, if you compare it to Tokyo, it's not that big, but it's still significant. And it deserves a livestream. This is what you subscribe for. Hit that like button and subscribe because we're about to go inside Yamagata Station.

01:46 John Daub: Oh, my suitcase is over there. Let's get that first. What an experience we've been having. Yamagata, and this is very, very odd. Yamagata is supposed to be a place of cold, snowy weather in the winter. It's January, and do you see any snow here? Not a patch of it in the city. It's just bizarre. And I was talking with a friend. I was talking with the ryokan owner. And she told me that this is the weather you would get in spring, not in winter. It's just having an unusual lack of snow. That's all right. It's okay because warm is not bad either. It's just a lot more romantic because we went there for Kanae's birthday with snow than without.

02:34 John Daub: Wow. All right. So they still have the Aeon here has been here for like 20 something years. That's an old eikaiwa (English conversation school). That's crazy. That's been here forever. They've had one here. That was the last time I was there. The logo has changed a little bit. Lots of buses, really quiet. And if you're in the JET program and you're getting stationed here in Yamagata, this might be helpful. We met a couple of foreigners inside near department store. They said hi to me. One of them looked at me and said, I've seen you before. You're a YouTuber? I go, yeah. Only in Japan. She goes, oh, I've seen your show.

03:18 John Daub: So I was like, oh, wait. Is that snow? No, it's a plastic snowman. Here's a map. Then we're going to go in and see Kanae and all the boxes that we bought here. We're just going to get that out of the Shinkansen. So Yamagata is not too big. Yamagata city. To the south here, there's the Yamagata Prefectural History Museum. There's a baseball stadium. I believe they used to have a castle here, but I'm not sure where it is. I don't see it on the map. And that black and white line going through that is a Shinkansen line going through here. Most people come to Yamagata to go through here because they're going towards an onsen or a resort or they're going skiing or something. But Yamagata is very famous for that. The cherries. They have cherries, their own variety of it. It's not as sweet as American cherries, but it is really good. And you're going to see that in some of the gifts that you buy from Yamagata.

04:12 John Daub: We're going to go into a gift shop and do a little bit of shopping. Automatic door. That wasn't here 20 years ago. Yeah. Nice. All right. Here's the main station. We're going to go a little slow. They do have a Starbucks, which is kind of a big deal in this part of Japan. That's new. And this SPAL department store. I believe this was here when I was here last time. I don't remember. But inside of here, they have a lot of gifts and stuff. And I don't believe we can film inside of here, but I can just show you a little bit. Some of the gifts. They have a sake shop in the back there, which is very, very useful. And some eki-ben (station bento) and things like that. That green shop there is serving edamame drinks and sweets. Edamame is also very famous here. Across the way is a Yamagata beef shop. And they do have obento here. You can see they serve their famous Yonezawa beef.

05:47 John Daub: Oh, there's Kanae. It's very spacious, isn't it? No way! She bought all those for the daimyo (feudal lord, top Patreon tier). No way! Alright, we should manage. We'll be able to manage. I still have to buy her an eki-ben. We have to get an eki-ben for the Shinkansen train, but we have about 20 minutes to go.

06:13 John Daub: Here's the entrance to the Shinkansen. It's a lot smaller. Only four. No way! You bought... That's all... That's a lot! So two bags I carry and two bags you carry? Or do I carry three bags? Oh, and you have more in there? Oh my gosh. Okay, it's pretty light. What we got for our supporters here? We got edamame cake. This looks... It was a lot moister and looked a lot better than what I had found at the... So we got... For all of our supporters, we got something from Yamagata. Awesome.

06:56 John Daub: So we're gonna do... We're gonna take a tour here for the next 10 minutes, look around the station. Then we're gonna take you in, get an eki-ben, board the train, show you our eki-ben, and then we're gonna cut the livestream. You okay with that? Click the like button if you want an eki-ben. Just do it now. Let's see if we can get the 500 likes. Alright, Kanae, what should we do? Do you wanna wait here? Or should we... You wanna go? Alright, I wanted to cut... Alright, you know what? We'll be back in like 5 minutes or so. Did you see an eki-ben that you wanted? I can go and get it for you.

07:33 John Daub: Can I get gyutan (beef tongue)? Okay, gyutan or beef. Up to you. Up to me. I can eat anything. If you leave it up to me. Alright, I better just get... I'll get two of the same thing. Alright, we'll be back in like 5. Alright. If you're interested, there are buses that go to Sendai. And go to Zao Onsen and city buses. So, you have a lot of access. Sendai is not too far away either. Two of the places that we could take to Shinkansen was to cut across to Sendai. And then catch the Shinkansen down to Tokyo. Or take it from here. And the Shinkansen isn't as fast. That's the Yamagata Shinkansen right in front of you. You see the blue and the orange one? This one goes on this part of Yamagata only 120 kilometers an hour. The gauge is not changed. So, it's just a really comfortable faster than normal ride. It's a pretty Shinkansen. But it's not the same as the Tokaido Shinkansen which really cruises.

08:38 John Daub: Look at that going through a tunnel. Ta-da! Eki-ben. This is where we bought the daimyo gifts in here. It's a little waiting room that you can go into. There's tourist information. And then they put the train times on here. So, let's just do a little... A circle around the gift shop. Alright, let's see what they got here. This is... Oh, this is dried fruit. This is kaki (persimmon). Dried kaki. That's really good from the countryside. They're sweet dried persimmons. I believe. It's really delicious. Let's just take a look at the gifts that they have. It's mostly gonna be cherries here. And rice. Have you ever seen a pet bottle of rice? Because the rice is so famous here. You can buy them in pet bottles for gifts. That's a great idea. Senbei (rice crackers) as well. Over here. Oh, these are... I wanted to get this for the daimyo, but I didn't know if this was gonna be accepted. It's like fruit roll-ups, but with no chemicals. Cherry-flavored fruit roll-ups. Kind of. I wouldn't even call them fruit roll-ups. Pretz has an edamame version. You can see. It looks really good.

10:01 John Daub: And then here's the cake that we bought. And the cherry flavor. Cherry's... Poki has the cherry-flavored Poki. We couldn't find the cherry-flavored Kit Kats here. But the cherry-flavored Poki is only in Yamagata. It says Tohoku on there. And cherry-flavored Haichu. Because Yamagata cherry is a thing. It's a big thing. Oh, and there's these. The gel cherries that I was thinking of getting, but we passed on that. Oh, I wanted to show you this too. Hold on a second. Look at this beer here. This is called Yonezawa Jack's Brewery. And look at the price. It's like $10 a bottle. $9.35. It's like $9 a bottle. Is that not a little expensive? I thought that was extreme a little bit. But must be that good. I'm not sure. And there's some sake down here. We got a bottle of sake for her dad. You can get bags of Yonezawa beef. It's a sirloin steak in there. How much is this? Oh, that's reasonable. It's about $20 for this big steak. It's a good idea.

11:25 John Daub: Oh, this is it. Look at this. This is a sample, but that's edamame with mochi. Sweet edamame with mochi. That's awesome. This is stuff that's only in Yamagata. That's frozen. It's about $7 for that. That's totally worth it. Here's some of the bentos. I think I'm going to get Kanae one of these. Whoa. Atsugiri gyutan. That's what she wanted. She wanted gyutan. All right. Let me get that. Atsugiri gyutan. Oh, this is the one that self-heats. Oh, that looks good. The Yonezawa Calbee. All right. Let's get two of those maybe. This is Yonezawa beef. I'll take two, please. Kanae wanted some meat. That looks really good.

13:04 John Daub: I'll take two, please. Here's a $20 beef. Is it okay to drink it by hand? It's okay. Thank you. Thank you. Is this the bento with cherry blossom? It's a little bit in there. They put cherries in that bento. Should have gotten that one. It's true. It's a little bit in there. Where is it? Oh, next time. Thank you. They put cherries in that bento. Did you see that? Should have gotten that one. Instead, we get... I didn't want Kanae to be jealous, and yet, that's a good balance. Just get the same one. That way, we're all happy.

14:15 John Daub: Yamagata is such a natural place. Check it out here. This is from the view you got of the mountains in the distance. Snow-capped mountains. Not much here. We're right over the track. This is one of the chillest stations I've ever been in. It's crazy. Who's going to wear these hats? They're cherry hats. I don't know. How do I get... Oh, there they are. That's pretty crazy. Would you let your kids wear that? I don't know. We got some people writing, I would. Oh, is this the soccer team? The Montedio Yamagata football team, I think. Is that rugby? I don't know. I never heard of them. This is the backside of the station. I just wanted to take you there really quickly. I'm serious. Look, they really love their cherries. They have a ton of slot machines or something, right? Yamagata cherries are super expensive. You can buy a box of them in Tokyo. There'd be like 20 inside of there. $50. And they're the best looking cherries you've ever seen. All individually wrapped like a present. One bite is like $2. That's a thing. That's real. That's Tokyo. Well, you know the deal. Everything's really expensive fruit-wise.

16:02 John Daub: All right, here's the backside of Yamagata Station. I'm going to go to the back of the station. You want to be the first one to see this beautiful square that's been built. This has changed a lot over the last 20 years. There really wasn't anything here before. And now they have hotels, a lot of hotels. There's a Toyota Rent-A-Car down there on the left, a parking lot. I think this is a farm field 20 years ago. They protect the bushes. Snow. That's a little interesting thing. Do you see that? They construct this in the winter, and this keeps the snow from piling up on the bushes and killing them. That's only here, but right now we're just before the snow. It's very unusual. Unusual not to have any snow, very unusual. All right, let's go back to Kanae. That's it. That's all that's here. This is like a major station. The one we were at was the west gate, so the other side which is much more built up is the east gate. Good to know.

17:05 John Daub: All right, we're gonna go inside now. Maybe I'll get a beer. I don't know. Maybe I'll get a beer. Geek moto 13. I don't know why but I'm having a bad case of kishikan (train sickness) today. Zao is a big deal. Look at the snow monsters of Zao. They have them in almodi as well. Snow monsters where trees are just covered with snow making them look creepy like an abominable snowman. Some of the limbs jutting out like 20 arms ready to pick up little kids and swallow them. Seriously, this is too quiet. This is eerie. This is way too quiet. Kanae doesn't drink Hillary. She doesn't drink any alcohol, so it's double for me. Here's the JR line. It looks a lot less complicated than Tokyo's. Yamagata is right there in the middle highlighted. And let's see where Sendai is. Sendai is down there in the corner. Sendai is 1,170 yen from Yamagata with a couple of changes. You have to change right there to the green line and that'll get you there in about an hour.

19:02 John Daub: And the machines look the same wherever you go in Japan. The machines look the same. Uh, embarrassing run away. Hey tei tries things. I'm using the iPhone 11 Pro and the Osmo 3 right now and I usually have a microphone these days but I don't have it enabled because I just don't normally I would so you'd hear Kanae a lot clearer. All right, so we took them to the west side and now it's time to go to the platform because this might take a while. We love our daimyo. Oh, do you got a stamp? You did not. All right, show it to us here. Oh cool, that's a Shinkansen stamp. Yeah, and yeah of course they put cherries on there. The Tsubasa is the name of the Shinkansen. Oh the benny benny benny bana. Yes, this flower is famous here. Cool. Every Japanese train station, every place even the metro stations, the subway stations have stamps so you can just if you do come to Japan bring out an empty book with white pages and stamp the heck out of it and that's like a really fun memory. You can only get those stamps if you're there in person so stamp rallies are big deal in Japan.

20:16 Kanae Daub: Did you want a coffee or you want something? Just water because it's a three-hour trip.

20:21 John Daub: Um, two hours and 56 minutes to get back to Tokyo. Okay, do you have your tickets? I do have them here. You go. Here's what the ticket looks like. This is the ticket from Yamagata to Tokyo. Looks complicated, huh? It's a Tsubasa 86, car 15, seat 10B. Kanae's got the window seat. It's a birthday, let her have it. And then it's a magnetic strip on the back.

22:27 John Daub: She saw me, she's running. She's running. I took it. Well, you don't say it ate my ticket? I took it. It was nice of her, she fixed it. That was nice. If you don't take your ticket in time, it eats it. This way? What? All right, this is already bizarre. Can I hold on a second? Hold on a second. Hey, Marty's here. Hey, Marty. Sorry, did I shake you? All right, we're inside of the tickets now, and you can see there's lines here to point you in the right direction. There's the ticket turnstiles that we went in through. But there's no specific Shinkansen platform, which is always separated at Kyoto, Osaka, Tokyo. There's nothing that says Shinkansen this way, because it's all on one platform. The Yamagata Shinkansen is treated like an average train. Interesting to me, it's interesting.

23:31 John Daub: All right, 1:40 is our train time. All right, can I, let's do this. Fight for it. Hey, look, they got a Yamagata Shinkansen like stickers on the wall. Okay. No! No, but they have an elevator. What? All right, let's do it. I'm not thinking straight. Just do it. Are you gonna go twice? We could skateboard down. I'm gonna do it once, because this could go wrong. Look, it's a new class. That looks very comfortable. All right, keep going. I was just, I used my nose to turn the camera around. Ah, yes. No one, there's no applause. There's no applause. Look at that. Look how much, they're very proud of their Shinkansen here. Look at that. They're all standing here, the Yamagata people. Thank you for coming. You're very welcome. And then there's an omiyage (souvenir) sign. Very local. Keep going, Kanae. Once we get on the train, we can rest for three hours, then do this again in Tokyo. Thank you. No way. There's a Lego Shinkansen. What? That's a Lego Shinkansen. That is awesome. Does it go? It doesn't move. It says, don't try to take it apart. There's cameras in operation, it says. That's true. There's a camera right there to protect it. That's funny. All right, let's get out of here. That was pretty cool. What? There's a walking edamame. Yamagata's mascot is a walking edamame. That's awesome.

26:00 John Daub: I love onsen culture. Lego my Shinkansen. All right, let's get in. Let's get my ticket out. Let's see if I can do this without... Okay, do this quickly. I did it. I did it, Kanae. Are you proud of me? Shinkansen's already here. Wait, my arm is getting tired. Shinkansen's already here. They got more gifts here. Can I get a beer? Oh, this is the edamame cakes. We'll try one. The expiration date was too quick, so we couldn't get that. All right, let's do this, Kanae. Oh, we have eight minutes. That's like an eternity for me. Eight minutes. You know what I could do in eight minutes? I could go back and forth, get two more eki-ben, get a bottle of beer, wine. Eight minutes is an eternity. Oh, she's a beauty. All right, keep going, Kanae. Car 15. The Yamagata Shinkansen. That's a standard gauge, so that's why I can't go as fast. But she looks pretty. Look at the lines. Nice and smooth on the outside.

27:42 John Daub: I got to come back and get some drinks for Kanae. I can't let her eat this meat without a drink, right? The good thing is that our car is right here. I don't have to go all the way to the end. And there's virtually nobody on this train. I said 15. Jugo-chan. Yeah, next one. Okay. Here? Yeah, you know what? It's all open right now. Here, take this. I'll get a drink, okay? All right, trust me. I'll be back. I'll be back. Trust me. I know what I'm doing. I don't know what I'm doing. It's not a very big train. You can see there's 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17. And it connects up at Fukushima, I believe. All right, I said eight minutes is an eternity. I lied. It's only eight minutes. And that was like three minutes ago. There's a vending machine, but I'm hardcore. I like to go for the store run. Take my chances with that. Steven Tice is here. Beer money. Oh, you got it, Steven. Rain is here. How's it going? You can tell by my voice that I'm in a hurry. I can make this happen.

29:25 John Daub: Oh, hey, look, it's the Cherry Lady. Look, she's wearing that hat. What? Is that the mayor? No way. The mayor's wearing a cherry hat. That's awesome. Oh, wait, okay, sorry. I forgot I gotta get a drink. All right, I wanted to get... Oh, look at that. It's like edamame on mochi again, and it's frozen. That looks really good. Okay, oh, sorry. Focus, focus, John. Focus, focus. Kanai. Sakuranbo (cherry) cider. Let's get Kanae some water. And sakuranbo, ringo (apple), momo (peach). Oh, here's the beer. Oh, what is this? There's a cherry in there. I'll get a Sapporo, because we're closer to Sapporo. And then I'm gonna try this here. One, two, three, four. Nice. That looks good, too. Thank you. Thank you. Oh, cherry pokey. Oh. Oh, no, we got plenty of time. Three minutes. Look at that. That's plenty. I don't have to run. What? Run? I would never run.

31:33 John Daub: All right, there she is, baby. This is the Yamagata Shinkansen. I love this screenshot right here. Great memories. Oh, and they call this here, by the way, La France. They're just pears in English, but they call them La France here. I have no idea why they call a pear La France, but they're famous from this area. Boomerang. Oh, it's in here. Oh, man. It's all. Come by. Thank you. I did get. I got this some weird cherry booze as well. We got all the time in the world. One minute. Nothing special. Sometimes they got. Oh, I have a feeling he's like talking to me directly. It's like he's talking to me directly. He's like that guy right there. Get on the train. You hear me, sir? Just get it. Oh, somebody else has had the same problem. It's interesting. The toilet is different here. There's virtually nobody in this car here. Can I. I got you water and cherry cider. Look, this one is for you. It's got no alcohol. It's cherry. Succulent cider. Maybe if we get 700 likes, I'll drink it. It's up to the community. And there's a convenience store on the platform. Just in case you can't get extra and stuff like that in there but we're on our way out. Let me get rid of my backpack.

33:32 John Daub: There's nobody on this train. Yeah, you can't like twice that unlikes it like it three times then delete it and then re-like it. That's look at that that's all for the thanks for doing that. Kind of look at that that's a lot of boxes. I can't get my jacket off, I'm trapped. I had I couldn't put the gimbal down because I don't have the tripod on it. Like literally we have this whole car to ourselves. It's crazy, right? Some we're gonna go back and say hi to Kanae but I just want to say goodbye to Yamagata. It was a lot of fun. We were here for an hour and change and got a chance to walk down the main street. It's not a massive city. Reminds me of a lot of prefectural capitals.

34:43 John Daub: That guy's on the run. That could have been me. Could have been me. Look at the way that they promote Yamagata on the Yamagata Shinkansen. Yamagata vegetables looks really delicious. How many trains have wagyu ads on the trains? Not that many. Nice. We had some of that for dinner last night. All right, we can talk a little bit louder than normal because we're on this train. All right, are you ready for an eki-ben unboxing? Yeah, heck yeah, I'm ready for an eki-ben unboxing. Are you? We are well short of the 500 likes required for this but if you want to see this Yonezawa beef eki-ben unboxed, let's get the 500 likes. You can just click the like now. Join us. I love it when the Shinkansen is free like this. This is like green car privacy. Green car is the first class on the Shinkansen and uh this is very rare.

36:50 John Daub: All right, that was quick for 500. All right, we're gonna break it down for you here. Unboxing. Can I get the same thing? It looks really good and you have to eat an eki-ben on the train. Nice. Wow. There's no shibori (hot towel), that's odd. Usually they'll give you a shibori but but let's just say it's homemade then. Look at that, that is Yonezawa beef. Shumai (steamed dumplings)? Is this Yonezawa? Yeah, and with shumai with the Chinese dumplings made by Yonezawa meat? Probably. All I know is that it was not cheap. Nor yeah, it looks really good. I'm excited about it. I'm excited. Are you? You're hungry too, right? All right, we're gonna try this. Hey Marty, let's see that. Thank you. Happy birthday from Corey. Thank you. All right, Zono says it's time to eat so we have to do that. Does it get any better than this? Does it get any better than this? This is pretty spectacular. All right, let's try this uh bento here. Itadakimasu (let's eat).

39:03 John Daub: Look at the scenery. Hey you guys got your own seat. You guys get your own seat. Guys, we lost the signal, sorry. Cheers! Cheers! Thank you for your time today. I'll show you the pack. Is this for the beef? The train is curving. That's why it's moving around a little bit. You can see the train is curving. Wow! Look at the view on the other side here. As we're eating. Look at that. Alright guys, try to refresh your screens. Try to refresh your screens. We might be going through some tunnels. I'm not sure how much longer we're going to be live streaming. But I really appreciate you guys hanging out for lunch. The Zoom bug again? What? Hey everybody. I hope we're back. We had the Zoom bug going on and then no. Ah, better. Refresh your screens if you're having some difficulty. But the view out the window, you guys kind of missed it. It was pretty amazing. Out there there's like nothing. But we're going to eat. We're going to eat this bento here. And sometimes I'm going to turn the camera around. But if the train gets crowded and there's almost nobody on here then I'm going to turn this off and give respect to the people. You must have heard too.

42:06 John Daub: Wow. It has like a smoky taste to it. They've smoked the beef and um yeah it's really good. What? Yeah a little bit. Talk with your mouth full please. Traveling traveler. Good? Yeah it's very tender Yonezawa beef. Very good. I can't imagine it's bento. Wow yeah. A bento I guess you wouldn't see it being a premium product. But it is. Now the Yamagata Shinkansen doesn't go super fast until you get to about Fukushima. It does do one thing that is unusual. Even another thing I should say. It stops at all these local stations en route. Which is funny. So we're at like a local nowhere station. Oh this is an onsen. Kami no Yama Onsen. So this train is going to take approximately 3 hours to get back to Tokyo. And um. I'm sweating. It's going to take about 3 hours to get back to Tokyo. So we gotta lug this bag back to our house. And send the postcards to the Patreon supporters. Hey we have like 5 spots left if you want a postcard. Um. Order one now. Cause then I'll send it out from Tokyo Station tonight. We're gonna finish that up tonight. And then um. Tomorrow probably another livestream from inside Tokyo. We've been doing stuff in Yamagata and out in the countryside for a while. So head back to the big city. And do that. And I believe that the Hello Kitty Sanrio Puroland episode should be out tonight. On the main channel. So check that out.

44:39 John Daub: Guys thanks so much for watching. We're gonna eat the rest of our bento. We didn't get to the 700 like threshold for this. So what I'm gonna do. What I'm gonna do is uh. For the Daimyo package. Unboxing. Sorry for the Daimyo package explanation. I'm gonna drink it with you guys. And then show you guys. What's inside of it. Because all of the packages here came from Yamagata. So that's what I'll do with that one. But my feeling is it's just gonna be really sweet alcohol. Like a schnapps. Yeah. Hey Marty. That's a big thumbs up. So enjoy the view for the next 20 seconds. Outside of the window here. In your seat. As we say goodbye on our way. Like a cherry brandy. As we say goodbye. On our way back to Tokyo. I wish you guys for watching. Appreciate it. Have a good day. Have a good night. Wherever you are in the world. Don't forget to subscribe. This would be the end of the birthday girl's trip as well. Birthdays everyday. I don't want to end it. It's too pretty. This side looks nice too. Technically this stream is like over. This is turning into one of those never ending streams. Those are the cherry trees. See ya.