00:00:00 John Daub: Hey everybody. Oh boy, it is really, really cold outside. It's minus 15 degrees with an amazing amount of wind. We didn't have wind last night. It was minus 27 in Rikubetsu, which is the center of Hokkaido. I've driven about an hour and 20 minutes away from there to this Ainu kotan (village), which I thought was really special. I can hear some Ainu singing in the background from a tape or cassette. I'm going to take you into this Ainu Kotan, which is this really beautiful village.

00:00:33 John Daub: It's on Lake Akan. Lake Akan, if you look on the map or Google Maps—I'll put a link in the description so you can find where I am. It's pretty deep up in northern Hokkaido. This is a really beautiful kotan, almost like a reservation. About 120 Ainu live here. They sell arts and crafts that they make in this area. I thought this would be a nice chance for us to go live. I do have wireless mics with wind buffers, but they're not working.

00:01:03 John Daub: So I'm just going to have to wing it because I didn't come all this way not to do a live stream. This is a rare opportunity. I don't think many people are going to come up here, but I do think you should because it's pretty neat to see something completely different. This is another side of Japan that I don't see in Tokyo. Wow, the sun's sort of popping out. Wow, check that out up there. It's like a big owl. He's got snow on his head. There, it says in the center, Ainu Kotan, Akan-ko (Lake Akan).

00:02:08 John Daub: I've seen some people popping their heads out of their shops. There's not a lot of tourists at this time of year. This area of Hokkaido is a summer place. Not a lot of people come in the winter. But why not just take a look here and explore? They're building a new Ainu village near Noboribetsu, set to open on April 20th. I'm really happy to see Japan over the last several years embracing more of the Ainu roots. I think it's because of the lead-up to the Olympics—people are going to be examining Japanese culture more, just like with Native Americans, because the Ainu are similar to the Native Americans in the United States.

00:02:55 John Daub: We're gonna be exploring more of Japan's culture during the Olympics, and of course Japan should rightfully promote Ainu culture. It's a really interesting part of this land, and it's neat here to see... Wow, is that Ainu food? For those joining us, it is minus 15 with wind chill of like minus 40—I'm making that up, I'm not sure. That's like regular Japanese food, miso ramen, although that does look really good. I also don't know how good this signal is up here—I'm pretty far away from everything.

00:03:40 John Daub: People are living up here on the top of these buildings. Richard Gibson, it is super cold, you have no idea. I'm doing this hand switch—this one's in my pocket while one hand is holding the gimbal and vice versa. Half the story is this beautiful Ainu village and the other half is my hand, which is freezing. These decorations remind me of New Zealand's Maori decorations. Very well could be—you know, a lot of those cultures are very similar in basic respects, and I think that's kind of neat. The Maori traditions—I think New Zealand might be a little bit warmer than here though. This is pretty cold.

00:04:33 John Daub: Wow, all right, so that looks like a pretty luxurious ryokan here and that's pretty much it, right here this street behind me. Do you see that with the gate? That's pretty cool—look at that big owl. We're gonna take a look, maybe take a look at a store too, but I also want to get in touch with this area. Lake Akan—I've never been here before, so everything is my first time. They do have vending machines at Lake Akan. Hey, somewhat get something hot. I think I will right now, but they're all cold. What? Okay, up here there's hot corn soup and hot shrimp porridge. Which one should I get? Hot shrimp porridge or hot corn porridge? Mmm, they all look pretty good. Anything that's hot actually.

00:05:33 John Daub: What I usually do is buy a can and put it in my pocket for a while to warm up. It is that cold. Corn—people are saying corn. People have spoken. 130. I'll support shrimp bisque. Oh now we're getting more shrimp. What is this, like a video game sound? You mix them together? Ronald, that's nasty. Alright, here we go. I think people wanted the corn, right? Popcorn shrimp. Oh, it's nice and warm. Oh, it's so nice and warm. Okay, good, good, good. Oh gosh, this is so good. This is making my day. It's simple things that make you happy, like a warm can of soup in your hand.

00:06:50 John Daub: Alright, this is the village right here. Let's walk around here and then I'm gonna come back to the village. I gotta make my way towards Asahikawa today—it's a four-hour drive. So welcome to Lake Akan everybody. It says here, "the taste of North Country." Oh they got pictures. Oh this is gonna be interesting. Okay, let's check it out. The taste of North Country: banya ramen. That looks interesting. Banya ramen. Here's some meat, grilled pork donburi. Oh there's venison and alpine leek set, venison sausage. It's a lot of deer up here—just because they have a lot of deer here. It's kind of the local meat. Putting the corn into the other hand now.

00:07:57 John Daub: Look at this shop here—everything's made of wood. I like this here too. Looks like something from Ghibli. Donguri (acorn)—Forest of Acorns is what the shop is called. Hey there's Totoro! No way! Hey, Totoro is in Ainu Village. That's awesome. That's a mammoth Totoro. Look at that. Whoa. Tim Lawson, when I was a kid we would drink hot Dr. Pepper with a slice of orange—enjoy your trip. That sounds really interesting, Tim. Sometimes they have Dr. Pepper—I'm kind of interested. The windows are all steamed up. Oh, my nose is completely... It looks like... I'm just going to take a look.

00:09:08 John Daub: Look at all the Ghibli stuff in here. Is this like a Ghibli store? I didn't expect this here. They even have Ghibli socks. Whoa. Kiki's Delivery Service. I like this one here. I dropped one. It has a mouth open. I don't think I really want to buy a Totoro. I don't think I want to buy a Totoro in Ainu Village. It's just kind of weird to buy Totoro in Ainu Village, no? Isn't it? Just a little bit. Take it out here. Get something for Kanae. You better believe I'm going to get something for Kanae. I'm looking right now. Oh my gosh, it's so cold. I don't know if I can take this much longer.

00:11:36 John Daub: Kanae already has two Totoros though—I don't think she needs a third Totoro, I'm being honest. I bought her a Totoro when we were dating, then I bought her another one. There's two Totoros in our bedroom. Look at the snow—it's just so dry and so cold. Look at this ryokan—wow, it's really massive. So this is all part of Lake Akan, which by the way guys is an onsen town. Oh, there's a convenience store. Folk art. Just heads up here—this corn soup is cold, it's not hot anymore. It's like warm. So these are some of the Ainu-made charms that you can buy. Maybe I'll get one for Kanae. Oh, my hands are frozen.

00:13:39 John Daub: I'm going to sneak into this Lawson's—I gotta warm up for a second. Oh no, oh my gosh. Okay. Oh no. I gotta hide while the wind... It's too cold. Okay, go for it. Shiroi Koibito. Run, run. Oh my gosh, my hands are frozen. Gosh, my hands are frozen. Some more food, but I can't eat convenience store food. That oyakodon looks good though. Wear your gloves—I can't hold the gloves and do the gimbal, control the gimbal. It's really hard. Recently these tortilla wraps are getting more popular. Love this bacon. What is that? Whoa.

00:16:33 John Daub: I saw a fox on the highway when I was driving here. The fox looked at me, I looked at the fox—we had a moment. And then I just kept driving. All right, let's get out of here. Oh, this bread looks good—this is a chocolate cream danish. Oh that looks really good. It's not healthy, but I want to get a coffee too. All right, I think I'm getting warmed up. All right, we're going to go back out to the Ainu village now. And let's do this, okay? I got gloves right here. I can't do both.

00:18:06 John Daub: All right, here's a map of the area. We were here by the Ainu village—right here, this area where the big owl is, remember? So then I walked to here, and the onsen—I guess I'm here. And the onsen town—there's this pink road you see here until you get to the big man. Oh, there's another eco-museum center here and a very big man with glasses standing there. There's a 7-Eleven over here and a police station. But this doesn't look like this now—it looks frozen. So why don't I take you over and show you what the lake looks like, okay? So I'm here at the Lawson's—I'm going to walk here and then I can show you where the lake is, okay? All right, let's go to Lake Akan now. That's a good idea. Thank you, Lawson's, for the warmth. I'm ready—I'm ready for this!

00:19:40 John Daub: Just psych yourself up. I'm already calmed down again. So all that psych up was worth nothing because now I'm back down to zero power and frozen again. Oh my gosh, it's awful cold. Listen. This is colder than Canadian cold. Oh, look at that statue—that's interesting. I like that. You think I should buy that for Kanae? Gary says keep jogging. Okay. All right, there's the lake. Let's go to the lake.

00:20:22 John Daub: Drugstore sign. Two, one. All right, let's do it. Manhole. My town, Akan. Two, one. Behind this vending machine for a minute. I'm going to show you the lake now. Three, two, one—go for it. Do it. That's awesome. Look at the ducks. And then they're doing like ice fishing. Ice fishing on Lake Akan. How do the ducks keep warm here? These ducks are insane—they don't know how cold it is. They're ice fishing. Look, there's ice fishermen over here. Oh yeah, that's right. Ducks have down feathers, so they're pretty warm. Whoa. Should go check it out, huh? Let's go do a look-see.

00:22:37 John Daub: I do have to make my way back to Asahikawa really soon, towards that direction. The driving here was awful, guys—there was some parts of the highway which scared the heck out of me because it's just really, really icy. The roads up here in northern Hokkaido are not that well maintained—just go really slow, don't brake. Oh, because it's an onsen town—do you see here? The water is still flowing despite it being minus like 30 with wind chill—I'm just making up these numbers. It's literally minus 15 without the wind chill, but Japan doesn't do wind chill. So I think the ducks are staying warm because of the onsen water flowing into the lake. I don't think anyone's ever done a live stream from here. Oh, that hurt. My nose hurts.

00:23:37 John Daub: How come these birds don't have down feathers, do they? Hey birds, go someplace warm. Danger—here is especially dangerous area. Please never get on the ice. Okay. Danger. There's a lot of danger. Oh my gosh, guys—my nose is hurting, my face really hurts. Oh oh oh gosh, I don't know how long I can do this for. I don't know if I could do this much longer—the wind is really bad. There's a gathering of people over there—let's go take a look. I don't know how much longer I can do—it's cold.

00:25:40 John Daub: I gotta turn around. All right, I'm just gonna go say hi to these strange people. Actually, I think I'm the strange one. Oh my god, I'm the strange one. I apologize for the wind noise—you have no idea. My whole face is frozen. These guys are prepared—I'm like unprepared. I gotta escape. I can't feel my hands and they're inside of gloves. Why does anybody want to live out here? I gotta get inside—this is not smart. My nose is gonna get black like those people that climbed Mount Everest and they had to get their noses chiseled off—I've seen that in the documentary. I'm gonna get out of here—this is not safe to be outside unless you have proper wear. And I have only Uniqlo BlockTech technology clothing. That's not warm enough—Heat Tech is not warm enough for this. You need something higher than Heat Tech. If you only spent like $9.99 on your Heat Tech, I don't think that's rated for minus 70 degrees—I just made that number up.

00:28:25 John Daub: Don't look at me—it's not pretty. Just keep going straight. Hide behind this vent—they're hiding. It's not cold? It's cold, isn't it? We live in Japan. Oh yeah. Look at that crow—does a crow have down? They should start making down jackets out of crow. Keep running. Oh no. Keep running, hide here, hide behind the wall—just wait here for a moment, hide behind the wall. Alright, we're gonna book it—do it. Look at the Beamer, the Toyota—look at the snow kicked up. I can't even see the license plate. Oh that's awesome. I keep going—I'll just take a mark. Takara is also warm. Oh my god, my face is gonna fall off—my face is all slush inside, it's like mush ice.

00:30:05 John Daub: Okay, hold on. Oh thank goodness—manhole. We didn't have anything—there's a real manhole cover. It's hard to see—there's a mountain on there. Sorry, car—manhole. It's a mountain with flowers, and I guess there's a lot of that. That was really good—look at that car get icicles on it. Look, oh that's never gonna start—it's probably been abandoned. Oh my gosh, all right—sorry, it was really dangerous just a minute ago. Jessus R, thank you so much. Jensen Lim, happy belated birthday John—thank you. Jason, thank you for the videos that keep warm—Jensen, appreciated that. Murph 580s, you deserve a warm snack—I kind of do, maybe like right away. Obstacles, dare you to lick the frost—that's gross, Obstacles. Kai, thank you Kai. Sovereign F3 747, konbini egg sandwiches are the bomb—actually that sounds really good right now. A shortcut—need your home address so I can send you hand warmers. Oh that'd be really nice. I'll get a touch later. And Stanley P, get something for Kanae—all right, thanks guys.

00:32:32 John Daub: I don't want to miss anything if you guys are helping me, supporting—I really appreciate that. That's like my food and gas money to drive home—the toll was fifty dollars to get from Sapporo. That's cute—look at this kitty snowman, that's pretty cute. There's not as much wind on this side—it's not as much wind right now. Oh gosh, that was awful—the lake was so cold. Lake Akan with a skull—that's hardcore, that's how it was feeling. All right, let's do it—I'm gonna go back to the Ainu village. Oh, goo dog—I've never seen that before. It's tomato onion on a hot dog right there, and then on the other one there is cheese—it's just like a really chunky cheese. That looks really interesting—interesting Lawson's, huh? You're innovating—one day you'll catch up with 7-Eleven. If I'm Emma. All right, it's pretty nasty right there. All right, let's try it—let's do this now.

00:34:07 John Daub: Brian, I should not have come here and live streamed—I made a big mistake, I underestimated. That's a big shovel—it's a two-hand shovel, they don't make those in a lot of places. It's Kann Spa—it's interesting. All right, here's some Ainu art here—that's pretty cool. Oh my gosh, it's so cold. All right, oh look at this one—that's a snowman on the bench. Although those of you... that's pretty cool. Oh I look out the window and there I found editang.com! I'm not playing it today but I didn't want to miss it! Rioli yoi [?]. Creative—what do you guys think? I like that, I like that. How you doing? There you go—screenshot everybody, click okay. I can't take a photo at the same time, so I need something to thank Kanae for later. Let's get cold again.

00:35:44 John Daub: These are the old-school gachapon (capsule toy machines) like bubblegum machine ones—you know what I mean? They don't—you don't see them too often. Gachapon got bigger and bigger because they wanted to put more and more stuff in there. There's the Ainu idols—that's pretty nice. All right, I'm booking back to the Ainu village—just Ainu store, but what's that? That's not Ainu character—that's Santa Claus. That's North Santa of the North is what it's called. Okay, all right—when we get around the corner the wind is gonna be strong again, so we're gonna have to book real fast to get up to there. I got to get back into the car and warm up—I can't do this. I can't do this. These necklaces are pretty cool though—I think I'm gonna stick around here for a little bit longer. I'll stick around for a little bit longer for those joining us—thanks. This is an Only in Japan Go live stream, long versions—people mostly get the notifications like after the video's finished. I like to do this longer. Gavin, make me a snowman—yeah that's not a bad idea. Enjoy your day and Akanko Kanko—that's the town that I'm in right now. I'm on the left side—you see it says you are here. I'm gonna take you—see that orange area? I'm gonna take you up the Ainu village right now.

00:37:45 John Daub: Ainu are the indigenous people of Hokkaido—they were here before everybody else. And this is a kotan, which is kind of like a reservation. And Lake Akan—I took you out there where the ice fishing was. It's way too cold with the wind coming off there—wind chill like minus a thousand. All right, here—I'll be, I'll build you a snowman. There you go. There's I and then all right—that's as far as I'm gonna go. You have no idea—my whole body is like an icicle. All right, and keep running—let's go back up the Ainu village here. I parked there—here it is, the street on the left and right. There's about 120 Ainu living here according to the Ainu village report internet. Hey Corey Sena, Hokkaido—that's right, that's a Hokkaido car. All right, I'm gonna pan real slow and go back here—there's like a Romanian flag and just kind of show you the storefronts in here.

00:39:19 John Daub: Most of them are closed but sell arts and crafts here, and a lot of people living up on the second floor of the shops. So they make a living by selling the goods and live here—I think it's kind of neat. I love that big massive owl—I'll show you in about a minute what it looks like. But I think summer is a better time to come here—winter is cold, winter is very cold. Oh the shops are like caves inside—I can't afford any of that stuff. They run tens of thousands of dollars. I think really frozen solid right now. Sunflower shine, shine right—and I'm crying. It's just so cold. It's not that cool because it's too cold—I'll take cool because then it's not cold, but cold is just so... Rather to cry—my tears are turning to ice and hit the ground and then it would start to gather steam, create a massive snow boulder, probably crash into a car. Nobody wants to see that—that's how accidents happen. One little reaction starts a chain reaction, and then it runs into a big snow boulder, just gather steam. And you see that yellow car is going to get demolished from the snow boulder just because of one little tear—that's what happens. It's violence from tears—so don't cry.

00:42:25 John Daub: I don't think I can manage tears actually. It is pretty neat though, and I think you know I want to come back here in the summer because winter is too hardcore. This is no North Kato in the winter—yeah, there's a reason why there's no one up here. It's really cold. Oh oh man, ah—you have no idea what it was like on Lake Akan, out there on the lake. Go back in the playback and watch it. Oh look, that's a nice little house. There's these spiders in here—this is cool. Oh it's nice and warm in here because there's no wind. Look at that—I'm like inside of a hollowed out log. This is cool—I can hear the wind going around my hut. Now there's a lot of snow blowing off the top of the roof there, but inside of here it's pretty neat. Look—you can see, this is like a piece of art, really feels like it anyways. I don't know—spiders can live in the winter? Oh they can—see the mountains. There's a big mountain surrounding the lake, but because of the snow it's hard to see the nature around it. Oh dude, spiders hibernate—that's creepy. So like they'll sleep for months and then they'll wake up bigger, stronger—like those wolf spiders. All right, you're not allowed inside of here—so this is the sacred altar of the Ainu people: do not enter.

00:44:25 John Daub: Oh crap, is that where I was just standing? Oh crap, I didn't know—I'm really sorry. I think it's okay—I think it's okay. Oh no, I think it's inside of there. You could go inside of here because it would be roped off, right? I didn't just go into the sacred altar, did I? No, I think it's past there, right? No I didn't—well that doesn't look like a sacred altar. Have to be bigger—I think it's like into there. Yeah, okay—it's called denial, run away. Yeah, it's a good idea—actually didn't do it, it was a foreigner. This is how I planned my trip—going all right, I'm at the rent-a-car now. Let's get inside—I can't even push the remote. God's not—no, it's at this car. Oh it's the other car. It's open—it's cold, turn the engine on. Hi, turn it up—you had no idea. I was sitting on my hands—ah, I'm gonna get premature arthritis or something. Hurts.

00:47:17 John Daub: All right, it says here minus 11 outside, but with the wind and stuff it's got to be worse than that. It was minus 15 when I got here, so it either warmed up but the car's been sitting in the sun or something—I don't know. But that's not right. And let's see—there's Lake Akan right there and yeah, that's the navigation system. It's pretty neat. Like yeah, that was awful—I don't like this live stream. What was I doing, what was I thinking? I love that—I like dying of people and I want to support them, but that's itchy too. Ah this hat—this didn't go as planned. Did that go as planned? All right, there's a 7-Eleven down the road—I think I might go get a coffee at the 7-Eleven. And then I'm gonna drive to Asahikawa. I gotta—I'm gonna be staying in a hotel in Biei. Okay, like for winter, like a lot of these places they're not really attractions, okay? Like tourist attractions—so you just kind of want to not be here at this time. So I'm just gonna go to Biei—they have an onsen there. I'm gonna onsen and just thaw. But it's a four-hour drive to get there.

00:49:03 John Daub: All right, let me show you how to do the navigation system here. All right, menu—I change it to English, which is cool. You can change the language of these car navi systems. I don't know the name of the hotel number, so I usually do it by phone number—if you put in the phone number of the location, it'll automatically track to get there. Vicinity no, train station no. Okay, I don't know—all right, never mind. Yeah actually these navigation systems in the Toyota is pretty good—this is a newer one. The ones from like last year really not good, and they would tell me the wrong information at the wrong time so I would often get lost. Oh that feels so much better—vents and vents, all in the car is cranking out heat now. It was not—I didn't have really gloves on, and it just was not comfortable.

00:50:22 John Daub: Okay, thanks. If you have any questions about the Ainu Village, leave a comment below. I'm going to warm up, and then I'm going to start driving. If I find something interesting on the way, I might go live again. It was nice to get a chance to show you some of the Ainu Village. I'm going to get something for Kanae as well before I leave here—I'm not sure what. I might get it in Biei as well—she doesn't want any more Totoros. We'll find something nice. Thanks guys for the support. I'm going to go get myself some warm food and some coffee, and I'll drive safe. By the way, if you're using Discord, go check out—I put some photos and videos on the Discord server. It's for free—I can share videos and photos much more easily than on Instagram over there. Thanks everybody. I've got to drive away now—that's all from the Ainu Village, from minus bazillion—I just made that up. I'll see you in the next live stream probably really soon. Thanks so much. And yeah, tally ho. I don't know the Ainu for "let's go," but I'll just say tally ho for now. Hey Outsicle, thank you—thanks for that. That is my coffee money—I love our moderators. Jim, good luck with the move. And see you everybody—bye, bye. See you very shortly.

00:51:46 John Daub: Hey you know what? I'm going to the Blue Pond. Ah, I'm going to the Blue Pond. So maybe I'm going to see if there's a signal out there, and then I'll try to do a live stream. I need to get some drone shots of the Blue Pond at night and get some shots in the winter—that's why I'm going over there. So maybe I'll do that. So definitely subscribe, click the like button if you like this kind of content, which is this channel—and which is subscribing. And I'll be back with you really soon. It was fun. Oh yeah, more of the tissues at 7-Eleven, man—get more tissues there. Bye everybody. I'm in Ainu Village, Lake Akan—I'm really far away. And I am coming home tomorrow. See you Sam—thank you Sam. All right, bye guys.