00:08 John Daub: The network of people here are starting to set this up. How do you know about this? It's not actually on the Akiya Bank—you have to talk to people here. By talking to people, you open up the network. If you're thinking of operating this as a ryokan and you have ideas like, I'd like to retire to Japan and spend my waning years as an operator of a ryokan, you could do that. You could totally do that here. The only thing you need is a plan, and Higashino-san would listen to that plan. I think you could possibly do that. All of these akiya (abandoned homes) are kind of word-of-mouth right now, but there's a ton of them here. That's what I've been doing here for the last couple of days—Jaya and I have been looking around and we found a lot of akiya.

02:30 John Daub: Jaya is going to be making something for your channel as well. I have all of these live streams here. I want you to see this is a blank slate. You could be the owner of this—check it out—or operator or group member. There is no end to the possibilities of being an owner of an abandoned ryokan. It's pretty cool. Yeah, that statue is what you think it is. Let's just be honest. This is the front desk, or it could be—whatever you want it to be. I want you to think of it as, use your imagination. What do you think of the inside of this building?

03:11 Jaya: What do you think of the inside of this building?

03:14 John Daub: Well, I think it's pretty cool. I'm not a huge fan of the ceilings—I took down a bit different type of ceilings in my place. But they seem to be pretty good quality, so probably got something that would be a little bit more up to date. Like the carpet, you wouldn't—the carpet I would change. You like the carpet, though, Ruth?

03:36 Jaya: I like the carpet. I like the art. So this is something that I would definitely keep.

03:41 John Daub: Yeah. There's so many. I'm sure there's a lot of people watching that love the little Japanese touches to things. And this would be—somebody must have given this to the hospital as a painting of Sado in the winter. Or a lot of the little details that you'll see would be something that tells the story of this building. So you would want to somehow keep those—all of the things. All of the things in here, if you want to keep it or throw it away, is up to you. But the cost of recycling and moving this stuff out is on you. That's the thing with the akiya—you get whatever's in here and you have to work with that. So a lot of people, I guess, what you're looking at is just a space, and you could do a lot of things with this space.

04:25 John Daub: I'm going to take you now into the bath area just for a second, and then we're going to walk over towards the kitchen and stuff. This could be a fully operating hotel. Sorry, the signal might go a little bit weaker—I do apologize for that. There's two baths—one is for the women over on this side, and we're going to take you into the men's bath here in the back. There's the restrooms right there. It is an abandoned house, so everything is not in the best shape—it can be completely redone. Meaning you could take these tiles out and put the tiles in that you want to do, the sink that you want to use. You can even take away that squat toilet in the distance over there and put in a brand new high-tech washlet toilet or shower toilet if you're using Inax. You even get this karaoke machine—check that out. That's a 1980s thing. Laser disc—whoa, really? Oh, that says laser disc on there. What? That's like a Japanese technology—it was really popular here.

05:30 John Daub: Here's the men's bathroom in here. Jack, could you open the door? We're going to show you inside here—this is your bath. If you wanted to buy this abandoned ryokan or work with the owners with this one, I'd refurbish this.

05:46 Jaya: You would refurbish this. What would you do with it? I don't know—maybe hinoki wood walls, maybe a stone floor, something more like an onsen feel. Yeah, this tile is not that nice, I don't think. It feels a little bit too retro to me. I'd probably give it more wood, darker colors. I would redo the bathtub—maybe hinoki wood, some cedar in there. Make it feel more modern.

06:19 John Daub: Look at the window that's been busted open, and the leaves and the nature has been coming in here for years—look at that. Again, this is an abandoned ryokan. For the last five years, nobody's been in here, so no work has been done—the work is up to you. Interesting—looks like this would be the bamboo from Sado. Sado is famous for bamboo. There's all these little details everywhere that sort of tell the story of the island—make this a really one-of-a-kind kind of place. You want to try and make sure you leave some of the original touches in there that give it its history. This is a petrified root—like a massive root. And they've lacquered it and they make it into kind of a wall here that separates the two things. I see this quite a bit at Japanese ryokans, the older ones. I think it was in style during the Showa era.

07:25 John Daub: What would you do with this bar, Jaya?

07:27 Jaya: The bar is pretty cool. I'm not so sure about the quality of the wood they've used—the top there. It's pretty central, so you probably want to make something look a little bit more—well, less home center-ish.

07:46 John Daub: Yeah. Again, all this stuff—it comes with the abandoned ryokan, but you can do it any way that you want to. The idea is that they're looking for somebody to make a business out of this. Right? So there's 12 rooms in here—it can hold 70 people. And I want your imagination to just go wild with this—what would you do with it? And you can leave a comment below here. Let us know if you were going to be the owner of this ryokan. As we go through this for the next 15-20 minutes, what would you do with it? What would you do to make this a place that people would want to go?

08:20 John Daub: Here's a little teeny small lounge area that maybe people can come in here and have coffee with. Do with this whatever you like—or have an office and meet with people that are coming to visit you. Here's the door to the front—front desk. And there's where the guest shoes would be put right there. And you would sit at that desk and say, welcome guests to this little ryokan here. There's the stairways that go up, but we're going to take you into a couple of places here. First, let's go left here and show you another one of the lounges.

08:58 John Daub: This is a really cool room—I like the chairs in here.

09:03 Jaya: Yeah, they are pretty neat.

09:05 John Daub: Ruth pointed out to me earlier that this is like a Showa era—Showa style. Showa being like 50, 60 years ago—that's a style of lighting that they had. So you're going to find a mix of styles here. And this lounge—this could be anything. This could be like a movie theater, this could be a meeting room, this could be a mini cafe maybe—whatever you can imagine it to be. That's what it is. It comes with these beautiful wood ceilings in here—I like this room.

09:46 John Daub: And this is a lot of stuff—this is the spirit. There is no end to what you can do with this. There is even a record player—another retro player comes with this. Look at this—did you notice this? Little LP turntable here. Wow—it comes with these old equipment in here. So you can have a disco tech—I don't know, are they coming back in style?

10:12 Jaya: No.

10:18 John Daub: I don't want to go in there—there could be zombies. Before we go upstairs, this is where I guess the—this takes you up to the owner's apartment, not to the guests. So there is an owner's apartment up here—so this is where maybe you would want to live. Right? Or you could stay in this one and have a separate house. Again this is a very big building—I think this would be the best if somebody stayed here. So owner operator would live here and run it—so like a live-in sort of guesthouse kind of thing. That's what I imagine it to be.

10:50 Jaya: I see that. The only issue with this one is that you don't have a private shower or bath up there—you'd have to use the communal one, I think.

10:59 John Daub: Well I didn't notice when I went up before—I can double check. But that would be a problem I think. I think if you owned and lived here you'd want to have some private area that you could—your own bathroom. Yeah, not with the guests all the time—you'd have to be hanging out with the guests. If we turn the camera around here—there we go. So you could have some space here—you could maybe knock down this wall and make this into a bigger room. Maybe that's what I would do with it. I'm shining a light in here—you see there's some tatami mats that have been uprooted maybe because of water damage, I don't know. But you take the structure as is. But we do know that the structure is about 65, 70 years old maximum, and it was operating until five years ago. So he said there's no problem with the pipes, with the water.

11:45 Jaya: Yeah. But I mean obviously you would have to check—you'd have to do a little bit of a check, a little structural check here. Needs a little bit of work.

11:52 John Daub: But I think there was originally a wall here—ah there was a wall there. Higashino-san said that this is the one probably that people could move into and start an operation with. He said it's the closest one—this one is the closest one in the Aikawa area of Sado that I think could just start operating business sooner than later. And that's the hope. This is pretty cool here—imagine sitting here and relaxing with your fireplace, your Japanese style fireplace in the middle. We call this an irori (sunken hearth). And you can cook on it, keep you warm. Sado's winters are quite cold, so you want that roaring all the time. This was put in by the other owners—not the hospital. Again this was a hospital before it was a ryokan. And I heard that they changed the business because the one doctor—I guess it was a doctor—I guess after his parents passed he just moved to Tokyo.

13:03 John Daub: I'm going to take you into the kitchen right now. Yes that is what it looks like. Oh this is the kitchen door here. Alright I definitely need the light going. Shall I open it for you? Yeah—it's a pretty incredibly large kitchen. We're just going to walk in here for about a minute or so. This one needs probably the most work if you're going to get this back up to being a working kitchen for guests. You might want to invest in some equipment. The refrigerator might still work—these are Hoshizaki, they're good quality ones. They still work don't they? Hoshizaki yeah—so you'd save a lot of money, you could use these. That fan looks like it's been here since the beginning—it's pretty retro. I like how it looks. And there's some more refrigerators—as far as we know they work. And if they didn't you'd have to be—it would be your cost to replace that, but put in new fridges. It looks like it comes with a lot of cups, trays—you have some bowls here which could be for donburi or rice or whatever you want to do. That looks like it could be soup bowls—old thermos. These old things could be useful in your plans to make this the building that you want. That pan's gotta go. If you keep track of your customers here on the chalkboard—how about that? We've delivered to table 35. What does it say here? The meal, the sake, the beer—what they've ordered. And all the rooms have names—these are the names of the rooms. So we're going upstairs now and you can take a look. There's not a room number but a room name—that gives it a more personal. Look at that—is that a rice cooker? Oh my gosh—that is a massive looking. Oh don't open it—there could be zombie rice in there. I'm thinking the rice could be alive in there or something could be eating the rice that was last done five years ago. This has been abandoned for the last five years—like nobody's been in here. A little dusty. I am digging this carpet—look at that. I like the painting. That's gotta go.

15:37 John Daub: I think let's go based on time that we have—let's go up to the... Okay. Let's go check to see if they have a bathroom.

15:46 Jaya: Okay. That's good. Thanks, Ruth.

15:48 John Daub: Alright, let's go back up. We're coming in through the lobby area. Again, you could put in wooden floors in here—you probably would want to change the bar, right?

15:59 Jaya: As you said—no. Yeah. I guess if you don't want to invest too much in it, you could keep it. Or you could change it.

16:14 John Daub: There's more lounges—this goes back quite a ways. I'm a little bit scared to go in there. Look at that—is that a big speaker? No, I don't think I've been in here. This—oh, this is a first floor room. Oh man, there's a spider web there. The ceilings are—how low are the ceilings?

16:36 Jaya: Oh, they're about 3 meters, no? About 3 meters high?

16:44 John Daub: What do you think? How tall are these? Watch out for the spider webs up there—2 meters? Just over 2 meters.

16:51 Jaya: Okay—2.5 meters, maybe. So basketball players might have a little bit of trouble in here.

17:01 John Daub: I've got spider webs all over me—cobwebs. I don't want it—I'll give you 5 bucks if you open that.

17:16 Jaya: Fine.

17:21 John Daub: I knew that—I totally knew that. You can't—you lose your 5 bucks. I said I'll give you 5 bucks if you open it, but he can't open it because the table is there. No, I didn't say you can move the table—deal's expired. That's the bathroom. I won't give you any money, but it'd be pretty cool if you go in there. Oh, something's sinking—did something move? The floor is a bit unstable—that's a fixer-upper.

17:51 Jaya: Yep. Jaya notices these things because he himself is fixing up an akiya. And by the way, his channel is—did you pass 100,000 subscribers? Is very close to it.

18:07 John Daub: Alright, so we've already been this direction—let's go upstairs to the guest rooms. Mark writes in here, secret ninja door—you could possibly do that. Again, there's no end to the possibilities of this. Once again, like, it's not on any Akiya bank, this—it's something that we're introducing to you, and you, the viewer who's watching this, can see this is a blank slate of paper, a blank piece of paper, and you could do this anywhere that you want. That kanji is Kikuchi, kiku—or room 224. You can keep it or do whatever. Quick look into 224, Kikuchi, kiku. Where's this good one in The Shining? 223? Watch it now, there's no Shining here. Look at the flashlight in there—wow. So this is a guest room—this one's a double room, I would say. It's pretty comfortable for two people or a family with one kid, maybe. What do you think? What kind of work needs to be done here? New air conditioner—that looks ancient. Doesn't need that much—look at the carpet over here. Well, it seems they've taken the kumiko out. Yeah—touching it out, because I mean, it's a nice washitsu (Japanese-style room) style room. What's the view? I'm afraid to ask—is this a... Whoa! That's pretty sweet! Look at that hoshigaki (dried persimmons), right? That's a kaki tree—persimmons, yeah? Five bucks to eat one?

19:57 Jaya: You want that five bucks, don't you? You're giving me that five bucks. Well, you couldn't open the door, so technically aren't you supposed to give me five bucks? I don't know how that works—I haven't played that five bucks game for a long time.

20:12 John Daub: Alright, we're back into the guest room floor—this is the second floor of a building that's been in operation for about 55 years. The last five years has been abandoned. Is this Sakura? 225. Was this the Shining room? Okay, we'll stay away from that one. Okay, so this has got a bath, a toilet—these aren't washlet toilets, these are the old schools. You can put in a washlet. But it's got—wow, I would replace a lot of this.

20:46 Jaya: Yeah. It depends how much you want to charge—if you want to make this a five-star place, you're going to have to put some five-star amenities in here. This is bigger though, right? Yeah, the old operator could actually live here, you know? Because there's like a little office space over here.

21:00 John Daub: Oh yeah, look at that—so if you wanted to, you could live in your own room. This one's pretty sweet—there's some wood here. This could be an office space—there's a desk here. We really don't know what the situation of this was—what it was like 40 years ago, right? When it became a ryokan—55 years ago, it was a hospital; 40 years ago, it became a ryokan; and 20 years ago, it was sort of a guesthouse for students that didn't pay much; and then now today, it's abandoned for the last five years. That's the roof, and that's where we entered in through here—so we're the garage part of it. There's a little garage for maybe one or two cars or a van that picks up your guests at the station—could be. Oh no! Hey, come on! Don't point out the zombie—that one's no longer a zombie, it's a cucaracha.

22:00 Jaya: Anything in there? Well, I think this would be a good guest room. Yeah—soji paper doors have been... A beer. A beer, yeah—look at that. Is that an air conditioner? That's old, man! That's a Toshiba. And they have a haizara (ashtray) there, so... What are the high chairs doing here? Interesting—you can keep those for kids. Those are the old 1970-looking buckaroo Roy Rogers.

22:35 John Daub: Satomata writes in here: Do real estate agencies have to disclose if someone passed away on the property? I would be curious to know that before I moved in—only after the event happened or the person who's going to rent after the event happened, you have to tell them about that. But if it's the second or third renter or buyer, it's no longer required to be disclosed—that becomes just history.

22:59 Jaya: Can I just say one quick thing?

23:01 John Daub: Sure.

23:01 Jaya: So if you were renting this as a hotel or something, the laws in Japan in terms of fire preparation, like anti-fire and being careful about fire, is really strict. So one of the best ways to probably run one of these would have a separate owner who already has the hotel license because it's very expensive and hard to get. And then you are hired as the operator and the renewer—so that would probably be the least expensive way to do it. This would also be a way for somebody to get a visa if you wanted to work here—through working with another operator, you'd be able to get a visa to operate this and stay in the country. And then you wouldn't have to go through the whole getting the hotel license.

23:37 John Daub: You can see the fire extinguisher with sensors everywhere—the Japanese rules are extremely strict about this. So it's probably for somebody who's just coming to Japan to tie up with an owner who has the license already and knows all the rules and knows the legal requirements of this island—it'd probably be the smartest way to do it.

24:04 Jaya: I think so—less risk anyway than buying the property and then having that on you.

24:10 John Daub: Alright, let's check out a couple more rooms. There's a vending machine over there—hey, if you want to get a vending machine for free, well it's not for free, but included—I think it's as is. Right? So you would get this seriously retro vending machine. Whoa, this doesn't take Suica—you can see what's inside a vending machine. Oh wow, that's pretty cool. Um, so look at that—so that's nothing inside that vending machine. Here's another guest room, 226—this one's a little bit bigger. Have a little peek inside. We're gonna move to the other side quickly before we end this. Wow, this is a little bit more decked out—looks like someone, this might have been the one where people were living in until five years ago. I guess it just depends how many people were using this, but at the time, each room is a little bit different. This one has a TV in there, and that's an old looking TV, it's not a flat screen—this is carpet instead of the wood on the floor. I wouldn't call that carpet anymore—hmm, it's something. But uh, it gives you ideas.

25:32 John Daub: So what do you guys think? Would you be interested in purchasing this and maybe someone who's willing to retire, waiting to retire and wants to live in Japan but have something to do—this might be something that you want to sink some money into and build it up and be a part of the community. One thing I want you to know is if you do come to Japan and you are interested, look at that—looking into the I didn't get a chance to see above that wall street level, but from the second floor you could see into this amazing garden. Oh, so that building is an ancient soy sauce shop—wow. So they were telling us about this, that this house on this side was making soy sauce—so this is a shoyu (soy sauce) factory making soy sauce and now it's your neighbor. But you want to work closely with the community—so wherever you go, if you're doing an akiya, and we do want you to come to Aikawa, but if it's not here, you're going to have to get to know your neighbors and your community. And that's a reason for you to come in person and scope out if you really want—that's one reason why you probably wouldn't see this on the internet. Why it doesn't make a lot of sense to put akiya on the internet is you have to come here and see in person and get to know your neighbors before you decide to sink money in.

26:50 Jaya: Because Jaya, it's not cheap, right? Akiya, just because it's an akiya and it's a cheap starting price, it's not actually cheap to renovate and fix up a house.

27:02 John Daub: No, it's not that cheap, but having so I had my mother-in-law living in that area and through her we knew a lot of people who helped us out and that was really important, I think. It's good to become a part of the community. Yeah, so like you could contact Jaya through his YouTube channel or you could contact my company, Jarman International. So if you had a contact on the ground that could sort of ease you into a relationship with the community that would very much help.

27:30 Jaya: Yeah, I'm always here for you guys too.

27:34 John Daub: Alright, let's go into a couple more rooms. How much time do you think we've got?

27:39 Jaya: Like 10 more minutes.

27:41 John Daub: 10 more minutes, guys. This is where the vine is going inside—oh, this is, yeah. Alright, just go into this room—these rooms are not in the best of conditions. This one looks like someone might have forgotten to close the window and nature came in a little bit. So we do have what looks like to be the feel of an abandoned place—look at that chair in the distance.

28:09 Jaya: Yeah. What do you think of this room? Is there any—this would require a lot of work.

28:14 John Daub: Yeah, it's not too bad—I mean, just, you could recycle the tatami or replace it. Why do you think there's some discoloration up there? Ah, that looks like a leak.

28:25 Jaya: Yeah, that's the kind of things we worry about, right? Yeah, water leaks and also insulation. That's the other thing—apart from the foundation. You think there's like asbestos in here?

28:38 John Daub: Well, if you ever were gonna buy it, they'd have to do a really, really serious check to see if there's any asbestos. But no, I wouldn't suggest buying this place—I would suggest operating it.

28:48 Jaya: No, what?

28:50 John Daub: I get creeped out when I open a dark, spooky... It looks more like a lime plaster or something.

29:02 Jaya: Lime plaster?

29:06 John Daub: How much of an investment in time do you think now that you've gotten a chance to look at this, Jaya—how much time of an investment do you think this would take to get this up and running?

29:15 Jaya: Well, this is much bigger than my place, but I mean, if you're doing it by itself, it's gonna take a while. But if you did it with maybe a carpenter, a daiku-san (carpenter) or two, maybe six months. Six months to... It's hard to say. But yeah, if you had a team of a hundred people, you could do it in 24 hours.

29:41 John Daub: Um, like, the reason why I wanna show you this is because I want you to see what the possibilities are. Again, like, you could totally remodel this and make this into something different. And the owners are pretty flexible like that. Um, I like that—that makes it... People really want you to move in here, so they're willing to work with you to make a really good situation. Look at this—why is there toilet paper on the floor? That's not a good sign. Hello? Anyone here? Get out of here! Get out of here! You know what? It's too late—I'm already in. I'm doomed. I'm doomed. Um, these shoji paper doors have seen... I've seen some action. It could have been somebody left the window open and just things flew in here. These... the doors are very, um, very delicate. There's a sink at the end of this—that's interesting. So um, there's no bathroom in the room, but there's a sink—is there a bathroom here?

30:45 Jaya: Not in this one. Oh, so this one is a shared bathroom, so...

30:49 John Daub: I like those lights—they are pretty nice. Japanese-style light that comes with it, so you would have that. Yeah, that one doesn't have a bathroom. Um... Yeah, again, there's a lot of laws and codes and stuff—if you're gonna do... operate a business, you have to learn all of that. And that's another reason to get involved in your community—um, build relationships with the people here. And come in person and check out akiya—not just rely on the internet, and that's I think the best route to go. But again, like, by the end of this year we're going to have more information on all of this.

31:36 Jaya: Yeah, everything should be much more concrete.

31:40 John Daub: Um, what I always recommend also if you're thinking about starting a new project is you might want to come here, rent something, and live here for three months to get used to the area, make friends, and then really think about if this is something you want to do or not. So... Yeah, taking it sort of slowly and really thinking it through is very important. That's Todd back there—he's hiding. Look, in a livestream you cannot hide—once you get in here... and that's uh... Nina behind him. See, I see everything, including things I shouldn't be seeing, like ghosts and disappearing kids, like in the prison.

32:14 John Daub: Alright, Jaya's found a point of to note here—what is that and why? Yeah, look down here—oh, so down here. So water damage—so it leaks somewhere. So it's not a ghost?

32:28 Jaya: It's not a ghost. But Jaya's here to kind of explain—so this is kind of a problem, right? A roof above it, you say. Oh yeah—so it's gonna take some time to repair, probably from rain damage. Right? Yeah—from rains. The winds and rains here are quite strong—this is the west side of the island, so probably a little bit more wind on this side.

32:57 John Daub: But um... It's too hard to fix it—anyway, you'd probably... anyway, you'd want to remove this ceiling regardless, I think—it's not that attractive.

33:06 Jaya: Yeah—put in some new ceilings. It would have to be done anyways, Jaya's saying, so that's not too big of a problem. People might even think about open-beam ceilings and things—I mean, not for here maybe, but sometimes that's also a possibility.

33:24 John Daub: Hey, FaZe Life, thank you—appreciate it. Check it out though—I would love to be a part of this neighborhood. Just looking out of the window from the second floor here, look at the neighbors you would have, right? This is pretty cool—this is an old gold mining town. Yeah—old gold mining town with history going back 400 years, so you're gonna be a part of that. Alright, so what do you think? Is this a kind of a thing that you'd be interested in? Would you like to be the owner of this ryokan, abandoned place that's been for five years, nobody's here, and for you, you've gotten a chance to see it? If you have any ideas or you're interested, you could leave a comment below—let us know. I'll be doing some more Q&A because I get a lot of questions as well. But again, like, the possibilities are endless—there's no one way that works. And right now, things are pretty flexible—we talked with the guy who knows the owner and they're very willing to find a solution because they just want people to come here and experience Sado. It's a really beautiful place—traditional place with a lot of history. Thanks—leave a comment below. Looking forward to hearing from you—subscribe. Don't forget about this guy right here—Jaya, he is just approaching 100,000 subscribers—congratulations. And looking forward to more content from you. And Ruth from Jarman International for bringing us all over here. See you in the next live stream, everybody—have a good day, have a good night, wherever you are in the world. I'll leave you the last 20 seconds looking at an old vending machine. There's no beer in there—sorry, those are all empty.