00:00:06 John Daub: How you doing everybody? We are now driving the highway. Is this the E4? We're not sure. Driving the highway going up to Fukushima. And I thought this would be a great opportunity to talk about driving in the countryside and the highways. Look at how beautiful it is. The blue skies, those beautiful white clouds, the green on the left and the right. A far cry from Tokyo. It's so nice to get out of the city.

00:00:31 John Daub: As we pan around here. And for the next 30 minutes or so, we're going to be talking about driving in Japan on the highways and out in the countrysides. We're getting close to Iwaki in Fukushima. And so far we've had a really beautiful day. How you doing everybody? I've rented this van. Not so much rented it, but we're using this van from a company called Dream Drive. Jared is in charge of it, an Aussie who started this company. And you can see behind me. Check this out.

00:01:06 John Daub: There's a bed back there. There's one up on the top and one down on the bottom. And there's a little sofa. It's pretty comfortable. It's almost like a camper van. But the difference is that it's not quite as spacious. And we're going to be going out for a few days to film. Can I tell them? Is it top secret? It's not secret. Yeah, onsen (hot springs). So we're going to be filming onsen. Basically showing wild onsen. I don't think we want to tell them that, Greg.

00:01:38 Greg: This is a big, and yes, that's Greg from Life Where I'm From. He's not going to look at the camera because he's concentrating on the road.

00:01:38 John Daub: Concentrating on the road. So this is something that I think both of us have a big passion for. And onsen, though, I think the way that you might see it as a visitor to Japan and the way that I see it as somebody who's been living here for so long and Greg as well might be a little bit different. So this is a pretty neat episode. Check this out. Look how beautiful it is. Pretty neat episode that we're going to be making. I'll have my point of view and Greg has his. And we're going to share some resources like this car. And we have to bunk together for the next three days. What could go wrong, right Greg? Nothing.

00:02:24 Greg: You just got that really short.

00:02:29 John Daub: I got to tell that story. I don't know if I should tell them now. Maybe do this at night when we have to actually bunk there. So in the back, this is sort of a problem. No food fights, Alexander. So in the back, there's two beds. There's a big bed which is on the bottom and then that bunk bed which is made for someone who's 5'9". How tall are you, Greg? 5'4"? Not even. You're not even 5'4"? Generously I'm 5'4". I'm so lucky that I'm going with Greg because if it were anybody else, I don't think... I tried to see if I could fit there, Kanae. You're about the same size as Kanae, right? Maybe. Yeah, Kanae couldn't really fit up too well. So I was like, hmm, who's going to have the top bunk? I don't know.

00:03:15 John Daub: Greg tried it out and he fit pretty snug. You have to bend your legs. But we can... the thing with this and I'll show you this a little bit later on how this van works but it's really a lot of fun the way that it's set up. There's actually mosquito screens so we can keep the doors open and just put the mosquito screens down on both ends and have this really nice country air coming through as we sleep. I'm just kind of worried, Greg, and Greg's somebody who camps a lot about you know serial killers in the night. We are not locked in. They might be able to get into the van. There's nothing preventing them from coming in. Robbers and highway robbers and I just have seen more of those TV shows than most people I think. Kanae says I watch too many violent shows but cop mysteries and things like this stuff happens out in the countryside, right? Am I right or I don't know? I'm full of it, yeah.

00:04:16 John Daub: We actually just stopped for some snacks at a Japanese service area. Tony P's here. Tony says hi. Jennifer French is here. I love that one. That's the fireworks. That's pretty fitting with the fireworks festival coming up and Shane's here. The three amigos. Hello from fellow Winnipegger. Hello John and Greg. Uh oh. So you're from Winnipeg? Yeah, you didn't know that? I know you're from Canada. I just thought it was one big country. One big country, no. Oh, Winnipeg's up there, right? Winnipeg's one of the provinces, right? No, no. Wait, Calgary. It's the capital city of Manitoba. Manitoba, that's it. Yeah, it's above North Dakota. So while you're up there. So it's cold there. Yeah, I guess cold in the winter. Like in the summer plus 30. Minus 30. Yeah, but it's dry so it's not as bad as you think. Not as bad as I would think. I can't even think about that.

00:05:21 John Daub: We're gonna go through a tunnel here. The tunnels in Fukushima and in Tohoku are super long. Some of them go several kilometers, but it looks like we're at the end of it already. But they don't come in one tunnel. They'll be connecting tunnels, like four or five at the time. There's a little patch, and then you enter another tunnel. Just listen to the sound of my voice as we crisscross through. I think it's another tunnel right after we get at the opening here. So it's a little bit before, and I wanna get into the driving in Japan here, but it's a little bit before the colors change. It's still summer. But as you can see, driving on the highways in Japan is super easy outside of Tokyo. But in Tokyo, it is another, it is a completely separate problem, issue, challenge. Just watch my driving in Japan video.

00:06:41 Greg: That's right, you have a driving in Japan video, right? Yeah, yeah, and I drive up and through Tokyo. Not that much, but yeah, it sucks in Tokyo. But outside, it's good. Yeah, I got a driving in Tokyo video coming sometime this fall. It's scary. You have to know the roads in Tokyo. So if you are gonna be driving the highway in Tokyo, you have to know the roads very well. It actually, you need to study. If you don't study, you will get, and if you get lost, you have to go all the way around the entire city of Tokyo once again. This is, is that right? If you get off at a place that you don't know, it's easy to get lost. But luckily we have here navigation. Almost all the cars have navigation system. And Greg has, he's using Google Maps, which is very convenient. But when you use both of them, usually it's very hard to get lost these days. However, with that said, the exits on Tokyo's highway, the Shutokou (Tokyo Expressway), is so fast. It comes up on you, it just sneaks up on you, and says in 50 meters, turn left. It's like 50 meters, you're going like 80 kilometers an hour. It's very easy to miss your exit. Or you're in the right lane, and you have to exit on the left lane, and you can't get into the left lane because there's so many cars there. You have to kind of plan this in advance.

00:08:07 John Daub: Hey, Fukushima. Welcome to Fukushima. Fukushima. Are we supposed to do something, like bang the ceiling or something? Do you do that? You don't know? Like you have to turn on the headlights? I don't know. Some people have rules. No. Greg doesn't have these codes, driving long trips. The highways in Japan are very, very good, very smooth. When they do have construction, the construction usually is done pretty quickly, and it doesn't really create a lot of traffic. Japan's really good in that way. They have robots out there waving flags to tell you in advance that you have to swing into the right lane. Things like this. Service areas every 30 kilometers or so. But these are toll roads. They're expensive. Oh, yeah. Toll roads are so pricey. We end up spending, we'll probably end up spending a couple hundred dollars on tolls, right? I don't know, but it's more expensive sometimes than your rental, more expensive than your gas, for sure. Yeah. The gas is going to be a guzzler. This is a regular. It doesn't take diesel, but I know it has a very big tank.

00:09:23 Greg: What is the speed limit?

00:09:27 John Daub: See why he's laughing? You see why he's laughing? They have it up on the highway. I believe it's 90. It's 80. Okay. But no one believes. Nobody ever goes 80. But the speed limit is 80. Some highways, I've seen 110 up in Hokkaido. It just depends. Really? Some of the highways have raised the speed limits, but this is no Autobahn, okay? This is not. The police, though, I rarely see police on the- If you follow the speed of traffic in the left lane, I've never had a problem. Right. But people, this is the left lane, the slow lane, and it's 110 right now. The speed limit is much lower than 110. Yeah. But people, I remember I would go 100 and there'd be people passing me going like 150. Yeah, sure. But legally, it's 80. It should be 80. Yeah, it should be 80. And if it's the unwritten speed limit's 100. And the... Should I be saying this publicly? I don't know. This is E6, the Joban Expressway going up towards Tohoku. Tell the cops exactly where we are. Tell the cops exactly where we are. Sorry. Road marker, mile marker, 155.6. But you don't want to exceed the speed limit. As somebody who's just a resident here, I kind of... Okay. I'm going to try harder to adhere to the laws and rules just because I know people are always watching me. A little bit harder. So that's why you let me break this panel. That's why you're driving, Greg. Yeah.

00:10:59 John Daub: Actually, I drove here to pick him up. So he has more experience driving these bigger vehicles. How do you say in Canada, vehicle or vehicle?

00:11:06 Greg: Either.

00:11:10 John Daub: Either? Either, either. Okay. Either, either, vehicle. Because we have British stuff and we have American stuff. Vehicle. We have Canadian stuff. Do you say aluminum or aluminium?

00:11:18 Greg: No, aluminum.

00:11:21 John Daub: Okay, aluminum. The Brits say aluminium. It's kind of weird. So why is everybody... Is that an actual cop car and you won't let us... No, it's a toll highway type of car. And so he's actually going the speed limit. And so that's why we're slowing down every now and then. But it's not a cop car. Right. So I think people are starting to pass the person now. People are figuring, wait, that's not a cop car. We can pass him. But... It's too far away. I can't read what the sign says. But it's not a cop car. What's the speed limit? The speed limit? No, no, no. What the actual sign on the vehicle says. Oh, no. Yeah, my zoom is not that clear. Neither is my eyesight. But yeah, I think these guys are like, oh, okay, it's fine to pass.

00:12:07 John Daub: Ronald writes in here, pass with respect. I can dig that. Yeah. The people who run the highway, the highways are privately run by NEXCO. Oh, NEXCO? NEXCO. Yeah, NEXCO. On the truck, you can see NEXCO. So I remember I was hitchhiking at an interchange. And they told me to get off of there. And I said, well, wait a second. Okay, so this is not public. This is private. He goes, yes. Get off of... No hitchhiking on the highway. So I had to get down to the low road or onto the turn into the highway area. But NEXCO does a pretty good job of maintaining it. And the service areas in Japan are legendary. They're some of the best in the world. I've gotten a chance to find some impressive ones. Some of them look historical inside, like they come from the Edo period, renovated to kind of show Japan's history inside of a service area. But service areas are a place where... Japanese service areas... And by the way, the restrooms, I can use them, right? Japanese restrooms are usable, right? I mean, you could do a number... They're awesome. You could do a number two in there and not... I don't just say... I would never do that in the US. I'm just being honest with you. No, they're really clean. They're super clean. Yeah, you can do... So for those that are... To think... Yeah, it's like, this is live. So like, if you have to do a number two, you don't have to hold it. You can go there. No, like that's probably one of the features is that they make sure you have really clean restrooms. Right. It's weird. All the... Any families, there's probably some kid giggling in the corner. They're talking about, boop, boop, beep, beep, pa, ma, ma. Yeah, no, okay. That's just... Look, it's a part of life here. The restrooms here are top notch. So what are you gonna do about it? You have to mention it. Why not truck stops in America is cleaned? I would never use a US public restroom. If I can hold it for several hours, I can do that. But it's not healthy, so I don't recommend you do that. Just saying. You're too Japanized. I am very Japanified. Yeah.

00:14:22 Greg: Those speed limits are all... They don't have any indicators. I know. Did you see that? It's a digital speed limit. It was off. That's been like the fifth one in a row. Maybe it's off because it really is 110 and they don't have three digits. It was a two digit one. I don't know. I don't know why. I don't know why they're off though. Right.

00:14:39 John Daub: So we're headed to Fukushima, not the coast, although we're going inland now towards... Yeah, we're going pretty close to the middle. Right. Between the west coast and the east coast. Right. So we have kind of an appointment for filming there, but there's a lot of really unique onsens in Fukushima, I think, that... And I've already made a video on it that was a pretty good video, but there's so many more. It was pretty comprehensive. I think I filmed 16 different baths. I think it was 16. I think I filmed 12. 12, John. I watched it. In total, the livestreams. Oh. You have to watch both channels. Sorry. My apologies. Channels. Well, you have also the Life Where I'm From X... Life Where I'm From X, right? Yeah. So you have two channels... Two channels, right? And three. That's true. Two or two? Two. Yeah. I have three. Don't know why. Oh, the 360 channel. You have the 360 channel. But not everybody likes long format videos. Not everybody likes to be watching. I think they're all pretty damn good.

00:16:12 John Daub: If you want to rent a car and get up to Chitose Airport in Sapporo, you can rent a car and the highways up in Hokkaido are extremely well maintained. It's actually wider in Hokkaido. Yeah, a little bit wider. Yeah, it's more like American Canadian style. Like it's just everything is wider and bigger. That makes sense. Bigger trucks going by there, more camper vans. But it also, Hokkaido is perfect for motorcycling. If you know how to rent a motorbike, renting a motorcycle and spending a summer up there, it's so cool at night. Just bring a sleeping bag. You sleep outside right next to your bike. Wake up and get back on the road. Something that I'm probably going to do next summer if the Olympics are not held. I think they're going to have the Olympics. It's all right. Another thing that's really interesting about driving instead of taking the train is the reason why I got my license is because there's so many attractions, so many places in Japan you can't get to unless you have a car. And Shinkansen (bullet train) is very convenient. You can get to some tourist sites. But the sites that I want to take you to in the series and Only in Japan require a car to get there. And if you have that ability, you open up the country to a lot more places. Japan's trains are really convenient and I live in Tokyo. So buying a car makes no sense. However, renting one makes a lot of sense. The rental prices for cars start about, you can get a cheap one for up to $30 a day, but they're extremely compact. And those companies have a lot of things that they try to upsell to make it back. But usually we're getting in and out out here in the countryside.

00:17:59 John Daub: The thing about the countryside roads, when you get off of the highway, and here's a service area you can get off every now and then. Some of them are parking areas. Some of them are service areas. Service areas are nice. They have usually a cafe, a bakery, a couple of restaurants, really big bathrooms in there. They show you all the traffic. So you get a digital screen inside of the service, the parking area, the service areas of where the traffics are. Parking areas are usually what they are, what they say they are. You park on the side of the road and you can get a vending machine, coffee, and take a break, shut your eyes for a couple of hours if you want to. But that's pretty much standard everywhere. But what you can see already on the road signs is that they have everything in Japanese, in kanji and in English. That's it. Koriyama going to the left and Sendai going to the right. So whether you can read Japanese, or not, you can get around Japan just fine. It's very internationalized. I'd say maybe 30 years ago, maybe they didn't have signs too often in English outside of the major cities. But when I came to Japan 23 years ago, they started to put in more signs in English in the train stations. It became more globalized at that era. So the 1990s, big shifts in the highway for globalization were taking place. Now you can see again Sendai and Koriyama. Are we going towards Koriyama yet? Into the inside. So Sendai is that way, going towards the coast. We're going deep Koriyama on the Tohoku Expressway. People saying the signal's not good. I wish I could broadcast from the roof, but it's not quite permissible. Anybody have any questions about driving in Tokyo? Driving in Japan? Driving in the countryside roads? We're happy to answer them for you for the next couple of minutes.

00:19:52 John Daub: Who is Greg? He's Greg. Greg has a channel called Life Where I'm From and he introduces life where he's from, which is Japan. But he has... He's someone sort of like me in a way. He makes it more in a longer documentary type of format, narrating over the videos and telling a story. I think... If you like Only in Japan, you're gonna like Life Where I'm From, maybe. Most people do. I told you! I told you! You missed me. No, I didn't. I'm looking back. Can you see him through the window? Robot man, come back! Oh! That was a full, like... Yeah! It's not even like a digital, like, sign one. It's a full-on robot man. Maybe we'll get a chance to see one, but NEXCO puts in human-looking figures that takes the place of a job and the dude is like 3D and he's got the thing and it looks like a real man. It's a mannequin, right? It's a mannequin. A moving... A moving mannequin, not a robot. Is it a robot? If it's moving and has electronics, does that make it a robot? Mannequins don't move, Greg. Animated mannequin. I think you just made that up. I think an animated mannequin is a robot. Am I wrong? Let me know. Cyborg? No, cyborg's half human, half robot.

00:21:28 John Daub: Have you done any robot videos yet? No? The tolls are really expensive. Just driving around Tokyo is 700 yen. It's a basic fee to get on there. And if you miss your exit, you exit, you have to pay 700 yen again to get back on. So it adds... Each mistake costs you 700 yen, so don't make a mistake. That's why I said if you miss your exit, sometimes people will just go around the whole city again, like the Yamanote Line, to get back out because they don't want to pay the 700 yen. Depends how busy you are and how much you like driving, I guess. How much is a Japanese driver's license? Good question. It's not expensive, otherwise I would have known. It's under 100 dollars, isn't it? It's under 100 dollars. It's not very expensive. And it lasts for what, like five years? There's a catch, though. You need to have... You have to go to a school. Like I did Gaimen Kirikae (license conversion for foreigners). You're lying. So wait, you don't have to go to a driving school? You just have to pass the test? No, you have to be Canadian. And you have to be fine. But what about Japanese? Oh, well, you have to get your driver's license. Kanae had to go to a driving school and she had to pay about 3,000 dollars and she got her license. But it took like three months of studying. You don't have to do that at school, though. Oh, no? No, no. Like my nephew, he's almost 18. He wants to do like a three-day intensive one where he just goes for three days, learns how to drive, gets his license. Yeah, they have... Out in the countryside, they have driving school camps. How much fun is that? Where you go with like 30 different people, and by the end of the camp, you have a license. So, that's pretty cool.

00:23:16 Greg: Oh, we're getting onto a... We're going to go through a tunnel in a second. Greg, did you have the new Leaf sticker? Was it fun? Yeah, he didn't get that. Because I didn't get a Japanese license. Alright, we might lose... This looks deep. We might lose you for a couple of minutes. Oh, no, no, look. There's a light at the end of the tunnel.

00:23:42 John Daub: I didn't go through a driving school, but I did hire some people to teach me how to drive. Not teach me, but to practice. Because I always felt like it was in my best interest to be as safe as possible because driving... Because you can see Greg's on... If we're in the United States or Canada, you're on the other side of the road driving here. For me, it wasn't too big of a... I don't know. Was it a big deal for you to drive on the other side of the road when you first came here, Greg?

00:24:09 Greg: That wasn't as big of a deal as just the narrow roads. Narrow roads really got me. Because Canada's roads are so wide. Oh, right. But sometimes, especially in Tokyo, you're on a street and then the line disappears, but it's still a two-way street. What do you do? You have to figure that out. You've got to figure it out.

00:24:29 John Daub: I was... You know what? I was kind of mentally into it because if you live in Japan, you're walking on the left side. So my problems were, even though I wasn't driving in Japan, when I went back home and drove again, I would be taking left turns and swinging into the wrong lane because just mentally, that's the way I was thinking based on the way Japanese walk in public because I was walking the way people drive on the left side of the road and ride a bicycle as well. I don't know. When I got in a couple of times, I almost got in an accident. Luckily, the population isn't as high as here in Japan. In certain places in the US, there's 80 again. But driving on the left side of the road in the first couple of weeks, it was a little bit scary, but I got used to it. And now, it's when I go back home to the US, I'm more worried about it because I spend more time now behind the wheel over the last 10 years, over the last 3 years, I should say, on the left side.

00:25:29 Greg: So John, maybe you should explain. So with an American license, you have to retest in Japan to get your Japanese license, is that correct? Right. With Canada, you just go and you just transfer your license and exchange it. You don't have to do a test. You're one of the blessed. Yeah. I'm American. I'm one of the cursed. So there's nationalities that are blessed and nationalities that are cursed. Americans are cursed except unless you live in Maryland and Washington State. And I don't know why. Oh, they can do that? Yeah. If you're Washington and Maryland, you don't need a license. You don't need to take the driving test. I had to take the actual road test and a miniature driving exam. With ten questions. And there's always three of them that try to mess you up. All right? And you have to fight. You're like, that doesn't make sense. If I got to, if I pick the other one. All right. And then I just go against my feelings and I got it right. I had a nine out of ten right I got on the test. So it's an A. It's A minus, but it's an A. I'll take it. But the driving test was really hard. You didn't have to take the, you had to take the written test, right? Nothing? Nothing? Oh, yeah. Canadians are so trustworthy. Canadians are that trustworthy? They don't steal. They don't rob. There's no crime in Canada. Not in Vancouver. Your car is broken into, your bike stolen. Yeah. That's true. You do in the US too. Everywhere except Japan. Japan's got crime too.

00:27:19 John Daub: I got my laptop stolen from my car. My house. A person was starting to break into my house when my wife was there. Whoa. I don't know. People, I take our safety here in Japan way too much for granted. Sometimes I don't lock my door. Sometimes I won't lock the car door. I'll go to the restroom and I'll just leave the door open. I don't know. Rubble. Yeah. I just think like, why would anybody want to take anything? I got nothing that they want, but people have done stranger things. In Japan, I guess sometimes we get too complacent with the safety that we're in, which is why Japanese get in trouble when they go abroad with trusting people. Sometimes they trust, they don't ask enough questions. They're like, oh, I'm paying the money so I can trust them because they're doing business. And guess what? They get ripped off. But the longer you live in Japan, the more you get really comfortable with the safety here. Driving though, there are accidents on the road. You do have to drive safely. And I've seen my share of insane people driving at 150 kilometers or 200 kilometers an hour in sports cars down the highway to know that when you are driving on the highway, stay in the left lane as much as possible. Don't drive in the right lane, right? Like right now we're in the left lane. Right? You wouldn't do that. Yes, you would. Actually, you would. I get close enough, I don't. So the passing lane is this lane and you get tickets. I mean, but that's always the thing, right? Yeah, we'll stay out of the passing lane. Well, well. Unless you're passing, right? Right lane is the fast lane. Yeah. In the US, the right lane is the slow lane. That was the thing that confuses me sometimes. Oh, right. Right? The fast lane is over there. That's a, was that a hog? That was a wild boar sign. Wild boar sign, yeah. How do the wild boars get up here at elevation to cross this highway? I wonder how the wild boars get up here. Find a way. It's a boar crossing.

00:29:14 Greg: There's another one of those pacer cars. Anything else about Japan? So the countryside roads, they're very narrow and they're not quite as maintained. One of the things that you have to think about is the narrowness of it. And I usually will go into Google Maps and just kind of check out some of the roads out in the mountains just to see what it's like to get a feeling of it. Google Maps gives you that kind of opportunity. That's a NEXCO car. Google Maps gives you an opportunity to take a look and see what the roads look like. So it's good to kind of scout ahead a little bit and get some pictures of the roads as well as you can just follow along the certain patches. But in general though, driving in Japan, once you get out of the city...

00:29:56 John Daub: Oh, there's the robot, dude! Did you see it? I tried to... I was at a service area and I was filming it and the NEXCO guy goes like this and don't film the robot. I don't know why. There's like intellectual property inside of him. It's the robot. If you miss the robot, you have to go in the playback to see it. All right, now it's at 60 kilometers per hour which is the speed limit. But in general though, the speed limit on the highway is 80. It gets that in 60s. For construction zones, you want to be careful. It says 50 miles per hour, 50 kilometers per hour. Kilometers. Yeah, kilometers. I have to check myself. Queen of Tacos is in the house. I saw Mr. Das. Haijian tunnels are super cool. Not for the signal though. Hey, hey, you got the... Oh, is that it? No, I think this is a flat guy. He's not 3D. Oh, he's not 3D. Yeah, this is the standard. Yeah. He's white. He's white though, isn't he? Yeah. He's a white dude. I'm hoping to ride a motorcycle with PBG. PBG likes his privacy though. He likes to go off on his own and think like a man. Grit his teeth. I said, hey, I'll get a license. Let's go out together. He goes, no, man. I like to go out there on my own. Do the PBG thing. That's how I roll.

00:31:38 Greg: How's this thing driving? Plains yet. But we're not into like the little... We're going to go to some really little mountain roads. I didn't know if I told you that, John. Super mountain roads. Uh oh. Like really in the mountains, switchbacks. Strobe. Strobe. I don't think we're going to have a signal for that one. I'll just strobe that. Mr. Das writes in here, man's got that full G license. What is a G license? If you're a G, you're a gangster. Oh, gangster. Gangsta. That might be the ability to drive trucks. This one you just need a normal driver's license to drive. No, this one's normal. This one's normal. Yeah, this one's normal.

00:32:15 John Daub: Bradshaw Studios here. Brenda from Hawaii. Brenda, were you able to see the streams yesterday? Hi, Jeff. Enjoy the trip. Great to have a live stream. Hi to Kanae. Kanae's probably watching live at home. She's just waking up. If not, she's watching the playback. Hi, Kanae. Greg's driving now. Don't worry. She thinks like this vehicle's too big for me. It's true. Hey, Madison's here. Welcome, Madison. Does this look like the roads in Canada, eh?

00:32:42 Greg: Not this section. In Hokkaido, some places are thought that's like Canada. But I mean, just all the little details, they're not like Canada at all. So, yeah. So, no, I would say no. It's different, yeah. It's like the sign is like, we don't have these little digital signs like that. Oh, right. There's some technology on the highways here. And our highways wouldn't be barriered like the same way usually. There might be a section or two in Canada, but we normally don't have these types of barriers in between. At least where I drive in.

00:33:23 John Daub: It's funny. I forget about American highways because I'm just so used to seeing the Japan ones now. I guess there are differences. It's twisting and winding through these mountain roads. We don't have many of the same type of scenery, geography. Yeah. So Japanese highways are different in that sense. SOS phone. The what? SOS phone. Right. There's SOS phones all over the place. So if you do break down, they do have help. NEXCO, which is the private company maintaining it, has those vehicles that are consistently monitoring it. So even if you do break down, Japan is such a compact country. Even in Hokkaido, somebody is monitoring the roads all the time. So we don't get into too much trouble breaking down here. It's actually, it would probably be a pretty neat experience. I can make a video on that. Breaking down in Japan. They'd think I had like a baseball bat and went into a post office or something. Now the car broke down. But for those joining us, we're actually renting a, I don't know if it's a camper van or like a converted van. It's a converted van to camping in. But on the bottom is a bed and on the top is a bed. And we're going to be sleeping here for the next couple of nights. Going through Fukushima, exploring some of the wild onsen, some of the places that are quite unique that I don't think any YouTubers have filmed. That's sort of the attraction of it. And also getting a chance to get away. We've both been in, me, until about a few weeks ago in like lockdown. So yesterday I got out for a series of live streams. There are a little bit too many people for my comfort, I thought. But it went pretty good. You try to take as many precautions as you possibly can in this pandemic era. But the show must go on.

00:35:24 John Daub: So I'm looking here at some of the questions that you have here. Make a rest stop video job. Actually, one of the things you do need to do is have permission to do that. I've done a couple of them. On the old channel, I have a, rest stops in Japan, service areas we call them, have local food. There's also like Michi no Eki (roadside stations). Which is a way for you to get a, Michi no Eki are like roadhouses from towns. And they put a lot of the foods that they sell inside of the local towns on an area that's very easily accessible by road. So you could stop and pull into these Michi no Eki and get fresh vegetables from the farmers there. You can get food, cuisine, like breaded pork cutlets made from pork from that town. Things like this. But I found though that on the highway, all of the service areas have some unique food that brings customers, come on, bring some customers in to that particular one. Tomobe was one that had a food challenge. Tsukuba Mountain isn't too far away. And they made this pork, um, bowl of rice. Massive bowl. And you could take that in as a food challenge. So I went there and tried to eat the whole thing. And we failed the first time. Went back and finished it. Like, man, me and Dean. But, uh, uh, yeah, Elijah doesn't eat pork. I don't, I, they have sometimes with chicken too. And different kinds of meat. and maybe even vegetables. You just have to look for it. But certain areas of Japan are famous for pork. Certain ones... That's the robot guy again! Why are none of them on the left side here? You know the movie Up? You know the dog? He's like, squirrel! Squirrel! It's the robot guy. Yeah, but you can see the squirrel for like one second, right? The robot guy doesn't move, but we're moving pretty fast.

00:37:18 John Daub: Retake the burrito challenge. That was not a burrito! That was a gyoza. And I believe a lot of other YouTubers, including Chris, tried to eat it. I think he failed. I don't know anybody that can eat it. I can tell you this. Do you want to hear some information? I could break some news here. I hurled a lot after I ate that. After we... I thanked the owner. And when I got outside, it was about 100 degrees Fahrenheit. It was like 30... 34 degrees that summer. I was all sweaty and oily from... from it. And I... Like it all came out. And for the next day and a half, I was really sick. From trying to eat that gyoza. Pushed the limits. I ate 65% of it. That's the Monster Jumbo Gyoza Challenge that I've known for like 20 years now. The owner was... The owner... I was the only one that the owner would let... give an interview to. Nobody's ever gotten in to do an interview. So I asked him, so can you tell me why do you have this challenge? And he told me. But he never... He never does interviews now. So I was happy that I kind of made friends with them. Always make friends with the people before you film if you can. Go in and scouting. That's the advantage is... And then you get certain kind of access to it.

00:38:38 Greg: Mr. Das, will you handbrake park for a manhole cover?

00:38:42 John Daub: I... You know what? I've never seen a hand... manhole on the highway, but I... I think I would. The handbrake's like down here. It's a weird handbrake. Like you have to turn it, but... I would stop on the highway just to... I would. That's you. That's you. You're not... You're not a manholer. You can stop on the side. How do you know that? That was... You didn't even take the test. I was testing you. That was a test, Greg. You passed. Don't stop leisurely on the highway. No, no. You just passed it. Congratulations. Nobody believes me. I spade that out. I would not stop on the highway for a manhole cover. Emotionally, I would.

00:39:32 John Daub: Michael Sassano writes in here, I meant to send you this for the bottle of Yuzu Kosho. Yuzu Kosho (yuzu pepper paste) is so good. Thought you'd find a bottle in the kosho store. I did. I bought two bottles yesterday. Thanks, Michael. Kanae and I eat that stuff like crazy. It's my favorite condiment. It's great. Yeah. It's one of the Japanese things I never knew existed for... Yuzu Kosho? Before I came to Japan. Because in Canada, we have Japanese markets, but I don't know. It's just... How did I... How did I live my life without it for so long? I often ask myself this. This is the Tohoku Expressway from Koriyama going in... into Fukushima, into the center here. The sound of the train laps makes it sound like he's plotting an evil overlord.

00:40:20 Greg: True. I am plotting. I have plots. Things are turning. I'm gonna get behind the wheel again.

00:40:27 John Daub: I don't know. Do you... I like... I like being a passenger, but I also like to drive, too. But this thing is a beast to drive. I think you really do have to get used to something this big. There is a sink here. Do you see behind? So I get the sloshing water right on my ear, which is a unique sound. Are we getting closer to... Getting off here. Alright, the navigation. This is the city called Ono. Right. Tortoro Porco. Here's something for a snack. You got it. We'll stop off. They have some really good food in Fukushima as well. Just little mom and pop shops on the side of the road. It's nice to stop in and support the local businesses and try some of the offerings. And a lot of them are really popular. They're in guidebooks. Japanese guidebooks have a wealth of information. They're not for foreign YouTubers, but they can't read it. But because we live here, I shouldn't be saying that. I just like giving away all my secrets of how I find videos. Just... Alright, cancel that. What I just said there. Beautiful, that is.

00:41:54 Greg: I have a question for you. You got a question? Okay. Yeah, you know what I'm saying? Like, oh yeah, the food's really great in Fukushima, right? So, I hear Japanese people say that about every single prefecture. Is there a prefecture where the food isn't good?

00:42:13 John Daub: No, you know what? All right. All right. I take that question. I'll take it. And I'll give you an answer. I'm plotting. So, my answer is there's degrees of good. And if you look very closely in the degrees of good, the lower good degrees would probably be bad. But we would never say it was bad. We just say it's good and not great. Does that make sense? And if I have to... If I have to... I can say this. Probably the food is best in Hokkaido and Kyushu. Kyushu has probably the best food. It's the best food in all of Japan. It's just... Volcanic soil, temperature. It's ideal for the cows are really happy there. Hokkaido, the cows stay cool in the summer. I don't know. Something about Kyushu, the food just seems to taste a lot better down there. Shikoku as well. But I don't know. What do you think, Greg?

00:43:07 Greg: You answer your own question. How dare you give me that question? I just think it's funny because every single place you go, they're like, oh, the food's really great over there. It's so awesome. It's like... Where is it bad? I haven't heard someone say, oh, you know what, the food over there, I wouldn't eat it. How funny... I've never heard that. Like, funny haha? I didn't see you laughing about it. But, I mean, the truth is, in Japan on average, in comparison to Canada, like, the standard food is just a level higher. So, on average, you'll probably get a decent meal. Yeah. Yeah, even at, like, you know, like, the rest stops or anywhere you go in, it's usually pretty decent. I've only had a few bad meals there. I've had a few bad meals in all my time in Japan. That's... really? Where were your... where were those bad meals? Because they're usually quite memorable.

00:43:54 John Daub: Uh... actually, you know what? One of them I didn't like was Saizeriya. Saizeriya. That's true. This was, like, a decade ago, and they, like, I ordered a steak in quotation marks. Oh, right. Yeah. And it was not... and the salad was horrible, and the steak was not a steak, so, yeah, that was one of the places. That's your fault. I mean, come on. Steak at a family restaurant? Who does that? Well, Denny's is okay. I mean, I don't know. Denny's, Jonathan's, family restaurants do have some good steaks, but you have to know what to order. It's like ordering a cheeseburger at a Chinese restaurant. Very rarely is it gonna come out good, but somebody said there's a Chinese restaurant in New York that has really good cheeseburgers, so, I don't know.

00:44:33 Greg: Oh, wait, can we go to a robot? Do we have a robot here? Oh, my goodness! It's an inflated dude! It's an inflated dude! Awesome! That guy is cool. Yes! Oh, that is so awesome. I've never seen an inflated dude. I've never seen the inflated dude. And the wind of the cars... cars kind of make it shake left and right, so it's animated by wind. That was awesome. Here's a real guy. He's less animated than the blow-up guy. I know. The blow-up guy's got more power. And I don't think they... do they make prisoners clean up on the side of the highway, like in the U.S.? I've never seen the... I don't think so. I've seen some... Unless you got, like, a whole bunch of 60-year-old prisoners. Yeah, I haven't seen too many. It's usually the elderly who need jobs. Or are retired, need something to do. They'll come in... part of the community and will clean up the highways and things like that. But I have seen some prisoners do it. I don't know. They were wearing jumpsuits. You've seen prisoners. I think I did. I don't... I see a lot of stuff. Kind of mentally.

00:45:37 John Daub: Checklist here. WRX Turbo is checking in. Welcome abroad. Welcome to this super livestream that will probably be a... Whoa! Thunderbeard. Mr. Preview. Superchats thought it relevant as these trips are similar. I probably missed some, Thunderbeard. I apologize. Yesterday's livestreams were... I was so focused on the people around me, sometimes I missed the screen and wasn't able to see it. I might have missed a couple of them and I apologize. If anybody... the reason why I might answer some of the Superchats is because I'm so appreciative and I think you have to... You should say thank you for somebody who is giving you something. Always say thank you. I like these are for senior citizens, these tags here. So, and for pregnant mothers. Yeah. So that's the pregnant mama badge. So pregnant ladies have closer access to the toilet.

00:46:40 Greg: Chan Manaselian-san writes in, what are the rules around sleeping in the camper van? I think that's a good question. Greg knows more about camping than I do. I don't know why you think I know about camping, John. Because you made a video about it. Yeah, because I went with people who knew how to camp in Japan. That was my first time camping in Japan. So you're saying you don't know? I've camped in Canada before, especially when I was a kid, but in Japan I've only been once. Yeah. So, I heard you can camp in these PAs or SAs. People do that. In your car. You can sleep in your car. I can tell you this. I hitchhiked the entire country twice. And I camped everywhere I wanted to. So you know way more. That's not the same thing. There's recreational camping and then there's... I pitched a tent and woke up at 5 am before any of the law enforcement told me to leave. There's two differences there. But my experience... Let me put it to you like... Oh, that's so beautiful over there. Let me put it to you like this. Camping means something different to Japanese than just setting up a tent. Okay? Camping means... Recreational camping means... You have a radio, you're playing, you're being loud, you've got a fire, you have a barbecue. That's camping in Japan. Alright? For me, camping is anything where I have to pitch a tent. So there's two differences. I think it's very important that you differentiate that when you explain something to anybody who's Japanese when you ask for permission. So, can I pitch a tent is different than can I camp. Alright? Camping with a car like this, you can park in the rest areas. Shut your eyes for a few hours. That's perfectly fine. Usually you need to get permission if it's private land to park there. And let them know. So, you can call ahead or something like that. But in general though, you need to have permission. Meaning, it's best to go to some of the camping spots. And there are certain... In the summer it gets quite busy. Oh, look how beautiful it is over there. It gets quite busy. You should call ahead and always make a reservation. Sometimes you don't need a camping spot. You can just say, look, I've got my own vehicle. Can I just park here and camp? And you might have to pay... You might have to pay like... Say, like $10 or something. A very small fee for the bathrooms. Which I think is a good investment.

00:49:05 John Daub: Oh, we're going to this parking area? Yeah. Oh, I was going to show the live stream and now look, you did this. Live stream of me streaming. That was a good one. I'm laughing. This one's a small one. Yeah. Oh, look, there's an EV charger. Alright, so we're going to take you around here really quickly to show you this parking area. Just a small one. And I'm going to cancel this after Greg comes back from the restroom. I'm not... No, I'm not going to stream his stream. Alright. They get it. It's funny, Greg. It's dad joke. Alright, welcome to a rest stop. Alright, catch in a few. This is kind of interesting here. Now that I'm around strangers, I got my mask on again. There's always a vending machine area like this. Hey, Thunderbeard, I respect that, John. You're a very entertaining bloke in a good country, in a great country. Thank you. So there's always a vending machine area like this. And there's pretty much... This one has... Every single company seems to be represented. You have the Coca-Cola vending machine. You have the... Which one is this? Suntory. And the Kirin vending machine. This one here is Kirin. So you have a little bit of everything here. This... Oh my gosh, look at all those monsters. I've never seen so many different kinds. Cuba libre? What does that mean? Free Cuba. So weird. It's a weird name for one. But this looks like an older one. It hasn't been renovated. Here's something that might be interesting to you. See this little teeny half-sized bottle of Coca-Cola is 130 yen. And then over here, there's a double the size and it's only 20 cents more. But people still prefer to buy the smaller one. It's interesting, right? And the cans of Coke are the same as one of these big ones. So why would you buy the small Coke? Because people don't want to drink a whole big bottle. So this service area, and you can check on the map if you're interested, is Abukuma Kogen. And there's an ATM machine and there's some places. They've got... They're set up for the coronavirus. There's some plastic wrap here. And the doors are open 24-7 to allow some fresh air to get in there. But I thought that that was interesting because they have an EV charger. So if you have a Tesla or something, I guess you can charge your car over here. And there's a dog walk area.

00:52:17 Greg: Mr. Das, lies. No Asahi machine. That's true. No, Asahi also makes soft drinks, Mr. Das. Just so you know that Asahi makes soft drinks too. This is the EV charger. This is an EV quick charger. You can see it's marked very bigly. Is that a word? But... Oh, they got English. So, you can connect the EV charger to the car. And then you can operate the charger to start charging. Interesting. How do you pay? Over here, I guess you need to get a special card that you can pay with electronically. So that it doesn't actually take money. You have to get a card that you touch. Something to know. Interesting. I like these EV card points. John, I might have an exclusive for you here. Oh, okay. What is it? All right. So they're renovating the bathrooms, right? So what they have set up in there is porta potties, but in a building. I've never seen something like this before. Exclusive porta potties inside of a building. Because they're renovating. So it's just a temporary. So you had to go in a porta potty? It's really interesting. I'll go check to see if anyone's in there. And I'll see if it's clear or not. Okay, go ahead. This is an exclusive. And we have a Halloween display in Japan. This is weird. Guess what? It's an exclusive. We're not going to go check out a strange toilet situation at a Japanese rest stop. If this was any other country, this would be weird. In fact, it's actually kind of weird here in Japan, too. But believe in Greg. He knows how to make good content. Oh, there's a map over there. Okay, we're okay. All right, you hold the people back in there. A few seconds. What? That's weird. Go further. Go further in? See what they look like. These are pretty clean. Yeah, it's really clean for porta potties. But look at all these green doors over here. They're real. They just keep going. That's clean, man. I could use that. It doesn't smell too bad. I'm going to wash my hands. I just touched a toilet. All right, thanks.

00:54:41 John Daub: And there's the gasoline. How much is a liter of gas? I think it was like 130 yen. 150? 128 yen for a liter. 146. Somewhere between 120 and 150. So this is Fukushima Prefecture. We are now here in the center. We've driven quite a ways actually during this live stream here. And we're headed all the way. You can see all these onsen marks. Do you see? In the center of your screen, that's an onsen mark. Loads of them. That's where we're headed. 146. 146? Yeah. Oh, there's that weird fish anko. You ever eaten that? Bizarre deep sea fish. Try that. Lots of stuff. What's she doing here? Why is there a Hawaiian girl? Aloha. Oh, it's Hawaiian stuff. Oh, you know that? Interesting. Very interesting. Mayor Johnston, welcome to the New Travelers. So there you have it. We showed you an exclusive. Greg found a toilet that's Johnny on the Spot inside, which is unique. Greg's got a nose for good stories. And yeah, we're going to keep on going. And if we find something interesting, maybe we'll bring you with us live again. We're going to be filming for Greg's channel, these wild onsen and onsen. And I'm going to be making a story as well. So hopefully it'll be something interesting. Whoa, that creeped me out. Did you see that? That is. That's a big one. It's a big. Fukushima's got some big spiders. And there's that old telephone here. So there you have it. Hope you enjoyed it. If you have any questions, leave a comment down below. And check out Greg's channel, Life Where I'm From. Life Where I'm From X, which I'm trying to get him to do a live stream on, and he's not doing it. He doesn't like live streaming. So I'm going to be doing a live stream on it. It's not that bad, right? I don't know. You can get used to it. It's interesting. You don't like it? Live streaming? A lot of pressure. There's pressure? There's no pressure. Just be you. Right? No one's going to bother you. No trolls out there. I like these are for senior citizens, these tags here. So, and for pregnant mothers. Yeah. So that's the pregnant mama badge. So pregnant ladies have closer access to the toilet. I'm going to be doing a live stream on this. so it's nice that they did that all right everybody have a good day have a good night wherever you are if you have some questions about japanese highways leave a comment down below i'll check it out for the next couple of hours and try to answer your questions driving in japan is a lot of fun you don't have to take a train you can see more stuff because of it and i'll bring you some more live streams on the road over the next couple of days thanks james you from canada ciao