00:01 John Daub: Greetings! Welcome to Fujiyoshida! I've been driving tonight for a few hours. We came from Tokyo. We just did a livestream driving here, kind of getting lost. Wow, what a view we have! It's pretty amazing, isn't it? Isn't it beautiful?

00:22 John Daub: In this livestream, I'm going to take you to Fujiyoshida Honchō (main street), one of the most famous views of Mt. Fuji with the city in the foreground. But I'm going to show you the view right now. Oh, look how fast the clouds come in! Look at that, everybody! Hopefully this is coming in in beautiful 720p 4G LTE livestream quality. This is the kind of view you come to Japan for, right? Mt. Fuji is most easily viewed, best viewed in the winter when the skies are clear, like today sort of. Some clouds, but I'll take this over nothing.

01:06 John Daub: Kanae and I are going to take you over to the town of Fujiyoshida really quickly. I'm making another video on this. Kanae knows where we're going. We're also looking for an udon shop to eat lunch at. We're kind of having a late lunch. Check out this tree. You see Mt. Fuji behind me. Isn't this stunning? Look at this plum tree. With the blue skies in the background, it is really amazing. This is why you leave Tokyo to come out here. This isn't somebody's front yard. It's crazy, right? From here, it's just amazing.

02:41 John Daub: Kanae is going to go look for the udon restaurant. This isn't going to be a very long livestream, but I'm going to make it to the town now. The walk is pretty nice, about five minutes to get there. I'm going to show you that view you've seen on Instagram over the last couple of years of Mt. Fuji from Fujiyoshida. We're going to be there in about five minutes. So if you're watching playback, you might want to skip to Fujiyoshida. They even have a sign in English saying do not stop and take a picture here. But we're not going to stop because we're taking video. There's a difference between trying to get the best photo and just taking a drive-by video.

03:21 John Daub: It's a really peaceful, quiet town. You don't want to make a lot of noise in these kinds of neighborhoods. So I'll speak kind of lighter, even though it's a sleepy town, Fujiyoshida. The water here is so crystal clear, beautiful. If you're going to the pagoda, I put some pictures on Instagram. It was the cover of the Lonely Planet guidebook. And the only people who go there are Westerners, tourists. Konnichiwa. We're going to go through some of these old retro buildings, then take you to the town here. Look at that old electronics shop, like a mom and pop Toshiba electronics shop. You don't see those very often. There's Fuji-san in the distance.

04:50 John Daub: One of the things you might want to do if you come to Lake Kawaguchi or Fujiyoshida is spend some time here. Just walking around the alleys is such a treat. There's so much personality in these buildings. Look at the way it's just at all these unique angles. The rain gutters taking on a life of their own here. This looks like an akiya (abandoned house). I wouldn't mind living here, right here on the corner. Look at the view you have when you walk outside. Spectacular.

05:58 John Daub: All right, let's get over to the main street here. Here's Honchō, the main street, main town. It is so retro. It looks like it hasn't changed at all in 50 years. If you do decide to come, please make sure taking photos in the middle of the road is dangerous. Take your photo back where I took it, just a couple streets over. All the roads point to Mt. Fuji.

07:10 John Daub: Here it is. This is the site we've been seeing on Instagram. Now those pictures, it had snowed, so Fujiyoshida City looked even more beautiful. But when the light changes, I'll take you across there really slow. Then you'll get a chance to look over on the other side. Here's the path that we walked from. I marked this when I saw the Instagram photo. I knew it was Fujiyoshida City, so I marked it on Google Maps. And I said if I come into this area, I'm going to make my way back here and check it out. The lights here change every 45 seconds or so. That makes it pretty easy to get across the street and take a look.

08:01 John Daub: This is the view that everybody likes to take. You guys have seen this on the internet before? That's it right there. You need a long lens, but you have about five seconds or so. It's good to come with a friend just to make sure you look. But seriously don't think that you should risk your life to take the photo. Just take it easy and not do that too often. That's the shot so many people talk about. I want to take you just a little bit around the town and then return to the car, because Kanae and I are going to go have some lunch. You can see underneath here, it's really retro. Pretty killer, right? Not a lot of people here. It's pretty relaxed. This is what I search for when I want to get out of Tokyo and enjoy myself.

09:32 John Daub: Total and utter questionable mannequins. That's what I search for. What happened to her head? That's kind of creepy. Life here is so slow. I'm digging this. I would like to get an Airbnb or something, just chill here for a week. Come outside, take a look at Mt. Fuji. Go to the river, grab a couple beers or drinks and coffee and barbecue and just have fun. A lot of the older towns like this are having younger people come in, rejuvenating and renovating old buildings, making it modern. But I kind of prefer the mom and pop shops the way they are. I like that history and mystery of something from the past.

11:19 John Daub: This is a department store, I think. Completely empty. Pretty awesome. I didn't want to spend too much time doing this, but this is a pretty cool view. Hey, Haiko, do you know any yokan in the Fujisan area that you recommend? Thanks for showing us this beautiful place. I'm glad I could bring you something new. Here goes Kanae. She found me. We're having a lot of fun. She's going to start to drive a little bit as well. She needs to get some practice driving. There's the view of Mt. Fuji. Soak it up right now. Pretty amazing.

13:16 John Daub: If you can't make it to Japan, click that like button and subscribe, because you can't because you're with us. This is what it's all about. That's why I wanted to do this livestreaming channel from the start back in 2017. Look at the signs on Honchō. Sanchōme Honchō. You have the waterfall. Look at the retro lights on that sign. The Arakura Sengen Park is one kilometer to the left there. That's where we just were, where the pagoda is.

14:00 John Daub: Let's cross the street and go back. This is the last chance to get a good look. That's Mt. Fuji. Did you find the udon restaurant? It's closed super early, like 2 p.m. Should we just drive then? We're going to go around Mt. Fuji to Fujinomiya and then back to Tokyo. My goal today is to drive around it. But we're going slow and we need to go to Costco. Maybe stack up on some stuff. It's a retro department store right now. It's about 3 p.m. I did take some drone shots. Practice the 30-30-30-150 rule: 30 meters away from buildings, people, cars, and 150 meters is the legal limit for drones in the sky. So I got my Mavic Pro up there and got some shots.

15:35 John Daub: The alleyways are just as impressive as the main street. To be living in the shadow of Mt. Fuji is really incredible. Nico, I've already taken you inside Costco like three times and they know me. I'm a marked man. They tap me on the shoulder and look at me angrily and I have to cut off the stream. One stream has a quarter million views, so I don't want to risk getting kicked out. I got Costco for life. For all of you that can't visit Japan right now or canceled your trip, we're here for you. We're your eyes, ears, stomachs because we're going to go have some late lunch before back to Tokyo. I could spend the whole day here.

17:13 John Daub: You can hear the water rushing underneath the streets. Oh, there's a waterfall. And this is where they did the kōji (construction) before, right? Koko? For those joining us, this is Fujiyoshida and I'm going to show you a spectacular view of Mt. Fuji in about one minute. If you're joining live, click the thumbs up. Let's see if we can get 500 likes in the livestream. Community, it's up to you. Probably will do it anyway, but it's always nice to click like. I could totally live here. Can I get the barbecue? Oh my gosh. In fact, can we knock on the door, get some meat at the supermarket and say can we barbecue here? I'm not going to do that.

18:29 John Daub: We're 200 likes away. You have 30 seconds to click like. At the end of the street, you're about to see something really good. If you like potholes, click like. Let's get the 500 for our community. Mr. Das is in the house. Click like. We're 150 away. I'm about to pan to the right and you're going to love it. I know we can do it. We got 800 people here. Come on. Konnichiwa. Ready? Three, two, one. That's a view. Watch out for the cars. They come once every couple minutes. Yes-tacular.

19:59 John Daub: It's a pretty nice day. Just enough clouds to make it memorable but not enough to block the view. I bet I could do a time-lapse. If I had a camera and let it run for three hours, the clouds going across Mt. Fuji would be beautiful, but I don't have the time. I'll probably come back in the spring. There you go, everybody. That's Mt. Fuji. This is Fujiyoshida City. Quite a view. If you do come here, rent a car and have an adventure. We're getting back into ours, the Toyota Aqua right there. Sweet ride. It's a hybrid. Thanks everybody for watching. We'll see you in another livestream.