00:00:02 John Daub: Hey, everybody, welcome. Welcome to a speedboat on Lake Biwa. That's right. I'm on the water. Live streaming from Shiga Prefecture. You can see the beautiful scene outside the window. This is Japan's deepest and biggest lake right in the center of the country. And we're going to a special place. How you doing, everybody? We're going to a special place, Shirahige Shrine, which is over 2000 years old.

00:00:36 John Daub: And I'm going there by ship, by speedboat, I should say, because getting a view of this by water is one of the most unique things that you can do here on Lake Biwa. I'm going there to. The shrine itself is pretty interesting too. I've got a drone that I'm going to be flying. I can't show you the footage live, but I thought this would be a great opportunity to bring you with me. That's what the Only in Japan Go Channel is. This is all about bringing you with me on these really amazing adventures. We're getting close. The other side, you can see. Very shortly, we're gonna have the Torii Gate that's floating in the water, very much like Miyajima here in Shiga Prefecture. A lot of people don't know about this.

00:01:38 John Daub: This boat, by the way, is killer, man. Look at the steering wheel on this thing, too. And you can see there's a map over there. So we know where we are. Yeah, we're going pretty fast. It's so fast you probably can't even hear me. Let's hope the 4G signal holds, because what I want to show you is pretty darn incredible. But what I really like about Lake Biwa is the views around it. I don't know. Always in the rainy season, the clouds on the mountains look so mysterious. As the rain goes through Japan, it gets trapped in these clouds on the other side. It's a really magical view, I think. How you doing, everybody? Noah, this boat is not public to ride. You have to charter it. And. Yeah, this is not public transportation. Let the waves part. I'm gonna bring you out here.

00:02:40 John Daub: The wind. Wind is too strong, so I might have to take you inside. Yeah, the wind is way too strong. It's very hard to hear on the outside, but it is a lot of fun. Just check out how fast we— 200 knots. I don't think that's how fast we're going. That's how fast we're going. Pretty amazing. All right. Very, very soon, we're going to be getting closer to there, but I wanted to share a little bit of the amazing ride with you because going at this speed, it's always— and no one's chasing us. Don't worry. Nobody's actually chasing us. And I won't. Jake, thank you. I'm not going to drop the camera. How you— Good day to you. Here are some tokens for the visit to the shrine. Thanks. I don't know if we're going to go inside, but. Oh, we're like, looping in.

00:03:48 John Daub: Well, we're going real low. Oh, there it is. There it is. There it is. It's floating right there. Do you see it? That's awesome. That's it right in front of us. Awesome. You guys are in for a real treat. We're gonna— we're gonna turn a little bit right now. I'll be able to show it to you. But seeing the shrine from the water is really special. I'm gonna launch my drone, get some shots before we leave here. So this is going to be kind of a shorter stream, but renting a boat is a really great option to get around Biwa just to enjoy an afternoon. I'll put a link in the description if I can find information on how you could do that yourself. So I— I have my— I have my mask, but it's all right. It's all right. All right, I'm going to show you now. We're going to be turning into— as we slowed down a little bit, we're going to be turning into the— into the Torii Gate of Shirahige Shrine. This shrine is so important here in Japan. It's over 2000 years old, and I believe the captain's gonna turn right now. We have a lot of— a lot of people watching in the front window. Mama. All right, so I'm gonna try— I'm gonna get the drone out in a second.

00:05:23 John Daub: People a little bit shy because of the camera. Don't worry about it. But you can see— There it is. That is the floating torii of Shirahige Shrine, which is such a beautiful sight. It is actually floating in the water. Let me get it centered here. Sorry about that. That shrine is over 2000 years old. I believe it was 5 BC that it was established. And I wouldn't say it's floating— it's in the water, and it looks like it's floating. It's very similar to the shrine at Miyajima. Miyajima's floating torii, they call it, but that's down in Hiroshima Prefecture. This one is in Shiga Prefecture, and you can get there by train. It's not too far off of the— the track, but it is a little bit of a hike from Kyoto maybe. I don't know. I'm gonna say like 40 minutes or so by boat. It took us like 15. Just put it out there. How cool is that, right? And there's other things that you can do around here. There's a whole industry built to entertain people. I think they're kayaking or something over there.

00:06:59 John Daub: But I want to show— I want to give you a view of the entire area before we cut off this live stream and just share with you what it's like to be in a— in a boat like this and see a little bit of Shiga. We can't get off and go into the shrine. I think that's something that you can do. But this is a point that you're not going to see a lot of— of this shrine. Not a lot of times you're going to see this from the sea. So that's just pretty cool. Don't fly off the boat. Don't lose the drone. Yeah, I almost lost my hat. That would be a crime. That would be a crime. Very beautiful. Let me pan around a little bit here. So, Shirahige Shrine, 2000 years old. You can get here by train. It's an amazing attraction here in Shiga Prefecture. But anywhere you go on the lake, just look at the view. On a day like this in the summer, this is where you want to be. And if you are at home, staying home, that's a good thing. I'm here bringing Japan to you. So, yeah, I put a link in the description. You can find it on Google Maps. It's really cool.

00:08:34 John Daub: Craig Kawaguchi, thank you. Mr. Pears here. I would love to go scuba diving here. The visibility is not very good. It's been raining heavily, so the water is a little bit murky. All the rivers pouring into Lake— Lake Biwa. That's a very beautiful sight, isn't it? And fearless. Yes. There's no ghost spiders here. Maur. Thanks. I'm glad that this made your day. The boat in itself. Hey, Marty. The boat itself. You can just check out the engines on this thing. Look at that. There's some massive engines. And they put it in glass to make it to show the power of this speedboat, which is really cool.

00:09:35 John Daub: Suzanne tran. John Kimura. Mr. Water. Thanks, guys. So there you go. That's just a short stream to— to check in. Thunderbeard's here. Nice to see everybody. You can check out the history on the link that I put in the description of this place. I highly recommend that you make a trip here. You can come by speedboat or you can probably maybe even come by— What do you call those things? Jet skis. Hey, Shane. How you doing? Awesome. All right, now I'm gonna get the drone— drone. Wow. I have freedom. I can be here as long as I want to. Whoa. Did you see, dude, he just raced past the shrine in like a thousand miles per hour. Do you see that? Do you see that? Wow. He could crash. Guys. Psycho. Do it again.

00:10:37 John Daub: Oh, this is awesome. We're seeing exclusive footage of a jet ski going at top speed, going straight past Shirahige. Whoa. Whoa. Did you see that? Do it again. Do it again. That was awesome. He kept going like Forrest Gump after he scored the touchdown. He just kept going out of the stadium. There you go. You saw it here first. Like it's breaking news. Very interesting. I'm gonna get some drone footage here. Do you guys have any questions on the shrine and the experience? Hi. I'll put a link in the description after— after the video. We'll put a link in the description so you can check it out. If you're interested in renting this James Bond boat, I'm calling the James Bond boat. It's called— like, Yanmar. I think that's the name of the engine, though. It's called Yanmar. Maybe Myanmar, I think. I think that might be the name of the engine, though. It's a pretty cool boat. It's— it's seats about seven or eight people can come on this. And you spend a really good afternoon speeding down Lake Biwa. You get the other side back in like an hour. It's so fast.

00:11:40 John Daub: Oh, psycho. Coming. It's coming this way. Do it. Flip. He went through the shrine through the Torii gate. Is that okay? Nigel. Vogue. Is he okay? It's like some sort of disrespectful faux pas maybe. I don't know. This isn't a— it's kind of— kind of freaky. Yeah. Don't shrine through the gate, okay? It's respect. Don't do what he did. Like, now they're angry. I'm talking about him. Yeah. Try to do that with this boat. We'll run you over. No, we won't do that. Love and peace. Shane and Irvine have once again part of the three amigos. Thanks, guys. Wow. So they're saying about 2,000 years ago, they always also had a torii in there. Maybe not this one, but you can see it's very similar to the one in Miyajima. It's got the double hooks on the side. A pretty big scale. The closer that we get to it, you see, we've gotten a little bit closer to it. Megana Rid writes in here. Youngsters these days. Cough, cough. Make sure you wear a mask with that cough, sir. Beautiful. All right. Oh, really? All right. So I'm gonna try to fly the drone from here now. Look how big it is. This is wonderful. Look. Oh, this is great.

00:13:12 John Daub: Look. So straight through there. You can see to the shrine through the gate— torii gate. It's beautiful. So interesting from the water, isn't it? Yeah. Tomorrow, Kevin Riley is going to be here, and we're going to be going to the Bokucho, the— the Wagyu farm, and then going to eat the Wagyu farm to table kind of an episode coming up. Omigyu is one of the top three Wagyu brands. A lot of you never heard of Omigyu. That's shocking to me as someone who lives in Japan. Omigyu is so famous here, and so many people just know about Kobe beef. Hopefully after this episode, you get a better understanding of Japanese beef in general and Omigyu and why, if you're in Kyoto, you better come to Shiga and have some beef, man, because you want to eat it from the source.

00:14:16 John Daub: I think it's always the best. All right, guys. I hope— Hey, Captain. Captain Anarok. Yesterday, I had three of the main symptoms. Oh, I'm so sorry to hear that. But I'm glad that you're okay. Glad you're okay, and these episodes have cured you in a way. Do be safe, everybody out there, please, please be safe. So there you go. I'm here until Saturday. It's a real treat to be able to see another side of Japan. And a lot of people really love to go to just the cities. You hit all the main sites when you come to visit Japan. I want to show you, for the rest of the year, places that might inspire you to get off of the beaten path. I mean, Shiga is— like, everybody knows about Kyoto. It's only eight— eight minutes. Eight minutes. Yeah. Yeah. I just confirmed it's eight minutes by train to get to get to Lake Biwa. And if you've never seen it before— King Wan. Okay, there's no vending machine out here on the thing, but we'll put that to good use a little bit later. Yeah. Thanks. Guys. All right, that's it from here. I'm gonna go and get the drone. But I hope that this episode was pretty interesting. I'll put a link. Once again, if you're interested in renting boats is a really great place that you can do it. This boat is also a possibility. Just— it's— it's so cool. Yeah. I've never seen a boat that goes this fast. Chicago Africans in the house. I see that. Absolutely. I'll get Kanae something. Going home. There you go. Last 10 seconds. Enjoy the shrine. Enjoy this view. And again, like, hopefully we can all get— we can get over this pandemic. And I'll pray right now for all of you to stay safe and—

00:16:34 John Daub: Yeah. See you. See you again a little bit later on tomorrow or maybe tonight as we continue the live streams from Shiga Prefecture. Hey, stan, give it a little bow that you all bowed for you for the prayer at the end. Bye, guys.