00:00:00 John Daub: Beautiful place. The autumn colors have turned, the trees have turned. We have some beautiful foliage. And I'm in Akita prefecture. How you doing everybody? This is Kakunodate in Akita. And I'm gonna be. As you can see, I'm in a kimono and I'm gonna be riding around in a jinrikisha pulled by this young man right here. And I'm gonna show you some of the foliage around this town. It's gonna be pretty unique experience. Welcome to Akita. Here we go.

00:01:14 John Daub: Wow. I feel like royalty. And we are now going at a normal pace.

00:01:22 Kikuchi (Guide): Welcome. Hi.

00:01:24 John Daub: Ah, these are Sakura trees over there. Ah, wow. 400 Sakura trees. Ah, like the wisping willow kind of Sakura trees. Yeah. Not so pretty now cuz they're all the leaves are gone. Wow. Yeah. During the Bushido Shirai. During the Bushido age it wasn't so big. But now since the Edo period it's gotten much, much bigger. Look at this town is so pretty. I think this is a really cool experience. Apparently this is going to be about like 30 minutes or so. We're going to be going around Kakunodate in Akita Prefecture. I'll put a map in the description here so you can check it out. This is the gate to the Aoyagi Kei.

00:02:45 Kikuchi (Guide): Yeah.

00:02:45 John Daub: So this gate was very significant back in the. During the age of. Wow. So this is a samurai residents way back during the Bushido era. And what's the difference between a Bushido and a samurai? Bushido aren't aligned to a government official. So they're. They're kind of the same, but they're kind of different. I learned that in, in Kanazawa when I was there. This is the oldest Sakura tree here. It's quite large. Whoa. Yeah. This Sakura tree was. Was alive during the samurai age. So the samurai would have been passing underneath the Sakura tree during the Edo period, which is amazing. And now we are right now. Yamazakura.

00:04:05 John Daub: Oh. So you can see the change in the color. All right. So they make these cans here with the Yamazakura. You see that there? So from the trunks of them. Wow. Yeah. Low class samurai. Very, very poor. Yeah. Oh right. So the poor samurai would make this. These things from this. From the Yamazakura trees to earn some extra income. Interesting. Everybody has to have a. A second job or moonlighting. Okay. Ah, we're coming here later. Interesting. So we're going to be coming back here later. This is a one of the samurai residences and very beautiful Kakunotate is very famous for. For maintaining the original look from back in the Edo period. You can see these old houses. Beautiful here. Whoa. So this tree is about 300 years old. You can see it going all the way up here. Why is that significant? Because again, like, this tree would have been like this height way back in the samurai era. A lot of people passing it, and it's still here. One thing I've learned about traditional Japanese places, they to protect the trees. I like that. Samurai love these kinds of trees here.

00:06:49 Kikuchi (Guide): Same Christmas tree.

00:06:51 John Daub: That's a big Christmas tree.

00:06:52 Kikuchi (Guide): Yes.

00:06:53 John Daub: Oh, Christmas tree. Oh, Christmas tree. You're 300 years old and you're really, really tall. The samurai planted you, and now you're so big. But we're going this way. And that's the end of the song. Oh, Christmas tree. That's a big Christmas tree. He said it. I didn't say it. He said it.

00:07:22 Kikuchi (Guide): Oh.

00:07:25 John Daub: In the olden days, up there on top of the hill there. Washiro. Oh, 1620. Yeah, 1620. There was a like a tower up there. You can still see something. There's a viewpoint up there now. Used to be tower up there. Very cool name. Yes, that's the name. Old is white. Ah, Old Castle Mountain. This is Old Castle Mountain. Yes. Shiro is castle.

00:08:23 Kikuchi (Guide): Yes.

00:08:24 John Daub: Nice. Wow. So 1620 was when the castle was here. And it's because of the castle that this town behind me was made. You cannot hide. You've been exposed. Yeah. This is the. The road. So all of these houses and all of the samurai houses, the purpose was to protect the castle up here.

00:08:53 Kikuchi (Guide): Thanks, John, for bringing us here on such a beautiful day. It is a really nice day, isn't it?

00:09:03 John Daub: Oh, all right. You can see the Sakura trees. So there are 400 Sakura trees. You can see some of them are lined on the streets here. So it gives you an idea of where they are located. So if you do come to the town during the Sakura season, you can find the trees on this map. Pretty cool. Oh, I see. Where. Where the. Where the red spot is right here. Yeah. They just started with three. They only had three. And then they ended up with 400. Wow. So Sakura trees came from Kyoto a long time ago. Just three of them. And now there are 400. They cover the street. It took one month from Kyoto to Kakurodate to bring those trees. So they're very special. Yeah. They're not going back.

00:09:54 Kikuchi (Guide): Ah, I took it.

00:09:56 John Daub: Oh, nice. It was a gift of a wedding gift back then. From Kyoto. Took one month to bring it here and now there's 400. Very, very cool. I gotta come back here during the springtime. I do love coming up to Tohoku actually. Hirosaki is such a beautiful site. If you're going up there, stop by Kakurodate as well. Take a look at the samurai residents here. Just walking the street is really special. Look, Hirosaki number one. That's a modern day samurai right there.

00:10:36 John Daub: Cobra Bebop. Thank you, Vic. Vic, welcome. Nice to see Eugene hovert here. Jennifer Santos. Thanks for signing up to the travelers. Really appreciate it guys. So those joining us, we're in a jinrikisha, a human powered rickshaw, going around this beautiful city called Kakunodate in Akita prefecture in Senboku city. And this is closer to the samurai residence here.

00:11:22 Kikuchi (Guide): Wow. Cross get is always close.

00:11:31 John Daub: Ah, protect enemy. Yeah. In the. In the past, the gate was always closed to protect from the enemies.

00:11:38 Kikuchi (Guide): Because this is a Nozoki-mado.

00:11:41 John Daub: Ah. So they could. They could throw knives at you. Oh, you can just say hello here through this window. Oh, this is the. They confirm here. So now nowadays we have cameras and speakers, but this is where they would check through this door. Yeah, you have to do Aisatsu, which is a self introduction or else they wouldn't let you in. And if you failed, probably they took a knife and threw it at you or something. I don't know. Samurai days are pretty violent. Oh, it splits here. So this is the. This is the split where the two samurai houses. There's no.

00:12:34 Kikuchi (Guide): This is.

00:12:35 John Daub: Oh, I see.

00:12:38 Kikuchi (Guide): Whoa.

00:12:39 John Daub: So the higher the wall, the higher the rank of the samurai. So the samurai to the left was a higher rank. Do you see this? Because the wall this way is just a little bit higher. This is Chōtohikui. So this was a lower rank samurai. Yeah, Even the. Whoa. Even the ground was higher. What? Wow. They really put a lot of respect was pretty important back then. So you can see how the gate has turned. That's a really interesting story. Samurai rank is important. So is YouTuber rank. Not as much as it used to be.

00:13:29 John Daub: Ah, this is like a warehouse or storage unit where they put some valuable things. Rice. This is where they would store the rice and sort of inside of this thing. And it looks pretty heavy duty in there. Here's the gate to the. To the other samurai house here. Look at the autumn foliage that had fallen on top of it. Beautiful. Yeah. Height. Oh. So you would tie the horse right there on that stone. All right.

00:14:04 Kikuchi (Guide): Step.

00:14:05 John Daub: Okay. Off the horse.

00:14:07 Kikuchi (Guide): Samurai is Very short.

00:14:09 John Daub: Wow.

00:14:09 Kikuchi (Guide): 155 centimeters.

00:14:12 John Daub: 155 centimeters. Like five foot six. Ooh. Short but powerful. They had a horse, so that was the step where they would get off of the horse. And it hasn't moved since the days of the samurai. It's interesting information. Yeah. This one, now the right. So this one's even shorter, this gate here. But. Oh. So the, the old road is underneath here. This has been raised. Now you can see inside because the road has been raised. You can look inside of the. The samurai house. So. So if there was a samurai, he wouldn't be upset. You just can't show your face. So you have to crawl down underneath there and not look inside or else he'll come out with his katana. But now that this is. You can see that the road has been elevated. It's been lifted up to be level. It used to be a slope and that means now we can see over the samurai gates, which is dangerous for non samurai. You don't want to look inside of a samurai's house. They just come running at you. You better run faster. And if there were shinkon waiting for me, I can sure run fast to catch that thing.

00:15:57 John Daub: So. Hey, Adrian. Yeah, Mike. Mike has been in a few videos. Mike filmed that like way back in February. Mike Chen you're talking about. Hopefully he can come back to Japan soon. I think he's in. In Korea or. I don't know where he is actually. Oh, the center of the town right here.

00:16:35 Kikuchi (Guide): Yes. Street is 350meter.

00:16:42 John Daub: 350 meters is the street to the end of it. And this represents the center of town, the castle. Oh, look for the flags.

00:16:54 Kikuchi (Guide): Yes.

00:16:56 John Daub: Yeah. In the past you'd be able to see the end of the street because you'd be able to see the flags. Interesting. Ah, this one here, we saw the oldest. This one is the biggest now. So during the Sakura season. This one is massive.

00:17:12 Kikuchi (Guide): 200.

00:17:14 John Daub: Whoa. 280 years old. That's a cut of tree. Incredible. And you can see there's some street food here. Very cool. I can smell it as we. We go by on this Jindrichshaw man powered rickshaw. It's very cool. And we're taking a look at the beautiful foliage here in Kakonodate and Akita prefecture. Thanks so much. Yeah. Middle class samurai house. Because you can tell from the size of the gate. The samurai house. Yeah, it was okay. Middle rank. Oh yeah. So the roof is made out of wood here. You can see that. Ah, Akitasugi. So the roof you can see is made with a special Akita sugi, which is a cedar wood. It's really, really well done. Just inside. It's very. That's. That's right. Because of the wood that they used. It's a very, very thin roof. You can see compared to the other Japanese homes which have really thicker roofs, that one is quite thin. Interesting. Very interesting. If you think it's interesting too.

00:18:54 John Daub: Yeah. See this one has a three tiered gate. So that says a lot about the person who used to live here. The samurai used to live here. The signal may go in and out a little bit. Just stick with us and refresh the screen if the quality goes down a little bit. We're in the middle of Akita prefecture in Senbok city called Kakonodate, which is an old samurai town. You're seeing those, the residences as we go by in a Jinrik Shaw. I'm announcing this every couple of minutes because we have. All right, we're back. All right, let's do it.

00:19:51 John Daub: Hi. Oh, Right over in this area, there are no, no high trees or no higher walls. So the enemy could get in over here, but not into this area. This is more.

00:20:20 Kikuchi (Guide): Oh, wow.

00:20:22 John Daub: It's a 3 meter high wall there. Firewall. Firewall. You mean that like fire. The firewall is, is not for protecting you from viruses and things like that for your computer. It's a different kind of firewall. It's a firewall that actually protected you from fire. It was 3 meters high right there. So if this is kakunotate Joy. So if you were behind me and you behind me is the end of the road, 350 meters. And then right there, there was a three meter high wall to protect this area from any fire that happened over there. Real firewall again, not made by some software company. So pointing that out. Right. So there were no high trees over there because if there were a fire, it would catch fire. So they, they had the trees grow a little bit further in to protect these houses from fires from the, you know, peasants. They're always creating fires, these peasants. Keep them in line.

00:21:40 John Daub: Oh yeah, yeah. You can see underneath the roof there's kind of a. A nami, a wave.

00:21:51 Kikuchi (Guide): Fish on the fish tape.

00:21:53 John Daub: Fish scales. Oh yeah, fish scales in the center. Yeah, I can see that. Always watching.

00:22:16 John Daub: Oh. Yeah. So 24 hours a day those eyes are watching.

00:22:23 Kikuchi (Guide): You don't know any shatty.

00:22:28 John Daub: Yeah. Interesting. So the design of these houses also are. Are quite significant in many ways that I will never understand as a non samurai fireplace. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Over the. Oh, I see. Yeah. So over the fireplace, there would be some sort of fish object because the fish are always watching you 24 hours a day. Always watching you. Still here. Interesting little teeny details, I think, in the architecture in. In the residence center. If you know these details before you go in there, it makes it a little bit more interesting when you see it face to face. And I'll be going inside of a samurai house right after this. And a tea house. Lots of houses in Kakunodate, Akita prefecture. Very cool. Good morning, Arnold. How you doing? Tasty. Jeff Ang's in the house. Glad you're loving the tour. And Jennifer French, loving these beautiful trees. They are really nice. Yeah. Stop sign. So it looks like a dead end right there. But it's not, right? It's not. It's a trap. Interesting. Hey, Troy. Nothing much, bro. Just kind of hanging out, being taken for a ride. The autumn colors are stunning. And you can see them. Some of them are starting to fall off now, but I guess the peak is right now. So you're at this. Kind of at this time. You want to be. Hello. How you doing? You want to make your reservations at least three months in advance. Probably more in special areas in the countryside like Akita or even Kyoto is like six months in advance for the autumn season. Middle of November, it is super, super popular and very hard to get a reservation as well as in the. In the cherry blossoms, of course. But autumn with the colors, it is again, very, very hard for to get a reservation in popular places like even Kakonodate here. Very popular, very hard. So we just come from this street. If you want to take a look at that. Go back in the playback. About 15 minutes ago. We're going this way now. It's really, really good. Thank you. No, thank you. Awesome. Okay.

00:25:57 Kikuchi (Guide): Just moment.

00:26:01 John Daub: He put it down and I can't. Oh, all right. Oh, I showed my legs. All the ladies. Where my geisha? They are not here. All right. That was a lot of fun.

00:26:26 Kikuchi (Guide): My name is.

00:26:28 John Daub: This is Kikuchi san. Hi. Yeah. Very knowledgeable man. Speaks good English. No, no. But he'll take you around this wonderful place. Look for Kikuchi san. Thank you so much. Yeah, that was a lot of fun. So, All right. All right. Let's do it. That's what all the samurai said. Ciao. Whoa. It's a big spider. Not many YouTubers will show you the spiders, do they nasty. I'll show you the stuff that the other people won't show you. Might be a reason, though. They don't show you too. Hi. Tasty's in the house. Hi, John. This is a little something to buy some of the local snacks. I will absolutely be on the prowl right now because I didn't eat breakfast because I was taking a bath. And I thought that that was a priority over eating. I'm hungry and I'm on the prowl here. No, I. You know how much I eat Tasty on these trips. I eat so much, it's okay if I miss a meal or two or three. Plus this obi on my kimono is really, really tight. I can hardly breathe. This is what I look like in a kimono. Hiding a dagger in my hair. It's under my hat. Back in the Taisho era, you could wear. And in. In the Showa era, people wore their hats with their kimonos. So in fact they still do today. That's pretty interesting. Now that he pointed out all these things and I'm on solid ground. Speed down this. Oh, beer. Beer. I'll be back. Fungus. United States Marine Corps. You can hide your beer in your chemo. That's good.

00:29:19 Kikuchi (Guide): Yeah.

00:29:22 John Daub: That doggy wants a beer, huh? He looked at me. They should only allow horses to come in. You know, no cars, just horses. Have the original smell of the Ado period too. Would be nice. All right, let's go inside of here. Yeah, that's a lower samurai. We want to go to the top. Top. But in the past here. What. What he was telling us is that this is a. A the original road from the Edo period. You can see down here. But since then, they've raised the road up. So that means that this wall, which is the samurai wall, is much higher now and we can see over the wall. But back in the Edo period, we could not see over the wall. This is actually. Would get you maybe killed if you were to look into the samurai's house. If you were a plebe like me. A peasant. Got. Ninja walking right now. Gotta get some beer to hide in my kimono. I actually have a couple of bottles.

00:31:06 Kikuchi (Guide): The.

00:31:06 John Daub: The signal was so bad last night that I couldn't live stream anything from the. From the onsen. So I had to upload it as a. A special secret stream for travelers and insiders. So if you're a traveler, you can see that secret stream. Coco. Oh, let's go inside this. Yeah. Thanks for telling me that because I would have totally tripped. So you say please be careful. Kyotukurasai. Wow. I'll be careful. This is Kakonodate, Akita prefecture. This is the ishi kuro. Ishiguro. That's close. Oh, Wow. You can get a tour. Awesome. Check this out. They do. I speak a little English. Ah, so Minawa. Thank you.

00:33:11 Kikuchi (Guide): Hello. My name is Ishiguro.

00:33:13 John Daub: This is Ishiguro san. He's gonna be giving us a tour around here.

00:33:18 Ishiguro (Guide): To live in this house? Yes. This house is my house.

00:33:22 John Daub: Wow. This is Ishiguro's house? Yes. Wow. Oh, gotta go in backwards. All right. Nice to meet you.

00:33:45 Ishiguro (Guide): My ancestor is samurai. I'm not Summer. I'm sorry.

00:33:49 John Daub: Yeah. I'm not samurai. We won't fight this.

00:33:53 Ishiguro (Guide): Guide to about five to ten minutes. Okay.

00:33:58 John Daub: Thank you.

00:34:01 Ishiguro (Guide): This house is Ishiguro's summarizedness. I used to live in this house with my parents.

00:34:07 John Daub: Wow. Even today you live here?

00:34:09 Ishiguro (Guide): Yes. Yes.

00:34:09 John Daub: Wow.

00:34:10 Ishiguro (Guide): My father is current owner.

00:34:13 John Daub: Oh.

00:34:14 Ishiguro (Guide): My father is 12th generation direct descendant family.

00:34:18 John Daub: Yes.

00:34:18 Ishiguro (Guide): My ancestor came to this town about 350 years ago.

00:34:24 John Daub: Wow. So you're 13th generation.

00:34:26 Ishiguro (Guide): Yes. Next generation.

00:34:28 John Daub: Wow.

00:34:28 Ishiguro (Guide): However, this house was built about 210 years ago.

00:34:33 John Daub: Wow.

00:34:34 Ishiguro (Guide): It is oldest main building in samurai residence of Kakuno Date town. In this town, the Ishii Ishiguro Kei. Shiguro Kei. It's oldest.

00:34:45 John Daub: Oldest in Kak.

00:34:47 Ishiguro (Guide): Yes. In this town, there are six samurais in this town still now?

00:34:51 John Daub: Even now. Wow.

00:34:52 Ishiguro (Guide): In all days, a lot of samurai houses. About 200 samurai houses.

00:34:57 John Daub: Fascinating. Yeah. So, Ishiguro san, the other samurai houses, do they have the original owner too?

00:35:03 Ishiguro (Guide): Yes. Original.

00:35:04 John Daub: Same six families.

00:35:06 Ishiguro (Guide): Oh, same six families.

00:35:08 John Daub: Wow. Are you friends with them too? Good friends. Not the different rankings. No.

00:35:14 Ishiguro (Guide): Yes. Yes.

00:35:14 John Daub: Okay.

00:35:15 Ishiguro (Guide): My ancestor is called Hayakura samurai.

00:35:19 John Daub: Okay.

00:35:20 Ishiguro (Guide): Financial director. Maybe you know, Japanese samurai is not a warrior fighter, but also trans worker.

00:35:26 John Daub: So so. Yeah, yeah.

00:35:29 Ishiguro (Guide): Accountant is senior person, Right?

00:35:31 John Daub: Wow.

00:35:31 Ishiguro (Guide): So this house is bigger house. Then there's two rooms. Living and dining room. Eating, drinking tea, talking family's room, cooking spaces. Behind different space. In this room, there's a Japanese style fireplace. We call it Irori. To put a charkori. Charcoal fires no smoke. During the winter, we continue using this asana for warming for coming visitors. Charcoal fires no smoke. However, in this room, different fireplace. To put a fire wood fire fire wood fire deliver to smoke. That window was used to open smoke to the roof. Like the two chimney.

00:36:18 John Daub: Yeah.

00:36:19 Ishiguro (Guide): Then this bar is removable laundry for drawing pole easy to move.

00:36:26 John Daub: Ah, for centaka.

00:36:27 Ishiguro (Guide): Yes.

00:36:27 John Daub: Laundry pole. Ah. So you could dry your laundry here. Awesome.

00:36:32 Ishiguro (Guide): This area very Cold I studied a lot of snow.

00:36:40 John Daub: Yeah. One to two meters of snow here.

00:36:44 Ishiguro (Guide): Cooking for dry crossing and making key food smoke food dry food make it.

00:36:51 John Daub: Oh yeah.

00:36:53 Ishiguro (Guide): Convenient and useful living too Wonderful. This.

00:37:01 John Daub: Wow. This is the center. Yeah.

00:37:11 Ishiguro (Guide): Master only have private room Kids and mommy maybe share room. I was a child my grandfather used this room oh. For writing letter and lady books and stripping and important meeting several in here Then that is a household Shinto alta family shrine Religion friend for safety and healthy and lucky maybe you know Japanese religion is mixed region. Not only one healthy happy lucky friend for Shindo but ancestor died praying Buddhism Most Japanese religion Buddhism and Shinto together both friends.

00:37:52 John Daub: Right.

00:37:53 Ishiguro (Guide): Recently we enjoyed Christmas party and the very. I think very interesting. Very very interesting indeed.

00:38:01 John Daub: So not how old are you? About same as me maybe. Ah.

00:38:04 Ishiguro (Guide): Maybe I'm about 50. 48.

00:38:09 John Daub: Ah, 46. About the same. Yeah.

00:38:12 Ishiguro (Guide): This month is my bus demon.

00:38:14 John Daub: Oh. Happy birthday.

00:38:16 Ishiguro (Guide): Thank you.

00:38:17 John Daub: Yeah.

00:38:17 Ishiguro (Guide): November 70s okay.

00:38:19 John Daub: Yeah.

00:38:20 Ishiguro (Guide): Next 49.

00:38:21 John Daub: 49 then 50. Yes.

00:38:26 Ishiguro (Guide): Next. About the entrance. There are several entrance in this house.

00:38:31 John Daub: Yeah. Is that. Yeah.

00:38:33 Ishiguro (Guide): Formality social position is very important in the old days in Japan that entrance is second entrance which is a master or a general Samurai use only entrance. Samurai status is very special. Another person not samurai. The women charge servant and merchant dependent side over your side entrance. That entrance is second entrance actually.

00:39:07 John Daub: Oh. This is the main entrance. The entrance Tonari deso.

00:39:12 Ishiguro (Guide): special entrance.

00:39:13 John Daub: Special entrance to use a high cross.

00:39:15 Ishiguro (Guide): visitor for a ceremonial occasion. Wedding ceremony or funeral ceremony. Special special occasion Only you this entrance we does not exist till now Respect tradition.

00:39:28 John Daub: Yeah, that's true. So even this house. This is a house that's used today. And you can see this entrance is closed only for special occasions. Wow.

00:39:36 Ishiguro (Guide): This room is a waiting room. The bit and master's room or reflections room.

00:39:45 John Daub: It's just one big room though right now. Wow. So you can close the doors. So that makes. This is the waiting room we're in now. But when the doors are open, it looks like one big room. However, these are all different rooms. There's a The study here which is the center of the house. And there you would have the irori the fireplace and laundry over here. Interesting.

00:40:12 Ishiguro (Guide): Please look here on the board on this covered wooden panel decoration transom window. We call it llama Llama window Llama the turtle of openworks is decorated turtle animal symbolizing happily and lucky animal in Japan too. Because tato is long life longevity happy and lucky in Japan too.

00:40:35 John Daub: Right.

00:40:35 Ishiguro (Guide): Then this kind of tree's name is Zelkova Zelkova tree is gray wood pattern is very beautiful Similar looks like water wave when a tattle swam it is come Imagine Tato is swimming in the water.

00:40:50 John Daub: Yeah.

00:40:51 Ishiguro (Guide): And this designs open wax cabin. So through design. Appears on the wall both side.

00:41:01 John Daub: All right. From the light you can see the.

00:41:03 Ishiguro (Guide): shadow by electrical lamp. Now there is no electrical lamp. So fire lamp on the floor Maybe appear the ceiling in the desert.

00:41:15 John Daub: Wow.

00:41:15 Ishiguro (Guide): Interesting and beautiful.

00:41:17 John Daub: I guess it came Showajidai came the electric electricity, right?

00:41:20 Ishiguro (Guide): Yes.

00:41:21 John Daub: Taisho is still. The guest room here.

00:41:36 Ishiguro (Guide): Tokonoma press is welcome for the big decoration Press not stripping, not sitting.

00:41:42 John Daub: Yeah.

00:41:43 Ishiguro (Guide): This place shooting scroll or this place flower arrangement or display doors.

00:41:49 John Daub: Right. So don't sit here. Yes.

00:41:51 Ishiguro (Guide): Yes. Not sitting.

00:41:53 John Daub: Not don't sit there.

00:41:55 Ishiguro (Guide): Yeah. This. This decoration sometimes changing by the seasons.

00:42:01 John Daub: Ah yeah.

00:42:02 Ishiguro (Guide): Then this room is reception room. Is official room Formal room. How to spread the tata of this? This room only straight pattern Parallel pattern. Unlike another pattern different pattern.

00:42:16 John Daub: Right.

00:42:16 Ishiguro (Guide): Because Japanese traditional culture like to boundary of social positions separate line one or two people sat down on one tatami and post order from a higher seat for meeting near alcohol higher court. If when held on meeting a top guide person only this way to talk another person to here go face to face sitting.

00:42:44 John Daub: That is fascinating. So the lines in the tatami mats and the way that they're lined up has a significance in the in the rank of the person with whom you're speaking to. That's how deep. So when you go into a tatami room, you should also look down and see how the lines are here. You can see that the lines. There's almost like a wall here to cross between the guest room and the waiting room. So it doesn't cross the lines. That's interesting information.

00:43:09 Ishiguro (Guide): I didn't know that it's all dates in Japan. Good linking position is very important.

00:43:14 John Daub: Yeah.

00:43:25 Ishiguro (Guide): After looking at it came back to washing hands.

00:43:29 John Daub: Yeah. So back then people were very very clean. Always washing hands. And even today we're pretty clean here. I was just in a bath. I'm pretty clean. Beautiful.

00:43:46 Ishiguro (Guide): Finally this garden. This garden is drawn underscape Japanese traditional garden. Which green moss to water Green moss like to live at big rock Mountain Mountain and river. Imagine natural landscape. There are big rock and a tall tree High tree can interact. This is samurai plant a high tree in hope of success in life. Which plant a high end higher. A very high tree of that light corner behind big rock is a fir tree.

00:44:20 John Daub: All right. This is the biggest tree in 300k. 300 years older than this House older than the house.

00:44:29 Ishiguro (Guide): This house was built about 200 older than it.

00:44:32 John Daub: Wow.

00:44:33 Ishiguro (Guide): That circumference about 5 meter and tourist of 35 meter. It is the biggest in the neighborhood.

00:44:40 John Daub: Wow.

00:44:41 Ishiguro (Guide): So this area is very lucky area not destroyed. Big fire, big wall and big natural disaster lock. Long time nothing.

00:44:50 John Daub: Yeah.

00:44:51 Ishiguro (Guide): Then this front road with size is about 11 meter. 11 meter is not narrow. Very wide distance In Japan it have not changed when it was made about 400 years ago.

00:45:03 John Daub: Wow.

00:45:04 Ishiguro (Guide): Because in all days end of this road there was a lot of the mansion residents.

00:45:09 John Daub: Yeah.

00:45:10 Ishiguro (Guide): I think this road is main street or breaks the fire fireworks in my opinion.

00:45:15 John Daub: So that's why there's 11 meter distance because of fire.

00:45:18 Ishiguro (Guide): Yes. Yes.

00:45:19 John Daub: Wow.

00:45:19 Ishiguro (Guide): So did she.

00:45:20 John Daub: So fire not earthquake. But fire was the scariest thing.

00:45:24 Ishiguro (Guide): Yes, yes. Japanese architecture and paper.

00:45:29 John Daub: Yeah. All the houses just wooden paper. You don't want a fire. That's the scariest thing for any house. Yeah.

00:45:40 Ishiguro (Guide): You can take picture anywhere. And there's an exhibition room and reside under the star house.

00:45:46 John Daub: Okay.

00:45:46 Ishiguro (Guide): After looking in this room, please put on your shoes again. Please go to.

00:45:55 John Daub: Thank you so much for your time today. Today only video.

00:46:00 Ishiguro (Guide): Okay. Yeah.

00:46:02 John Daub: Yeah. So typically there's not a lot to have have any videoing in here. Yeah. Raj, welcome. And chicken nuggets. They're welcome. Yes. Thank you, George Lopez. Thank you. Stimulus funds for a dirt bag samurai like me. Yes. Sashira04 welcome. And it's fascinating, isn't it? So as I was saying, like when you know the history, when you know some of the meanings behind gives me more incentive. Makes me, makes me want to study a little bit more about Japanese history. It's just like a spark happens like in. That's what I hope with these live streams. Just a little bit of an interest starts in Japan and then you start to study more and more of the history. And then when you do come to visit here, you're way ahead of everybody else. I love the story that his grandfather used to sit here and write letters. And I can, I can see that today. Even, even now we're inside of his study and the shrine and I love the original colors of the walls. That green which matches my kimono, very significant green like a matcha looking green there. And then they have an exhibition over here and I'm gonna put on my shoes and we can maybe take a look around the house a little bit more. But it's really fascinating and. And Ishiguro Kei was a higher ranked samurai. So you can see he was saying that he had so much space, not just because of the garden, but also to keep away from the main road where fires could take place. My shoes are the ones that look like sandals.

00:47:54 Kikuchi (Guide): Ra,

00:48:32 John Daub: I'll take you around this way a little bit. So as we said before. Yeah, we have permission, but don't film inside of here. So don't copy me. It's just for today. Just for today. You are all with me as guests. So you're special. You see, Guru San himself gave us a tour. I'm so impressed. 13th generation still living here in the house. So you can see here what the guide was telling us. This was the mountain where the castle was here. And this is where we are right now, the Ishiguro, the house here, which is right in the center. Right. So it's a pretty significant location. And this morning, today, we started from here. We went down the street and came back down this way. And then he took us down to the end of the street here to the wall. And this is where the peasants live, where I probably where I would be living. And There was a 3 meter wall here that was a firewall so the fire wouldn't get into the samurai residences. And then lower samurai were in the front and the more significant samurai were up closer towards the end of the castle. And that's how this Kakunodate samurai town was built. Fascinating. And there's a little exhibition inside of here. So I love the fact that they. They've taken the house and they. I love the fact that they still live here. It's fascinating. Amazing. 13 centuries or 13 generations have lived in this house. Built for his great great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great great great great great great grandfather. Amazing. Oh, and this looks like a storehouse. This looks very significant, these doors. Look at that. The outside of it had so many different layers of it. And you can see when they close the door, the layers connect up there with the inside, Including the facets here. And then you can see some of the art in here. I don't think I got a signal, but I'll take a step inside just for, just for a second, show you some art.

00:51:10 Kikuchi (Guide): Whoa.

00:51:15 John Daub: That's some really awesome armor. Looks like Darth Vader. And then there's a sword over here. I don't know why I'm whispering. Wow, That looks like Excalibur. It's actually a spear. Spearhead. So this is the Ishiguro Kei. Ishiguro, meaning like a stone black. And he was a. A higher ranked samurai Back in. Back in the Edo period. Now there are no samurais, so he's still owner of the house. Hey, it is all rapin. Beautiful house. And I always enjoy your streams. Thank you. Thanks for joining us. You can see Kakonotate does is doing a really good job of promoting itself. It's something you should put on your radar here. There's the kanji for kakonodate and autumn season and the spring seasons are so beautiful here. It has that naturalness to it. Especially the samurai residences because they planted these trees back in the samurai era. These trees were planted for a purpose. Everything had a purpose back then, you know.

00:53:02 Kikuchi (Guide): Whoa.

00:53:02 John Daub: Look at these gaeta. Look at that gator. That's like. I don't know. That'd be really hard to walk in. But look at the fur to keep you warm. That's kind of a significant thing. Beautiful. And if you look up at the ceilings, you know, I'm always looking down at for manhole covers and stuff. But if you do look up, you're gonna see everything has some sort of purpose or significance to it. There's another one of these protective doors. I'm not sure what's inside there. But again, every. Everybody was always worried about what about fire. Right. So they always wanted to protect their valuables from fire. And this one is very interesting. It's made of. Made of wood. So the wood kept out the wood. The fire. I think it's been specially coated or something. So it does look. Does look very interesting. You have to look at these details. Look at the. The lock on this door. Whoa. Getting medieval there. Look at that. Hey, Tojiro. Welcome. Thank you. Even better than visiting an open air museum because of the explanation and history lessons straight from the descendant. Indeed, indeed. It's really, really special when the resident of the house for 13 generations is explaining it to you. Hey, Master Senpai. Jiji. Welcome. All right, let's take. Let's get out of here. What an amazing. What an amazing experience. I'm humbled that Ishiguro san himself was giving us the tour. I don't know what's inside the locked door. I don't have a credit card big enough to pick it. Need something bigger than a visa or MasterCard? Need both. Maybe that's what I'm talking about before about the roofs. Look at the roof on this. On this house. It is very significantly thick. Look at that. Wow. That is very thick roof compared to the one. Yeah. Very, very nice. This Roo a Jin. Wow. So you have to change it Change this every five to ten years. The, the roofs are handmade, so it's slightly pricey to. To have to fix it. Yeah, you can't do it by machine. It's. It's going to be a little pricey. Whoa. How do you get those? Sameas.

00:56:33 Ishiguro (Guide): Thank you for coming today.

00:56:34 John Daub: Thank you so much for the guided tour. I really appreciate it. Bye bye. Yeah. Wow. All right, keep on moving. Hey, let's go this way. So he was telling us this is where they would confirm who you are. So this would be like the video and radio between before they would open the gates, they would check your credentials here. And if you weren't who you said you were, they'd probably like throw a sword at you or something. As I said, samurai era was very kind of violent. Hi. All right, let's go check out this store over here. Some people were commenting on it when we started the live stream stream. If you want me to keep going, click the like button. Let's see if we can get to 800 likes. That is our threshold. And maybe I'll get something to eat over there. It's up to you. Audience participation. Interesting. So he said here the lesser samurai would, would have a part time job making things out of the Yamazakura. Different items. Look at the hairpins that they, they made here. All out of this really special wood. And you can see once it's polished, it does look very beautiful. But I don't think they chop down sakura trees. You can see the goods right here. Yeah, very nice. Can we go in? I don't know. I'm scared to go inside. You have to ask permission to film for everything. And we've done that so far. Well, look at the end of the street. I love this. The shacks of orange and yellow and red. Hey, Mad skills gamers. How you doing? Everybody out there, Jennifer Santos. How you doing? Very beautiful. Hi. Heard my name? Ah, just some snacks here. All right. We're well below our threshold. We're supposed to have 800 for me to start to eat. But I'm a benevolent man and a hungry one. No, Uncle. I like uncle. Uncle is a red bean paste. Can you see that there? There you go. It's sweet, but it's not too. It's sweet, but it's not too sweet. And it, it's moist, but it breaks apart in your mouth very well. Oh, No. Three second rule. If you drop it, it's still good, but maybe not on the ground here it's not. So I'm not sure what it Is so get out of here. So it's not kinako Jenna Yone. Wow, that's really good. I'm gonna come back and get some. I have nothing to I. My. I. I don't have my wallet in here. But, you know, in the sleeves of kimonos, you can. You can carry things. So I can put, you know, things in the sleeves of my kimono, which is kind of. Kind of neat. Yeah. All right, so we're gonna cut one time and maybe I'm gonna go back live. And when we get to the location for eating, that guy's got a.

01:02:42 Kikuchi (Guide): There.

01:03:04 John Daub: Really, really beautiful. Hey, Sashira 04 snack money for my daughter and I. Hey, guys. Thanks. I'm gonna get down the Shinkansen when I go back to Tokyo then. Aw, Monty B Verg Verges So beautiful. I feel lucky to be watching. Master senpai wrote in again here. Hey, John, do you know what clan is this neighborhood during the samurai era? Okay, I can ask. Is the name of the city and the name of the clan was Tokugawa. We're not checking the history indolent auto deduction for beer and a snack. I'm looking right at a place where I can get that. Clan we believe. And I see chestnut ice cream. O so we're gonna go to lunch and I'll see if I can live stream and just see how the signal is there. I wanted to share with you this really beautiful street here and then see. Oh, that is Hokkaido Azuki ice cream right there. Whoa. I like the fact that they have so many different kinds of flavors of ice cream. There's matcha. I'm. But I'm not hungry for like ice cream. I want like real food. Whoa. Wow. All right, everybody, I want to say thank you so much. Check out this last this scene right here. Thanks so much to everybody, for everybody for watching this live stream. I'm so happy that you could join us in Kako Notate. Go back and take a look at the auto. The gin rickshaw, the human powered rickshaw that we went up and down the streets and took a look at the castle where it used to be up on the hill. But we. What is most interesting about this is that history going back all the way to the samurai period where the Bushido had these houses here and you can go into them and take check them out. You really do feel like you're going back into time and knowing some of the history of the areas outside of Tokyo, like here in Akita really does enhance your experience here in Japan. So I hope you do make it up here, especially during autumn and spring. Look at these beautiful trees here. Have a great day. I'll try to be back for lunch in an hour, so see you later. From Kakunodate, Akita Prefecture Stay warm, everybody. Maria Damo Lakis I love Japan. When. When is the best time to see the fall colors? Right now. This is early. Early November for Tohoku and late November for Kyoto. And Kyoto early December for Kyushu. That should be helpful, huh? Thanks for asking.