00:00:04 John Daub: Anytime you get to come to the Tokyo Dome and it's not a baseball game or a concert, it's pretty cool because right in front of me is an amazing sight. Look at how big Tokyo Dome is and how they filled it with what's called the Furusato Festival. It is every single Japanese festival under one roof. And they have this in January every year. It's an annual event. It's a little pricey — if you get your tickets in advance, it's about $10, 1,000 yen, but if not, it's going to cost you about $18. And it's so worth it because this is being the Tokyo Dome. I don't know. For me, I just love being here in the Tokyo Dome now. There's a lot of people who are inside of a dome, so the signal may go in and out. This is the Only in Japan Go channel. Everything is live streamed, so you want to click the thumbs up and click subscribe. So you never miss a live stream. It's always a lot better when you see it live. You can already hear the music, right? This is very traditional Japanese music. I'm not sure where though, because there's so many different festivals from all over Japan here. Do you know, Romisa? Do you know?

00:01:16 Romisa El Fakti: Yeah.

00:01:17 John Daub: Where is this festival from that they're singing the music?

00:01:20 Romisa El Fakti: I think — Okayama. Hi.

00:01:27 John Daub: From Okayama?

00:01:29 Romisa El Fakti: Yes.

00:01:31 John Daub: You're not allowed to stop. You have to keep moving. This here behind me is Romisa, and she's gonna be joining me on this adventure. Hopefully the signal stays in there. And we're going into a lot of food, a lot of street food. It's kind of crazy though, in my mind that you have to pay to enter, to pay again to eat more food. But it's gonna be a lot of fun. Not allowed to stop. Keep going. See these arrows? They point. You just keep going. Wow. It's just extremely impressive. Look at these statues. These are these omikoshi, right? This is the — right now that they're showing the Nihama Taiko Festival, which takes place in — did you say Okayama? Oh, this is tomorrow. Okay. They do have festivals going on here all the time. Just not right now. Just not right now. This looks massive. So that's what it looks like. It's from Ehime Ken, Ehime Prefecture. Wow, look, that's a lot of people. Oh, and this is the yukata that they wear. Cool, free. I know. There's too many people. It is amazing here. Wow. Is that unagi? No, don't say it's not so. That's saba. Saba. Okay. There's anagi. I'd be like, I'm already drooling. But every single — oh, how dare they do this. You can't just — oh, they just put food right in front of you. They should not make you pay anything. Just give us chopsticks. They're getting bentos. Hold on a second. Look at that crab. The prices are pretty reasonable. There's some uni in there. Check that out. But I'm going up to Hokkaido in about two weeks, so — so Romisa, tell me a little bit about — so you're actually Japanese?

00:04:10 Romisa El Fakti: Yes, Japanese by passport only.

00:04:13 John Daub: Japanese and passport only. Let me put the mic here in the front. So there you go.

00:04:17 Romisa El Fakti: Okay.

00:04:18 John Daub: Yeah. So you're Japanese with passport only.

00:04:23 Romisa El Fakti: I'm originally from Egypt and I was born in UK and lived there for four years and after that came to Japan. So I was raised in Japan.

00:04:34 John Daub: Yes. So would you say your heart lies here in Japan or —

00:04:38 Romisa El Fakti: Yes, exactly.

00:04:38 John Daub: Yes.

00:04:39 Romisa El Fakti: I can go anywhere and feel like it's my own country.

00:04:42 John Daub: Why not? I've been here so long. If you were to ask me the same question, I would probably give you the same answer. I've been here for like almost half my life. All right.

00:04:58 Romisa El Fakti: Is it better here?

00:04:58 John Daub: Yeah. They're saying your voice is a little bit light. Okay, that's okay. Alright, I'm extremely loud voiced person. Now I'm looking for something in particular. The one that's on the poster which looks incredible. It says Donburi. Donburi is just a — how would you describe just a — it's just something with on a bed of rice that you can put anything on it. Seafood, steak, egg, beef. That's — is that the one?

00:05:24 Romisa El Fakti: Yeah. This one, right?

00:05:25 John Daub: Yeah, this is one Donburi. But there's one with like the beef sticking out of it. Yeah. All right. So they gave us this brochure. I'm just — the first thing. I'm like moth drawn to the light. I come straight out into the pit and I don't know where I'm going.

00:05:46 Romisa El Fakti: Is it here?

00:05:48 John Daub: No, I don't see it. If I see it, I will know it. No, that's not it. That's not it. No, no, you're getting in the right ballpark. This — oh, this one. That one. What is that? Look at the egg. And then look at meat stuck in tofu bread looking stuff with more meat.

00:06:08 Romisa El Fakti: And it's 500 yen.

00:06:09 John Daub: It's 500 yen. Oh, there's gotta be a line. All right. Let's go find that. Where — where's the Donburi D zone? All right. That doesn't make a lot of sense to me. Yeah, D zone.

00:06:22 Romisa El Fakti: I don't know where we are. We are A17.

00:06:25 John Daub: Oh, so they do have addresses here. A17. We're looking for the D zone. D for Donburi?

00:06:31 Romisa El Fakti: I guess so.

00:06:34 John Daub: All right, let's just — let's just walk until the end. And then when we're in the middle of the Tokyo Dome, I want to do a home run trot because I only come down here when the Giants are playing. I can't do a home run trot because there's too many people. But this is actually not even that crowded because in a couple of hours, when the dinner time rush comes, it's going to be even more crowded. Oh, look at that egg. Oh, my gosh. A karaoke onsen egg. What is this? This place should be illegal. Super chat — IRL man. Thank you. That was awesome. Thank you. Oh, yeah. Thank you. Wow. He gave an in-person super chat. That's never happened. Like, ever. Have you ever? I've never seen that before. An in-person super chat. Oh, I think this is the — how could this not be the D zone? Look at this. It's just Yatai after Yatai. Romisa, this is like paradise. Yeah. This is the table — saki. Look at that. Tebasaki is Japanese chicken wings. Oh, my word.

00:07:58 Romisa El Fakti: Do you like the normal chicken wings or the Japanese?

00:08:00 John Daub: No, I like normal chicken wings. Tebasaki has got like no meat on it. Is it me? Right? Same. Right. Tebasaki is such a somewhat disappointing — it's good, but it's just somewhat disappointing to me. Ah, yeah. And we're making our way to somewhere. This is F. I found F. F is for — there's A. And then F is for food. D is for Donburi. Maybe H is for — H is for — Hokkaido, maybe. Yeah. Oh, so F is for Fukui or something. Wow, they have Yubari melon shakes. Is that what they — somebody told me that they — somebody bought the world's most expensive melon, took the essence of it, and then started to make products out of that. That's a smart business idea. All right. H is for Hokkaido, so D is for Donburi. I don't know. I guess the best way to go is to find D. This way.

00:09:08 Romisa El Fakti: Yeah. Let's go.

00:09:10 John Daub: All right. So enjoy looking at the back of people as we make our way through here. Oh, look, they're holding signs of food. What they do is they hold up the signs and say, this is the end of the line. So you always know where the end of the line is. And that's the end of the line for — no, Ramen. Joy. It is kind of chaotic, but in the chaos, you'll find crab. Yeah. Can I check your mic? So we're gonna check Romisa's mic unit. I think it's on high. Look at — yeah, it's on high. All right. You're on like super high.

00:10:10 Romisa El Fakti: Okay.

00:10:10 John Daub: Should work. Look at that uni. If you've never seen it in the raw, see it now. Ah, look at that squid. Smells good. Deep-fried food. Oh, stop it. All right. We gotta get something. We gotta spend this super chat. I've never — this is — it was awesome. Oh, there's performance. Guys, you are in for a treat. We're gonna be here for a little while. Romisa — not as long as me. Oh, wow. This is a salmon and ikura for a thousand yen. That's a pretty good deal. Hokkaido. Nice. What is this? What is this?

00:11:11 Romisa El Fakti: Oh, what was it?

00:11:15 John Daub: Oh, this is a straw. I'm glad that I thought it was crab for a second.

00:11:18 Romisa El Fakti: Shredded strawberry.

00:11:20 John Daub: Shredded strawberry with — with ankoguri. And look at that.

00:11:24 Romisa El Fakti: And cream.

00:11:24 John Daub: Yeah, that's a lot of food. Let's go over here. Look at number D, which is a letter, not a number, but it's okay. It's live, so we can't — any of this. That's all right. You just sort of want to dance to the music. I don't know if you can hear it, but yeah — lyrics do need some work. PMX. You're right about that. It's nice here. I do like this festival. I've never been to it before. I've always wanted to go. It's your first time, Romisa? Yeah. And you've been here almost all your life. You have no excuse. I have kind of an excuse. Not a very good one. Is this D? If you do see something you like, let's put this 500 yen to work. Is there anything that you can't eat? Pork — pork?

00:12:28 Romisa El Fakti: Yeah.

00:12:29 John Daub: Okay. Alcohol and pork. All right. I'll take care of that for you. If someone were to give it to us, I will dispose of that easily. I'm on a mission to find D. Yeah, me too. On the way there, let's find some chicken and non-alcoholic alcohol. Just saying. No, that's not — this is my friend Romisa. It's not Kanae. I'm looking at this — at the chats going on here, there's Hakata. This is the Kyushu area.

00:13:09 Romisa El Fakti: I think this is E and this is B. So it should be over here.

00:13:14 John Daub: It should be in this area. I like this area because it's not as cramped as where we just were, but it's just so cool to be on the floor of the Tokyo Dome. I still have not gotten over that. So we're inside — we're inside of the Tokyo Dome right now. We're at the Furusato Festival, which is the one place where everything is all together. If there's ever a spot where they've taken like all the festival foods, all the festivals of Japan, and put it in one area, it's here today. Is that the edamame? That's sunda. Oh, baby. This is — look at that. Do you know what that is? That's mushed up edamame. Yeah. And this is what I'm sending to the Daimyo supporters on Patreon — this is like edamame cakes.

00:14:05 Romisa El Fakti: Ah.

00:14:09 John Daub: Kanae might be coming at around 5:30. All right, let's just take a quick look. See? You want to try one?

00:14:24 Romisa El Fakti: Okay, let's try.

00:14:24 John Daub: There you go. Right now it's on a sale. All right. Put that super chat to good use. Like literally — just super chat came.

00:14:38 Romisa El Fakti: Oh, we have to be in —

00:14:39 John Daub: Oh, you gotta wait in the line. Ah, lines. While Romisa is getting an edamame shake that's on sale, I'm looking for D. I have my mind set on something. When you get focused on something, you don't let go on it. I'm like a cobra. I just, like, snake into that bowl and I won't let go. My venom's getting all over the place, so it's not a pretty sight. Right now I'm just a messy, dirty, messed up, hungry man. Swanson dinner that's still frozen. All right, I see some ramen over there. This looks pretty good. If you want to see me eat, gotta get to 300 likes. It's on you, community. It's a community thing. All right, let's see Romisa getting an edamame drink, because I'm gonna be eating a lot of pork and she can't eat any of that. So I met Romisa through my friend Joe, who's also another YouTuber, and she helped us produce one of the videos. And now we're friends, so it's nice to meet up over food. We're going to hang out and talk about whatever we can collaborate on. She also has a YouTube channel that I want to tell you about. She has a different point of view as me. I think that's good — get different points of views about Japan. Starting a job with a Japanese company in April. But for the next two months, she has some time to help out. Only in Japan. So we're talking to see what we can do together — until that time where she has to leave to the Japanese company. Thumbs up for any reason. Mostly to eat. If that works — it does. Hey, KK, hit the like button now. Yes, please do it. Please do it. I want to show you the floor here. There's a map. Look at this. So we're here. Where's D? The D zone. D. I found it right here. All right, we're here. No — genzai. Okay, we're here. We gotta go over here. There's the stage that they were dancing. So we just gotta go across to the stage. Hey, Romisa, I found Dee. It's like shouting in a group really embarrasses people to me. All right. And if you're just looking at the map right now, studying it, it does look like a Showa era —

00:17:55 Romisa El Fakti: Like the alleyway, like in Shimbashi, in the back area.

00:17:57 John Daub: Streets of that area, just tons and tons of stands. It's kind of confusing, but if you find a reference point like the stage, I think you can make it over there. So we're gonna go to the red area because — yeah, that's what I want. So that's what we're gonna do. OCD — stink. Black market. Black market for food, maybe. All right, she's next. I'm gonna go over to the stage. Hey, Romisa, I'm gonna go over to the stage. Embarrassed her again. How's the signal, guys? We coming in good. Keep the likes coming because I'm going now to the D area. Wow. Wait, I'm lost again. If this is the stage and that — maybe it's the other way. Wait, where did D go? Very confused. Okay, there's H. H24 is right there. I'm going back to the map. H24. I found H24. Oh, wait, H24. Thank you for joining a live stream of a man who's completely lost. Hello. You found me. Nice to meet you.

00:19:37 Jesse: Nice to meet you too. Yeah, yeah, I saw your live stream here.

00:19:40 John Daub: Hey, that's me. That's you now.

00:19:42 Jesse: It is, actually.

00:19:44 John Daub: Hi.

00:19:46 Jesse: Oh, my God. I can't believe I found you.

00:19:48 John Daub: You did.

00:19:48 Jesse: Yeah. My first extended trip here in Tokyo.

00:19:51 John Daub: Okay.

00:19:51 Jesse: Yeah. I've been watching your videos for like three years now. I've seen every single video.

00:19:55 John Daub: Wow.

00:19:56 Jesse: Yeah. I barely missed Jennifer yesterday, actually.

00:19:59 John Daub: Oh. Oh, okay.

00:20:01 Jesse: Yeah. She was in Harajuku. I was gonna go there, but I switched my plans around because my friend is scared of heights. So I went to the Tokyo Skytree by myself instead.

00:20:10 John Daub: You see, it's not that high, really.

00:20:11 Jesse: Oh.

00:20:11 John Daub: But compare it to an airplane. Really?

00:20:13 Jesse: True, very true. Well, you know how some people are about heights. But yeah, I just missed Jennifer. But, man, I can't believe I found you.

00:20:20 John Daub: And this last ship is gonna be like an hour long, so I bet you more people — look, I got one of my cards for you.

00:20:26 Jesse: Oh, amazing. Thank you so much.

00:20:28 John Daub: Not at all.

00:20:29 Jesse: This really makes my trip. I've only been here for about a week. I'll be here until the 29th.

00:20:34 John Daub: There you go.

00:20:34 Jesse: Oh, thank you so much.

00:20:36 John Daub: That one's signed. Not all of them are.

00:20:37 Jesse: Oh, is it?

00:20:38 John Daub: Yeah. Oh, I see.

00:20:39 Jesse: Here. I'm very lucky.

00:20:40 John Daub: Very lucky. That's limited edition.

00:20:43 Jesse: Limited edition, yeah.

00:20:43 John Daub: What's your name?

00:20:44 Jesse: Jesse.

00:20:45 John Daub: Jesse.

00:20:45 Jesse: Yes.

00:20:45 John Daub: Nice to meet you, Jesse. Where are you from?

00:20:47 Jesse: Ohio. Dayton, Ohio.

00:20:48 John Daub: Whoa. So, Buckeye.

00:20:50 Jesse: Yes, Buckeye. I know you went to Ohio State as well, so fellow Buckeye.

00:20:54 John Daub: Yes, sort of. I've been to Dayton many times — yeah, many times. A lot of people complain of, like, what do they call it? It's harder to breathe in Dayton or something.

00:21:04 Jesse: Well, yeah, it's because the Miami Valley — the Dayton's in a valley, so it traps all the pollen and pollution and stuff. It makes allergies. Everyone from Dayton has allergies, you know, so — including me, actually.

00:21:17 John Daub: Including me, yeah. When I was there, I had no allergies — I had allergies in Dayton. What's wrong with my nose?

00:21:24 Jesse: Right, right.

00:21:25 John Daub: And then —

00:21:25 Jesse: Yeah, you leave for a while and it goes away.

00:21:28 John Daub: Oh, really?

00:21:28 Jesse: Then you're normal again. Yeah, probably not me — I was born and raised there. I'm forever doomed with a date and curse. Nothing very remarkable there. But maybe that's why I like to travel, you know?

00:21:37 John Daub: Yeah, yeah. Get around here before it melts. Here, I'll hold this. Why don't you give this a try?

00:21:44 Romisa El Fakti: Okay.

00:21:44 John Daub: I see. I see that you got some edamame in there.

00:21:47 Romisa El Fakti: Yeah, it's like the edamame — and —

00:21:51 John Daub: Did you see the lights have gone out? There's something happening. The kids — you see, the kid behind us is freaking out.

00:21:56 Romisa El Fakti: Oh, my God. It's so yummy.

00:21:58 John Daub: It's so yummy. It's edamame yummy.

00:22:00 Romisa El Fakti: I didn't expect that edamame would be nice with an ice cream.

00:22:04 Jesse: And you have a friend here with you today?

00:22:06 John Daub: Yes, this is Romisa.

00:22:07 Jesse: Romisa, nice to meet you.

00:22:11 John Daub: She's Japanese, but Egyptian, and she's like me — a mix of everything, right?

00:22:16 Jesse: Oh, okay.

00:22:16 Romisa El Fakti: I live in Japan for 20 years.

00:22:18 Jesse: Oh, my God, that's amazing.

00:22:19 Romisa El Fakti: My originality is Egyptian.

00:22:21 John Daub: Okay.

00:22:21 Romisa El Fakti: I was born in the UK.

00:22:23 Jesse: Oh, wow. That's a real big mix there.

00:22:27 John Daub: Jesse, do you know where the Donburi area is?

00:22:30 Jesse: No, I don't. I'm sorry. I've been here for hours, but I don't — I just been kind of eating a little bit of everything. You know what? I'm so full. Oh, my God. Everything — I ate the small little donuts from Sapporo that's filled with cream.

00:22:44 John Daub: Oh, yeah.

00:22:45 Jesse: I forget the name right now.

00:22:48 John Daub: Or shoe cream or something like that. Oh, donuts. Not a shoe cream. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:22:52 Jesse: Maybe — what you said, cream.

00:22:53 John Daub: Manju.

00:22:54 Jesse: Yeah, I just —

00:22:54 John Daub: Gelato.

00:22:55 Jesse: I just had takoyaki, actually.

00:22:57 John Daub: Takoyaki, yes.

00:22:59 Jesse: Kareage, of course. My God, the list goes on and on.

00:23:06 John Daub: What's why they turn the lights off?

00:23:08 Jesse: Oh, they're doing stuff over this way.

00:23:11 John Daub: Oh, that's that festival. Yeah, yeah, yeah. All right.

00:23:14 Jesse: It's not very festival-like being in the dome, but I mean, they try to make it as festival as possible.

00:23:19 John Daub: Well, the music does travel — well.

00:23:21 Jesse: It does. Very loud.

00:23:22 John Daub: We're gonna try to find D now. D for Donburi.

00:23:25 Jesse: Hey, John.

00:23:27 John Daub: Yeah.

00:23:27 Jesse: Thanks so much — meeting you. Pleasure is mine. Thank you so much for coming.

00:23:31 John Daub: Of course. Of course. Nice to meet you too. See you guys.

00:23:36 John Daub: All right. Bye, Jesse.

00:23:38 Romisa El Fakti: Bye.

00:23:40 John Daub: Very cool.

00:23:42 Romisa El Fakti: It's so yummy. Do you want to have a try?

00:23:44 John Daub: Yeah, I got you.

00:23:46 Romisa El Fakti: Let me have those.

00:23:47 John Daub: Okay.

00:23:48 Romisa El Fakti: All right, this is yours.

00:23:50 John Daub: Okay. Follow the — oh, yeah. There's a — follow this cup of ice cream and edamame while we go for the D zone. I — I was looking for the D zone. I went the wrong way. I was — I think it's this way. Yeah.

00:24:13 John Daub: Lots of people are saying "Oh, edamame's got such that — that — that really delicious green —"

00:24:26 Romisa El Fakti: Yeah.

00:24:26 John Daub: Taste to it, but just a little bit of salt, which works so well with the sweetness. You know, with the lights down now does look more and more like — like a festival sort of. Right. It's like you're at —

00:24:40 Romisa El Fakti: Because it's almost evening, they turn down the light.

00:24:43 John Daub: Oh.

00:24:43 Romisa El Fakti: To make it like, "Oh, now we are in evening time."

00:24:47 John Daub: Oh, that makes sense. All right, where are we now? All right, there's D. So do we go —

00:25:04 John Daub: So D is that way?

00:25:06 Romisa El Fakti: Yeah.

00:25:06 John Daub: All right. Okay. This is for you. I'll take my spoon. It's easy to get them mixed up. All right, let's go over to D, the Donburi area. Whoa. We got Yurikara action here at the Furusato Festival. It's a ferocious looking beast breathing fire. This is Tsurugon — Tsurugon is from Miken Miyaken. I think it's from Miken — I think it's — oh, no, it's not — Saitama Ken. Yes. Okay. Did my — I did my dragon.

00:25:55 Jesse: Hey, John.

00:25:56 John Daub: I'm sorry.

00:25:57 Jesse: I realized we didn't get a picture.

00:25:58 John Daub: Oh, yeah. Come on. Yeah.

00:25:59 Jesse: That's a must. I mean, we have to — you will.

00:26:02 John Daub: Thank you. I think we found the Donburi area. Okay.

00:26:19 Jesse: Thank you so much. Thank you so much again.

00:26:20 John Daub: You're welcome, Jesse.

00:26:21 Jesse: Thank you.

00:26:25 John Daub: All right, I think this is it. It says donburi, so — yeah. 26 minutes in, we found Donburi. Thank goodness. It smells really good. I'm getting really hungry. There's some takoyaki going on there. A stomach divided will not stand. We must unite the stomach with food. All right. Oh, my word. They're ready for the dinner crowd. Look at all these little mini Donburis. Look — look at all these. This one looks delicious. And look how small they are. This is salmon fish — hatate. Some scallops on there on a bowl of rice. All of these are 500 yen. One coin.

00:27:23 Romisa El Fakti: Oh, even saba.

00:27:27 John Daub: Oh, from Hokkaido. That's too healthy. I want some deep-fried pork with alcohol. That's all — this stuff you can't eat. Where's that one? That — that won all the contests with the thing in it. That's not it. We're going through this shortcut now. Welcome for everybody who's watching. You're at the Furusato Festival inside of Tokyo Dome, an amazing festival where all of Japan's festivals are in one place, held annually in January because they can't do it any other month because the baseball season starts and then you just can't do it. That's it. Hey, I found it. I found it. Look at this. That's it. Oh, I'm so — I'm gonna get like six of them. Oh, wait. Where's the end of the line? Oh, no. All right, hurry up. Just run to the line. Hi. You got rejected. I was in the line — you said you need a ticket counter. You have to go to ticket counter.

00:28:48 Romisa El Fakti: Is it this sticker or another ticket?

00:28:52 John Daub: I was rejected. He said we can't — your cash is no good. I gotta wait in the line to get — you have to wait into another line. Japan is a master of lines. They will make you — they will put you in a line and then into another line, and they will subdivide you into another line. What do I want? My tonburi. I — look, I'm in the line. You guys are in the line with me. Actually, you're in a line too. Did you want to eat anything? I'm gonna run you for this line. That's right, Romisa. So you — you have to go soon. Oh, yeah. Okay. I'm running into the — okay, get in the back. The line got longer. Oh, the line got so, like, totally longer — sometimes it happens. So this is the coin that you need in order to get food at the Furusato Festival. All right. What is this? Like a Deutsche Mark? What is it? It looks like a Baron. That's what a coin looks like for Furusato Festival — token. Yeah, token. Token of my love for food and bring it on. Been waiting for 20, 30 minutes and 50 seconds. I do — like in Japan, they will put this sign here. So then you know where the end of the line is. And that always makes it pretty easy. Instead of everyone just chaotically standing around and then having people rushing for the food, you know where to go. It's good. Tell us a little bit about your channel.

00:31:10 Romisa El Fakti: Oh, so I have a channel also, but it's more about fashion and lifestyle in Japan as from my perspective. And yeah, I — I do like tour around Ginza, around the lovely area in Japan. And I have — oh, there is a video coming about kimono fashion show.

00:31:34 John Daub: Oh.

00:31:35 Romisa El Fakti: And it shows the whole 2020 kimono styles and furisode and the normal —

00:31:44 John Daub: Okay, how do we find your — your channel?

00:31:47 Romisa El Fakti: It's Romisa El Fakti, my full name.

00:31:51 John Daub: All right, so basically you just send that to me and I'll put it in the description. That's probably the best way to do it. All right. We're moments away from sinking our teeth into a massive bowl of assorted tender pork, none of which Romisa can eat. She can look at it, though. Yeah, it's — look big, look, no touch. That's right. So the food that you do eat has to be halal.

00:32:20 Romisa El Fakti: No — so we have — it should be — the first option should be halal if you cannot find — which obviously Japan is not — f to halal. So the second option will be meat from Australia or like Christian meat or Jewish meat, because we kind of share the same kind of religion. We know, and then if you cannot find this, you can eat Japanese meat, but cannot be pork or alcohol. So we have three steps to go through.

00:32:51 John Daub: That's interesting. So the Japanese way of making meat is to different —

00:32:56 Romisa El Fakti: Yeah.

00:32:58 John Daub: I did not know that.

00:33:00 Romisa El Fakti: Yeah. But like most of the people who live in America or another European country, they have more easy way to access food more than in Japan.

00:33:10 John Daub: That's — I didn't know that. There's a lot of stuff that I've been researching. I've been wanting to do an episode on halal food — halal ramen? Yeah, yeah, please.

00:33:19 Romisa El Fakti: Because I think I can spot in my mind 10 places right now.

00:33:23 John Daub: Wow. Can you imagine me doing a halal episode? I was like, "Yes, where's the pork in my ramen?" I — you know, I would be — I wouldn't know what I was talking about. Yeah, I try to bring an expert. Romisa is an expert.

00:33:36 Romisa El Fakti: Yeah. I will definitely show you around.

00:33:38 John Daub: Yeah. All right. Very good. Thank you. The Donburi is very, very famous here. And this is actually at the Furusato Festival where they have the national Donburi contest. Do you see these right here? Every year they will pick one that is a champion. And I believe last year was this one. Therefore, we gotta wait in line. But — but I will show you this anyways. Oh, look at that oyakodon on the top. There's one with wagyu on there. You can see it's just very diverse — what you could put on top of a rice in a bowl. It's amazing. Look at that roast beef. Oh, oh — some deep-fried stuff. It's like jutting out of the bowl. You can't even see the bowl. Oh, there's a trophy.

00:34:30 Romisa El Fakti: Yeah, that's one, right?

00:34:32 John Daub: Yes. We're getting so close. Whoa. Freak — freak, right? Reminds me of that Curb Your Enthusiasm — the freak book episode. I always crack up when Larry gets so excited over the freaks — had to be there. Yeah. The — each area is separated by location as well. And this is the Donburi section because I think that they're doing the Donburi contest. Yeah, they put donburi all in one spot. So location really doesn't matter for this. We're almost at 300 likes. Oh, you can see in the kitchen now.

00:35:22 Romisa El Fakti: Oh, this is interesting.

00:35:27 John Daub: Oh, in case there's an earthquake, everyone go inside there. Yeah, I noticed that they had on when we entered in there signs in English saying that if there is an earthquake, because we've had a couple in Ibaraki over the last couple of days.

00:35:40 Romisa El Fakti: Yeah.

00:35:40 John Daub: Today — yesterday — was it today?

00:35:43 Romisa El Fakti: Today morning and yesterday night.

00:35:45 John Daub: Yeah. This is a place that you would escape to if there was an earthquake. So you would be safe because there is a little bit of worry that maybe the things on the roof might fall on you if it got really, really bad. But they — if you come into here, you're safe underneath here. That's interesting that they have that in there. And I think they wanted to point that out to foreign visitors that were coming to the event. If an earthquake does happen, foreign visitors are the first ones to jump underneath the table, actually. It's true, right. My first time I came to Japan in 1998, there's an earthquake at Tokyo Disneyland. We were like in a warehouse type of place, eating, and the whole warehouse was shaking like this. I jumped underneath the table. I'd never experienced an earthquake ever in my entire life — it was just a magnitude 5 point something. Chiba gets a lot of earthquakes. And yeah, everyone was laughing at me. I felt like an idiot, but I shouldn't have because that's the right thing to do.

00:36:48 Romisa El Fakti: Yes.

00:36:48 John Daub: Yeah. I got an episode coming on this because I went to elementary school in Japan. So every few months we have like Taisaku, like imagining there is an earthquake and doing like the role play. And every time, like the school become like, "Oh, there is an earthquake, please get inside the table" and every drills and stuff.

00:37:11 John Daub: Wow. Did you get to wear the earthquake hat?

00:37:18 Romisa El Fakti: Yes.

00:37:20 John Daub: Yeah.

00:37:20 Romisa El Fakti: My biggest earthquake was in 2011 — the biggest one was Tohoku, right? Yeah, this was the biggest one.

00:37:29 John Daub: You were here for that?

00:37:30 Romisa El Fakti: Yeah, I was. After that, Egyptian embassy flew us free to Egypt for rescue.

00:37:40 John Daub: Well, the US embassy wanted over $3,000 to fly us to fly any expats home. And it all — it was routed through Taiwan and took like 36 hours or something. I'm like, "No, I'm just gonna stay."

00:37:55 Romisa El Fakti: We went free to our country.

00:37:57 John Daub: That's crazy. But you left.

00:38:00 Romisa El Fakti: Yeah, yeah, we left.

00:38:01 John Daub: So I can call you — I can call you the derogatory term a Flyjin? You're a flyjin. You left because after one week — ah, okay. Okay.

00:38:13 Romisa El Fakti: It was in March, right?

00:38:15 John Daub: Yeah, it was cool — holiday.

00:38:16 Romisa El Fakti: And I was like, "Oh, it's a good chance to go traveling free."

00:38:20 John Daub: Yeah, I stayed. Everyone left, basically, because I had no options. But I don't think I would have left anyways.

00:38:27 Romisa El Fakti: No, I would not left if it wasn't exactly —

00:38:32 John Daub: I — I think also a couple weeks after that, that's when the volunteering was really started. And my friend Mike — Mike Connolly, I want to shout out to him — one of the biggest hearts of anybody that I know. He just used his own money, started renting trucks and driving food up to Tohoku. And we were working with Food Harvest — yeah, something. I can't remember the name of it, but we would drive up food that they also had. Mike would pay with his own money for the gasoline. Crazy, crazy kindness from him. And you hang out with people like that, it really does bring the best out of you, too. So that's chicken — slices of marinated pork here being grilled. And there's the Tamagoyaki — Tamagoyaki's egg cooked in these square pots. And it's rolled like that. And this — this Donburi is going to be epic.

00:39:46 Romisa El Fakti: Is it the sweet version of Tamagoyaki?

00:39:46 John Daub: I don't know, but it's probably got some Ajinomoto in there now. Yeah, Tamagoyaki often has — folks, thank you — usually has some Ajinomoto in there. The grilling the pork, putting together the — and I have my ticket. This is a Donburi ticket. Oh, it's blank on the other side. Thick, uncooked bacon — is it? No, it's not uncooked. It's been marinated. And I'm reading the live chats. Okay, I will vote for you guys. Hi. Does this not look amazing? Wow. Vote for them. So where do we go to eat this? Follow the Donburi. Should we go to the earthquake zone? Can I go to the earthquake zone? Look at the line. It's gotten so much longer. Look, I don't think MSG is that bad for you. I don't know. Is MSG bad for you? I think — I think MSG gets a bad rap. Look, you can get massages. What's that all about? So — right. You can see it's really crowded in there. It's a very festive. We've just gotten out of there. You guys are here with me on the ride. Where do you eat? Good question. But John wants to eat now. Rest area — should we go to the rest area? We are live streaming the entire Furusato — okay, let's go up there. I'm good with that. I can use a rest. So if anyone who's stalking me for a found me card, we're in the rest area. Welcome to the Tokyo Dome. I guess this is — this is where people are — people are eating here. But the coolest part about being in the rest area is that you get a bird's eye view of all of the food that's available here at the Furusato Festival. It's pretty incredible. And the beer girls are here. What — did you see that? We're looking — we're going up the stands looking for seats. Oh, there's some seats over there. Ah, that feels so good. So I'm gonna show you this really delicious donburi that I got. This is the winner. I don't even know what it's called. All I know is that it's in the brochure for last year — yeah, it was — for last year was the winner. And they want to win again, of course. So I'm gonna open her up. It's okay — it's okay. We're doing good. Doing good. Boom. They put in the middle of the tamagoyaki — like more meat.

00:43:56 Romisa El Fakti: Yeah, yeah.

00:43:56 John Daub: That's insane. Look at that egg. It's like an onsen egg. And like a ramen egg. It's congealed in the middle there. Do you see that? And then there's —

00:44:08 Romisa El Fakti: Is this zara maybe? Yeah, it's — it's expensive, right?

00:44:15 John Daub: It usually is, but this is 500 yen. It's a — that's like a steel. Look at this. It's not very big. You can see my hand size. And I have very large hands — hands.

00:44:29 Romisa El Fakti: It's like my — my hand size.

00:44:29 John Daub: Her hands are bigger than mine. She's got small — okay, never mind that — it's another debate. But there you go. That's a massive donburi for people with small hands. All right, let's try it. Let's try it. It's just me eating this, right? It's just me. What time did you have to go?

00:45:02 Romisa El Fakti: After a few minutes.

00:45:04 John Daub: Okay. Welcome — thanks for joining us.

00:45:15 Romisa El Fakti: Thank you for having me.

00:45:17 John Daub: I always put my chopsticks in my ears. All right, we're gonna try. Oh, oh. The pork just fell off of the fat. It's just so delicate. It's too good. I'm gonna have another one. You have no idea. I didn't even need the mustard. I just — check it out — I'm gonna pick it over here. Do you see how tender this meat is? Look at that. And then this tamagoyaki underneath it is — the rice has been sitting in some sauce, I think. This tamagoyaki is so soft. And the egg also is very, very — see, it's so congealed. Look at that. It's like a paste — almost like a paste. You'll send me your email — your — just send me her YouTube page. Try the egg — so good. I don't even want to talk about it. These are like — this is like a private moment. The rice is very good — got like that, like the unagi sauce — kind of like the unagi sauce. Just a little sweetness, more salty. The pork is so tender — it's so slow cooked, like marinated pork. And then let's try this — this — this tamago — melts in your mouth. Just say it. This requires a team of people to make this. No one chef can just make this. It requires a team — somebody's cooking the pork, someone's cooking the egg, someone stuffing the egg, and someone is preparing the other eggs. So it's like an egg and pork and it's just good. And then someone's taking the money and serving. It requires a team to make this. What's your favorite Japanese food?

00:48:25 Romisa El Fakti: It's sushi — definitely sushi. And I like the udon — the — katsu, salmon and seafood. Oh, I love this — I can eat it every day.

00:48:39 John Daub: Oh, yeah, I could eat — did you miss any food from abroad? Is there anything that you — you —

00:48:44 Romisa El Fakti: I miss — like the creamy — what was it? Like the creamy scones from British — I like the afternoon tea from UK.

00:48:55 John Daub: Yeah — there's good scones from the UK. Yeah, we could use more of that here in Japan. Yeah. Me — pizza, I just — I miss a good pizza. But we got some good pizza in Japan.

00:49:07 Romisa El Fakti: Yeah, we have.

00:49:08 John Daub: They just put corn and mayonnaise and seafood on it sometimes. Yeah, it's a little weird. We'll take it. Yeah.

00:49:20 John Daub: Japanese pizza have a lot of variety.

00:49:24 Romisa El Fakti: Also, as they do — they make it a lot of variety.

00:49:24 John Daub: Yeah. Well, thanks so much for joining us. I don't want to keep you.

00:49:37 Romisa El Fakti: Thank you — like this short time.

00:49:42 John Daub: Yeah, yeah.

00:49:43 Romisa El Fakti: And I had the chance to go here.

00:49:45 John Daub: Yeah. So Romisa is — as I said, you're going to be — you start work in September — sorry — in April. So maybe we're going to see Romisa around on the channel. She's gonna help us because she has a different perspective and knows a lot of things that I don't know, which is a lot. She knows more than me about Japan.

00:50:06 Romisa El Fakti: I grew up in Japan, so I know the culture from my childhood here.

00:50:11 John Daub: Yeah. And I know all those — all the culture before you were born or you were —

00:50:14 Romisa El Fakti: Yes, yes.

00:50:16 John Daub: Because I came here in '98. You weren't quite — 1998.

00:50:21 Romisa El Fakti: 1998 — I was still in UK.

00:50:24 John Daub: You're still in the UK. Good, good. So you don't know — you remember Shingo Ma-ma and the D — no, no, no.

00:50:30 Romisa El Fakti: I know Teletubbies.

00:50:31 John Daub: Oh, yeah.

00:50:32 Romisa El Fakti: Okay.

00:50:33 John Daub: I got — I know some things that you don't know. Okay. It's good. It's good. All right. Yeah, thanks — thanks so much for joining us. And we'll see what we can do over the next few months. Do that. And you definitely have to introduce us to some good halal food because I have no idea.

00:50:47 Romisa El Fakti: Yes — it's even becoming more —

00:50:50 John Daub: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Used to be that friends — the Muslim friends that came to visit had to go to the supermarket and buy — bring their own food with them. Yeah. But those days are changing here in Japan, so it's kind of a neat thing. Yes. And because just more Muslim tourists are visiting, right? Yeah — neighboring countries, too. Yeah. Very cool. All right, good. I'm gonna sit here and eat this.

00:51:20 John Daub: So yeah.

00:51:20 Romisa El Fakti: I will go — because I have to go right now, so —

00:51:23 John Daub: See you soon, Romisa.

00:51:24 Romisa El Fakti: Thank you.

00:51:27 John Daub: Bye bye. Did you have anything of yours before? No, just the mic. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah — I gotta get my mic back.

00:51:35 Romisa El Fakti: Okay — so see you — see you later.

00:51:44 John Daub: All right, thank you. And my mic's on — you can still hear me. My mic is on. Joking around.

00:52:03 John Daub: I know — it stopped raining around 11. I was supposed to do a live stream with Peter, but he wimped out. He goes, "Oh, it's raining — I don't want to — I don't want to meet you today."

00:52:21 John Daub: Okay. I'll say hi to Kanae — she might be coming later. Bye — bye. That's awesome. It's always nice to make new friends. And Romisa has been in Japan for a long time, so it's really nice too. She has another meeting to go to. We're at the Tokyo Dome, everybody. We are now eating from the Furusato Festival — Donburi. This is the winner from last year's Furusato Festival. For those joining us, let's click the like button. Let's get the 500 — and I will eat another one. Do you want to eat more donburi? Click the like button. Do it. I'm doing good — thanks for asking. Is it shiso leap? This is so good — including myself. Oh, my — ah. Make friends everywhere you go. All right, let's go get some more. We are waiting for a couple more likes, but I'm getting hungry. A — Kagoshima's here. All right, back in we go. It's time to attack. This is gomi that you can't burn — so plastics. And then here — this looks like chopsticks inside here. Yeah — close my bag. All right, guys, it's just us — Romisa, thank you so much for joining us — it was nice to see. Now we're gonna go around and see if we can find some more stuff. So Chiba is here, but we — I have to go get another coin. So we gotta get some more coins. The — the bento that I — the donburi that I ate was amazing — it was amazing. It was — look at the line for it too — this is the line, and you have to get another coin. This is a Gyutoro don — this is also number one — manpuku. Good. Number one. Oh, it's right here. The line for this one is really long too. They have been — they're also a winner — you can see they have a — a number one ranking — they like to show off their trophies. If you win, you get a bronze, a silver, or gold. So a couple of bronzes there. I gotta tell you, though — how could — how could it not be good, right? All right, I'm gonna go and see if we can get some more coins. But we're now inside of the Furusato Festival — the coinage area is this. Follow me — like you have a choice — octopus. Octopus. I'm back in the Donburi line — 500 yen. So we're gonna get a Donburi. One is 500 yen. I think that's a pretty good deal. I'm now in section D. For those of you that are looking for me, section D is the Donburi area. I'm kind of like that — Donburi is really good. This is where you got to get a ticket in order, and then you got to go and stand in line. Oh, there's a Daruma. Do you see that there? Darumas are from Takasaki, which is Gunma Prefecture. So this looks like the Takasaki zone. Gonna get Ichimai — Ichimai is one ticket — it — I got a ticket. Ticket to ride — no ticket to eat. D ticket — let's go do this. What's — oh, there's a — there's another freak over there. Wow, he's appealing — kind of creeps me out a little bit. Hey — wow. There's like an Okinawa — what are these instruments called from Okinawa? Anybody know? They look like they're made from snake skins. Neat. To see that it's not just food that's on sale here — you can buy all sorts of stuff. What's that? Like a ninja? It's interesting — very interesting. Let's go get some donburi. I don't know which one to get next because I — I just had that one on my mind. I might get one for Kanae to go — take one back — much Kanae for her. She's gonna want to eat it. Oh, Cochin from Nagoya. Look at the raw egg on top — it's all about the egg. Go take a look at it, though — very particular. Oh, inside of the booth — you can see there — they're really — so they start to grill it, and then they just dump that — whatever's in that pan — they take it and they dump it on top of the rice. You can see it there — they got bowls of rice — there it is. See, just like that. It's so easy — just spills right on top of the rice. And what you get — looks like this is Nagoya Cochin — very famous. Look at that — Nagoya has what they say a lot of people argue as the best eggs in Japan. Yeah — I used to live in Nagoya. I've had a lot of Cochin, so I'm not really so super excited about that. But look at that. Oh, this looks like a little bit like tataki. This is from Kochi Prefecture — is this — Kochi had some really good torakatsu. Tataki is so good — it's like this smoked — smoked fish with special grass. They smoke it with a grass and it starts to take in, like, the special flavor of it — it's so good. So good. This is a kaisendon from Hokkaido — Neba Toro Kaisendon. The Neba Toro Kaisendon. This looks really good — it's like a bunch of different seafood in there. And — I'm guessing this is wagyu. Yeah, there's a line for this one — look at it. You can smell beef. This is Yokubari Don. The Yokubari don is from a red akagydon — I believe that's what it says. I don't see where it's from, though. And here's another gold winner — this one has Medogurodon. That's from Shimane Prefecture. I like the — the prefectural places are there — Shimane is down near Tottori on the Sea of Japan. Well, that's the one that I had there — the line — the end of the line is really long — it's really long. Oishikata means it was delicious — the past tense of oishi. That looks good — that looks really good. This is unimeshi — uni is sea urchin — sea urchin on meshi, which is a mixed rice — usually there's a sauce and it's — it's got a ton of flavor in there. And you can see in that bowl right here, there's just a bunch of uni, sea urchin, toro, zukedon. Wow. This is from Iwate Prefecture, I believe — ah, no — Aomori-ken. Okay — it's near the Iwate-Aomori border — Aomori Prefecture, up there in Tohoku. That chef means business — look at that. He doesn't mess around with his donburi. You can see they're in there cooking it behind — secret — that top secret recipe for that donburi. And this is the roast beef — don't — roast beef — done. Look at the roast beef slicer. Whoa — oh, it looks like it's way over here — I believe that's not so far from Kushiro — Sapporo — ah, Sapporo — Sapporo is here — wow — okay — all right, let's try roast beef — all right. Roast beef done — against — wow. Oh, look at that. They're putting some — on there. Nice. Follow this — she says there's a special wasabi in here — kind of gives it some spiciness to it, but the color is beautiful. Look at the presentation — the tare, the sauce on there — little daikon, I think, in there. Is that a piece of — oh, whenever you get butter, it's good. It does look a little raw, but, you know, it's roast beef — it's roasted — it's roast beef. It can't — it can't be too bad, can it? So for those joining us right now, we're in the Tokyo Dome — we're at the Furusato Festival and I've come here to eat. And we were joined by Romisa who — a friend of mine — she's since left, but — oh, that is butter. That is butter. Oh, wow — that's bloody — I'll eat anything once. Wow. It's got a really good pepper — pepper taste to it — wasabi — it's cold. I think it's — it's gonna be hard for them to win — whenever roast when it's cold like that, it doesn't really bring out the taste. So you rely a lot on the sauce and the marinade. Right. And I think it's going to be tough for them to win. But it is really good — I do like the wasabi. The wasabi is — it's mixed in with some — something else. It's really good. Yeah — the wasabi mixed in with the — with the tare and the sauce and the meat is — it's a good combination. Game over — except for the butter. I couldn't eat the butter — there's a trash bin — I don't know — it's good butter, but — so they count coins. And I now have two coins. So so far, I did like the — the first one that I had a lot. I think it's because it takes a team to make it. Now for this last part of the Furusato Festival — festival — we're just gonna walk around — how you doing? We're just gonna walk around. I'm gonna introduce to you a lot of different kinds of foods. Unless — unless we, you know, suddenly get like 700 likes — the next — oh, the lights just went out. Let's go check out — if I see some food, we'll stop. But let's go check out the festival on the other side — then let's make our way to the other side — an event going on — this is the second one that's been going on. Oh, it's like food in a jar — pudding — that's pudding. Oh — keep — fried stuff — I can't stay on target. Wait — if I was Luke Skywalker in — in trying to blow up the Death Star and they're telling me to stay on target — you could just — you could just start turning the dark side — there's no way I — I put those two little teeny missiles into that hole in the — in Star Wars number four — no way. And we're going right now — it sounds like nebuta music. I — I so gotta go this year. But it's conflicts with the — conflicts with the Tokyo Olympics — festival — that's my favorite — you have the fue — the flutes going, the taiko drums — you have the haneto dancers jumping up and down — some of them will get the fever. And they start jumping up and down like mad men. It's awesome. All right, let's — we're gonna turn this corner and — oh, wow — you can see there's already like thousands of people over here. This has got to be a dead — a dead signal zone because there's so many people — I'm taking you over. So if we could take a look at some of the festivals. Oh, they're gonna do — no way — oh, this — this makes me so happy. I think they're gonna make me move, though. I can — I can go in here and see — the music. Yeah, they get the fever — I can't see anything — see, they got the fever — look at them jumping it — the hana dancer — they're the taiko drums on the right side — nice. No, they're not gonna wrestle — so wrote that — oh, man — I need some more — I need some more — I need some more nebuta — matsuri, please — I'm not allowed to stop here. I'm not allowed to stop here. They're gonna ban me. All right — I'm gonna do a U-turn — I don't think I can do a U-turn — I can't do a U-turn — oh, no — I can't do U-turn — I'm going to do U-turn — I'm going to do U-turn — U-turn — your turn — I just broke the rules — I just broke the rules. I broke the rules. All right, all right — I just broke the rules. All right — some dude's looking at me — keep going, keep going — all right — it's too crowded. I do like one thing — they have the coolest — the crowd control here is second to none. There's not going to be any accidents or anything going on because they keep you moving — they keep the crowds moving. That's good — that's a good thing. Although I have the nebuta fever now, I want to get my hanedo yukata on, and I want to do some nebuta — I can't — nebuta damage dance — I've been — I've done the nebuta three times in my life, and it's not enough. Makes me want to jump up and down and just start — it's like one big mosh pit, but nobody gets hit. All right — somebody — some — somebody somewhere probably got hit before, but — so those of you that are joining us, we're at the Furusato Festival — it's the biggest festival about festivals in Japan — it's a festival about festivals — it's a festival about foods from all over the country — not just foods — this is like street stands from all over the place — this is also about culture, so you get to see the festivals from every area. Right now they've got the Aomori Nebuta Festival, which is just — it's by far my favorite because I should go to more festivals — but there's just like a fever to it — you get — you get sucked into the energy, and you can't help but jump around — good video on it that I made on the main channel about five years ago — yes. Oh, they're roasting green tea right there — it's got the — see the fan, the roasting green tea and pushing that really delightful acidic smoke around — you guys hear that taiko drums? Do you? Not feeling it on the other side — you can feel it, right? That looks so good. This one here is — what is it? Oh, is this from Fukushima Prefecture? It's a kind of ramen — never seen that before. Are we gonna keep moving? Keep moving. Wow, look at the view from here — the lines, and then the crowd is completing it — it's pretty cool here — I still am pretty — I'm still pretty amazed that I'm in the Tokyo Dome on the floor here — as someone who's been here for many baseball games, and you, too, since I'm here, you're also here, by the way — so welcome to the floor of the Tokyo Dome. Oh, look at that — mikan juice, steaming — wow. Just — there's no end to the food. This is a — what is this? Like a wakame sara salad made from seaweed here — wow. So look at that — that's a really healthy salad. I guess that — that's the wakame there. So good. Those of you that have been to a Japanese restaurant — yeah, this is like ten times beyond that — you're getting food from every single corner of Japan — it's like saying, you know, you go to New York and — how do I say — how do I put this? Like, if you go to one side of the US you're not going to have the same food from the Pacific Northwest or the Southwest — no way. But here, they've just put it all together. Japanese cuisine is so diverse, you have no idea — it's not just the stuff that you would find in a Japanese restaurant. It goes way beyond that — it's like — how could you have an American restaurant and just have burgers? No way — you gotta have to have everything. And they have everything here. Aomori — ringo juice from Aomori — she says they don't use any sugar in that — in that apple juice — zero sugar — that's good. Bottles of sake — bottles of beer — never seen that beer before — it's Aomori beer — Aomori — in Aomori — I've been there so many times. Do they drink or what? It is — they really love their sake. Oh, there's some RA — ramen action going on right there. Look at the boilers — oh, that's not just water — it looks like they're cooking that in something. What kind of ramen is this? Shijimi ramen — it's interesting — it's very interesting. Shijimi is like these little teeny clams, I believe. Whoa — uncle — is — Ibaraki Ken — wow. This is Anko — and I know Anko is — it's a fish from — it's very famous in Ibaraki. And yeah, I used to live in Mito, so I know that — all about Anko — I'd love to introduce this to you, you sometime — it's kind of a deep sea fish — it's a deep sea fish — it kind of looks a little freaky, but it sure makes good soup. Stephen Faulkner — thank you, John — love the videos — I can't wait to go back to Japan in a few years. But here's some cats to get yourself an IPA — all right — if I — if I find — if I find one, I will get it. Okay, you got it — if I find it, I will get it. Oh, this looks — this is Yonezawa from Yamagata — we were just there — hey, Kanae, where are you? Hurry up — we were just there — this is Yonezawa beef on a stick. And then — oh, look at this — this has the mountain potatoes in there — the potatoes — they're kind of like a little bit mochi — mochi — I don't know — the mountain potatoes are very special. There's also some more Yonezawa — Yonezawa beef is so good. Oh, that's like Yonezawa kuroke. What? That looks really good — oh, and these are these like — what is that? Konyaku — like a glutenous potato balls. And they're so good because they've been simmering in this dashi for so long. Oh, man. Where's Mike Chen? You know, Mike should be here — he'd be all over this. Mike's in Japan now, too. So this is every Japanese food in one place. Mike, where are you? Where are you, Mike? You should be here. Wow — Mike would clear this place out. Yeah, he probably would. But to have every single street food in one place — this is pretty incredible — I should probably come back here and make a main channel episode and try to eat every single donburi — that'd be pretty cool, right? Maybe I'll come back tomorrow with Kanae — or with Peter — I'm supposed to meet up with Peter tomorrow. Oh, that's the Sapporo petite donuts — let's go take a look — see? Yeah, they are small — they're really small — there's some hazelnut — what? That's cute. I'm going to Sapporo, so I'm gonna look the map in Sapporo. You can see that there's a lot of stands here — people just chillaxing and eating their food up here in the stands — I like that. But I — I can't — I can't go and see the festival — there's too many people over there — I'm dying — because inside my heart right now, inside my gut, I'm dancing all over the place. You cannot stand still when you hear taiko drums and you hear hanedo dancers — stop it — Yamagata Prefecture, driving me crazy — right. You know how to do the Nebuta dance? Bring it on — I so want to dance this. Come on — there they go — there they go — oh, they got a neighborhood to float at it — what? This makes me so, so happy to see. Look at there — it — so excited for 2020, once the new year hit — that means another year and another chance to do the Nebuta in August, maybe. Oh, yeah — oh, yeah — I can't get over there — there's too many people — that's like restricted — I need like a badge that says I'm — I got Al Modi right here screaming to get out — I'm gonna jump — I'm gonna climb this fence — par in — it's very, very hard — very, very hard to keep my composure. Look at this girl with her diaper come out — I like — see? Get her hands out — she's dancing to it as well — get the vibe — you get the vibe — ah. What am I doing on this? I'm on the wrong side — maybe I'm on the right side — hold on — from Miyagi — up there — north — north of Tokyo — no, I gotta get up there — no, no — let me in — give me a hanagasa — give me one of those ridiculous hats — I want to get in there — stop it — it's like torture for me — seriously — it's like Christ fire — that should be me over there — I don't need the applause — I just want to do the dancing. Oh, she — look who's — hey. I knew it — you feel the fever too, don't you? She's got the fever too. That's a slow — this is a slow-burn Nebuta — slow-burn Nebuta — the diaper kid — so that's funny. Hey, Bella, you know, I — I've done the Nebuta Festival — but three times, I said. But every time I do it for the rest of the year, this beat — it just sits inside you. And anytime you ever get tired, it's better than coffee — like a triple-shot espresso has nothing on the music of Nebuta. Just Google Nebuta — N-E-B-U-T-A — you'll get the video I made on it from a few years ago, probably. There's the float over there — I'm on the wrong side of everything. Look — the — the bouncer bounced the Diaper Girl — the bouncer just bounced Diaper Girl — they wouldn't let Diaper Girl in. If they don't let Diaper Girl in, they're not letting me in. All right — that's as far as she can go — that's as far as I can go. Sorry, sonna — all right — if I see Diaper Girl again in the next 10 minutes, she's — she's following me. That's — that's wrong. All right, let's see if we can get — let's see if we can get some more food or maybe a drink to finish this off — it's pretty good — Japan is having a craft beer boom, so there might be something that you'll be able to find. But there's always sake here — you know, there's some bottles of it right there. What do we got right here? Oh, that's — that's garlic sauce — never mind — that's not what I was looking for — I got it — what am I doing in Tokyo? I gotta move up to Aomori. Hey, Aomori Prefectural Governor, if you're listening, invite me to your prefecture — I will live there, and I will dominate your festivals with love and passion and extremeness. Extreme pilsner. How extreme does that mean? Like another level extreme? But how extreme? What is an extreme pilsner? What does that mean? One is 500 yen — extreme pilsner — all right. What do you guys think? Should I go in on this? I don't — it says extreme, and I'm at Tokyo Dome — typically if you're — oh, the lights come on — oh, it's ruined the mood — I — I swear I was having the — the Nebuta — hi, Extreme P — Premium Extreme. Hi — wow. This is from Kawaguchi, which is Lake Kawaguchi near Mount Fuji — oh — arigato zaimasu — hi everybody — kanpai. Ah — oh, that's sharp — that's good — that's really good. This is from — let me show you the brochure for those beer lovers in here — you know, Mount — Fuji — having good clean water is important — and you don't get any cleaner than Mount Fuji. Except sometimes that pollution from China gets caught up in the rain. And then, you know, that could be your iPhone in there. But let's not think about that — it's very filtered probably. So Kawaguchiko is a beautiful place to get a beer. And what we have is — yeah, thanks for writing that, 07 — thank you — it's beautiful — it's nice color to it — good body — it's not the extreme beer — he said they only have that in cans — it's too extreme to put in a keg — has to have its own can — it's very selfish — it'll just bust out — put in a keg — just too much of it. Every single time he — every single time they bang that drum, my legs are just like booming with energy. You hear them screaming — that's nebuta, baby. Ah — right behind — right behind that black thing is the taiko drums — that's why I could feel every single beat. You can kind of see them banging the drum from — it's like a censored version — we've been censored — take the black sheets down — come on, dudes — oh my gosh — look at this — you seeing this? Drums and meat — wow — it's a beautiful, beautiful cut of wagyu right there. Look at that. This is a 5 wagyu from where? Oh, this is sushi — this is Wagyu sushi that they're making here — a piece of wagyu — look at that — oh man — where is Mike? Mike Chen is gonna be so all over this — so you get two pieces for about $15. And this is beef, by the way — this isn't raw fish, it's raw beef. And you can get a three-piece set for about $20 — you see that right there on the side of your screen? That's two pieces of a 5 Wagyu on rice and then a maki roll — gunkan sushi looking thing — see gunkan? This is killing me — I want to dance. What do you guys think of the vibe? Do you like it? Do you like the Furusato Festival? Can we get a thumbs up for the festival? Don't give it to me anymore — give it to the festival. Oh, look — I — they brought more beer — oh, there's more beer here — they got a black IPA. Hey, Top shell — thank you — is that made from real bears? There's hops — there's no bears added — it's good — oh, wow — this is from Miyazaki — Miyazaki is down in Kyushu and this beer has won the beer awards for best beer — that's something — Miyazaki — Hideji — Hideji Beer — Miyazaki's Hideji Beer. And then you can see the beauty of Miyazaki there — I'm hoping to go back to other — there it is in English — you know, Hideji, in the center of your screen — I'm hoping to go back down to Miyazaki this year — it was a one year ago today — if those of you that that want to see me with no clothes on — I was participating in the Naked Man Festival live in Miyazaki one year ago. And it was pretty amazing experience — I'm gonna be doing another Naked Man Festival next month. So this beer probably will make it even more exciting with the, you know, extra cushioning from all these empty calories. Beef on a stick — oh, this is rice wrapped in meat — I forget what it's called, but it's from Miyazaki and you can see it's steaming. Oh, man — so good looking — oh, man — it's just — it's — oh, there's more beer — I came to the beer alley. This beer is from Tazawa — Kouro — where's that? This looks like it could be Akita — this is Akita craft beer. Oh, this is a very famous onsen is in this area — a nyuto made by L Wo and Apple — apple beer. And this one as well — number one, be — whoa — wow — Lake Tazawa — yes, onsen — very famous — yes — there — what's the — the white onsen — Nyuto — yeah — I knew it was Nyuto — Nyuto onsen is very cool — yeah — all right, so we got to try this beer next — so Lake Tazawa is in Akita Prefecture — it's kind of between Akita and Iwate up there in Tohoku — it's pretty good — I shouldn't be drinking so much — I haven't — this is the first beer I've had, actually — I've been drunk on beets — I'm telling you right now — the Nebuta Festival in Aomori, just the beets there — it's infectious — it's like, you know, a lot of people are dependent on chemicals and stuff — you get up there, you should be dependent on beets — because once you start getting the beats in there, you can get addicted to it — where if you don't feel nebuta beats, you start going through withdrawal — September is tough — after the festival, I have nebuta withdrawal — I'm gonna buy this CD now and just play it around my house — this is how you drive your wife crazy — start playing nebuta music at 6am if you want to wake up — forget morning coffee — you don't need morning coffee anymore — you've got nebuta — telling you right now — Nebuta could be a replacement for coffee — it is hardcore — oh, karaage — karaage — Hokkaido — it's Hokkaido karaage — so it's zangi — yeah — in Hokkaido, they don't call karaage karaage — they call it zangi. So is zangi better than karaage? I'm not sure — oh, wow — that's a full chicken — wow — oh, wow — so zangi is in — it's a little bit different than karaage, but it's what they — that's momo — zangi — zangi — if you go to Hokkaido, don't order karaage — order zange — zangi — there's like a tebasaki zangi — Tebasaki is a Japanese chicken wings and then there's a momo — is — is the butt meat — ah, that's not — that's — I love karaage, but zangi is gonna be pretty good. I'm going up to Hokkaido from February 2 to February 10 — I'll be up there making a lot of videos. Whoa — they're deep-frying something in there — look at that — whoa, that's so good — Ocico highly approve of the beer for John's health — sorry — Stephen Faulkner is in the house — hi — John would love the — love the videos — I can't wait to go back to Japan in a few years — okay, we got Steven's there — Olve — eat something for me, John — you got it — from Norway, Nicholas Reese — hey, you — I missed a couple of these — power on but beer — drink beer — repeat — oh, no, thank you, guys — you guys are gonna get me in trouble — I have stuff that I was supposed to do today — was it — what did I have to do today? Wait, I know — I gotta meet Kanae sometime — we're in our 106th minute of this live stream. There's something I had to do with Kanae — Kanae — are you finished with your dance school? And you're watching this? Come and — come ahead — come ahead — this is too much fun — oh, are these oyaki? What? These are oyaki — check this out — Oyaki is like the hot pockets of Japan, but they're not, you know, microwavable oyaki — this is oyaki right here — do you see this? They're so good — I'm gonna eat these in the middle of February — I'm going to Oyaki country down in Nagano. So you're gonna see some really good — they have all these different toppings — and I wouldn't say toppings like fillings inside of them. Oyaki is so good, guys — this one's healthy — they have vegetables inside there. Oh, oyaki — Oyaki is good — wow — really? Really? They're putting okonomiyaki right in front of me — are you kidding? You know how this is such a dangerous place — look at the copious amount of cabbage on top of the pancake. If you're looking and you're like saying how that — what? What is this food? I have a video on this — I've got two videos, three videos on this — Hiroshima style okonomiyaki is incredible. Check it out — it's a pancake on top of the grill and you put more toppings — there's egg, pancake, cabbage, and some pork — you can make it the way you want to make it. I like Hiroshima yaki over the the Kansai version — Joy's writing in "more cabbage" — I hear you, Joy, but yeah, the heat will melt down this cabbage — the heat knocks the cabbage down a little bit — I guess you could have more cabbage — it melts down into this, then melts down — it like bakes down into that — that's Hiroshima okonomiyaki — yeah — oh, cheese — whoa — this is from — is this — if I'm not wrong, this is from Nagasaki — this is from Nagasaki, right? Yes, it is — it's from Nagasaki, right there in the middle of your screen. Nagasaki — yeah — it's like pork wrapped in a steamed bun — you see that? It's like — it's a whole new way to see a burger wrapped in a steamed bun — there's something really delicious — more delicious than the bread — the burger bun should be in a steamed bun like this — it's so good. They're also like the roller hot dogs of convenience stores — you can find them like stuck in one of these — one of these heaters here — but they are really, really good — it's got some like a slow-cooked pork in the middle of it in a sauce — you see that? It's really good — they have different versions of it. Ah, what am I doing? This is so dangerous — this festival — and this festival is like 10 days long, I believe — here's the black ice cream — it's charcoal cold ice cream — what? What? What is this structure — does this structure mean like oil? Is this — what does that structure in the background represent? It's like ishii — it's like — it's interesting — right? It's interesting — it's got to have that rocky taste to it — sakita — there you go — bamboo charcoal — oh, Baird's Beer — Baird's Beer is here — that's a very famous craft beer maker — they've been doing it for over a decade — I know — Baird's Beer has been around for a while — they have their whole lineup in that refrigerator over there — it's interesting to see them here — and they have some more maguro over there — look at that — it looks really good. This is insane — isn't it? This festival — black oatmeal beer — the strawberry beer — very good — interesting — follow this lady — I got an adrenaline rush from the Nebuta beets right now — I'm on like the downside of that — it's not easy — I'm craving — I need more of those beets. Speaking of beet, this cow has been beaten — looking for a segue there — it totally failed — this is some pretty good-looking sausage behind — nothing like the Chicago sausage, right, Bayla? But it's probably pretty good — it's a Wagyu sausage — that's Kobe steak — it's a Kobe steak — bento — this is Kobe steak with an egg on top — look at that soft egg on there — roast beef — so they're making bento here — you can see they're all half price — you're saying right now there's a 200 yen discount off of the price of Kobe beef? That's pretty good. The sausages are 400 yen — that's actually really good — it's really good price. I'm suffering from a letdown from the beets — it's very hard for me right now — it's a nice hat — that's cute — what'd you think? Did you like this? I'm — now I'm starting to come down because I started this off — I was really tired — and then I heard the beats — it changed everything — and now I'm on the back end of the festival — the Nebuta Festival. Right now in Japan we've got a lot of kafun — pollen — we call it in the air — and it's hard to sleep — Kanae and I have been sneezing and coughing in our house because of the pollen — so it's not been really good for sleeping — not getting a lot of rest. But when I heard the nebuta — nebuta — man — here's some more Yonezawa beef up in Yamagata — interesting — I like to see all of the countryside, all the places from around Japan — coming here and promoting, it's kind of a neat thing. You know, it is a little expensive to get in here — foreign tourists get a 400 yen discount. So if you're a foreign tourist or you're not from Japan, even if you're a resident of Japan, you get a 400 yen discount. It's 1400 yen on the day of. If you get advanced tickets two days before, it's 1000 yen, or about $8 to get in here — and — and if you enter, you gotta pay more money — yeah, I know, but it's like really cool in here — I mean, you're not gonna see this until next January — instead, you gotta go around Japan and actually eat and drink on location, which is not a problem — just means you gotta get a Shinkansen ticket — and that's a little expensive for me. Whoa — looks really good — really good — this is one of these the crowded side alleys — I think YouTube took away the super wide up there — do you see in the corner? It says Tokyo Dome — so it's pretty neat to be in Tokyo Dome right now, not have a baseball game. There's a peach head, probably from Okayama — Okayama is famous for its peaches — no, that's Wakayama, I believe — yeah, Wakayama Prefecture — and this is ume — it's pretty good — all right, let's go take a look — we haven't been down this alley — well, look at that — mee con juice — look at that color — beautiful — mikanju — nice color — all right, I'm making my way to the — to the exits here — oh, I did — we did come through here about an hour and a half ago — wow, what is that? Deep-fried chicken skin — that looks good — admit it, the skin is the best part — oh, man — there's no end — there's no end to this — it just keeps going — oh, look, we've got a celebrity in the house — there's a celebrity here — look at the paparazzi all around him — I'm guessing Yamagata, because he's got cherries on his head — he's got cherry cherries on his — on his head — oh, he's drawing something — that's why Yurikara have — have various tall — interesting — those cherries are making me hungry — starting over — all right, over here in the back end of Tokyo Dome, there is a marathon — 2020 — I didn't get into the Tokyo Marathon for the fifth straight year — I ran it for the first seven years, though, so I can't complain — but I didn't get into the — I stopped getting into the Tokyo Marathon — I guess they figured it out — I got in for five years in a row — from its start in 2007 to 2012 — I got into the Tokyo Marathon — now they won't let me in — I can't buy a spot in — wow — Satsuma age — it's famous down in Kagoshima — it's funny though — I see the food and I know where it's from — the longer you stay in Japan, the more you start to get to know all of the food from around the country. But it's funny to me — I can look around and I see the food and I'm like, yeah, I know where that's from — all right — this is the winner of the Tebasaki — Tebasaki contest — but where is it from? I want to know where this tebasaki is from — because if this is the champion — Tebasaki — the Karaage Grand Prix — chicken wings — number one in Japan — 2015, '18, and 2019 — interesting — really is — but where's this shop? Because they have Fukuoka beer — it must be Fukuoka — I want to be — I'll be back — so Fukuoka makes some pretty good Tebasaki — apparently — I got nothing against Tebasaki — I like Tebasaki — it's just not a lot of meat on Tebasaki — it's mostly bone — and I've seen hungry people — they start to chomp on the bone — just — just hungry. Kagoshima — some pudding — that's some good-looking pudding. Orion Beer is very famous from Okinawa — it's not a craft beer, but it's a good one — when you get to Okinawa you'll be slamming lots of these — it's just — and Orion Beer sponsors like everything down in — down in Okinawa. So you see it everywhere — ah, that's some mango ice cream — wow — and this steak comes from — wow — they're cooking up really big juicy pieces of Kuroge Wagyu — whoa — smells so good — I'm guessing from the castle that it's from Kumamoto because it says Terebe Kumamoto — Kumamoto TV is written underneath it — TKU — so it's Kumamoto Wagyu — Kyushu has amazing food — I don't know if you had to pick four islands with the best food — seafood — Hokkaido wins — beef and chicken — you got to give it to Kyushu. Shikoku has some pretty good chicken too — it's hard to argue — but Shikoku is noodle country — udon country. Cheese steak — what is that — actual meat or is just a piece of cheese that's been steakified? That's no mistake — no, it's just cheese — it's just this chunk of cheese and they make us — it's just a chunk of cheese — it's called a cheese steak. If this is Philadelphia, I have — Philadelphians are turning — churning right now — meds because this is — they're probably all asleep — but like, what? That's not a cheese steak, but it's a chunk of cheese and it's just grilled — that's a cheese steak — that makes sense — that makes sense when you hear it in Philadelphia — cheese steak is actual steak grilled in a torpedo bun with cheese. Hey, I'm like that too — and then whenever there's a camera right in front of me — always pose — always pose — never be shy and try to run away — you're caught — just pose and enjoy it — these are the fish that I've seen up in Aomori as well, haven't I? Was this an Aomori that I saw these? Part of the festival culture — no, don't go — koi — carp — this isn't a baseball game — so there you have it, everybody — go, go — lose six from Belgium — thank you — is that Belgium? No — B-G-N — sure — I do appreciate it — it — yeah — I've been live streaming for over two hours now — because this festival is massive — there's no end to it — I don't know — is there anything that you want to — if you have any questions about this festival, go ahead and ask right now — this is the time of the live stream where you can write in where you're watching from, be a part of the record — because the playback, if you're watching this in playback, is part of the fun — it's so much fun when you watch it and you have the live stream chat open, see what everyone is saying — wow — that's like ice cream out of a melon — it's awesome — they just got a melon, cleaned it out, and they put ice cream in it — awesome — you can see how busy it is — whoa — Zimbabwe — Singapore — Northern California — Nevada — Norway — London — San Francisco — Florida — Lincoln, Illinois — Australia — Delta BC — Hawaii — look at this — Netherlands — it's pretty cool — Philippines — awesome, huh? Guam — hey, our neighbors — Scotland — Brazil — Anaheim — Spokane — Italy — Belgium — Dallas — Hamilton — Vancouver — very nice — Indonesia — India — we got the entire world here — entire world's watching with us. See that croquette? It's got egg inside of it — that looks so good — looks really, really good — you can get fat here — you'll just explode — stay away — if you're on a diet, you just had one of these New Year's resolutions — I'm going to lose weight — stay away — don't come — you will — you will be embarrassed — you cannot stop eating — the only reason I can't eat is because my hands are full — one has the gimbal, the other one has a drink in my hand — I can't eat. Here's a Hokkaido — so this — this kaisendon — I guess they're too big — they can't compete in the in the Donburi contest that we started off this live stream with — but it's a pretty good-looking Kaisen don. Look at that — they're making it right there — there's ikura going on to the bowl of rice — they have some marinated maguro right there — some tuna that's marinated and that all goes onto a bowl of rice — look at how beautiful it is — you see that through the window? Look at the ikura, the big piece of crab on top with some uni — that's the orange underneath the crab leg on the right — on the left you can see the maguro with some shredded crab — and on top of it, some uni on ikura fish eggs on top of there — it's a little bit pricey, but I think it looks like it's super fresh because they're making it right now — it is a bento to go — so we know what Kanae's getting for a present — from here — you have a free hand for food or beer — that's right — thank you — power on — that's interesting — do you see this chopsticks maker? This chopstick maker also makes baseball bats — that's really cool — so from chopsticks to baseball bats, how cool is that? Here's some lacquerware — lacquerware is very famous from Fukui — Sea of Japan. And this one is from Ishikawa, not too far away — some very good lacquerware — I'm a database of unusual stuff from all over this country — it's all stored in my head because I've lived in 16 cities over the last 20 years. Wow, they even have Japanese knives here — this is from Osaka, Sakai City — Sakai in Osaka is very famous for its hamono — there might be three or four really famous places — Sakai in Osaka is one of those places where the merchants would buy and when the Meiji era hit, they changed from swords because the samurai were banned — you weren't allowed to carry swords anymore — and they turned over from swords to guns — so they started to make the parts for guns and then that got banned too — so now they make swords again for tourists and samurai wannabes — very expensive to order a samurai sword — and if you're using the special steel that has to be registered with the government of Japan before it's exported — costs a lot of money — and no, you cannot carry it on — you're flying back home with it. All right, another festival starting this — an amazing smell of the green tea here — you can see this is from this — ocha is from Shizuoka — Shizuoka Prefecture, our neighbors right off of Mount Fuji — and they have an amazing green tea from that area — Kyoto's the other one — Uji matcha, Fukuoka, believe it or not, down in Kyushu also has very tasty green tea. But it's got — when it's roasting as hojicha, it's got a really, really pungent, like very pleasing acidic smell to it — I like — it gets into your nose and just rolls around in there and wakes you up — it really does — alright folks, I can just walk around aimlessly for the next hour or not, but my phone's almost dead. So I want to say thank you so much for joining me on this festival — definitely subscribe — click the thumbs up — I still have a couple of KitKats I'm giving away on Instagram — Instagram is onlyinjapantv — one word — go in there, find me — if you like the — leave a comment and follow on the — if you leave a comment and follow on the KitKat photo, you might win — I've got two more bags to send out. All right — what festival is this? I don't know, but I'll have a pretty good story to tell you next time — everybody, have a good day — have a good night wherever you are in the world — no, it's time to get some sleep — see you guys — oh, there's some oden over there — last 20 seconds is of this oden stand — now I gotta go get Kanae something to take home — good-looking oden.