00:00:04 John Daub: Hello and welcome to the birthplace of nishikigoi (ornamental carp). This is where Japanese carp originated from—a town called Ojiya in Niigata Prefecture, and it's very famous. And joining me is Kanae Daub.

00:00:22 Kanae Daub: Hey, good morning.

00:00:26 John Daub: We're going to go in here and check out this center. I thought it would be really interesting to share this with you because it's really kind of off the beaten track and you need a car. There's our car right there. Hello, hi, says hi, Kanae. This is a Toyota RAV4 that we rented for the last two days, and we've been driving around Niigata for the Katakai Fireworks Festival. And now it's time to go see some koi. And no, we're not going to eat any of them. Nishikigoi is the name for decorative carp—the ones that you see in ponds that can cost up to $100,000. That's US.

00:01:02 John Daub: Okay, let's go inside. Take a picture there later. Here's a map of the area. I guess they have an aquatic center in the middle of it. Admission is 520 yen or about $5 to get into the center of the carp world. Ojiya Nishikigoi Center of the World. That's the official name. It's required to wear masks. Wow, check it out. There's like a little teeny path that I guess people can walk on. Down there's some pretty nice looking nishikigoi. Now typically these carp were for eating back in the, before the 19th century. Not anymore. But in the 19th century they started to cultivate them, kind of domesticate them. And they were able to do that over time. This is the story that I researched about this center. Interesting history.

00:02:22 John Daub: Let's go inside.

00:02:45 John Daub: You want some? Two? You can give the ice cream cone. Please break it in small pieces. Please only give the food to the koi inside. Two more. Thank you. Interesting.

00:03:36 John Daub: Excuse me. Over here? Thank you. Okay. You're welcome. This is interesting. So there's a lot of history on the walls here. Let's take a quick look at the history of nishikigoi here. Kanae is getting some of the food. It is recorded that some people in Nijusango found the red koi and the white koi among the magoi (common carp), and developed them into white koi. Pretty interesting. So it's actually kind of a new thing from the early 19th century. And you can see there's a chart here to map out all the different kinds of Japanese koi. The center here has a lot of information. Wow, shiro utsuri (white reflective carp). These are little babies. Look how pretty they are. Oh, maybe they're not koi, Kanae said. They're koi, but it doesn't seem very good. All right, let's go inside the aquatic center.

00:05:09 John Daub: Looks like wagyu. I'm not going to eat the food. That's nasty. It smelled really kind of nasty. Whoa, these things are massive. Look, they're like opening their mouths to me. They know that you have the food, Kanae. It's time for feed. No, just give them a little bit. I think they knew it. All right, just give one. Let's see what happens. All right, here's one. This is what the food looks like. Hutch. I'm not going to eat this reconstituted dog food, okay? It's for these people here. Okay, ready? Let's see what happens. Oh, that one's massive. Oh, that yellow one got it.

00:06:05 John Daub: All right, can I give them some more? Katayama's in the house. Katayama, this food is for you. Well, we're giving them to them from you. Don't give them one by one. Let's start a riot. Here, put some in my hand. Just a little bit. Okay, okay, okay. We're going to start a riot. Ready? I think we already have. No impact. He's gold. He's golden color. Yeah, golden boy. All right, let's try it again. Kanai's getting startled by them. They're so big. All right. Who's this for? Who wants credit for this one? This one's for Hutch. He wanted me to eat these. Here you go.

00:07:28 John Daub: This one's for Jeff Ang. Jeff. And Tony, too. We're going to start a little riot. Here we go. Three, two, one. I'm going to throw it out there. Let me see. I don't care. We spread them out. We can give them the ice cream cone, apparently. That's going to be fun. All right, let's walk around a little bit. I want more. I'll throw it. Oh, this is so awesome.

00:08:08 John Daub: Now, this area of Niigata Prefecture, which is just a few hours from Tokyo by car, and less than that by Shinkansen, is very famous. It's very famous for Japanese carp as the birthplace of carp. But because of the situation that we're in now, they've canceled a lot of the festivals, a lot of the events where they would highlight it—really big ones, which is kind of a shame. But I'm definitely interested in learning more about Japanese carp, which is why I'm kind of stopping here as a research chance. These guys are a little bit luckier. They're out here in the wild. I wonder what the difference is. This is stuff I would ask a professional. Oh, wait. Oh, no, no. We're not allowed to give the ones outside. We can't give the eso (sleepers?). Don't feed the outside carp. Yeah, don't feed the outside carp. Okay, sorry, guys. You've got natural food, algae.

00:09:15 John Daub: Now, I've eaten carp. In fact, I've eaten a lot of them. In fact, I have in Miyazaki a carp episode where a chef cooked carp. There's two kinds of carp. There's nishikigoi. These are nishikigoi. And then there are carp to be eaten, which is not nishikigoi. But these nishikigoi, they're bred just specially to be appreciated in ponds. And these ones, these can be valued up to $100,000, which is crazy at auction. Yeah, some more information. What do you say? Kohaku (red and white). And what is taisho sanshoku (Taisho three-color)? Showa sanshoku (Showa three-color)? Like Showa era. And there's a variety of other things. So there's different varieties of them. There's so much more to the koi world that I think I have no idea about. So I've come here to learn more. And I think you're watching maybe to learn more.

00:10:53 John Daub: Definitely, every place in the beginning, you have a pump. So when I came here to take the screenshot, I used alcohol. Look at this. Andrew, you can't use sake to sanitize your hands. Although it's in Niigata, that would be not a bad thing. But it's mostly for drinking. Kind of a little Indiana Jones. I'm sure somebody has fallen at some point. Wait, we have to go back to where we came now.

00:12:02 John Daub: This was built in 1989 as a way to put all the different varieties of nishikigoi in one spot and help explain more about nishikigoi to people. All right, I guess we got to come back. Not too difficult. Hey, I think I'm going to go back. I think they can see me. He's looking at me. Then he said, not interested. No ice cream cone. See down here in the pond. Oh, they're all hanging out here, Kanae. They're all hanging out. Just chilling in the jacuzzi. Yeah, they're chilling out in the jacuzzi. Oh, I can't give you any foods. Yeah, yesterday Honda-san told us of all the wildlife in Niigata. No bears, but loads of raccoons. Tanuki (raccoon dogs) get in trouble. They apparently, when they launched off the fireworks last night in the woods, they could hear the tanuki and the deer. Pretty interesting.

00:14:08 John Daub: Last night's fireworks was really incredible. If you missed it, we lit off ten shakudama (spherical fireworks shells), which are watermelon-sized firework shells in a farm field. So maybe you want to go check that out. It's pretty cool. I think I put in time markers, by the way, now. So if you sponsored one of my videos, if you want to get one of the fireworks, it's easy to find it. Just go into the chapters on the video. The first 15 minutes, I was trying to buy some time so that everybody would get the notifications. And by the way, if you're not getting the notifications, try unsubscribing and subscribing again. And to the other Only in Japan channel, because before one of the new YouTube policies came out, those that subscribed before it aren't getting notifications based on a change in the weather. And YouTube hasn't really notified subscribers well or given them that information well. So try unsubscribing and subscribing again to this channel, and you'll get the notifications a little bit better, I think. At least that's been the feedback from other viewers.

00:15:55 John Daub: Alright, Kanae, let's go get rid of these ice cream cones and start a riot. We can only feed the ones inside the aquatic center. Oh, this is where we came in. This is the entrance. Ooh, hiding in a rock. I see you. That's right. You can go and touch them. Actually, there's a tub when we exit the Koi Center where I think you can put your hand in there and touch them. They kind of like to be touched, just like doggies, I heard. So we'll go do that. Let's go back around. Again, this center was built in 1989 as a way to introduce nishikigoi to the world at the birthplace in Ojiya City, Niigata. We drove here from Tokyo. We'll make a stop here on the way back. I think we're going to do another livestream a little bit later on. Either a highway rest stop on the way home or in a soba field. Because we found some beautiful soba fields we drove through on the way here from Katakai.

00:18:02 John Daub: Alright, let's go back inside, Kanae. Kanai's like mesmerized. She's really staring down that waterfall. There's only one way to get back here. Oh, somebody has a koi tattoo. Ear to the fin. Awesome. If I was going to get a tat, I'd probably get a koi, too. Sorry, little guy, I can't feed you. Only the ones inside. I know you see me. I know he sees me. It's beautiful. Alright, let's go back inside and start a riot. Yeah, Kanae was having a zen moment. That's right. Oh, look, they're all hanging out. Koi probably aren't really suffering through this pandemic, are they? Kinda just hanging out together. Not social distancing. Let's now start a riot. Lookit, they're all coming. They sense it. Lookit, they're like little boats all coming. The boats are coming this way.

00:20:16 John Daub: Alright, Ervin, Irvonne, this is for you. Here we go. Whoa, we started a little mosh pit. Zombie stacking. That's funny. Here we go. Three, two, one. They're all so late to the party. They have a delayed reaction. Alright, I'm gonna do a small one, okay? And then I'll wait for it. Here we go. Now wait for it. Now do it. Kanai, you dropped it. I dropped it. Flick it. Alright, Fernando. Here you go, brother. Three, two, whoa, that's a big one. He needs extra food for growth. Yeah. Alright, they're all coming the wrong way. Cause I'm throwing it over there. Those two are a lot smarter. They're all over here with the flicked one. Look, they had a little smorgasbord over there.

00:22:37 John Daub: Alright, Kanae. You wanna throw some in? Alright, go ahead. I think we can, let's steal those from over there. See those people? Let's steal theirs. Here we go. I threw some way out there. I'm trying to steal the koi on the other side to come to our party. I'm giving them some incentives here. Alright, now they said that we can give this ice cream cone, just break it into little pieces. The ice cream cone smells a lot better than the koi food. Hutch, I'm still not gonna eat the ice cream cone, okay? I think these ice cream cones might have been out for a little bit too long. Alright, do it Kanae. Alright, the big one's right there. He's gold. It's hard to aim your mouth in the right place. Yeah. Alright, let's see if we can get him in there. Alright, big guy. Will they come and take it from my hand? Come on guys, jump like a dolphin. I lost it. Oh my god. I lost the cone. No social distancing. Max told me to dive into the koi pond jacuzzi. I'll never come out again. Feel real good. Hang out with my bros.

00:25:22 John Daub: Koi are like the dolphins of ponds. Lovely creatures. Smart. They love food. Clifford calls them bottom feeders. They look like they're on the top to me. I know, that one is massive. That's like the jaws of the pond. No, he's leaving us to go to the other side. Jaws is going to the other side. No. It's hard to get the, no, they're all migrating. No, we do have more. Crumbs. Oh, our posse's gone. You can only buy your friendship with pellets. Koi attacked that lady over there. Let's go over to the other side. Hey guys, we're kind of out of food.

00:26:40 John Daub: Yeah, here's a little bit more information on this. Again, for those joining us, we're at the Nishikigoi no Sato (Koi Village) in Ojiya, Niigata. We drove here after finishing the Katakai Fireworks Festival, our private fireworks, which you could see yesterday on a live stream. Definitely check it out. This is the birthplace of nishikigoi, which are carp or koi for decorative purposes for being in ponds. Not to eat—traditionally koi were eaten or used to notify people on earthquakes like you get like five seconds notice or something. But starting in the early 19th century they became bred for this to be beautiful and in ponds. And because this is the birthplace and actually a lot of the most beautiful and most expensive koi are bred here in Niigata, I thought we would stop and take a look and it was totally worth it. Wow, look at that dark one—kind of looks like a shark. Which one is your favorite? Do you have a favorite? I like the camouflaged one right there. They do have names, not like names of their variety. So it takes a little bit of time to study them and I'm new to this.

00:28:21 John Daub: Sharknado—that was a pretty funny movie. Imagine if koi ate people. Look at that, the koi followed them over there—they're going counterclockwise. Alright, let's go around the other side. What a wonderful little stop here. If you like koi click the like button. It's pretty weak in the likes—I think nobody likes these beautiful fish. Now I think we're going to go outside and try to touch some of them out there. Oh there's the big guy. Say hi to the world everybody. Hey he's a big too. Say hi to Aiken. Fantastic. John thinks I love koi—only wish I could keep them in South Australia. I know, I wish you could keep them in Tokyo too. Just the big one. I wonder if they got nicknames for each other. You got a little family thing going on there. Oh they got names. Oh is that the big golden one? This one is almost 15 kilograms. A meter long, 13 years old. Wow. His name is Ryu. This is Matsuko—she's 23 years old, she's almost a meter long, she's even longer. Her name is Rabu. Rabu is 21 years old. They live in here. 14 years old, 15 kilograms. Whoa. Can you find Chacha, Kanae? If you see her. I think I saw this one before—the camouflaged one. This one's from Vietnam, the owner interesting. Oh this one was on TV. Yeah he's from the koi is from him—he's the breeder. Yes he's a TV talent. Yeah and this is his koi. And it's inside the pond—trying to find them though is kind of hard. I figured the big ones must be the ones that are quite famous. But they live over 20 years—they can live somebody said up to 100 years. I don't believe that. Oh the black one here. Let's see if we can find him. Oh this one—here's the oldest one in the pond. 81 centimeters, 35 years old. The fact that they remember the age is pretty impressive. All right let's look for one with a black stripe on the top like that—like Spike in the Gremlins movie. Do you see him? How do you call them? That's I don't know what. What sound does a crow make? Is that him right there? No I don't see him. Do you see him? I don't see him. Uh with the stripe—probably if I watch the playback I'll be able to see him maybe. He's resting maybe. I don't see him.

00:32:19 John Daub: That's interesting. So if you do go to a koi pond ask about the koi individually and ask which one is the oldest. Don't ask which one's the most—I don't think price is something that it should go by personality. Great information—the oldest carp on record was Hanako and she lived to 226 years old. Hanako is also the name of a horror character that was trapped inside a toilet and little girls that go in there get dragged in. Hanako—yeah it's also a beautiful name of a Japanese woman and a horror character and the oldest carp. I know some of my friends called Hanako. Yeah beautiful name. Are they beautiful? Yeah interesting. Okay I don't see the oldest koi here—it's hard, they don't stand still. Sorry right pace—that's what I was referring to. Hanako is the anime ghost character. Do you see it? Where? Oh that one there. That one yeah. Oh he looks wise. That's him. What's his name? Oh it's a girl. Look he just—he gave us a burp bubble and he disappeared. There he is right there. And what's his name? Can you check? I'm gonna keep an eye on him. He's going deep—he knows we don't have food because he's wise. I'm gonna track him down. I think that's him right there. What's his name? Zettai Kare Jesho? Yeah I couldn't read that. He's the oldest right there—23? How old? 35 years old. It's almost as old as me. All right folks that's all we have. Size doesn't matter. Let's go outside and see if we can touch them.

00:35:16 John Daub: The foodie eye center. Okay all right that was pretty cool trip. That was fun. Oh they got carp necktie—I thought it was a shrimp for a second. That's really neat. Good. Yeah koi gifts, koi snacks, koi soba. If it rains they have complimentary umbrellas for you to go outside. Look at this—Nishikigoi Foodie Eye Corner. These are just little babies here. Oh they're going around in a circle. They're like oh I'm scared of the human. Wait he's still there. That's so cute. Wow. Yeah all right we're gonna try to find another live stream for you to do—take you to another area before we go back to Tokyo.

00:37:04 John Daub: By the way because of this fireworks festival I've been editing videos and I haven't been able to release any of them because of this fireworks festival and now that it's finished I have so much more time to get back to editing. Oh it's been really hard—it feels really good though to finally be here and launch those fireworks. What an amazing experience and an amazing experience yesterday—just a very emotional feeling as we lit off here at the end of the video. And I want to say thank you to the supporters who sponsored those shakudama. So definitely check it out again—I'm going to pitch that video but I put in chapter markers so you can see each one. Tell and maybe we should vote which one was the best one—I don't know they were all pretty good. Here's the front of the center here. I thought that looks like a phone booth. What is that there? Can I—is that a phone booth? It's a phone booth time warp? Bill and Ted's Excellent Carp Adventure. What do you think it is? It's locked! Could be a toilet. I think it was once a phone booth. Now it's a changing booth. I don't know. Across from here is Sun Plaza. It looks very communist era building looking thing. It's a restaurant and souvenir shop. I bought sake for my dad. Sun Plaza? Yeah, Sun Plaza. There weren't a lot of people. A lot of tourist buses will stop here because there's a gift shop where all the locals will put their stuff in there to sell. There's also a kimono shop and some restaurants. Soba noodles. It wasn't exactly... It just kind of looks a little bit sad because there's nobody in there. We bought some noodles and some gifts. Stuff like that.

00:39:19 John Daub: It's a pretty sweet ride. The ignition was on the other side. Alright, folks. We're going to drive now to the other... We're going to drive around to the other side. Should I go to a Japanese rest stop on the way home? Or should I show them a soba field? Which there's nothing there except look at a beautiful countryside scene. It's a hard decision. Next livestream will be probably in an hour or so. We might be going to HGO Yuzawa. Kanae wants to get some sake for her dad and some sasa dango (bamboo leaf dumplings). And maybe another copper pot. Coffee mug. Those are neat. So rest stop. Everyone's looking at rest stop. Alright, we'll see if we can do another highway rest stop then on the way back to Tokyo. We have to get this car back by 8pm. This is like a mini SUV. Though this is a pretty sweet ride. I might rent this one again. Although we heard a noise that was coming out of it. It's a little bit more space than I'm used to. But it's getting pretty good gas mileage.

00:40:36 John Daub: Have a good day. Have a good night. Thanks so much yesterday for watching in the middle of the night for those in the West Coast. It was really tough. But if you do come to this area, if you do come to Katakai and you drive to Niigata, check out this place because I think it's kind of neat to look at the different varieties of koi all in one spot. And I didn't ask the staff because of the situation that we're in for help. But if you do come when there's not a pandemic, they will probably point out all the different things. So this is a great place for you. They're very friendly in there. Have a good day. See you later from Ojiya. I've been calling this place Oya-ji. But you got to switch it around. Ojiya. Nishikigoi no Sato. Very cool. Later Gator. It's a rental.