00:00:04 John Daub: Oh, hey, there you are. How you doing? Yeah, so this is another midnight snack run. I've been hanging out in the tent here. It's been a pretty good day. We started the day with a live stream with my friends Shinichi and Satoshi that are also self-isolating here in Tokyo. We've been at it now for one month. We started this 30 days ago, and it's crazy that we are still self-isolating like most of the world. Some people are in day 60. We're in day 30. It's a beautiful night. You can hear the wildlife all around me, including our friend down here. He's going to be joining us because Kanae Daub is wanting to sleep properly in a bed. She has that option, and I'm not going to argue with her. However, this is a time of the absurd, so just bear with me, okay? Because this is midnight snack run camping edition. All right, let's get out of here. Let's get out of this tent. It's nice to have a roaring campfire on the other side. It's a beautiful campfire. You know, it hasn't changed in a month. It's just been non-stop burning. It's pretty cool. Who gets the wood? I don't get the wood. It just magically appears like that. The great outdoors.

00:01:41 John Daub: All right, let's get in the kitchen. Let's get something from old Frosty. It's actually new Frosty, really. So you can see what time it is here. It's 1:12:55. Now, in the great outdoors, we'll typically have a kitchen, but today we do. Actually, I could just use this light. I don't actually need these lights. We should be doing it by camp light. Yeah. All right, what do we have here? Look at this. This just happens to be a Wagyu and garlic potato chips. All right, we're going to give these a try today. Potato chips are uniquely flavored. They're Japanese flavored. This says Wagyu, so it's a Japanese flavor. Gotta be Wagyu, but can you taste the difference, really, between any other beef? And are beef flavored potato chips any good? Well, we're going to figure that out. Usually, it's like nacho cheese or something. These look pretty interesting. I wonder who left these out here. It must have been Kanae Daub or something. This is ume norimaki. That's an umeboshi (sour pickled plum), which is an extremely sour plum, a Japanese sour plum with Japanese seaweed rolled in these rice kind of crackers. It's a delightful snack that we're going to have in this midnight snack run. Expiration date. Oh, this is going to be good enough to send by sea to our American daimyo supporters.

00:03:16 John Daub: All right. Oh, we got mozzarella. Can you eat mozzarella balls like this? Can you just eat them as is? Expiration date. Oh, we got to eat that soon. Next week. All right, what do we got in here? Oh, I like what I see here. Malts brewed in Tokyo. Japanese ale. This is only in Japan. It has to be. All right. This is going to do just nicely. We haven't had a premium malt in a while. Mr. Das, he does prefer the taste of an Asahi, but well, 2021 Olympic beer partner. Let's keep that to ourselves. We have a butter shortage. He's off permanently. I just cannot stand this. We have a butter shortage in Japan, so I had to get this New Zealand butter. It's traditionally churned with cream. It's one kilogram of butter. Do you know how much this cost me? $30 for a kilogram of New Zealand butter. And it was the only butter I could buy. It's insane. But no butter, no life. Somebody said that. Somebody better than me. Smarter than me.

00:04:42 John Daub: A package of bizarre mushrooms. Nameko (nameko mushrooms). Would you eat this? Shiitake. These are raw, though. I can't eat that. This is natto (fermented soybeans). It looks fun, doesn't it? But it's really sticky. You're going to look like that if you eat it. Let's leave it in there. Oh, and this is shirasu (baby sardines). These are little teeny fish. If you look closely, you can see their eyes. All right, we're going to skip that. But what I do see here looks pretty good. This here is a kopepan yakisoba (yakisoba-filled bread roll). Who doesn't like yakisoba (fried noodles)? So we're going to have a yakisoba. I did disinfect this because I got it from the convenience store. That's why it's still wet. All right, we're going to put it here. We got three things. That's pretty good for the midnight snack. What else do we got in here? What is this? What? I don't remember getting this. I don't know what this is. This is a Doraemon egg. What? Choco egg. All right, this is a special present. It's left here. Things just magically appear inside this box. We're going to open this up now and check out this chocolate egg. That can be our dessert. That should be good enough. We're going to eat this.

00:06:30 John Daub: By the way, this is Mike Chen's favorite Japanese curry. And Mike, if you're watching, probably not, they do have it available in a package. This is Bonchi curry. Bonchi cheese curry. And we get this at the supermarket, like a case of it, so we can eat this with rice anytime we want. Bonchi curry is so good. That cheese, luxurious, cheesy taste with the Japanese curry is such a delight. All right, let's take our haul over by the campfire. Just keep it down, okay, because Kanae Daub is sleeping. All right, you guys with me? It's a pretty big haul here. Did I get all that? I don't think I can eat all of that. Oh, wait, where's my table? Oh, no. Stay right here. I'm going to go and get my table. I have a little teeny camping table. I forgot about it. Just watch over the campfire. If anything moves, report it or something.

00:07:50 John Daub: Stay safe. I got this. I got this for these midnight snack runs, all right? So we're going to set this table up together. I have a nice seat here by the campfire. Let's warm up a little bit. It's actually pretty warm out outside here, so we don't actually need this campfire. So let's put this table together, and I'm going to put this on top of the table, and we can have a midnight snack. Just keep it down, all right, because Kanae Daub is a little bit too hot. She's asleep in there. Hey, Mr. Das is here. When Mr. Das sees beer, the super chats are coming in really quickly. Thank you, Mr. Das. I appreciate it. This is the top of the table. Hello from Bend, Oregon. Hey, this is Bradshaw Studio. Hey, how you doing? Long time no see. Oh, this is cool, and this fits in here. Oh, this is pretty cool. It's very light. I got this, and now we're going to put the table top up. Perfect.

00:09:32 John Daub: All right, this is pretty toasty in here. I got this table because it's better to have a raised position, or else it's an angle that nobody wants to see. There's a man's spread. Just let's keep it. Let's just keep you on the table. It's better that way. All right, let's take a look here. How you doing, everybody? So it's been a pretty tough month, I think, and we started off about three and a half weeks ago with an indoor camping, and I thought I would just continue with this theme. I'm going to be doing self-isolation for a while now, and it looks like that the tent might have to stay around for a while. You can see here, there's the sofa back there. I made sure that this time it was really nice on the carpet, so it's pretty nice sleep. Get the sleeping bag out later, but yeah, I'm really happy. All of you are staying home, just like me, staying safe, that's the most important thing that you can do.

00:11:31 John Daub: So these live streams, it's in low light, so you'll have to excuse the grain. There's not a lot that I can do to make the stream better. I have to get a new iPhone, and they're not coming out until fall. By the way, Sony announced the new cameras, the cinema cameras. The entire world is extremely disappointed at the lazy PowerPoint presentation that Sony did to announce cameras. It was one of the worst camera announcements I've ever seen in the history. The entire world is disappointed at Sony. Come on, Sony, you gotta step up your game. Just thought I'd put that out there, because that announcement came about two hours ago. It's creamy. It smells like beer. All right, we're gonna save this as the main course. I don't know why. That looks like that'll be a pretty good snack. Doraemon, you're going to the side here.

00:12:32 John Daub: Oliver Stone writes in here, hey John, love all the videos and crisis. Things are gonna get even more crisis-y, because we have some garlic potato chips here. More for Kanae Daub later on than me. Survival. If you don't have the sound of nature around you, how can you say you're a survivor? All right, look, we might be stuck in areas. That doesn't mean we have to live like we are. Man up. That's why I wear the flannel. The bad part is that I shaved recently, and it totally kills that. There you go. It's a little bit better, huh? Slightly better. Let's get this. Wagyu and garlic. It's brand new from Calbee. Expiration date, good enough to send by sea to our Diamond supporters. I don't know if I'm gonna send this one. I'm just saying that. Ellis has been summoned. Maybe. We'll see what's inside. It depends.

00:14:14 John Daub: All right, I did a faux pas, which is French for something bad. I'm not even sure what faux pas means. Just people say it in this kind of a situation. I opened this... Hey! Okay, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. You there? Did you get hurt? The gimbal... The gimbal... When you put that lens on needs to... The gimbal needs to be balanced properly. I wasn't doing that. Sorry. You okay? Did that hurt? All right, the faux pas. Yeah. Japanese at parties, they open the bag here on the back. You open it up like this, and it opens up wider. So you don't have to stick your hands deep into the bag. Because the bag is not deep here, right? So you don't have to go deep into the bag to fish them out if you open them up here from the middle of the back. Japanese tip. Everybody does this at parties, but not me. I did it American style. Serving bowl. Where do you think we are? In an apartment or something?

00:15:40 John Daub: These smell like... I don't know if you've ever been to a yakiniku (grilled meat) restaurant, but they have something called tare (dipping sauce). Tare is a dipping sauce. This smells like the dipping sauce with garlic. I don't know if it's going to taste like meat, but we're going to find out. All I know is that it's a little toasty from being in the fire for a couple of seconds. We don't want to burn it. Here we go. You can't eat just one. I'm going to have to try a couple more of these. All right, to clear the palate, I need to have a Tokyo brewed Japanese ale. Mmm. Kanpai. That's pretty good. That's pretty good. Typically, Japanese... This is not a craft beer, but Japanese will have... They'll try their hand at it, and it's awful. But this one is pretty good. It's got just a very slight bitterness to it. So guess when you say Japanese, I guess you think subtle in flavor. Subtle. It's a subtle bitterness. It's not like an IPA, but somewhere between it. Which could confuse you if you're a connoisseur of craft beer. Don't even try it. But for me, it's good enough.

00:17:11 John Daub: All right. I'm going to get a big one here. Apparently, we have a lot of people who are very... Being inside, you kind of are very critical of the potato chips you eat now. So let's take a closer look at it. Get the pelter out. Turn the camera around. Let's see here. What do you think of this potato chip? It's got pretty good salt coverage. You can see it glistening in the pelter light. The ridges are not too thick. Might be a little bit too bright there. We got it turned up to 450 lumens here. All right. Let me get it down to... I can turn down the lumens here. There we go. Not a lot of chemical pepper on there. That's good. That's very good. Kanae's in a real bed. You know, I tried to convince her. She's very hard to convince to get into the spirit of camping. Which means we have to go real camping. Which means either that or I'm going to have to install another OLED on the ceiling so that we can have realistic stars on the ceiling. Or get one of those planetarium things that projects them up there. That's the only way. I think I could lure her out with stars, but that's going to take more work. This is still lame. I have to do more work for the camping. I couldn't find on Amazon plastic bushes. I might just have to grow my own. And I think we're going to be locked in long enough for me to do just that. So this is not a complete disappointment. This is pretty good. But that's the side.

00:19:26 John Daub: Next up, ume norimaki. This is hardcore. Who here has ever had the Japanese sour plum? Has anybody had umeboshi before? There's two kinds. There's the kind of umeboshi that is so... That's so sour. That when you put it in your mouth, it's either you love it or you hate it. And if it's your first time, you're probably going to hate it. And you do this face like this. It's hideous. And the funny thing is... I shouldn't say that. I should say it's not hideous. I guess it could be cute like this. It's hideous on a 40-year-old man. But on an 80-year-old woman who is probably the one who made the sour plums and loves the taste of it, that's the same face. It's really adorable. On an 80-year-old woman. But they're very sour and it's very hard to eat. But I think that this has just the essence of an umeboshi. It's ume. And not umeboshi are created equal. Some are extremely sour like, oh, what? Why? Why? And then there's some that are sweeter. They have like a natural sweetness still in it. It just depends how far back the person who made that goes. Like if they go back to the Taisho era, which was before World War II, then those umeboshi are probably going to be pretty sour. Because they love to feel their food. It's like hardcore.

00:21:04 John Daub: And I'm talking about like Niijima (Tokyo island). You can go there by jet foil. Famous for a food called kusaya (stinky dried fish). Kusai means stink. Kusaiya. It smells awful. It is one of the top five foods that makes you like, you smell it and you want to just hurl. But you can grow, I've heard from people that you can get used to it and develop a kind of tolerance to the smell where they actually enjoy it. The old timers really enjoy it. Now I tried this on an episode of Tokyo Eye on an NHK report back in 2010 with my friend Jennifer Julian. We went out in this report. It was ridiculous. In Shinbashi. We went deep Shinbashi. Like in an alley. And it was famous for serving kusaya. So I'd never had it before. So the dude brings it out and all of a sudden I could smell it. It smelled like a restroom. Not without the urinal mints. And he grilled it. He grilled it a little bit to give some heat. Heat is not one thing you want to do, people, with food that smells this bad. And then you're supposed to pick up the kusaya and eat it and drink it with beer and enjoy it and laugh with your friends. Ha ha ha. Like everything is just fine. I've never seen young people eat it. I'll just put it out there. I've never seen anybody under 30 chowing down on kusaya. It takes a special man to eat a kusaya. Campfire man.

00:22:53 John Daub: Here's the kicker, right? I ate it. It was awful, but I ate it. I took it down because it was being filmed by a TV show. What are you going to do? Like spit it out? You can't do that. That's awful. So what freaked me out the most was not the taste. For four days, four days, I could not get the smell of it off my fingers. Four days. I was using all the soaps that I could find in the entire country of Japan. We don't got lava here. Okay. There's no lava. So I can't get that stuff off. Literally, I only touched it for like five seconds and whatever that oil is or whatever is in that kusaya, it soaks into the skin deep where you can't get it out. And I don't know if the smell went away or I just got used to it. But I lived with really awful kusaya fingers for four days and it was a very tough year. All right. Let's try these. All right. These are norimaki. These are pretty basic looking. See here. They're basically rice crackers. Hold on. Let me get the light on here. There we go. These are, oh, one, two, three, three second roll. Still good. It's not like it's on carpet, right? Can I wash these every day? I should be doing that too.

00:24:18 John Daub: All right. Norimaki is just seaweed wrapped around this little rice cracker. Sometimes they put peanuts in here. Oh, there's a little bit of salt on there. Okay. You'll see these everywhere. This light, man. This is like 50 lumens, 250, 450 lumens in your face. It's a good one. Let's try this norimaki. Oh, super interesting. This is highly recommend that you try umeboshi. Even if you know you're going to hate it, just try it because you'll never forget it. Now, this umeboshi snack, it's not that salty. I mean, you don't want to turn off your customer base. You want to try to expand your customer base. But it has just the essence of it, but it is sour and hits the side of the tongue on my right side. And there's also a slight sweetness to it that hits another side of the tongue. And then there's some salt in it. And then there's that crunch. So it's a very, very good snack. I think this would be a good one to send to people. Really good. Wash this down with some Tokyo Japanese ale.

00:26:21 John Daub: How are you doing there, Okapi? He's just chilling. I don't think that they actually lay down to sleep. An okapi, that's a real animal, by the way. Not this particular one, but an okapi is like a zebra and a horse kind of mixed up in there. It's a real mix. They exist in the wild in Africa or at the Ueno Zoo. Beautiful. Oh, hey there. This is from Beautiful J. Just wanted to let you know that I love you. I appreciate you keeping us entertained during the pandemic. You and Kanae Daub be safe. Thank you so much. Thank you. Kanae Daub is going to be super safe because she's not here in the wild. She probably has, she's probably a little bit smarter than I am. Probably. Definitely. This is almost the finale because we do have Doraemon here. Faye's life's here. It's going pretty good, Faye. How you doing?

00:27:34 John Daub: Yakisoba. All right, we have to take her out of the package. Just stay right there. That sounds like the crackling of the fire. It's pretty amazing how the noodles stay in there. Oh, do you see that? There is a second piece of plastic here that keeps the noodles down. Do you see that? That's very smart and genius. Oh, wow. Noodle bread. Why would they do that, you know? Only in Japan do they take noodles and put it in bread. I'm telling you, everybody, like Japan, people here in Japan love to play with their food and they even put some ginger on top to add that little kick to it. All right, in my defense, come down here. In my defense with all these carbs, it's not like I ate all those potato chips. I had like four and I've only had about three sips of beer and I had only like four umeboshi and norimaki. So it's not like I'm eating a bazillion carbs. Now, if I were to shove this in my face. That would be pretty bad. Like, eat the whole thing in one bite. But I'm not going to do that because that would just be wrong.

00:29:15 John Daub: You can smell the yakisoba when you heat it up. The, there's a saltiness to it and the sweet kind of a sweet sour of the ginger here brings it up and it smells like basically cheap bread. But you only get it only really starts to, the odors, the natural smells only come out after you heat it up a little bit. Just watch your hand because it gets pretty hot. Heat it up more. Oh, I could get the light on. Hold on a second. Look like a bunch of cables. Like I'd taken a scissors or a knife and cut some cables. It's pretty cool. I don't know though. You know, I don't know if I'm ever going to be a fan of this bread. I don't know if I'll ever be a fan of it because it doesn't make sense to me. Like literally why? Look, okay. I get it. You know, I like noodles enough. I like noodles and I like bread, but when you put them together, it's like when you take spaghetti, I know you take the bread and you wipe up all the spaghetti sauce around it, but you don't make a spaghetti sandwich out of it. Do you? Are there any kids out there? Anybody who lets you makes a spaghetti sandwich? You get a piece of white bread, you put spaghetti in it and you make a sandwich. Does anybody do that? It's pretty good.

00:31:28 John Daub: It's 1am. I'm only going to eat half. You know, when this started about a month ago, I was in a lot better shape after this ends. Memberships to gyms all over and fitness centers are going to just skyrocket, aren't they? They are. And it's going to happen again. Everyone will get a gym membership and no one will go. It always happens. What a night. What a night. You guys have any plans this month? No, neither do I. Not really. This actually starting yesterday and today until about May 5th or 6th is the Japanese Golden Week. This is the week where Japanese typically will take a holiday and go back to their hometowns if they're living here in Tokyo and travel is down 93% meaning the Shinkansen (bullet trains) were pretty much all empty. All right, but they were still going. The highways pretty much empty. If you compare last year to this year, people stayed home. I think it's working. I think we're going to be okay in Tokyo. And the amount of infections, although testing is not the same as in other countries, it's pretty low. The curve, you can see it going down. It seems like we're going down. Seems. It's hard to say, but we're getting, people are hopeful, but you know what? I'm in this for the long haul. If they make us stay indoors until September, I might be okay, but I'm going to have to get like a treadmill or something. I don't know. I might be okay.

00:33:35 John Daub: All right, let's try this here. Well, how about you? Are you going to be okay? No. Maybe if you have one of these, you will be okay. This is a Doraemon chocolate egg. It cost me $2 at the local FamilyMart. I usually go to the supermarket or the convenience store to get some to resupply after midnight. Do you know what you want to know why it's not just so I can do these midnight snack runs. No, I do it because there's nobody there. And it's the safest time to go shopping. 24 hour supermarkets are doing amazing business right now. All right, let's give this a try here. Doraemon wants to join the party. Get the light on him. Anybody see the Bruce Willis commercial for SoftBank where he's, he pretends like he's dry. See if you can Google that and find the Bruce Willis commercial. It's hilarious. American Hollywood actors. They don't do commercials in the US but they do commercials in Japan, like a Kinder egg.

00:35:10 John Daub: We got to open this up here. This is bigger. This is like a jumbo sized egg. Hey, Lenny's here. How you doing Lenny? Thanks for being you. Thanks Lenny. Oh, Ellis right in here. Since we have a campfire, I think it's a good time for a story since you have many times in Japan, have your neighbors come by and welcomed you. No, they haven't welcomed me. They know better. I've been talking to my neighbors across when we eat lunch on the balcony. I've been talking to them when they go to do their laundry. It looks like a typical egg. Oh, it's like it, this one melts in your hands. How do you, Ellis, how do you do this? Do you crack it? I don't want to get it on the table. Hold on. It's chocolate. Ah, it's all gross. Ah, it's all sticky now. Try a knife. Okay. I'll try a knife. The one that I was born with. We're all born with that knife. Oh, check it out. There's like, it looks like a coconut. I'll save some of that chocolate for Kanae Daub because I know she'd want some of that in the morning. I'm only going to eat a little bit of it because it's not good to eat chocolate before you go to bed.

00:37:37 John Daub: We have a mystery capsule inside of this. You were born with no teeth. That's actually true. It's good. Well said. Well played. Well played by the live chat here. We were born with no teeth. Hey, Ellis, how do you open this? You and your, okay, just pinch it. It's going to complain, but. It's like indestructible. I got to cut my fingernails tomorrow. I've been waiting a week to do it, to give me something to do on a, some kind of joke. Oh, there's a whole collection of them. Of course there is. There's 19 of them or 20. The 20th one is a surprise, I guess maybe. Interesting. Which one did we get? We'll have to put it together and find out. Here are the directions. We got number 18. It's got some sort of pink thing. Oh, I see. Ellis, what is that? What's a pink thing? Ellis doesn't need to authorize this. He knows I'm thinking of him. Thankfully, this puzzle only has three steps. He put his butt right here. Should I put it on backwards like the Exorcist? I won't do that. There you go. It's cute, huh? You've been a good boy. Tell me the secrets. Do you have any secrets that you can tell me about how you fly around? Or shall we torture him by putting him in the, no, we won't do that. No, we won't do that. We'll just kill him. This is where the real Doraemon, which is Bruce Willis, might bust through that door. Wow, I made a really big mess. I hope you enjoyed this.

00:40:38 John Daub: This is the midnight snack run. It has no real purpose other than just to spend some time together, you know? It's what we do. All right. Let's go into the tent. A little change of scenery. We'll bring this. So I know something is going to spill here. This is a pretty nifty light. I'm just going to get it out of the way. A lot of these new tents, did you see this? Oh, they have these hooks up here that you can dangle lights on. That's pretty ingenious. This one has a little ventilator. When I put the rain cover on, it gets really, really hot in here. So it's nice when you do indoor camping, you don't have to put the rain cover on. No, I'm not going to tell you a story. I'll tell you even a scarier story. So Kanae Daub said that I can't tell scary stories. And I was going to tell you the one about Toire no Hana (toilet flower ghost story). Do you know that one? Look it up, because I'm not going to tell it to you because she was really angry. I told her that I was going to tell you guys the Toire no Hana story, and she got really, really angry. PMX says no. So that means no to telling the story. Make a long story short. Do you know that story about Bloody Mary? You know that one? We say it three times. They have one in Japan, except the girl's in the toilet. Just chew on that for a while. Scary.

00:42:43 John Daub: Kiki Miyazaki writes in here, Okapi in the tent. Please change the background next camping. Maybe magnificent views at the top of Mount Fuji. You know what? I'm hesitant to do that, Kiki, because we did try that on the second one. And the live stream was banned by YouTube. Because I don't know if it was the noise or the image from the fire. It started, it literally just cut off. And the video was banned. And I was afraid of getting a copyright strike. So basically I've been using this. But I will try to find, I'll try to do an afternoon live camp. Maybe, I don't know. We'll change it up. Thanks, Kiki. I appreciate that. I should try to keep it original. I know, Kiki, it's crazy. Like, literally, those that were watching, they, we were just like thrown off of the live stream. And I don't know why. I contacted YouTube and they don't even know why. They're like, we don't know what happened. Just the computer just said we don't like the live stream. Only in Japan, go. Like, why is this kid doing the live stream every day? It's because I'm in self-isolation. Is that better, Kiki? Does that make you happy? Kiki likes.

00:44:07 John Daub: Um, so in the month of May, and it is actually in Japan right now, it is May. How you doing, everybody? I'm going to take some of your questions for the next five minutes or so. But it is now the month of May. And the weather is, this is the nicest time to visit Japan. The weather is absolutely beautiful. We're going to go to the airport. We're looking out our window. It's sunny. It's golden. It's Golden Week. It never rains in Golden Week. Well, very, very rarely. I'm going to chill over here. And we're hoping that the lockdown or the state of emergency ends on the 6th at the end of this. And then if it does, then we could go out. But I think that Kanae Daub is going to stay locked down and I might go out on an adventure if it ends. Only if it ends. And if it doesn't, I'll think about it. I don't know. Um, because I still don't know. As a creator, we have to make content, right? But I'm doing very, doing my best to try to respect the laws and the wishes of the leadership here like we all should. Because when I moved here and became a resident, I became a resident and you can't do what you want. You have to do what the community tells you to do.

00:45:23 John Daub: What questions do you have out here? If I don't like the question, I will flash 450 lumens at you. To penalize you, alright? If your question stinks, you'll get 450 lumens. Look, it's double light at you. It hurts. You don't want to. Are you a Japanese citizen now? That deserves, no, that's, no I'm not. I don't want to be a Japanese citizen. My value to Japan is not being Japanese. Your best camping experience besides today, tonight? Um, hitchhiking. I loved camping when I was hitchhiking. Um, set up the tent, go to sleep late. Go to sleep early, wake up early, get back on the road. Uh, we used to camp in upstate New York in a place called Indian Lake in the Adirondacks. That was always kind of fun whenever we got the tent out. I think we rented a house. I don't remember. It was a while ago. Uh, in the UK, furloughed until June 1st. Wow. Why don't you want to be a Japanese citizen? I'd have to give up my American citizenship. Why would I want to do that?

00:46:40 John Daub: Keep your distance while in train stations. I don't even go to train stations. I ride my bicycle everywhere. I haven't ridden a train or a subway in seven weeks. That's crazy for Tokyo. We live in central Tokyo. Seven weeks, no subways, no train stations. Oh my. I turned, tuned in and I thought he was outside for real. How do you know I'm not if you just tuned in? Oh, cause it does look like a TV. It's an OLED. C9. Got it at half price. Looks real, huh? You thought it was for real, right? Yeah. Is that a light from Ghostbusters? This? That's an awful question. You deserve 450 lumens at you. Don't even understand what that means. Are you getting microwave anytime soon? Uh, no. Kanae Daub doesn't like the microwave life. So we've decided not to get a microwave. I haven't had a microwave in seven years. No, no, no. I found, no, okay, get this. So in Japan, people recycle stuff and they just throw it out. And I was walking out minding my own business in the trash area of my apartment complex. And lo and behold in front of me was a microwave. So I had a sticker on it. I wasn't supposed to take it. I took it. It still worked. If it didn't work, I was going to put it back out. So I used it for about two years, cleaned it up, gave it a second life. Um, and then I had to buy a recycle sticker again and I recycled it when we moved out. I hardly ever used it. Not supposed to do that too. Don't take trash. Make it your own. One man's trash is another man's treasure. They said I took trash that day. But I made it into something. I gave it a second life and I felt bad saying goodbye to that microwave, but I did extend it slightly by two years.

00:48:38 John Daub: Do people use Bitcoin in Japan? I believe so, but I think this Mt. Gox thing, I don't know. Don't know what's happening with Bitcoin. Pete, you know who to ask? Peter von Gomm. Peter von Gomm is a cryptocurrency nut. He tries to get me to buy Bitcoin. He said that these, um, I don't know, like everybody has a cryptocurrency. I'm not into that. It's like gambling to me. I don't know. I just prefer food and fun. Cryptocurrency is another world. How'd that come up? You deserve, this is for you because you asked a silly question. Cryptocurrency. What's your favorite song right now? Campfire songs. Right now? There's this really good royalty free music that I've been listening to. I like that song. It's pretty good. I'm gonna have to switch sides because my arm's getting tired. Is it an LG TV, John? Yes, it's a C9. It's last year's model, I think. Kid, I couldn't afford this year's model. Or is it a C8? I don't know. What's your favorite song right now? Royalty free music. Can I snoring? Is she snoring? This campfire is so loud actually. My neighbors probably are so confused. Like, is that really outside or is that just me? I'm like, coming from the apartment downstairs. I'm probably freaking out the neighbors.

00:50:08 John Daub: Do you think that you could live in the U.S. again? Right, it's in Ron? I think I could, but I'll tell you this, okay, Ron? I moved between 2002 and 2003. I finished a backpacking trip and I was back in the United States. And I didn't know what I wanted to do with my life. And I was back home for about three months. And I was at a crossroads and I didn't know if I wanted to stay or if I wanted to go. So I went back to Japan and I hitchhiked all of Japan from the very north in Wakkanai in Hokkaido down to Kagoshima. This is 2003. And I had to make a decision. And after that hitchhiking trip, the kindness of the people and the strangers was a sight of Japan that I didn't ever see before. Because I was working as an English school teacher teaching kids. I'd never really done anything like that. And when I saw how amazing the country was, I just said that, I'll just try to stay here. I set up a business a couple years later. Set up my own business here. I've been ever since, I said that I'll try to make a life here. If I can be helpful to Japan and make a contribution, then I probably will be able to stay here for a very long time. If I had to go back to the United States, I probably could. I've had a lot of friends that went back home and are doing fine. My friend Lauren and my friend Alan. They're all living in the New York area. They're not doing good right now. But they've all assimilated back to life. And they're very happy. They probably have better social lives in the United States than we do here. Social lives here are not the same. But in New York and back home, it's just different. It's friendlier in the U.S., I guess. I could probably live back there. But it's, I could live anywhere. I'll be honest with you. I could probably live a pretty good life in India if I wanted to. Or I could live a good life in Europe. Or I could live a good life in New Zealand. It would be great. It's just the way you think about it. And if you have an ability to make friends and you have a good job, you could probably live just about anywhere.

00:52:22 John Daub: Would you eat haggis? I have eaten haggis. I ate haggis in Edinburgh and in Glasgow. That was in 1998. And it was really good. It was a little pricey, though. It was a tourist place. Haggis was good. Umeboshi at the same time? Maybe not. Those are two completely different flavors. It would just explode your taste buds. Will. And thanks for the message earlier, Will. I appreciate that. On Patreon. I'll still send it out to you. Is it hard to register a business in Japan? If you are thinking about doing it, there's a book from an organization called JETRO (Japan External Trade Organization). J-E-T-R-O. And they have a book called Setting Up Enterprises or Setting Up Businesses in Japan. I got this book 15 years ago. And it just gives you literally step by step. If you follow the steps, you can establish a business here. But in order to get the visa, you have to have the proper visa, too. So I was able to learn how to do it. And I just did it. And at the end of all the procedures, I was shocked. I went into JETRO and I talked with an older gentleman who was an ex-executive from Sony. And he met with me twice to help me set up my business. It was the most amazing thing. And yeah, after you set up a business, that's when the real work starts, actually. It's not as easy as you think. Boy, I'm still learning.

00:54:17 John Daub: There's a loon right behind me. Have you been to Romania? I live in Cluj-Napoca. I've been to Cluj-Napoca about six or seven times. I went to Cluj-Napoca in Romania. Oh, we love Cluj. La Cluj. So I have really good friends there that I met when I backpacked. The only nationality in 1997 that could go to Romania without a visa were Americans. Because Bill Clinton had given a speech in Romania. And they had opened up the country to Americans after the speech or something. It was kind of ridiculous. So I got on a train from Budapest and I took it through the night. We arrived at midnight, I think, in Cluj-Napoca. And I walked and I couldn't find a hotel because I was a backpacker. So I walked up the main street. And in 1997, the main street from Cluj-Napoca station to the center of the town in Romania was made of dirt road. And when I got off the train, there were horses pulling. There were guys riding horses. I thought I was in the Wild West a hundred years ago. It was the most awesome thing I've ever seen. I fell in love with Cluj-Napoca right away. Cluj-Napoca is the capital of Transylvania in Romania. And we walked really late at night. It was pretty safe. To the center of town where there's a cathedral. And then I walked at the cathedral and I remember veering to the right. And there was a travel agency that was still open. I don't think it was midnight. It must have been like 9 or 10 p.m. It was late.

00:56:33 John Daub: Door was open. That was Blair Witch Project. Stay out of this tent. What fell? What was that? Anyways, I made friends with... Oh, I spilled my beer! Oh, no! Okapi, don't drink that. Okapi's already drank the beer. Oh, my God. Okapi did it. He's out. This tent's gonna smell. Kanae Daub's gonna be so angry. Oh, it's like alcohol. She's gonna be so angry in the morning. I hope this doesn't get out of the carpet underneath here. Everything's going wrong. It smells like a brewery in here. This livestream is doomed. I swear I heard something that fell not too far away. I don't think it was on the balcony. It had to have been at the front door. I couldn't believe I didn't unlock the door. This is Tokyo. Probably everything's gonna be okay. I don't think Kanae Daub would play jokes on me. I don't think... She's not that type of a person. But, I don't know. Hey, Pozo's here. Um, on Japan's Netflix, started watching the new Ghost in the Shell anime on Netflix. What are you guys watching on Netflix Prime? I was watching the Michael Jordan thing. That was just really cool. It's not scary. It's real life, though. There's a lot of good stuff here. New episodes of Billions is coming as well. Try not to watch TV. It's a lot of work to do. At least I won't admit it. The tent also wanted to drink a beer. No, it did not. No, it didn't. But, I know who did. Sleeping there. I'm gonna have to clean out this tent tomorrow morning. It's all dried. Alright, last question, because we're going a full minute. He's not gone. He's just sleeping it off. He's not used to it. Lightweight.

00:59:40 John Daub: Alright, last question here. One minute silence for the lost drink. I do, I will be back in Cluj. We wanted to go to the Black Sea. And I wanted to go this summer, but I don't think it's gonna happen. Um. Oh, to finish the story. Um. There was a travel agency that still had a light on. I knocked on the door. And he came. The guy. And he was shocked. And he started speaking Romanian. Bonsoir, I think he said. Good evening. And I said, I can't speak Romanian, man. And he goes, oh, English. English little. You know, he couldn't speak English. So he called his sister. And his sister spoke. And his sister's like, so what do you want? He was like, I need to find a hotel. She goes, it's very hard to find hotel without reservation. Yeah, I know. So um, he said, you can stay in our family's cabin up on the hill. For $10 a night. And I said, that's really cheap. So I did that. I gave him $10 and I stayed there. He says in the next day my sister will come and she'll meet you and take you around Cluj-Napoca which is again the capital of Transylvania this is all happening at night I don't know anything any Romanian I have no friends there and all of a sudden I was staying in an apartment on the hill in Transylvania it was just so cool so he walked me up there I guess they hadn't stayed in that house in a year because it was a little bit dusty but the bed was comfortable I remember going to sleep and there were wild dogs outside I guess they were howling I can't remember it was a while ago it was a full moon this was Halloween too by the way this was October 30th 1997 just to put it in perspective true story next day Gabriela my friend Gabriela came and she took me around Cluj-Napoca and we made really good friends and guess what stayed the next night in their house the next night and that was really fun because all of a sudden I had a really good friend in Cluj-Napoca so I kept in touch with her it was really hard for people in Romania to travel in 1997 you couldn't get a visa anywhere it was just for that Romanian passport really wasn't valuable and she always wanted to go to Egypt so I went to Egypt and I sent her a book and I put Egyptian money in the book from Egypt and I think that really freaked her out when it did arrive it was like one of those things where Indiana Jones father sends the Holy Grail in like this wrapped up brown paper thing and it arrives with string around it that's how I sent the book just like that's pretty cool from Egypt and I went to her wedding in 2002 I believe had to buy a suit and everything and I went to the wedding and then Kanae Daub and I went to go see Gabriela to get picture it's true story he doesn't believe me keep here you laughing cuz you don't believe me I'm gonna went back we went back in 2017 and yeah we've all gotten older hadn't seen them in over 12 years or something that really long time but super super happy and we spent a lot of time together and so that was kinda my first trip to this city to have all these people like this and we weren't to have to go to any weird places or something that like that was it what entire church was like spent three nights in Cluj-Napoca three years ago backpacking in Europe. That was awesome. We went to the salt mines. Romania, Cluj-Napoca has these salt mines. They're pretty cool. I can't find the picture. I don't want to waste your time. Yeah, I've had some pretty good adventures.

01:04:00 John Daub: I'll tell you about the one where the Bulgarian mafia robbed me of money and I couldn't pay for the visa when I got to Turkey and the official who let me in the country anyway had to convince him. It's a good story. It's a hard one. Sofia was a tough town, man. 1997, Sofia, Bulgaria. Not the hub of tourism. All right, this has nothing to do with Japan. What are you guys still doing here? John, where is the first destination you will head when traveling is allowed again? I don't know. Kanae Daub really wants to go to Guam and I wanted to go to the Philippines and we want to go to an island and kind of relax. It might be that, but actually I got a lot of work to do. I have to start editing videos again and making content. So that's probably what I'll end up doing. I'll probably spend a solid month just filming and making stories like crazy. I have a queue of ideas and stories and stuff that was canceled before this happened. I got to go back and finish those commitments and then maybe we're going to take a trip to Guam. I want to go to America, but Guam is America. Actually, it's a two hour flight from here. I've never been to Guam, so I thought that would be pretty cool to go. Yeah. Anybody been to Guam? I would love to go to Guam.

01:05:34 John Daub: German Christmas. I know one. It does, right? It's amazing. Four months ago, we were in Germany and we didn't have a care in the world. We're just in the Christmas market. It's crazy. Four months ago. And now look at where we are. It's insane. It's a quarter of a year ago. A third of a year ago. Will you do a live stream with Jennifer in the future? Like how? We're in self-isolation. Maybe I'll call her up or something. We'll do one of these interviews just like I did with Tabi Eats. Did you see the Tabi Eats interview today? We had so much fun. I love those guys. Hope we can get a chance to do another collaboration just like in the kitchen or something. Just to do something fun. Really, really good time with those guys. Yeah. Maybe we'll do something with Jennifer like that. I don't know. Finish a bottle of wine together. That'd be dangerous. I've been to Peru. The food is incredible. I went to Cusco and I went all around Peru in 2003. That was a beautiful place. I flew in. Now you guys are taking me back to my trip. I flew in. I did an around the world ticket for $3,000 in 2002 and 2003. So I flew into Darwin from Bali. I went around to Cairns to Sydney and I flew from Sydney to Auckland and I went around Auckland in the green bus, the Kiwi bus for a few days down the Taupo. And then I took a flight, the LAN Chile flight from Auckland to Papeete, which is Tahiti, to Easter Island and then to Santiago. And I spent a good 10 days in Tahiti and I spent 10 days on Easter Island. That was awesome. All right. As a backpacker and in Bora Bora when I was in Bora Bora, I camped for $20 a night across the street from a place that was $500 a night. Incredible. And during the day, some of us would go over to that hotel's bar and make trouble. That was Christmas 2002. Christmas 2002. I was in Bora Bora. That's crazy. That's crazy. Then Easter Island was incredible. 10 days there hiking. I hiked around the entire Easter Island. And then eventually we made it to South America and I spent three months backpacking South America, Argentina, Chile, and then into Peru. And we did the Inca Trail. I did the Inca Trail for four days. That was a lot of fun. It was hard work. I remember hard work.

01:08:30 John Daub: And then we took a bus from Cusco to Lima. The scariest bus ride I've ever had. Because this bus, I was sitting on the side where you can look out of the window and the tire and the edge of the road, and there's no fence or anything to protect you, going up and down mountains. The bus driver was this far from the edge of the mountains. I swear that bus could have just gone over at any time. You guys want scary stories? My travel stories will freak you out. Freak you out. The ones in Nepal, those bus drivers in Nepal were the same way when I drive around the Himalayas. Like, where do these people get their licenses? In Bolivia. All right? In Bolivia, there's what's considered to be the most dangerous road in the world in Bolivia. Everybody dies on that road. And we rode it on mountain bikes. We just wanted to go down into the jungles of Bolivia from that. So we're riding our bikes down there. And at the start of the trail, all you see are empty alcohol bottles. People drink alcohol and they throw it on the side of the road. They down the entire bottle. It's gone. Just empty bottles. And they go, people really love to drink. You know, why are there all these bottles here? Empty bottles here. People are drinking the alcohol because they're scared to drive on that road where all the deaths take place. Chomp on that for a bit. Scary. Because, you know, they drink because they're scared of the death road. But it's the drinking that makes the death road. True story.

01:10:17 John Daub: All right, guys, that's all I got. None of these stories are from Japan. It's like world stories. I haven't been to Monaco, though. I gotta wait until I'm rich enough to have a race car. Drive around there. There are stories here. I'll have some more. Maybe we'll do some more campfire stories. We'll get Kanae Daub stories out. I've been to Singapore like a dozen times, man. And we didn't meet up there. Go back in Only Japan Go and take a look at the Singapore meetup. It's the greatest meetup in the history of meetups. We had 100 people. It's crazy. Love Singapore. Love Singapore. All right, guys, thanks so much for staying with me for like 70 minutes now. It's insane. You guys are crazy. Love that. Have fun. Stay safe. Have fun. Do what you gotta do to entertain yourself. Just don't watch Netflix all day. If it requires you ordering a cheap tent and setting up in your living room, do that. Because any little changes in your daily life routine make life awesome. All right. This makes no sense to the practical minded people are going, you're an idiot. This makes no sense. And the rest of you are digging this. I know. Have a good day. Have a good night. I don't know if I'm going to do a live stream tomorrow, but maybe. Kanae Daub and I have some really good ideas. So we'll get to work. And you too. Bye bye, everybody. Sleep tight. Just don't sleep in the beer like Okapi. He's up again. He's licking the tent. Lick it dry. Thanks, Okapi.