00:00:00 John Daub: And there, ladies and gentlemen, outside is an amazing white and almost blue-like onsen. Look at this bath. And today we're going to soak in it for a few minutes and talk a little bit about this wonderful place. How you doing, everybody? Yes, I have nothing on. I'm not panning down, and this could be a dangerous livestream, but I live in danger.

00:00:28 John Daub: I've been here in Fukushima with Greg, who's gone. Greg has disappeared. I would pan down, but then that would be bad for both of us. Because this is how we roll. Greg, did you like this one? It's gorgeous. Safe. Okay, okay. Don't come in the shot, Greg. You might see something that we shouldn't see.

00:00:55 John Daub: This place is called Osakaya. That's the name of this ryokan. And I wanted to take you around the couple of baths that they have. Now, we've traveled from Tokyo to Fukushima. It takes about three and a half hours by car. But if you come by Shinkansen, it's a little bit harder to get around local areas without actually having a car. But you can do it. Buses, trains, hitchhiking. All of that is possible.

00:01:26 John Daub: Whoa, this feels so good. I love the way that they put rocks around the sides of it to give it a kind of a rugged personality to this bath. And the white water has kind of a sulfuric egg-smelling mineral inside of it that you can see some of the residue around the rocks here. That means it's real.

00:02:13 John Daub: This is a dokutsu onsen (cave bath). Dokutsu in Japanese means cave. So this onsen is essentially a cave. And I don't know if I would, if I go inside here, will I still have a signal? We put the towel on top of our head because there's no other place for us to put it. Okay, no spiders. Oh, you don't know where to step or what's inside. Okay, that's nice. I don't want to go too deep into the cave.

00:03:02 John Daub: Inside of here it is dark. You won't panic because it doesn't go too deeply in there. But if this cave extended into hundreds of meters, then you might worry. Again, the water just trickles in here. Piping hot. Actually, it's not too hot. It's about 43 to 45 degrees Celsius, which is near 100. It's higher than the body temperature. I do have to be very careful. I've already fell once in an onsen during this trip. There are steps here, but because the water is opaque, you can't actually see what the next step underneath there.

00:03:47 John Daub: The water is knee level for me right now. I can't show you my knees because there's nothing between my knees and my hips to cover. Oh, Greg's watching me. Dude, you're staring at me. You're staring at me too hard. But we have an expression in Japan, hadaka no tsuki ai (naked friendship). And that means we're all equal when naked. And he's not naked, so you're not equal, bro. Just saying.

00:04:23 John Daub: Just soaking in the bath. You know, you can go to Iceland and chill in the Blue Lagoon. This water looks very much like the Blue Lagoon. And it costs a fraction of the price. Blue Lagoon was like over a hundred dollars to go into it. This is, well, a stay here is actually like probably like a hundred and fifty dollars. But you get meals with it and all that stuff. And you stay here.

00:04:54 John Daub: So you should differentiate between that. Actually, it's not expensive. A lot of people saying that a ryokan stay is expensive. You're getting two meals. You're not just getting a little box to sleep in. You're getting a tatami room. You're getting a very nice location in a scenic place. You're getting local food and two meals with your, it's room and board. So the price that you're paying in any ryokan, especially at an onsen resort, includes two meals. Always get the meals. You can opt out of it to save money. Don't. Why would you do that? Because the meals are part of the amazing experience of staying at a ryokan.

00:06:24 John Daub: I'm leaving this bath here. Alright, check it out here. This is the ladies' bath and we have access to this. Because we have permission to film until 2 p.m. That's why I'm bringing this. There's the men's bath. So typically, men, Greg, women, no one. Alright, let's go here.

00:07:08 John Daub: Oh, this feels so good. One of the reasons why I want to do this, bring you this episode, is I'm filming completely in my birthday suit because I want all of you to feel comfortable when you do come to an onsen to get naked. You don't need a bathing suit. Wearing a bathing suit is ridiculous, okay? Because you want to be clean and the cleanest way is to get naked. Completely naked. No! This is a secret bath! Oh, this is the secret bath of central Fukushima. Oh, that's awesome.

00:08:17 John Daub: Oh, it's hot. Look at the flowers. Am I allowed to sit in this? It's a ladies bath. This is life. You go to the onsen and oh man, this feels so good. I love this show. I can just bring you with me and share for a little bit of time a piece of Japan. Thanks so much everybody.

00:09:28 John Daub: I don't have a lot of time. We're supposed to be out of here at 2pm. So that's about it for me. I'm going to walk you back because you have to leave. So do I. That's the extent of it. I'll take some of your questions for a minute. We're in a camper van from our friend Jared who's in charge of a company called Dream Drive. It's a camper van that he put beds in which is totally awesome. You gotta come to Nakanozawasawa Onsen. Really nice.

00:10:48 John Daub: Walk slowly. That's gotta be like 50 degrees. That's near boiling. Watch what you touch. Smells like sulfur. Again, this is Osakaya. The owner's grandmother was 104 years old, he told me. So I think there's some magical properties to the waters that make you live forever. At least to 104.

00:11:35 John Daub: So those joining us here. Fresh balls up to the bath. That is life. It is very much like the Blue Lagoon. You can't do cannonballs? This is an onsen, not a swimming pool. There's the cave onsen, and there's Greg to tell me the time. Is the time up? One minute? I can't change in that time.

00:12:18 Greg: Greg, this is considered a collaboration now. What did you think of Nakanozawa Onsen in Fukushima? Do you have any feedback or something that you want to share?

00:12:30 John Daub: I just love the water. The sediment in it that makes it look like a creamy, milky look. It really makes your skin nice and soft. It's a great place.

00:12:42 Greg: It is a pretty nice place. There's such a beautiful nature around it too, which is really good.

00:12:46 John Daub: Right, and compared to Tokyo, I was just astounded. You can call and you don't have to really make a reservation. You can just kind of ask and they'll let you film at a lot of the places, which I thought was really nice. You have to call in advance, but not like in Tokyo, like, please call us two weeks in advance and film. They're very, very friendly and very relaxed in Fukushima and they're so happy that we're here to visit. So this is Nakanozawa Onsen. I highly recommend. This is one of the 20 or 30 onsen baths that are here. We just filled at Bonari, which was so beautiful. And you can see an episode on this, on Greg and life where I'm from and Only in Japan really soon.

00:13:53 John Daub: Alright, so there you go. No bum shots. We got lucky this time. But thanks so much for watching. You can see I'm glowing. That's from the onsen. If you soak at onsen, it doesn't make you feel really good. I think so. Have a good day everybody. I'll see you in the next livestream. Maybe tonight as we show you the van that we're camping in. It should be pretty cool to take a look inside. Bye guys. Don't forget to subscribe and click that like button. I can't believe we only have 195 likes. You guys are awesome. See you later.