17:06 John Daub: He's talking about the history of Buddhism here in Koyasan. Our village, Jofuku, has an old Jizo called Enmeijizo. Do I know any siblings from there? I feel people here have an 860-year history. Enmeijizo (life-extending Jizo) is an important Jizo statue. It has been enshrined in Nakagoro in the Kamakura era.

19:25 John Daub: [Japanese chanting about Enmeijizo, life extension, six realms, protector of children, and prayers for the future].

19:49 John Daub: After this, I would like to invite you to come and visit us. Even though you have come all the way here, this is the kitchen of the Yamakura family. I am grateful for your help. I hope you will come here as often as possible. Also, it is the 4th anniversary of the COVID-19 pandemic. It is like a return holiday from this spring. I would like you to come and visit us. It is a quiet time, so please come and visit us. Thank you very much.

20:42 John Daub: First of all, I would like to congratulate the Yamakura family for their hard work. I had a good time with you all. Thank you very much. Please come and visit us one after another. We look forward to your cooperation. Please come and visit us. Thank you very much.

22:24 John Daub: This is our chief engineer, Mr. Kobo. Thank you very much. Please come in. Mr. Kobo, you are a super YouTuber. Yes, I am a YouTuber. Thank you for the Only in Japan camera today. No problem. Welcome to Koya. Thank you for coming up to the top. Today, I'm with 500 people. Mr. Kobo, please tell everyone that you are doing well. Thank you very much. Please come back. The Nankai train is over. This is the first president of the Nankai train. This is Mr. Matsumoto Juntaro. He was a Nankaiman of the Meiji era. Wow. This is amazing.

24:08 John Daub: He will play the role of Eiichi Shibusawa in the drama of Taiga next year. Asahi Beer, Daily Shimbun, Toyobo, JR West Japan, and many other places.

25:32 John Daub: So I wanted to explain what just happened here. It's about 7 in the morning here. And yesterday I made a donation for all of us through all of the Super Chats I received yesterday for prayer at the morning chant. And you heard this maybe about 10 minutes into the livestream. He mentioned the Only in Japan community and everyone from around the world. And this was going out to everybody in the community for some safety and so that your family can be safe. And we prayed for that here at Koya-san here at Jofuku-in Temple. And it was a really moving experience to hear that. They spent part of their morning prayers for us.

26:36 John Daub: I see a lot of armchair detectives. Of course, we have permission to film. We were invited to film. So I like that openness about Koya-san. People are very peaceful and understand that maybe you don't know a lot about Buddhism here. It's a little bit more flexible. And I think that that opens it up a lot and teaches people more about Buddhism, about what they're doing. When things are overly strict and restrictive, you don't have the ability to get in and learn about it. And this was really amazing because we were able to do that. I'm so thankful for this opportunity. So that was for all of you, for all the support. Maybe you didn't understand everything that was going on. But it's still really peaceful to be a part of a morning chant. And they do it every morning here at temples in Koya-san. And it's a very relaxing part of the day.

27:48 John Daub: Next up, we're going to eat breakfast. Here's the morning chant. So when you come, make sure you come in your morning clothes. Don't come in a yukata. And just be very respectful and you can enjoy morning chants. I'm going to ask about who Matsumoto-san was too. But I believe he was a very powerful person and important to this temple. Breakfast is at 7:30. This is what's called a shukubo (temple stay). I spent a really nice night sleeping.

29:15 John Daub: This is a long way around. They're going to open the curtains soon. There's a really nice garden in the middle here. That's the garden in front of my room. I'll take you to the room right now. Then I gotta go for breakfast. I put a picture of the breakfast on Instagram. So you can take a look. Sorry, the dinner yesterday on Instagram.

30:59 John Daub: The kitchen. That's interesting. He's in the kitchen blessing and chanting over there. That's very spiritual. I like this because whenever you're here, you feel like something bigger than yourself. I'm not a deeply religious person, but it's hard not to feel something special here. No matter what your religion is.

32:06 John Daub: I'm not exactly sure, but I'm not lost. My room is here. This is my futon. Beautiful mural of Mount Fuji on the wall here. And a nice garden view on this side. I want to say thank you for the donations yesterday, which go to this temple. You can play back the prayer that he made for our community live. I wanted to do it live so that some of you were here. And I didn't get too much of an opportunity to set up the live stream, but it was still pretty cool.

33:10 John Daub: Today, I'll be going back to Tokyo. Situation in Tokyo is not too good. There's a lot of people who aren't doing too well. A lot of sick in Tokyo. So I'm a little bit worried about that. I've got mask, face shield, glasses. So I'll be able to take every precaution. It might look a little ridiculous, but I don't really care. It's about just staying safe right now and making sure that I get home safely. And probably not going to be going out for a while after this. But this was a really special trip. And I'm here to scout out for an episode I'll be filming later on when things are a little bit safer. But right now, there's no international tourists here. The tourists that are here at Koya-san, they're all living in Japan. Tourists like me. People who are living, teaching, working. They're coming and traveling as well. So tourists are still here.

34:09 John Daub: I want to answer some of your questions as well. I want to say thank you to everybody who gave super chats for the prayer. That's really nice. Kalpana Goel, prayer contribution, thank you. That's going to the temple. Osayuru-san from Canada. Tony P, of course. Nice to see you, Tony. Jennifer French, thank you. Tone Tran, John Kimura. Bobby Brown, welcome. Chicago African, how you doing? Francis Remigio Salas. Been twice, never got to stay overnight. I definitely have to come back here then. Ithsal Perez. It's a little bit of a canceled trip. I'm glad that I could bring you a little bit to Koyasan. And you can take a look at this beautiful garden. The Pants Ninja, welcome. I like the name. John Flynn, tasty Chronicles, more towards today's blessing. You got it. Yvonne Shintaro and Kabola from Denmark. Miriam Caro. Raymond Centeno. Brad Fletcher.

35:29 John Daub: Thanks for sharing. That photo was Matsumoto Juntaro, the first president of Nankai Electric back in 1895. Very interesting. Thank you, Raymond. Nankai is the railway that gets here, and the buses all up to Koyasan are from Nankai. So he really opened up Koyasan, I think. And that's a good thing because that's how people can come, that's how this sect of Buddhism can continue, with support from lodgers, from pilgrims. The reason why these shukubo exist, in large part, is because of pilgrims, people who are on pilgrimages to visit all of the shrines. And some people say that the Shikoku 88 Temple pilgrimage starts here in Koyasan, and then from here you go into Shikoku Island and come back around. It takes 88 temples around Shikoku that you can walk to, and it takes approximately three to six months. You don't have to do it all at the same time. You can do it like trip one, trip two, trip three, and finish the entire course. Some people do that over the course of their life. I should start to do that, too. I think that's a really good thing to stop your life and do something like this, a pilgrimage, people hiking around.

37:00 John Daub: G Photography, thank you for the prayer experience. You're very welcome. Paul McClure from Canada. Chad Woodward, thank you for the prayer session. Yeah, and Brad Fletcher wrote in here, with all the junk on YouTube, it's nice to have a creator with high standards and appreciates fans doing what you do, sir. I feel very strongly that you are here with me, and it's important that you get that kind of feeling, too. I'm glad that you do.

37:27 John Daub: This is my room. It's a little bit of a mess. That's my yukata from after taking a bath. I probably should have done a better job of cleaning up. Very comfortable. If you've never slept on the floor, it's very soft. Tatami, in general, is quite soft and natural, and you're not going to find this in too many more places in Japan. Gradually, they're getting rid of tatami, which is kind of a sad thing. But the futon comes with a cushion. There's a pad underneath it, so you do get some good cushioning. This is the prayer, and here's the contribution that we made. Yeah, I'm thankful for everybody who gave that. There's a book on the teachings of Buddha. You can get this at the front desk if anyone is interested.

38:39 John Daub: I'm going to go to breakfast. I'm glad that we can spend the morning together. I'll probably do another live stream in a couple of hours, if you're interested. I'll try to announce that like 30 or 40 minutes in advance and show you a little bit around this area, take you with me on this scouting trip as I'm looking for things to cover for Only in Japan for the series. This is why I do the live stream. You can come with me in Only in Japan Go, and it's kind of a neat experience. I share with you live because you are here, too, right now. If you have any questions, leave them below, and I'm happy to answer about shukubo or any of the experiences that we have here in Japan.

39:32 John Daub: Beautiful garden, isn't it? I could live here. Shojin ryori (Buddhist temple cuisine) for breakfast, of course, because this is a temple. That's what you would eat. All right, everybody. Have a good day. Have a good night. Good night for most of you in the US, but if you hang out, hang around a little bit. Look for the notification for another episode. You can catch me on Instagram. I put in stories a link to the description, a link to the video, as well as Patreon and some of the other sites. I try to give you the notification because YouTube sometimes misses a notification or two. Bye-bye, guys.