00:00:00 John Daub: Hey everybody! Welcome to the car. We're on a road trip. We're about to go through ETC. This is the toll gate here. And today we're going to Fujiyoshida, which is about an hour and 40 minute drive from Tokyo.

00:00:25 John Daub: We couldn't wait so we actually stopped at a service area. What are you eating? It's yakisoba bread. It's black yakisoba bread. Only in Japan would they put noodles in bread and call it a sandwich. It tastes okay. It looks pretty good. That was the bakery that we just stopped off at.

00:01:00 John Daub: Again, if we can make it through 30 minutes of this, the next service area I'll try to stop off on the highway and take you inside there just to take a look. I was hoping that we would have really blue skies. It looks like there are blue skies, but I can't see Mount Fuji yet. What do you think? Can you see it? I can't see it yet. So I'm not sure if we're going to get a view of Mount Fuji, but it's neat to be able to drive out of Tokyo and do a day trip like this.

00:01:30 John Daub: Yesterday, last night, I did a live stream about spring travel in Japan. Not just Tokyo, but Kyoto and Tohoku and other areas. And one of the things that I wanted to promote here is if you're going to the countryside, you probably want a car. So that's what we've done today to take a day trip and Kanae out in the countryside will get a chance to practice her driving because you can't do that in Tokyo. You got to get outside of the city to practice the driving.

00:01:58 Kanae Daub: Yeah.

00:02:01 Kanae Daub: I'm a beginner.

00:02:02 John Daub: Yeah, you're a beginner. So she forgot the stickers that you have to put on the car. So we have to find that in Fujiyoshida in order to start for her to drive. You want to do that live streaming?

00:02:14 Kanae Daub: No, it's kind of dangerous.

00:02:16 John Daub: Yeah, a little bit dangerous. But probably be it. I get a navigation system here and it tells me we'll be in Fujiyoshida at 12 o'clock. So it's going to be a little bit under an hour. We'll get there. And between there and here, there's another service area. So I'm not sure where it is, but I think it's about 20, 25 minutes away. Japanese service areas are pretty cool. There's a lot of stuff that you can do there. And it's usually pretty high tech as well.

00:02:55 John Daub: Check this out. This is like a little mountain town. So this is, what would you call it? Is this Yamanashi?

00:03:03 Kanae Daub: It's already Yamanashi, right?

00:03:04 John Daub: Yamanashi Prefecture. Or is it still Tokyo?

00:03:11 Kanae Daub: No, it's still Tokyo. It's Hachioji.

00:03:13 John Daub: Oh, this is Hachioji. Yeah. It's countryside of Tokyo. Countryside. But you know what? Mount Fuji should be in view, you would think. I don't see Mount Fuji anywhere. But we do have blue skies. And Tokyo, when we left, it was cloudy. It looked like it was going to rain. And then we got outside of the city and boom, the blue skies started popping up.

00:03:39 John Daub: Getting out of Tokyo is kind of painful. It always sort of is. Any major city like New York or London, I'm sure. Tokyo, there was a lot of traffic and congestion. And an accident near Shinjuku. So, yeah. That took us about 30 minutes longer than expected to get out of the city.

00:04:00 John Daub: The great thing about renting a car though is that you just put everything in the back. Like we got bags, suitcases, chairs. I brought my gas camper burner so we could stop off at Lake Kawaguchiko and maybe make some coffee sitting outside. Be a lot of fun. That's sort of what a getaway is supposed to be like. So probably, even though it's blue skies, it probably seems we're not going to see Mt. Fuji at all.

00:04:30 John Daub: So Kanae, why did you want to come here to Fujiyoshida?

00:04:40 Kanae Daub: Because I haven't been there.

00:04:44 John Daub: No, we went there in 2013. It's Kawaguchiko, but it's next to Fujiyoshida actually. To see Mt. Fuji?

00:04:54 Kanae Daub: Yeah. Mt. Fuji. And we wanted to go to Fujiyoshida. It's nice here because to see nice view.

00:05:16 John Daub: Kanae, can you read that yellow one there?

00:05:25 Kanae Daub: Who is that? Fang?

00:05:26 John Daub: Fang. Oh, hey. Hey. How you doing? Thank you. It's hard for me to read the superchats. I will go back and take a look at it when we stop at the service area. I really do appreciate it.

00:05:37 Kanae Daub: Yeah, you can read it.

00:05:39 John Daub: Yeah. I got to focus on the road. But luckily I got a navigator. The navigator's job is to read the questions going on here. So it's kind of neat. We've come into like a wooded area.

00:05:50 John Daub: Now the navigation system on these rented cars from Toyota, they're bilingual. In fact, I think they also do Chinese and a couple of other languages. So that makes it kind of useful if you're thinking about renting a car. You know that the navigation system is not going to be just in Japanese.

00:06:18 John Daub: Atsugi. Oh, and there's Kofu. Kawaguchiko, straight. Okay. So we're headed to. I don't know what the view's going to be like when we get closer. I used to live in a city called Fujinomiya, which is on the other side. And actually we're going to be going. I'll just go straight. Yeah. If you go there or take the wrong turn, it's game over. I'm on the road for more than five kilometers.

00:06:45 John Daub: I used to live in a city called Fujinomiya. And even though I was on the base of Mount Fuji and it was really, really big outside my window, there were days where I couldn't see it and it was blue sky. Just the haze of it makes the mountain disappear within the blue sky. It was the most surreal thing. Living just right on the base of it. But on this trip, we're going to drive around Mount Fuji today. Now, we can't do that in this live stream all the way around the mountain. But it's about. Oh, this is kind of cool. It's about four hours and 30 minutes to drive around. Somebody looked. You can check it out. From Indiana, USA. Hachioji is my hometown. Oh, who's it from? Hello88. All right. Thank you. Indiana. Cool.

00:07:41 John Daub: Yeah, the drive is going to take us about four hours and 45 minutes in driving time to go from Tokyo and all the way around Mount Fuji. And that's going to be pretty exciting to do. I've never driven around Mount Fuji. I've taken the train. It took like 12 hours because there aren't a lot of trains and they're all local, super local trains. So it takes forever. That's why car is the best way.

00:08:05 John Daub: Now, what's that forest that we're not going to go through, Kanae?

00:08:10 Kanae Daub: Yeah, the forest, the mori. You said we can't go there.

00:08:16 John Daub: What's it called?

00:08:18 Kanae Daub: Aokigahara.

00:08:22 John Daub: Aokigahara. Kanae said we're not allowed to drive through there.

00:08:26 Kanae Daub: Yes, we don't need to go there.

00:08:29 John Daub: We don't need to, but it would be actually, Kanae, like 30 minutes faster to cut through the woods. We don't have to stop. There's no traffic lights. She doesn't even want to go through there. She said when we were going to making the trip plan that there's going to be a lot of people. There's going to be ghosts in there. I'm not going to visit. I just want to drive through there.

00:08:56 Kanae Daub: No.

00:08:57 John Daub: No. Sorry, we're not going to be driving through the forest. Oh, tunnel.

00:09:04 Kanae Daub: Tunnel.

00:09:05 John Daub: We might lose the signal. Hold your breath, everybody. We're going through a tunnel. See you on the other side, maybe. It's still working. Really? Yeah. Speed limit is about 80 kilometers per hour, I think. So focus on not getting a ticket. We're going to be going through the area of Yamanashi, so we're going to be going through a bunch of them. I see the light on the other side.

00:09:58 John Daub: Kanagawa. This is Kanagawa. After the tunnel. Oh, okay. Yeah, we're on the highway driving from Tokyo to Fujiyoshida. Sagamiko.

00:10:08 Kanae Daub: Sagamiko.

00:10:10 John Daub: Sagamiko. Somebody write. Thanks for the Daimyo package, Kanae and John.

00:10:21 Kanae Daub: Hey! Who is it from? Shane.

00:10:23 John Daub: Ah, Shane. Hey! And thank you yesterday, Shane. Thank you. Thank you for yesterday, Shane. I appreciate it. That was a pretty good Q&A that we had. Oh, look at the scenery. It keeps changing. There's a lot of benefits to renting a car. Just the freedom to just go wherever you want to go.

00:10:50 John Daub: Now this is probably going to cost, so the car itself, you can rent the car for 3 hours, 6 hours, 12 hours, or 24 hours. It's about maybe 20% cheaper to rent it for 12 hours instead of 24 hours. So it almost pays for itself if you're going to be doing a lot of traveling. If you're just going to do a day trip, then 12 hours is fine. And that's why we rented it.

00:11:18 Live Stream Caller: Hello, John and Kanae in Yamanashi. I went to hike the Shosenkyo Gorge. Oh, yeah, the gorge. It's gorgeous. Have a nice day.

00:11:39 John Daub: Thank you. You too. Look at this. Look at the over there on the left side, it looks really mysterious. I don't know if you can pick it up, but we're now swooping down into the valley. This is Sagamiko is in 2 kilometers. And then after Sagamiko, I believe there's a service area we can take a stop at. But it really looks on the left side there, because I think that's where Mount Fuji is. It looks really mysterious. The clouds just trapped around the mountain.

00:12:05 Kanae Daub: It's Mountain View.

00:12:17 John Daub: You are driving on the wrong side. How sad.

00:12:22 Kanae Daub: Listen.

00:12:23 John Daub: Listen. Yes. I kind of am, you know. It took me a while before I could get used to just mentally driving on the left side of the road, because in America, we drive on the right side. So after a while, you know, just the way people, yeah, welcome guys.

00:13:17 John Daub: It's pretty cool. Here's a little bit view. You want to put, you can either take out the sandwich or you want to show, because the plastic is a little bit old. Yeah, we have some food in here. We can show you in a second. It's kind of neat to curve around the mountains. 2.0 kilometers. Oh, we're getting off here. And what we got here.

00:14:01 John Daub: We got sandwiches. The bakery just looks so good. It looked really good. Big katsu sandwich. Big katsu. A piece of breaded pork cutlet just drenched in sauce, like a tangy, all-you-can-eat sauce. Almost kind of like a Worcestershire soy-based sauce.

00:14:37 Kanae Daub: Oh, I can smell it.

00:14:38 John Daub: I got you. I don't want to get off the highway. I want to go to that service area.

00:14:41 Kanae Daub: All right, follow the navigation. Don't argue with the navigator.

00:14:46 John Daub: Are you going to get off?

00:14:49 Kanae Daub: Yeah, it said to get off.

00:15:04 John Daub: 810 yen. That's like $8 for this. I'm getting off back. ETC rental was 300 yen from the rent-a-car place. He said 1460 yen. What? He said 1400 yen. The navigation system is like from another era. All right, take a left here. What else did you get here, Kanae?

00:15:36 Kanae Daub: I got the melon pan. They put whipped cream inside.

00:15:43 John Daub: Oh, it's too bright. Oh, it's really bright. It's too bright. Ah, okay. Okay. Yeah, it's melon pan. Yeah. They put whipped cream inside. It looks so good. It smells so good. I tried it a little bit. Yeah. It's good. That's good. That's good. 700 meters. Turn right. Oh, that's really good. I have been waiting to go on a road trip to get some snacks.

00:16:42 Kanae Daub: It is Elani.

00:16:46 John Daub: How can I read it? Elani Stanley. In 300 meters. Thank you. Turn right. This is kind of scary here.

00:16:54 Kanae Daub: Yeah.

00:16:55 John Daub: This is crazy. Did I go the right way? I don't know why I got off off of the highway.

00:16:59 Kanae Daub: Please focus on drive.

00:17:01 John Daub: Sometimes, you know, sometimes the navigation system isn't right. But just go with the flow. That means we're going into this valley here. 7.0 kilometers due to road work alternating traffic. Oh. Turn right at the next traffic signal. You got it. For the toll? We did not get a super chat for the toll. Look at that car.

00:17:30 Kanae Daub: But how about some couple karaoke?

00:17:37 John Daub: After... Oh, karaoke. After... Oh. It's shaking. Turn left. After lunch, guys. Maybe we do. Look at this little town that we're going through. This is called Uehara. I wonder why we got off the highway. Sometimes the navigator tells us to go a different way.

00:18:08 Kanae Daub: Yeah.

00:18:11 John Daub: We're putting out a way. It's kind of neat though. I do like getting out of the city and checking out the countryside.

00:18:19 Kanae Daub: Yeah. It's relaxing.

00:18:26 John Daub: Population like 3,000. 700 meters. Turn left. All right. So speed limit here is 40 kilometers an hour. I'm doing 49. 49. Better slow down a little bit. Okay. It's Yamanashi.

00:18:43 Kanae Daub: Oh, this is Yamanashi Prefecture?

00:18:45 John Daub: Yep. Cool. It says it's telling me to go straight here. This is 7-11. So, you know, getting off the highway. It's a little bit of a stretch. It's sometimes a good thing because there's accidents and stuff and we saw a lot of congestion in traffic. 300 meters. Turn left. But I'm not sure why we had to get off the highway because we wanted to get there faster. Oh, look. There's a guy telling us to stop with a samurai stick. Is he a samurai? I don't know. He looks like a highway... The next traffic signal. Turn left. So, you got that little construction there. At the Idemitsu gas station, take a left. That's what we're going to do right here. So, we're taking a left here. I can't see the... I got some time.

00:20:06 John Daub: Oh, that's from Naslik0530. Thanks for taking us along for the ride. This should cover some of the toll. Ed and Nas... Dallas. Yeah, from Dallas, Texas. How cool is that? Thanks, guys. It absolutely does. All right. I just hope we're going there. You know, these navigation systems, I usually will do drive along the road for more than five kilometers. In tandem, I would do the Google Maps and this, and then sometimes they would conflict one another. They'd fight. And I don't know who to go to. I usually go with Google, though, because they're more up to date. But it's hard to fight with the navigation system on the car because it's so loud. The speakers are better. It's like automatically you go with whoever's loudest. So, if you're going to be a backseat driver... Is this a train track?

00:20:58 Kanae Daub: No. It's not stop, I think. It's just slow down.

00:21:01 John Daub: It's hard to tell. You have to stop for three seconds at train tracks. Sometimes the cops will be there waiting for you to not stop and ticket you. Oh. If you don't stop, you're going to get ticket.

00:21:16 Kanae Daub: Yeah.

00:21:16 John Daub: But you know, it's these roads here, Kanae. It's these roads that you drive where you will find, like, really amazing ramen places and lunch places and places with views.

00:21:28 Kanae Daub: Right. Yeah.

00:21:28 John Daub: That's why you have to get off of the highway. It's like when you get onto the countryside. You start to find some of these amazing places. Look at that. A deer sign.

00:21:38 Kanae Daub: Yeah. A deer.

00:22:16 John Daub: Jeff. Thank you. There's a lot of groups here. Sorry, guys. The signal's going in and out, but we're going to stay with you for a little bit.

00:22:26 Kanae Daub: Yeah.

00:22:27 John Daub: So stay with us. Check it out here. If you see a good question, Kanae, let me know.

00:22:34 Kanae Daub: Okay.

00:22:38 John Daub: I attached the smartphone to the windshield with the suction cup. Ah, I had. So, and I also taped down the mic, the lens so it doesn't rattle like it did when we were with Mike and Peter last month. What car are you driving? Oh, he's a, look at the samurai. Is he bowing at us? Did you see him bow? Look, he's holding his stick out there. Like that's going to stop me. Well, it did, kind of. Look at the blue skies. It's beautiful here. Somebody know what car are you driving? That's a Toyota. It's like, I think it's an Aqua or a Vitz. I'm not sure. Does it say? You can open in the glove compartment maybe. Let's see. He's got the samurai stick. Ah, Aqua. Yeah. It's an Aqua. Toyota A-Q-U-A. So these local construction sites, it's usually they'll have-

00:23:49 Live Stream Caller: Have a drink on me when you get the last plate. Hey, it's Andrea. Andrea Ryan. Thanks.

00:23:53 John Daub: Thank you. Hopefully that's sometime soon. Do you have a favorite restaurant on this road? Is that Brendan? That's Brendan. I don't know. I've never, we've never been on this road.

00:24:12 Kanae Daub: Yeah, we're not sure.

00:24:12 John Daub: Look at that motorcycler. All right, he's talking on the CB. I think, all right, there's a couple more cars coming, then we're going to go. We're going to watch the samurai in action. If I do that, Kanae, you're going to be more in the picture.

00:24:32 Kanae Daub: What? No.

00:24:33 John Daub: All right. Okay. He's giving us the all clear. Oh, it's big. Do you think they have stickers? Should we try and get some stickers here?

00:24:46 Kanae Daub: No, we have it.

00:24:49 John Daub: Oh, that's right. Florence gave us some from Singapore. It's hoto restaurant. Hoto (miso udon noodles) is very famous noodle at Yamanashi.

00:25:00 Kanae Daub: It's like a udon. Oh, really? It's different. Yeah, more white. More white noodle. It's like udon. It's like wide like kishimen.

00:25:15 John Daub: Oh, yeah, like kishimen. Oh. Kofu, 56 kilometers. Otsuki, 17 kilometers. So we're really out there. This is like Chuo Line, far out there kind of. Actually, you know where we're going? The Maglev, magnetic levitation Shinkansen test track is not too far away from where we're going. They're taking us on a world adventure today.

00:25:40 Live Stream Caller: Here's some gas money.

00:25:43 John Daub: Gas money. Oh, that's nice. Alex. Hey, Alex, we're actually going to, we'll see if we can do another live stream from Fujiyoshida or Lake Kawaguchiko. We'll check the signal and see if there's another chance to bring you somewhere. Maybe even a restaurant or something. It's nice to share. Maybe. Yeah, it's nice to share the experience with you guys. I know a lot of you canceled and couldn't make it to Japan. You're with us now in Japan. You're here too, so ready for an adventure. It's a little bumpy. Fasten your seatbelts. Okay, so we're down in the valley. This is Route 20. In 9.0 kilometers, alternating traffic. Ohhh, you better stop. That's sooo screwed. Oh, there's more electrical work. That's funny that it knows there's electrical work going on. It's driving along the road for more than 5 kilometers. It'll tell you when there's traffic and in 9.0 kilometers traffic. That's like 10 kilometers away. 9 kilometers. That's 7, 6, 6 and a half miles away.

00:27:00 Live Stream Caller: What's Maglev test track? What's Maglev?

00:27:03 John Daub: The Maglev test track. Maglev is the magnetic levitation shinkansen. The Chuo Shinkansen. There's a test track that's not too far away from here. And you know, I wanted to go there. The problem is that because of the situation, everything is closed, including all the amusement parks, Disney World, Disneyland here, and the magnetic levitation test track. So there's not a lot of stuff that we can do. That's one of the reasons why I wanted to rent a car. At least we're getting out and doing something and seeing something. Because I just cannot sit there in front of the computer and ride around the city all day. I need to get away. We're not going to be taking public transportation for a little bit. We've been riding our bicycles instead of the subway in the city because she told me to do that.

00:27:50 Kanae Daub: Yeah.

00:27:52 John Daub: It's her fault.

00:27:53 Kanae Daub: What is my fault?

00:27:55 John Daub: No, I mean, I don't know. You only know. This is so small. This is Otsuki City. Otsuki City. Welcome to Otsuki City, everybody. We're just driving through Otsuki City. Otsuki means big moon.

00:28:19 Kanae Daub: Otsuki, yes.

00:28:20 John Daub: This looks like a noodle place straight ahead. Soba. Soba place. It's a soba stand. Check that out. It has a drive-in soba stand, but it looks like it's out of business. There's nothing inside. It's been torn. The inside of it's been torn out. A lot of these rest stops, they are only in business during the summer when the traffic is higher. And then in the winter, they'll do reconstruction or construction work because there's not a lot of foot traffic coming in.

00:29:00 Kanae Daub: Is there still snow outside?

00:29:02 John Daub: Is there snow outside? No. Yeah, there's no snow at all anywhere. It's kind of crazy, right? Maybe Hokkaido?

00:29:12 Kanae Daub: Yeah, if you get up to maybe parts of Aomori and north of Hakodate, up north of Sapporo.

00:29:20 John Daub: Yeah, we don't have snow in Tokyo. It's been strangely warm. Very unusually warm the last, this whole winter. And we've had a couple of patches where it was very cold, but for the most part, no snow in Tokyo. Maybe once there are some flurries, but nothing stuck. Usually we have one snowstorm and the next day it melts away. Somebody write in Japanese.

00:29:46 Kanae Daub: Because you're the one reading it. Please buy a mask with this. It's a luncheon.

00:29:54 John Daub: It's a luncheon. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. Yeah, because we're out here, I think maybe we should check some of the... Please get masks. Yeah, check some of the masks. I went out yesterday and there was a line 30 minutes before Matsumoto Kiyoshi was opening to get masks in the neighborhood. Thirty minutes before. And if you see what they come out with, because I'm not waiting in line, sometimes people come out upset because there's no masks at all so when they open they can't buy anything because the store just didn't get any in. We don't use masks a lot.

00:30:42 Kanae Daub: Yeah if you look if she has it I'm gonna catch it and if I have it she's gonna catch it so that doesn't matter so if we're staying at home and just riding our bicycles the ultraviolet light will save us. So yeah we put the mask on when we go to college or train. We don't use train anymore.

00:31:05 John Daub: The idea is not to touch your face. Keep your hands on the steering wheel. You wanna sing a song? Can I? What did Japanese sing in the car?

00:31:17 Kanae Daub: Yeah. What did they sing?

00:31:19 John Daub: I've been working on the rail. Old MacDonald had a farm on that farm. Had a chicken sandwich. Ay ay ay. Does that count as carpool karaoke then? You wanna see the bridge? There's really nothing out here. There's a tunnel for the highway. Actually we're following the highway. I don't know why we had to get off the highway. How dare this navigation system throw us down here. I like to go a hundred kilometers an hour like really fast. Seriously this is killing our arrival time. We're 40 minutes later than what we had planned. Maybe we're gonna have to get back onto the highway.

00:32:41 Kanae Daub: Is Navi the fort?

00:32:42 John Daub: Yeah it's totally the navigation system's fault. I'm okay spending $5 or $6 if it means saving an hour right? I mean that's a no brainer. But it's a nice city.

00:32:58 Kanae Daub: Yeah but you don't have to drive all through these curves. It's like work. It's struggling to turn car into turn curve.

00:33:11 John Daub: Check it out. I'll have to do something to try to fix the... Oh look at that. It's out of business. That drive-in Fuji. So this is the foothills of Mt. Fuji pretty much. Where we are. I can't see the peak of the mountain yet. But we're driving to the city of Fujiyoshida for those of you that are joining us right now. It's supposed to take an hour and a half but the navigation system threw us off the highway. Onto the low way which is route 20. We're in Otsuki City. And the signal's holding out. It seems to be holding up okay. But we're going at maybe a fraction of the speed. That we'd be going on the highway. So now lunch time has been pushed back from 12 o'clock to 12:41. Yeah so we're 40 minutes slower by taking this road. So we might have to jump onto the highway again. But if you're going to be driving to Mt. Fuji. Yeah don't trust your navigation system. Go with the Google Maps. Or do both actually. You never know. Should I check Google Maps?

00:34:19 Kanae Daub: Yeah check out the Google Maps.

00:34:21 John Daub: See what they're saying. But you can see Japan's roads are pretty nice. It's easy to drive. Lots of space. Other drivers are fairly skilled because it takes forever to get a driver's license in Japan. Driving school cost Kanae about $3,000.

00:34:49 Kanae Daub: And she's still scared to death to drive. That was like 3,000,000 yen right?

00:34:51 John Daub: Yes. Yeah in Tokyo it's even a little bit more expensive. You have to go to school for camping.

00:35:01 Kanae Daub: Oh you can go driving school camp. Yeah but I couldn't go to the driving school camp.

00:35:09 John Daub: Because I have a job. So the driving school camp, can you finish quicker?

00:35:16 Kanae Daub: Hmm? Can you finish faster? I think 3 or 4 weeks.

00:35:22 John Daub: It's about the same. No no it's not the same. Oh school is 3 to 4 weeks.

00:35:28 Kanae Daub: Yeah school is 2 months. 2 months yeah. And camp? Camp about 3 or 4 weeks. 3 weeks. Megumi went to camp for 3 weeks?

00:35:41 John Daub: Her sister went to the camp.

00:35:45 Kanae Daub: Yeah she took 4 weeks.

00:35:47 John Daub: Is it like a party? Like people drinking and having...

00:35:51 Kanae Daub: No it's not a party. She said it was very hard.

00:35:57 John Daub: So you went camping, so you went to the driving school camp in the countryside but it was still hard and she didn't have fun?

00:36:05 Kanae Daub: No she doesn't drive now. She doesn't even drive.

00:36:12 John Daub: Shizukani (quietly) meaning don't be quiet, don't honk your horn in this area.

00:36:16 Kanae Daub: Yeah because when you got the driving license in countryside it's easy to drive but when you're back to Tokyo...

00:36:23 John Daub: Shizukani ni, shizukani. When you're back to Tokyo, Tokyo is very very different to drive. So she got her license in Niigata but she doesn't drive at all. So why did she get her license?

00:36:40 Kanae Daub: I don't know. It was like 30,000 yen right? Like 3000 dollars.

00:36:43 John Daub: Yeah. Why get a license if you're not gonna drive?

00:36:47 Kanae Daub: But she might drive again.

00:36:49 John Daub: Yeah but that's scarier. She's really a beginner still. If you never use it, you lose it. Doing electrical work, alternating traffic. Yeah but we called... what? Torisawa station.

00:36:59 Kanae Daub: Yeah we called people paper license.

00:37:01 John Daub: A paper driver.

00:37:02 Kanae Daub: A paper driver. Yeah. It's a paper driver.

00:37:07 John Daub: I don't wanna be a paper driver. I wanna drive. There's 7-Eleven on the right side, post office on the left. There's not a lot in this area. There's not a lot in this town. It's pretty chillax. So you can see when you're out here, you don't have anything to worry about. So all the panic and stuff is... there's nothing. It's kind of like, yeah life is normal. Life is pretty normal. There's another Koji Samurai. Wow look at that car! Wow it's cool. It's like a four wheeler. What? No it's a three wheeler! It's got one wheel in the back. Man Japanese... you know Japan is such a car culture. And you don't know it because if you're a tourist here, you take the train and stuff. But really, you come outside, everybody's got a car. Because if you don't have one, you can't get around. The train stations are there but they're very far away. So we're waiting for the construction Samurai. It's about 35 minutes to get there. 35 more minutes?

00:38:16 Kanae Daub: We don't need a... I want to take them into the service area on the highway. We need highway. We can take highway when we're back.

00:38:26 John Daub: But... is it highway? I don't know. That doesn't look like... So we're getting back on the highway at the Otsuki interchange. Listen to this. She didn't have Google Maps on her cell phone. She was using Apple Maps. That's why we kept getting lost. Nothing against Apple Maps except everything. Google Maps is so far superior.

00:38:53 Kanae Daub: I think women are not good at maps.

00:38:56 John Daub: That's not true. I know a lot of ladies that are better than the guys. And often when we get lost, it's the guy's fault. Somebody's ugly with me? Nobody's going to agree with you. Google told me this is like International Women's Week or something. You should give ladies power. I think, you know what? Men don't like to ask for directions. So when we do get lost, we never stop. We think we can work it out. When I have a paper map, I do like this, this, and this.

00:39:25 Kanae Daub: Yeah, you don't have to do that if you have Google Maps, Kanae.

00:39:30 John Daub: Yeah, okay. Google Maps. Something commercial. Brought to you by Google Maps. What do we got here? Alright, traffic's moving. This is an EV car. It's like an electrical. It's like a hybrid. Let it go. The samurai is waving us through. Thank you, sir. Thank you for your service out here. He's got a mask on. Oh, so the navigation system told me what they're doing. It's electrical work underneath the street. So when you know what they're doing, then you don't have to look and stare and get into an accident. A lot of accidents happen because everyone is so curious about what's happening.

00:40:33 Kanae Daub: But this is the same, John. This navigation is the same as my Google Maps.

00:40:40 John Daub: So Google Maps has confirmed it, then we're okay. If Google Maps has confirmed it, then I'm good with that. Yeah. But I've had navigation systems where they... The navigation system is lost or outdated. It was bad. I've had some arguments with the navigation system. And the navigation system just ignores you. It doesn't even respond. You can yell at it. I think a good navigation system should reply to your insults as well. So if you insult the navigation system, it should just shut off and short circuit. This reminds me of a scene from 2001: A Space Odyssey where the navigation system computer comes to life and protects the human from himself. But... But I can see that the navigation system's got a mouth on it and a little cheeky. I would like a cheeky navigation system. EMO green tea. Oh, don't litter. There's a picture of a bottle hitting the head of a dog. It says don't litter. So I guess people were throwing the cans from the highway above.

00:42:00 Live Stream Caller: When you get to Mount Fuji, try the Mount Fuji melon pan. And hot steamed corn. Delicious. Michael.

00:42:10 John Daub: Oh, I saw that before. Sing Take Me Home Country Roads. No, no, don't do it, don't do it, don't do it. You'll get demonetized. If you do it real bad, it works. West Virginia. Take me... I can't say the words. I'll get demonetized. Blah blah blah. You know what? They have a melody road where when you drive over, it plays that song in Fukushima. So I'm gonna go drive up there. Fukushima?

00:42:53 Kanae Daub: I think so. I think so.

00:42:54 John Daub: I got it. I sent them an email. They said they'll help me out if I go up there because you have to stop traffic or something in order to get that shot. Demonetized. You know, because I've been doing the videos, updates about the stuff going on. A lot of the videos have been getting, like, losing the revenue from it. So I don't want to get like... If I can prevent it, probably will want to... I still want to, you know, have income a little bit if I can. Okay, check out this town. What's this town called? What did you do, Kanae? I gotta push the button.

00:43:43 Kanae Daub: Sarubashi.

00:43:44 John Daub: Saruhashi. So we're driving on Route 20. This is Route 20. And we're driving through Saruhashi. And there's an AEON and a traffic light. In fact, the traffic light is very big on the map because there isn't anything else out here. And then we're going to be going through Otsuki. Do we get onto Otsuki interchange? What does Google Maps say? Now I can't get the country road song out of my head. Oh, so we're not going on the interchange again. We're not going on the highway. The low way. Can you check? The wrong way. Yeah, looks like we're not getting on the highway. Oh, wait. Oh, no, we get back on the highway at Otsuki. We get back on the highway. That's just proof. You can't even see what I just put in front of you, but it's proof. So we're getting back on the Otsuki interchange. Yeah, we're getting back on the highway. Actually, I can use that sandwich again. I keep thinking about that katsu. We got this katsu sandwich. It was one of the top items at the bakery. About 300 meters away. Okay. Check out the small town we're going through. So we went to the bakery, and they recommend... They always put like, what are the top five items at the bakery? And they gave us... We picked the top three. So this... One of them, Kanae ate was the yakisoba pan, which is a black yakisoba pan. They put noodles and bread, and Kanae scarfed that down in like five seconds. And then we had a melon pan with cream inside of it. They cut open the middle pan, and they put like cream in the middle of it with custard sometimes. Oh, it's so good. And then got a sandwich that looked like a steamed bun, and in the middle of it, it's been sliced. And they chucked... They chucked in a sloppy katsu. Yeah. Like a breaded pork cutlet drenched in this tangy sauce. And they just chucked it into this steamed bun. Oh my gosh. And it's sitting in the back seat, and it's probably getting hot naturally from the sun. And that means my lunch is going to be warmed up, and that's a good thing. Because Kanae already had her lunch.

00:46:08 Kanae Daub: I didn't have it.

00:46:09 John Daub: But we're probably going to keep eating, because that's what you do when you go on these road trips. And eat and eat. And there's a lot of road stop stands. Sometimes on the navigation system, you can search them out. If I knew it was going to be on Route 20, I probably would have found a restaurant. And a famous restaurant to go and try. But you don't have to stop at the famous ones. You'll find... Yeah, be careful of the bicycle ride. You can find them at... Just stop anywhere, and you help out local businesses. I'm a big firm believer. I'm a big firm believer that the chains are nice and all that. But it's good to help out the entrepreneurs, people who have ideas and family-run businesses. And see how they're doing and try to eat their food, because it's probably healthier.

00:46:59 Live Stream Caller: The beginning of an awesome travel...

00:47:04 John Daub: Oh, it's gone. Kanae's so focused on this chat. Travel seeds for you too? I would totally watch every video. Really? Professor Dell. Oh, is that Professor Dell? Professor Dell's in the house! Thank you. Stop the traffic. The professor's here. Thank you, professor. All I saw was this red thing flashed on the screen. I thought it was a stoplight. Yeah, you know what? When I did this, and we had the problem with the microphone rattling, and I hope it's doing okay. Peter, me, and Mike Chen were driving to Costco. We were driving to Costco and on the way past as well. We were back in Tokyo before we knew it. But it was so much fun just to listen to the banter. So Peter wants to rent a car and then we'll go on a road trip. But so do some of my other friends. I'm meeting another YouTuber. I hate to give out people's names and stuff. I think maybe some of you might know who I'm talking about. But we've been thinking about renting a camper van and then going cross-country in the camper van. And showing another side of Japan through this would be totally awesome, right?

00:48:24 Kanae Daub: That's a nice idea. Yeah.

00:48:26 John Daub: And the banter, just that, that you have while you're driving is so much fun. Because when you're driving, your mind goes kind of free. You're focused on the road, but you also need to talk to stay awake. I think this traffic is good for you to drive, Kanae, because this traffic is easy to...

00:48:47 Kanae Daub: Really? Yeah.

00:48:48 John Daub: I think, yeah. At Fujiyoshida, let's get the beginner stickers and you can... I've heard of Fujiyoshida. Oh yeah, there's a site for Fujiyoshida. It doesn't say how many kilometers it is. 20? No, that's Route 20. That's not 20 kilometers. It's Route 20. You're such a beginner. Look at the Volkswagen in front of us. I hope the signal's good because it's... We're like deep countryside. Like in... Oh no, Kanae, there's a tunnel. I see there's a tunnel up ahead. Oh my gosh. All right. If we lose signal for the 1,100 people that are still watching, we'll be back. I'm not sure. Just like whenever before I go in the tunnel, I just say... It seems long.

00:49:39 Kanae Daub: Yeah.

00:49:40 John Daub: It looks like a long one. I just got a feeling this one might last forever. Tantri Run. Take us through the tunnel and then let us have a signal. 4G LTE. 720p. Are we back? We just exited the tunnel.

00:50:10 Kanae Daub: There's a short one.

00:50:31 John Daub: Remember the speed limit is only suggestion, Kanae. Drive fast and take channels. Who is that? Thanks for the everything J&K muster. Oh, it's Matthew. Matthew, don't encourage her. Thank you. Look at the scenery. It's beautiful here. I can't help you hold it here. It won't shake so much. Look at that. That's better for... Look at the beautiful purple mountains in the distance. We're going to Tsuru. Oh, I lectured at Tsuru University about 10 years ago. He was a professor at Tsuru University and he asked me to come out and lecture to his students about video making. This is before YouTube because... Connection. Otsuki Bypass. Drive along the road.

00:53:05 John Daub: Patches. Imagine if your house was here. There was no signal. They just decided that we weren't going to put the signal where your house is. That would be awful. Living out in the countryside and... Docomo, that's what this... There's the office for my... They better have a signal here. Docomo is supposed to have the strongest 4G signal. It's like the Verizon of Japan. Sometimes, we're finding out where the dead patches are. This is a little town. This is Otsuki, right?

00:53:34 Kanae Daub: Yes.

00:53:36 John Daub: Apparently, we're getting back... Why aren't we getting back on the bypass? Hey, this is a big deal. How come we're not getting back on the bypass? The time... It took us off of the highway. Uh-oh. We're in deep duty now.

00:54:01 Kanae Daub: Yeah.

00:54:01 John Daub: Follow the street. Just keep going up country road?

00:54:13 Kanae Daub: Yeah. Then next interchange. Tsuru interchange. Coming after Yokka Ichiba.

00:54:22 John Daub: Really? Okay. I guess you guys are stuck with country road. Hey, there's a big boy. Look up there. The red sign. Do you see it? Big... There's a Bob's Big Boy. What? What is that? Why is that here? Please focus on the road. I'm focusing on the big... And the... Okay, it's gone. I can't see the big boy. I was focusing on the road too. That sign was there for a purpose. I'm a big boy. Don't worry. That was a Bob's Big Boy. What? I wonder what the menu is like. Do they have the same style? Seems like... This is the middle of nowhere and they have a big boy restaurant. Awesome. We're not coming back this way. We're going around Mt. Fuji. So I'll never see that big boy again. Man, I'm gonna go to the website and see what they have on their menu. I didn't know that there were... This is Tanokura Station. Tanokura Train Station. T-A-N-O-K-U-R-A Station. It's a small country area. We just passed it about 300 meters back there. There's a Lawson's. So if you guys have the Google Maps, we're on Route 20. You could probably find us. And track us by where we're going. How slow we're going. And how much further we have to go. Just follow the street. Follow the country road. Seems to go... I wonder what Tsuru Daigaku is. Tsuru Daigaku. I spent the full day there. My life. Full day? Full day. Yeah, Daigaku. I had blonde hair. That was during my midlife crisis. I bleached my hair blonde. I was wearing a suit. I look like a surfer in a suit. Wow, this road is bumpy. This is downtown Tsuru. This Tsuru. 0.5 kilometers. There's the sign. Look, there's a farmer off of the main road here on the left side. It's crazy. Is that cabbage? He's farming cabbage? How much are they? Maybe he'll sell one right here. How much? There's Tsuru Station over there, I think. I think that would be the ideal situation to try to get a camper van or something. Go out with a buddy of mine. Maybe Kanae can be in the back if she wants. She can sit in the pilot seat.

00:57:47 Kanae Daub: No, she can drive.

00:57:50 John Daub: What is that there? Is that the highway? Look at that tube. No, is that the test track? That's the test track. That's the Yamanashi Maglev test track above us. Do you see it? Isn't it? Chuo? That's the maglev, the super shinkansen. It's got to be. We're underneath it. Oh, that's awesome. I feel the power, although it's not even there. I can feel the power was there. Like kryptonite leaves a trail. It's closed, though. The magnetic levitation train, the shinkansen that goes 500 kilometers an hour, like 400 miles an hour, that's the test track, I believe. It's closed right now.

00:58:44 Kanae Daub: Was that the test track?

00:58:54 John Daub: Somebody said yes. Yes, that means it was. If someone on the internet said it, it's true. All right, guys, we got a full day ahead of us. We're going to be doing another live stream. Don't worry about it. We're going to be around for a while. If you want us to continue, let's see if we can get to like 700 likes. I always like to keep our audience hostage, but we're getting close to an hour if we passed it, maybe. And that was longer than I thought we were going to go. Like by far. So let's see if we can get to click the like button, see if we can get another five minutes added on here if you want us to take it through here.

00:59:35 Kanae Daub: We turn lights in? Oh, we turn lights in? Actually, it's not turned on, but we turn light.

00:59:48 John Daub: Now it says here, Kasei Station. Kasei Station. That's the sign up there. We're on Route 139. Oh, it's bumpy. Hey, there's Fujinomiya at 71 kilometers. Fujiyoshida, 16 kilometers. We should be there in about 20 minutes or so at this pace. Kasei Station needs 20 minutes. From here? All right, good. You know, there's a famous, one of the most famous Instagram scenes is the pagoda with Mount Fuji in the background. Have you seen that one? Everybody takes a picture of it. You see it on like every guidebook. There's the pagoda on the right side and Mount Fuji is on the left. You see this beautiful panoramic view of the volcano, Mount Fuji. This is in Fujiyoshida, so I thought I would stop there and scout it out because I've never been there. I've never been there. So if it seems like a really cool place, you have to climb about 200 steps to get up to the top of it. Maybe I'll go live and bring you there. That sort of was the plan. So we got to 775 likes. So that means we got to get to 1,000 and we rarely get to 1,000 likes in a live stream. It just never happened. It happened like two times in the history of the live streaming platform. It just never happens. It almost never happens. Is that a McDonald's? Why am I getting excited? I'm not going to go there, but it's funny that there's a McDonald's out here. The sensor tells you if you go outside the lines. That is the golden arches up straight ahead. That is my country. America is right straight ahead. That's like the embassy of America. They should have embassy services there. Oh, we turn right? That's McDonald's. We turn right really soon. We turn right next. It's a drive-thru, Kanae. Are you sure you don't want something? No? Look it, that's the golden arches. What? Drive-thru, it says. That's what the writing is underneath the sign. Drive-thru. Oh, so it says here to turn? And I'll get on the interchange? We go to, yeah, this way. Not the McDonald's way. Not the McDonald's way? Yeah. So we can get through. Okay, we're gonna take the interchange? All right, sorry McDonald's. We don't go. We don't go to you instead. Okay, don't go to McDonald's way. Don't go follow the beige car. That's not the best color for a car either, just saying. I had a choice that would be not in my top. Which color do you like? Actually, the blue car is kind of neat here. See that one? That car in front of us, it's like a, like a park. It's like a pale, I don't know, it's just not pretty. So the navigation system says go straight. Kanae's telling me to go this way.

01:03:13 Kanae Daub: Yeah, you know who I'm gonna, you know who I'm going to trust, right? Yeah, you can trust. Can I? Try it, trust woman?

01:03:22 John Daub: No, but you said like 45 minutes ago that you're always lost and you hold the map funny. I know. Wait, I'm, I'm thinking maybe I made a wrong decision here. All right, we'll go with Kanae's route. And then if it's, if she made a mistake, then it's her fault. It's not my fault anymore. Turn left. But we both lose because then we're just gonna get there later. Okay, where do I go next? Go straight, turn left, turn Kotobuki-cho crossing street. But where, hold on a second, where's your navigation system set to? To the Pagoda or just Fujiyoshida? Fujiyoshida City. In 700 meters, turn left. You know what I'm gonna do? I'm gonna pull over. Just check where you're... I'm just gonna pull over here. Just kind of do this. Actually, it doesn't really matter. We're so close. All right, let's take the highway because it's a highway. It's not Pagoda's fault. It's okay. I just, I don't know where it is. All right, let's just do it. Let's just do this. Country road. Nice, sir. Nice, sir. You look like a Fujiyoshida guy. Very nice. Friendly. No profanities. Didn't make any arm gestures or finger gestures at me. You tell light, sir. I'm following you now. You tell me. Hidari or migi?

01:05:31 Kanae Daub: Migi.

01:05:33 John Daub: Migi? Migi is right. Hidari is left. Migi is right. Hidari is left. That's your quiz. Hidari, left. Hey, you can turn light at the traffic light. Okay, there's Daiso. Should I go and get your stickers for the... In 300 meters. No, it's not. Oh, let's get your... Yeah, you can get your... What? This is Daiso and you can get your stickers. Look at that. There's a Daiso here. What? Why? Okay. Thus ends the live stream. This is the end of the first live stream, so we're going to do more today. We're going to get the Fujiyoshida, probably eat lunch and find a place to eat, and then we're going to take you around. Maybe if we find something interesting, we're going to go live again. And then we're coming back at 7 PM, so got a very full day. Thanks for joining us in this. Don't worry, we'll be back. Make sure you subscribe and I'll put a notification on Patreon and the Discord server and maybe even Twitter, and then you guys can join us again soon. All right, see you guys.

01:06:45 Kanae Daub: See you soon.