00:00:00 John Daub: Oh my gosh, it is so cold. How you doing everybody? I am now in Rikubetsu in northern Hokkaido. And this is the coldest town in Japan. I've only been out for about a minute and already my nose is completely numb and so dry inside there. But I'm going to walk around the town as long as I can stand it in the cold and as long as the phone can stand it. Let's go see what the temperature is right now. Hey Marty, do you see that building in front of us? This is the Aurora Hotel. This is a michinoeki (roadside station) that I'm staying in. It's the only hotel in the town. Now there's a couple of ryokan and other stuff, it's seasonal. But this is the only really registered hotel. Look at the smoke coming out of the chimney there. It goes up pretty high too.

00:01:02 John Daub: Look at that. Now for Canadians this isn't going to be a big deal. Canadians are probably yawning. But for most of the rest of the world, except for maybe Finland and Russia and a couple other countries, Norway, this is sort of a big deal. And you know Japan is such a long country. It goes all the way down from Okinawa in the warm Pacific waters there all the way up to Hokkaido, which is sort of like tropical to arctic. It's not really Arctic Circle but it's pretty darn close. We're not that far from the Sea of Okhotsk which is up by Abashiri. Some really good hokke, some mackerel fish. Alright here's the sign that proclaims this to be Japan's coldest town and it gives you the temperature. Do you see it here? It's listing about an event that's going on here. And then says yokochou. Welcome to Rikubetsu, Japan's coldest town. Do you see that lit up? Oh my. I'm going to pan down. It's minus 25 degrees or about minus 12 Fahrenheit or something. That is insanely cold everybody. Thankfully there's no windchill today. And I don't think today you're going to find a colder place. A couple of days ago it was down to minus 33 degrees in Asahikawa.

00:02:46 John Daub: Yeah, it was pretty cold. I'm not going to lick a flagpole. Iman writes in "lick a flagpole." That's not going to happen. Come on, I'm 46 years old. By the way, today's my birthday. I think I've wised up a little bit. You can't get food poisoning. You get it. Oh yeah. Let's do live chat. Go lick a pole. I'm going to go do it. Come on, it's minus 25. And this town has a population of like a couple hundred. There's maybe a couple hundred people that live in this town. Maybe one firefighter in the whole town and he's probably asleep and it's Saturday night, so I'm not gonna do it. But I wanted to highlight Japan's coldest town. And you can see there's not a lot to do here. They have cows, they have cow benches and they have this roadhouse which also has a store that sells local souvenirs. There's a post box and a post office down the street. Oh boy, and it's incredibly quiet. Hey Ash D, happy birthday, wish me as well. Love your stream. And Stephen Faulkner, happy birthday John, go get yourself a beer, some warm sake. Um, if you stay till the end I'm gonna take you into my room here and I'll do a question and answer about Hokkaido travel just so you might be able to help you out if you're thinking about it.

00:04:21 John Daub: Hopefully I'll be able to answer you guys. I know you're all familiar with Hokkaido. I want you to be safe if you come up here. Look, I've been wearing these warm pants for the last week. Of course I've washed them but I haven't been cold at all. After just three minutes, four minutes of being out here I'm cold. That's look, I always thought that after you get to like 10 below it doesn't matter, 15 below, 20 below, 25 below it's all just really cold. That's not true. After you get to like 20 below it's like it hurts, 25 below it hurts more. It just it's painful to be outside. And when I asked the tourist office the lady right there, she said what do you guys do at night? She told me I don't know, we just kind of go home and do nothing. I was like what? I said isn't there like I guess there's one karaoke place but it's not open all the time because the proprietor also likes to stay home and do nothing because it's so cold. There's not a lot that you can do. All right and uh it's minus 25 now. I bet you if we come back it might get to 26 or 27 degrees below zero. All right I don't know where you're from in the world, if anybody can beat me please write it into the chat right now and just tell me how cold, how much colder it is.

00:05:42 John Daub: All right because this is my hand here to touch the screen, it's really cold. Hey guys I oh wow I appreciate it. All abroad happy birthday. It's my birthday also, happy birthday all abroad. Um buy yourself an ice cream. Goku 95 hey Alex um Danny TV happy birthday John, grab me a hot coffee okay. Uh hope to meet you in Tokyo, absolutely I'll be around. Happy birthday John from Rain, thank you. Christopher happy birthday oh much appreciated guys that's nice. All right here in front of me is uh minus 17 in Toronto. Oh my god I'm so excited to be here in Toronto. I got you beat, minus 25 here. That's not something to brag about. I don't know like oh I'm dumber than you ha ha ha. It's not really something to brag about but you can see here how deserted this town is. This is the main street. I would do a midnight snack run but there's nothing open. The main post office here, there's a convenience store over there. Sony happy birthday John, have a hot drink. I think I will. I think I'm gonna go take a look at that convenience store down the street.

00:07:11 John Daub: Jonathan Lim, Felice Copianos get tangus get tengas un buen dia thank you I will have a great day minus 13 degrees Fahrenheit. Joe Wrightson John thank you for doing a great job thank you for joining me. It's minus six in Noboribetsu oh it's minus 25 in Rikubetsu. And when I just laughed at hurt now there's a sushi shop and an izakaya here and I was curious about that. I'm really proud of the gimbal still working. I mean of course it should but it's a red light. There's no traffic. How many of you would just stop and wait and be good? I guess I should push the button. There's another human outside, is he crazy? Why would he be outside? Detroit's minus 25 and snowing. It's minus 25 and icing. It's so dry I'm coughing, my throat is a little raspy. This building here is like a mini shopping area. On the way inside there there's an izakaya, there's a sushi shop but they're all closed because it's after 10 p.m. I think it's closed. I don't see any cars. I see one car and I think it was the guy that just walked by. So it's not like this place is buzzing.

00:09:13 John Daub: I don't think there's a Kaiser but AAS AASC31 Tajibia Minito John thanks for the live stream you're very welcome. It's minus 50 in Russia somewhere, that's probably true. Rain writes in get something warm. Absolutely I am, I think that's a great plan. All right there's where I'm staying in the distance. I think it's always worth it, I love renting a car and driving around Hokkaido. I was a little bit nerve-wracked, just kind of nervous about the snow when it was starting to snow a couple of days ago when I was going to Kitami. Um I didn't think I was gonna make it but you know just drive slower, do what all the other cars in front of you do and you do pretty well. And then um I got to Kitami the next day in the morning it snowed, uh this morning it snowed so I had to clean off the car. Oh if you don't push the button the light doesn't change. Is that a maple leaf? That's like a Canadian thing. I think that this town must be connected with Canada somewhere because it's so darn cold.

00:10:30 John Daub: Tanya and Tio happy birthday John thanks for all the awesome live streams. Maybe you could buy some hot chocolate or beer to warm up. Beer would be warm actually, the beer might warm me up. All right you know what okay I kind of I'm making an edited video of this. And I went in here already and I looked at the drinks. For me I'll take you in there and take a look at it but I bought earlier a bottle of sake from Kitami which is north Hokkaido and I thought I would drink it with you guys to celebrate. I'm gonna go inside in about a minute. I just took my glove off and already my fingers really, it's like being on Mars you know when Matt Damon you know when he took off his helmet and his eyes started bulging. Is that Total Recall with Schwarzenegger? It's hard, remember brain frozen. I like the look at the contrast, the blue on the snow, the blue lights and then the yellow lights, the warm glow of the street lamps. It's kind of neat composition. I don't know I'm messed up. All right let's go inside here um I don't know if I'm gonna get anything. Maybe I'll find a snack for the sake because I got a bottle of sake inside.

00:12:26 John Daub: All right let's go take a look anyways. Let me get my money out. Oh this is the strawberry Coke they have, the strawberry Coke here interesting. Oh this is sake up here, anything from Kitami, Tezukuri sake something from around here. I don't see, most of the sake is from somewhere else. Don't they have the Subarashii Classic beer? Oh there it is. Sapporo Classic and all the alcohol they have in here, these people like to drink. Look at all the booze, they love to drink here in this town. Oh no thank you no thank you. That looks pretty good. Okay. All right there we go. Hey Raf get an ice cream, I'm going to get an ice cream oh my god. Raf uh I am ice cream right now. Kirk Bell hot sake time. We're gonna go inside and have some sake guys. I'm gonna show you my room. What is it like to stay in a room in a roadhouse in Japan? Um I was pleasantly surprised and I'm gonna tell you a little of the stories here uh and share.

00:15:09 John Daub: This is Seicomart by the way for those that don't know. You see that steam that's me uh hey. Qomar is a Hokkaido-only um chain. Seicomart I think you might see it in Alamoni I'm not sure but Seicomart is everywhere in Hokkaido and they kind of do a good job of catering to what Hokkaido people like which apparently is a lot of alcohol which is good I like Seicomart. You know you're in Hokkaido when you're inside of your like hot tub. You know what a happy stay here a sake Omar. Oh my gosh the snot it like my nose runs and that it's frozen it's all frozen inside so dry. How do you why would humans decide like choose to live here you know it hurts like literally it hurts my fingers hurt. Whoa hey Tasty Chronicles hi John here's some birthday one from their body. Oh what are you doing another vodka sake and a hot meal is on me. Oh the meal here by the way was so awesome.

00:16:26 John Daub: All right for those that are tuning in right now all right I put a picture on Discord um I lit up a um I bought some birthday cake in the last town and I took a picture from here because it's kind of symbolic. You see behind me it says minus 25. Um it hasn't changed it's supposed to I think it'll get to minus 28 but it'll be like five in the morning but uh this is pretty darn cold yeah. And uh one more time for those that are just joining us this sign is a marker that proclaims this Japan's coldest town right there. And the temperature is at a balmy minus 25 degrees without windchill bro yeah there might be a slight wind so it could be minus 28 but I'm going to take you inside because my finger is absolutely hurting me badly and you know what this beer is going to turn to ice. All right there you go Rikubetsu Hokkaido and you can see here uh the coldest recorded temperature this season is minus 34 uh Celsius was recorded here this season winter season and that was uh on December 11th 2019 at uh 12:40 a.m. in the morning I believe or is it 12:40 p.m. I'm not sure. It got down to this coldness that's crazy right.

00:18:17 John Daub: And then the minus 32 here but the coldest ever that was recorded in this area was minus 38.4 last year on almost on this day after midnight. It's going to be February 9th so one year ago on this day pretty much it was the coldest recorded temperature in Japan that's crazy right um minus 38. Do you have any idea how cold that is in Fahrenheit? Fahrenheit doesn't even go down that cold because there's well maybe Alaska. I can't imagine. This is where I'm staying you can tell it's pretty quiet um it's a nice place. I found out Google Maps it was the only one. Minus 41 is the coldest recorded in Japan maybe I don't know it's all debatable it's like 1901 temperature it was um minus 33. Yesterday Asahikawa it's just mind-blowing mind-blowing stuff. There's a vending machine here this is the tourist shop that I was telling you about but it's closed uh they got some pretty good stuff in there um I'm gonna show you what I got actually upstairs. Let's go upstairs. Thanks guys I say that happy birthday thank you guys so much for that that's really nice.

00:19:38 John Daub: Here's the hotel right now it's uh almost 10:30 p.m. that's another reason to stay here. All right you gotta take your shoes off before you go in here it's Japanese rules. Not a lot of foreigners are staying here I think. All right let's go inside I don't want to be the messy foreigner. Just nice next one next one oh wait my door was open creepy that's pretty interesting. All right welcome to my room you're one of the select few. Hey anything but anything with Benson how you doing happy hi John happy birthday. What sort of clothing are you wearing now just wondering? Um I'm wearing a down jacket it's still kind of chilly in the room actually it's still a little it's a little bit cold. I'm wearing um this Kanae gave me this for my birthday it's pretty warm inside and this hat I got it in um Peru Blue I think a long time ago and uh this is Uniqlo you know what I mean. All right thanks for asking oh wow okay.

00:22:32 John Daub: I'm pretty excited to see what's going on in the room it's a pretty interesting view. There's a train station down here I think it's a tourist train do you see that and they stopped running the train a while ago but you can still ride the tourist train. I'm so freezing I'm so freezing right now my nose is still it's still numb it's still numb. All right this this is called a Sapporo Classic and it's only available here in Hokkaido yeah hold on a second. It's a really bad hat head this is why um this is why I often just leave the hat on because really bad hat head. Okay um so let's try the sake and oh oh oh oh okay. So I got this at the gift shop here when you when I drove in to here you go past the sign this this is the sign that you go past and you can buy I bought it as a magnet. Do you see it says Rikubetsu and it's a guy all right hold on turn around here it's a guy and it's showing like minus 38 below which I think was the recorded lowest temperature here.

00:24:34 John Daub: Um it's the coldest town maybe the cold temperature like recorded in some place that's not a town and uh got I like these little magnets for the refrigerator. This one is for the roadhouse do you see and uh that's not me actually it kind of looks like me in a way. This is the magnet that for this road sign for the roadhouse I thought that's pretty cool. It says um the Aurora town 93 Rikubetsu and there's the mascot what does that say Shibare-chan and he's pointing to minus 30 degrees and I think we're going to get there tomorrow and get there below 30 degrees tomorrow. Um this is a sake that I bought in Kitami which is the town it's like um uh 35 miles north of here and I went there to eat yakiniku to Yakiniku Fest it was pretty good. I don't have a sake glass so I found the um teacup and uh let's try some of this here. All right so this is the bottle I'll show you the label here um it's pretty good there's a picture of Hokkaido and that that red spot um I didn't put that there that was on the label that actually says uh that's in Kitami and Kitami I think this is the only one that was brewed in Kitami. It's pretty easy to drink here blue bottles very nice. So kanpai thank you everybody that's good that's really good.

00:26:15 John Daub: Um I want to ask you if you have any questions about traveling in northern Hokkaido or if you have anything um that you want to ask me you can go ahead and do that. This is a question and answer part but um when I was walking around outside you could literally see that this place like nobody goes outside is rare to just go outside in the middle of the day in the middle of the night. I want to go over there and just film for the main channel um uh for an edited episode with with my camera and mic and stuff so I'm gonna be going back outside. I don't think anyone was gonna get me uh you found me card here if you did I was I was wondering if yet uh our friend from Malaysia that we saw at Chitose Airport he found me like three times in the airport in Noboribetsu and in Sapporo um which is okay. All right there you go this is a Classic beer. It was snowing today a little bit but um not too much actually actually I do feel like a wreck because uh I didn't get a lot of sleep last night and I've been outside in this freezing cold weather. My skin is so dry I had to buy some like a cream for men and rub it all over the place just doesn't get dried out and it's impossible it's an impossible task.

00:27:40 John Daub: Uh the downside to being in super cold weather besides the super cold weather is that it's so dry and my lips are chapped. Someone writes in there in like minus 34 degree weather that's insane. All right all right this is also for you guys here kanpai and to some of you who also had birthdays to all the Aquarians out there. That's the only that's the only drink I'm gonna have the sake and this because one of the things I started I kind of stopped drinking and overeating a little bit more because uh it's not good for your health. All right go ahead and ask me some questions I'm really excited to read what you guys have on your mind. Feliz cumpleaños oh gracias muchas gracias John. Um any car rental advice in Hokkaido that's a good question. I think if you rent a car here make sure that um you have the insurance uh also if you are a foreigner and you're not used to driving here ask for a magnet that tells everybody that you're a foreigner and it actually helps you because people will be more forgiving and take it a little bit more slow around you.

00:29:05 John Daub: It helps the other thing you can do is in the winter take your time don't rush and go the speed of traffic and take breaks every couple of hours. I was excuse me I went I was stopping to take a break that helps a lot stop for coffee or a restroom break or something um but uh also um I usually stick with Toyota Rent a Car just because the cars are well maintained and the service is really good. The other companies are okay but I just figured Toyota has a very strong reputation and if a crash happens they don't just damage their rented car business they damage everything so I think that they're more careful with maintaining their cars because their reputation is on the line that's just kind of how I feel. Honda just started rent-a-car I think they just started because I saw a couple of Honda Rent a Car signs but it's interesting that the car companies have the rent-a-cars in Japan Toyota Rent a Car Honda Rent a Car and there's a couple of Oryx um Budget um Smile Rent a Car Nico Nico Rent a Car. Don't pick the cheapest one um the Nippon Rent a Car and Toyota Rent a Car the most expensive but I just get peace of mind.

00:30:22 John Daub: Right now Toyota Rent a Car had a 30% off the reason why I'm doing this trip a big reason is that the rent-a-car was really cheap um they had a 30% off deal for winter so I'm like okay I'm gonna rent a car um Toyota went across it's really good but it's really expensive that's the problem it's more pricier but the service that you get and um the cars are maintained really well so I feel in the winter you don't want to be stranded out here. All right so I'll pay a little bit more because I know that it would pay 10 times more if something goes wrong out here like a bear eat me I'd rather be in it if a bear is going to attack me I'd rather that's a tough one Hondas are pretty good a Toyota would be all right but I don't want to be in a subcompact car if a bear like takes bear hugs your car goes like this and throws you like a T-Rex in Jurassic Park off of a cliff. You don't want to be in a subcompact you want to be in like a mid-sized car or something it's harder to get your teeth and claws into that. So um I usually get a Mark X or this time I think I got something that was like above just above a compact save a little bit of money um it's a hybrid.

00:31:30 John Daub: How long does winter last in Japan usually that's actually pretty good question um winter in Hokkaido is much longer of course uh it starts like in the beginning of October and goes all the way up until um April so it's almost like six months of winter now it's like five months of cold weather and four really tough months I think. Um down in Okinawa there's like no winter right it's like Florida in a way then Tokyo's winter is more like Washington DC it's pretty warm um Boston is like Sendai you get uh pretty cold weather and Sendai and snow regularly and uh Hiroshima is like you know Virginia so it gets warmer as you go down towards Kyushu so the winters are shorter in the west southwest and longer in the northeast. Do they get um roads get do they grit the roads they put sand on it and some places salt but mostly sand um some of the roads I guess they have heaters or something I guess that's salt I'm not sure. They take pretty good care of the roads um Hokkaido's cities Sapporo and Kitami a lot of people had chains on their wheels um up here in northern Hokkaido you see chains on a lot of the cars but many of the roads have uh ice underneath them because it just snowed.

00:33:10 John Daub: So it's interesting to me that they haven't plowed a lot of these roads up here in the north but I think the drivers are used to it and their wheels and their tires are used to it too so they do a pretty good job of driving. If this was in Tokyo the whole city would shut down if it was like this um hello John from El Paso Texas you are looking good thank you wow I'm hat head. Is the roadside assistance like they do in most countries yeah you know um that's interesting that you asked that it in my um Toyota Rent a Car there's a button to call for help and I'm afraid to push it because I'm not in need of help but I believe if you push it there's a GPS will bring emergency vehicles to you or you can make a phone call or something I'm not sure how it is. There's a PHS enabled thing I'm gonna ask about that when I get back also I'm gonna do another live stream about renting a car. I know that some countries can't rent cars even with an international driver's license the it just depends on which convention that you your country signed with Japan so I'm asking to a rent a car all these questions and we'll get some answers back.

00:34:28 John Daub: So if you do have any specific rent-a-car questions ask them in the questions below and I will add them into the things I'll ask with the renting our people. These are pretty good questions. Tourists are really rude articles say that they visit Japan what does that say I'll take a couple more questions come on. So I'm interested in your thoughts please leave your comments and also let me know if you have any suggestions for the next video as well. I do have a question about a relationship between Kanae and [inaudible] and which one of you has already married in the West you guys talked about that before on the other day you guys talked about a relationship that you have between the two of you and I always say I'm interested in the part that you talk about with your life in terms of your life and your relationships with your they probably have a windchill right Japan doesn't really do windchill the U.S. does windchill but Japan doesn't factor in windchill so but Wakkanai is pretty cold as well.

00:35:34 John Daub: Um is it bad in Japan when you walk pedestrians when the traffic light is red yes um I wouldn't I don't do that in my neighborhood because I don't want my neighbors to see that I don't care right and if kids see me walking the street in my own neighborhood then I don't want them to think badly of me so I don't do that. However when I'm not in my neighborhood it may I might take a little bit of liberty if I'm in a hurry I might cross on red okay I might do it but you just remember like you don't like a dog you don't poo-poo in your own house like a dog might have to do duty okay he's not gonna do it in his house he's gonna walk around the street in his house he's gonna walk around the street wait and try not to do it because he lives there he wants to keep his place clean I want to keep my place clean. Yeah my flights between Tokyo and Hokkaido reasonable yeah there's budget airlines Starlux um Star one of the star airlines and um Jetstar and Skymark Skymark and there's a load of flights to Chitose so it's pretty reasonable. What should I do in Hokkaido ski eat hike uh depends on what time of year uh this it's endless the stuff you could do here this is like a paradise for food and for adventure.

00:37:12 John Daub: Hokkaido's really good guys thanks a lot um this is a really good birthday I'm pretty happy um I wish Kanae was here but she had to go back we're gonna have a birthday dinner she's taking me to my favorite restaurant where we had a really good time and I'm really happy that I had our wedding party uh two years ago I love going there and so I'm kind of excited to get back home but I'm also going to enjoy my time um and make some pretty good episodes for you guys. So uh yeah have a good day have a good night wherever you're in the world I'm right here the coldest town in Japan that's me. I might get these for the daimyo what do you guys think you're gonna maybe I'll put one of these in the daimyo boxes yeah bye everybody kanpai.