00:00:01 John Daub: Greetings! Welcome to my balcony. I'm at home. I don't really need a mask, but that's not the point. Gotta get used to wearing one. And I'm going to be going over the travel update. This is November 11, 2020, on traveling to Japan, international travel, all these things. I've been doing this since January of 2020, about the end of the month there, where the outbreak was just starting. And we started to see travel start being impacted, international travel coming from all over the world into Japan.

00:00:32 John Daub: And back then I was doing travel updates at least once a week, and now pretty much once a month, because there aren't so many huge changes in coming into Japan. But there are some updates, there are some developments, there are some directions that help us to predict what travel is going to be like in 2020 and 2021, if it's possible that travel starts now. Or if travel starts in the spring or summer, and when it does, what's it going to look like? And what is the situation here in Japan as well? I think a lot of people need to know, like, when they do come to Japan, what are they coming to? Is it the same place as before? Sort of, yeah, pretty much. Japan doesn't really change too much, but some things have changed here, I've noticed, a lot.

00:01:19 John Daub: And that's what I'm going to be trying to do in this update over the next 15, 20, 30 minutes. Eugene Holbert, thank you so much. Currently, there are 111,222 people who have tested positive for COVID here in Japan as of November 11th. So that's 111,000 people. That's a fraction of what is in a lot of other countries. So I want you to keep that in mind. Japan is a completely different situation as other countries in the world.

00:02:04 John Daub: So when I'm doing live streams, I'm going outside and I'm doing things that might not be allowed in your own country. Japan's policies and rules are different here. I want to show you a graph here comparing where we are. This is important just for historical references, where we are today. You can see the graph here of the United States has almost 10 million people infected with COVID. And Japan has, this is from November 10th, yesterday. It has 108,000 people and America almost has 10 million people. So I want you to put that in perspective here. India is catching up quite quickly, but this graph kind of tells a story.

00:02:50 John Daub: That also means that Japan has a little bit of flexibility in terms of being allowed to travel to countries that are not so heavily affected. And having countries that are not heavily infected also creates some sort of bubble travel campaigns, which we're talking to right now with Australia, believe it or not. There's nothing definitive, but there are plans and that's kind of good. We're moving in that direction.

00:03:14 John Daub: The next graph I want to show you really quickly is the daily. And again, this is sort of important just to understand where we are today. This comes from Kyodo News. And you can see the daily infections here in Japan. It really spiked just before the summer. And then it went down again. And you can see this is in the beginning of March and April. June was really, really low because of the state of emergency. And then after the state of emergency was lifted, we had a big spike here. And then it just kind of receded over the summer. And now it's starting to come up again. You can see over the last couple of days.

00:03:50 John Daub: And the weekends, they apparently don't test in Japan. And that's what these low spikes are from the weekend where they don't test. And then on the weekdays, you'll see like Monday, there'll be huge outbreaks. The blue line is the tests reported, the amount of tests. And the green is the number of infections. So the actual line here is you can see the trends. There was a spike here and there's kind of a spike going on here, but in terms of the whole thing, the amount of people infected, it's not that much. I mean, it's not good, but it's completely different than in other countries. So I really wanted to point that out here.

00:04:30 John Daub: There were 1,284 newly confirmed cases in the country on Tuesday. So that's just yesterday. So bringing the cumulative total again to 111,000. This comes from Kyodo News. The death toll from all of this to 111,000 is only 1,864 people. So it's a very, very, very small percentage, just a little bit over 1% of the people that are infected, which is on par with influenza, maybe a little bit higher than that. But it's not as impacted as in other countries, basically because the medical services and hospitals have the facilities and we're not overly stretched with this pandemic. So that's a good thing.

00:05:18 John Daub: Over the course of the last few months, I've been taking you outside since the state of emergency was lifted here in Japan, and you've been able to get a chance to see on Only in Japan Go what it looks like around Japan. What are the policies and the procedures to get into buildings? And I've got a lot of news that I want to report here to you. Before I started to travel for a lot of the campaigns and do work with prefectures and other organizations, like right now I'm helping Japan Rail with a new pass that they've released. The JR East Welcome Pass. It's a new pass, is what it's called. It started in October 16th and it's going on until the end of February.

00:06:03 John Daub: So before I actually was able to film with that, I had to take my temperature for two weeks and record everything. There was like a set of guidelines that I had to follow that were quite strict. And I found, first of all, I learned that my temperature does fluctuate a couple of percentages every day, which is kind of interesting to learn. But I was able to record that and giving that data kind of gives people assurances that we in the group are all that did everything that we could to make sure that we're safe. We also always wore masks when we're together. But when we eat, we still are talking. So I do feel always safe? Not really, but I think you can't... There's always going to be risk in everything that we do.

00:06:48 John Daub: And this is why I've been able to continue to make this show with as many precautions as I possibly can take within the situation that we have here in Japan. Remember, it's a very different situation. 10 million almost in the United States, 100,000 here in Japan. The numbers are completely different. So the situation is different. The population is different. There's a lot of criteria into this. So let's get to the news here.

00:07:20 John Daub: So there was a vaccine that was announced by Pfizer, just a couple of weeks ago saying that it had 90% effectiveness in preventing COVID-19, which is an amazing development. Does this change the way that we're going to be, change the travel industry? Absolutely. This is going to be huge. Japan's new prime minister, by the way, since the last update, we have Prime Minister Suga, who's from Akita Prefecture, by the way, which I was just up there and they're very proud of Prime Minister Suga becoming the prime minister from that prefecture. He vows, and Japan has these partnerships with these pharmaceutical companies, but vows to secure vaccines for the entire population, covering both doses of it by the middle of next year.

00:08:13 John Daub: This is great news and they're working on a strategy here within Japan to make sure that everybody gets them, probably going to the most people that are the most vulnerable and people that want it. Some of the things in this news that just broke recently, the legislature obliges the population to make an effort to be vaccinated, but will not strictly make it mandatory. And there'll be no discrimination against anybody who chooses not to get the vaccine. But this being Japan, I think that everybody is probably going to be getting the vaccine and following the directions of the government as a way to protect the population around us. So just like with most, almost everybody wearing masks pretty early on in this pandemic, everybody's probably going to get vaccinated and we'll probably be okay. Probably sometime around April. And there's a lot of probably's in there. We still don't know definitively, but it is a huge development.

00:09:10 John Daub: And Japan has a partnership with Pfizer as well to get, I think it was 120 million doses as a priority. So that's kind of good with the Olympics coming in 2021. The local population here in Japan will probably be okay. Japan has not seen an explosive spread of the virus. So I think that's a huge development for the global population. This comes from Kyodo News. But the number of daily confirmed cases has continued to rise in recent weeks, prompting a government subcommittee of health experts to call for stepping up preventative measures. That's right. So we are kind of going up again because it's fall weather, just like a lot of other countries.

00:09:47 John Daub: I know that my friends in the United Kingdom have seen a shutdown and a stay at home order. People in the United States have seen 100,000 people. So in one day in the United States, they probably would have been able to get the vaccine. That's a huge development. And I think pretty much had the same amount of people as the entire pandemic for the year of 2020 in Japan. Just put that in perspective. In one day, America had as many infections as the entire country of Japan since the start of this. But, you know, I do worry about my family back home and I do like the fact that a lot of people are getting tested in the United States. They're getting tested here in Japan. It is getting easier to get tested everywhere and that's really a good thing.

00:10:32 John Daub: And I'm going to show you this really quickly here. This app was also required for me to install on my phone. It's COCOYA. It's a COVID-19 app. And that's the mascot for stopping pandemic viruses in Japan. It's a bird. It's not a plane. It's not Superman either. And this app traces where you go, like on a map that is just followed by data and analytics. And then if your phone, which has this app activated, if you come in close contact with another person who has this app activated, it will tell you the encounters in the past 14 days. And if you do, you're going to get a notification. And if you test positive, you can register your positive information. And this helps the society as a whole.

00:11:33 John Daub: A lot of people might not be this privacy, but people might not really want to do this app, but I was required to do it as a part of working with other people on projects. So I think it's a good thing. I'm trying to do everything that I can possibly do to keep me safe and also keep the show running, which is very important. So the prime minister has vaccines coming in by 120 million doses by Pfizer or AstraZeneca and another 50 million doses from US biotechnology firm, Moderna Inc. So since Pfizer came up with it, Japan will get 120 million doses as a priority, just based on an agreement. I guess Japan had backed the right pharmaceutical company.

00:12:25 John Daub: The prime minister also reiterated his pledge to secure enough COVID-19 vaccines for the entire population by the first half. So this is all good news. What's not good news right now is that because of the Go To Travel campaign and the Go To Eat campaign, we have seen more people come up with infections. But again, it's nowhere near the same levels as I thought it would probably get to, which is maybe a good thing. It's never a good thing when somebody gets infected, but having the numbers under control or not getting up to like 10,000 in a day, this is important that the population does keep this as down as possible.

00:13:02 John Daub: We've seen a lot of innovations. Now, Hokkaido, we've seen a lot of innovations. Hokkaido actually has seen, and this is just in the news yesterday, 200 daily coronavirus cases in all of Hokkaido, which is the biggest island, one of the biggest islands up there in the north. It's a big place, but they had 200 in that whole island up there for the first time in a long time. And that has triggered a lot of like the warning level has gone up and people are becoming even more vigilant to try to stay home and fight this to keep the infection levels down. But with the Go To Travel campaign, with everyone in Japan traveling all over the place, it's really hard to keep the levels down. All they can do is just try to contain it, but they have to keep the economy going.

00:14:03 John Daub: I have to keep doing my own job. I shouldn't be counting on government money to get this stuff done. With infections in Hokkaido exceeding more than 100 for the fourth straight day through Sunday, the latest figures brought the prefecture's cumulative total to 4,198. Health experts said cold weather was likely responsible for the increase.

00:14:57 John Daub: I think these are all really good steps and part of the direction that Japan will be going for the 2021 Olympics when people are gonna be coming here. And I have some information on this too. Mask makers, and you've all been seeing me wearing this mask which is not really designed to protect me. We've already kind of gone over masks a lot of times. This is just a normal Pita mask. Actually the pollen in the air, the kafun (pollen), is kind of nasty in the fall. So this does help me a lot with breathing in the pollen and you can wash these and I change them after about five washes, I throw them away and get a new one.

00:15:36 John Daub: But this is called a Pita mask. And Pita has come up with a new mask which I thought was really interesting. This one is made with the same material as N95 masks. So I guess they heard everybody's criticisms. So they came up with a mask that has the materials for the N95 mask. And I have a bunch of these and I wear these when I go on airplanes and other places where I need to protect myself. But in Japan, there's no law requiring masks but they ask you to wear them especially on public transportation. And the purpose of the mask is not to protect you. The purpose of the mask or face covering is just so that it doesn't go out in the air to everybody else. And if everybody's wearing one, then everybody is protected or has a lot more protection, like a little bit of a shield.

00:16:43 John Daub: I tried, I put this on and like, because I know a lot of people see me wearing it. I put it on. If I blow, I tried to blow out a candle and I couldn't do it. So it is really tapering down the amount of whatever I might have if I am sick and absorbing it because these do get wet and I can tell it's absorbing the moisture. So it is working. It's doing what it's supposed to do to keep everything in my zone, which is what a face covering is for.

00:17:17 John Daub: This is what the mask looks like. It's very comfortable. You can double up your surgical mask, do whatever you gotta do, okay? But just wear something to try to protect the other people around you. And this is what I love about Japan. Like, you know, here in Japan, if someone's sake glass is empty, we kind of are like, we are watching the other people and we fill it and we worry about the people around us. You know, we make sure that everybody's sake glass is full. This is the metaphor that I always think about anyways. Here in Japan, people are always thinking about the other people around them. Not everybody, but the vast majority of the society here. So we wear the mask, even though maybe we don't want to, but because we know that it makes other people feel comfortable. And that's a big part of the society here in Japan, to try to make sure that you're not hurting society, but you're kind of just making the people feel more comfortable.

00:18:31 John Daub: And me not being Japanese, and living here for so long, I'm a little bit more mindful and I don't want to do anything that might be offensive to people here, just because I know that I'm a little bit under the microscope for not being Japanese. I'm not Japanese, I'm American. But being considerate of other people's feelings is extremely important, especially if you're an expat living here. It's good to think about other people. That's how you make friends, people.

00:19:08 John Daub: Got a lot of friends. Got you. Let's see what else we got here. Oh, I got news on the Olympics. Okay. All right, some good news. If you did get, there was a lot of people who actually got Olympic tickets. If you can't go or you don't want to go, you can finally get a refund on your tickets, but do it through the website. They're accepting it right here. They're accepting refunds until November 30th. So you have a small window to get your refund. And some of those tickets cost like $3,000. So you might want to do that. It's up to you.

00:19:59 John Daub: So in terms of the Olympics here, the Olympics is a big international event that a lot of people thought was going to be canceled and it wasn't. It was postponed. I guess it was sort of canceled, postponed, until 2021, one year later. And that's a good thing because it gives us time to try to come up with protocols at work that keep everybody safe. That's the most important thing. Just today in the news, there was, and one of the reasons why I'm doing this update is because this is the direction. Just today in the news, we got information that Japan is now coming up with the procedures for allowing in foreign visitors to Japan.

00:20:45 John Daub: And they're going to be a lot more, more open about it than I thought that they might be, meaning that for the games, they're going to possibly waive the 14 day quarantine period because it would just be impossible to have everybody in quarantine that's coming here for the Olympics, including the athletes. But what I have here on it is Japan mulls exempting international visitors from quarantine. Here's the headlines from Kyodo News. And I think it's pretty significant. This is sort of the direction that what they come up with for dealing with this for the Olympics is going to be paving the path for tourism to resume probably in the spring. And I'm getting that feeling that the vaccine is getting around. This is going to be resuming in the spring.

00:21:29 John Daub: Japan is considering exempting spectators from abroad for next summer's Tokyo Olympics and Paralympics from the 14 day quarantine period, a measure currently imposed in principle. In principle, international travelers to stem the spread of the novel coronavirus government sources said Tuesday. Well, the government has yet to decide whether permit overseas spectators to attend, if it permits overseas spectators to attend the games, summer games, if approved, they will likely be required to test negative for coronavirus multiple times before departure and have their condition monitored after entry into Japan. Olympic organizers are expected to make the decision regarding the number of spectators will be allowed into the games around spring. So we'll probably start to hear more news on in March for it.

00:22:20 John Daub: But this news is significant because they've already understood that if they're going to be holding the Olympic games, that they gotta, they have to get rid of that exemption of quarantining for 14 days. That app, that I showed you is probably going to be something of a requirement. When I've been working with government agencies and stuff. Having a contact app is pretty important, I think. So that might be something that you're required to install. I've had to take my temperature 14 days and there was nobody really to confirm that information. It was something that I did on my own on the honor system. But having that numbers also, by tracking my own thing. It's all about me not wanting to get other people sick.

00:23:15 John Daub: Not everybody is like that. I understand like one out of a hundred people might not give a darn. So Japan has to come up with testing. For me, I think the key to this and travel is not so much the vaccine, but it's rapid testing and being able to test 30 minutes before a flight. When you go to check in, you can take a test. And when you get to the gate, if you test positive, then you don't get on the flight. Something like this, 30 minutes or something like a Domino's pizza, 30 minutes or less. I want to be able to know if the people around me are safe and they've had to have a test 72 hours before as well and probably take their temperature and do all of these things.

00:24:05 John Daub: John Tudor. Tudor, salutations from the year 2036. John, what's it like in the future, 16 years from now? Hopefully we are over this and everybody is doing better. And do I still have a lot of gray hair? Am I even still around? Do I have any hair at all? Like what's the situation? I did contact Kevin Riley for a Consait report update, but he hasn't gotten back to me yet. Kevin's probably busy. We do love our friend Kuma's Kitchen down there in Osaka.

00:24:45 John Daub: So I want to talk to you a little bit about my experience now traveling in Japan, domestic. Now, a lot of you are not able to come here to Japan. And I am looking at the live chat as I talk about this. So I'm going to tell you what's been like over the last 30 years. And I'm going to tell you a little bit about my three months, four months of traveling since the state of emergency has ended. And, you know, it's pretty much resumed back to normal. There's a worry about the virus, but people are taking it seriously for the most part.

00:25:22 John Daub: I've been taking the Shinkansen a lot since actually since about June when things were just starting to open up because I was invited to film in Kanazawa and that was my first time to get on the Shinkansen. I think there were two people in the car I was in. I think there's a place for about 120 people to sit inside of a Shinkansen, each car. And there was two, me and some guy, and he was on the other side. So I felt pretty safe. It was actually kind of flattering to have such service, I guess, to have the entire place to myself. But I was still wearing a mask. And I had sunglasses on because I know that even if you wear a mask, if you are protecting yourself with an N95 mask, you want to have something covering your face and your eyes as well.

00:26:11 John Daub: Shinkansen travel has been pretty good. I learned that the Shinkansen air is recirculated every eight minutes. They make it a point to let you know that there's fresh air every eight minutes. On an airplane, I flew on ANA to Kochi and to... I flew on ANA to Kochi just last week. And I've been on four flights. So that means two round trip tickets. And I was actually not worried because the protocols were in place. I was not worried. Everybody had a mask on. Nobody was talking, too. Everybody just kept to themselves, didn't talk, even when they were with friends, read a newspaper, doing their smartphones, sleeping.

00:27:00 John Daub: And we got off. They called the rows like Group A, Group B and told you the rows. Everybody remained seated, which was very odd because in a flight, as soon as it comes down and turn off the fasten seatbelt signs, everybody gets up. But everybody stayed seated and they called the rows. And it was so orderly. Very only in Japan moment where I'm sitting there looking around. So this is awesome. Everybody's following the rules. Well, that's Japan. Maybe that's why everything is kind of a little bit better here in terms of the pandemic.

00:27:35 John Daub: So flying is not something that I was too worried about. The air circulation through the cabin is every three minutes. So we're actually a lot safer on a flight than we think we then we did that. I thought we were. So if you're inside of a restaurant, the air is not really being recycled. You have kind of stagnant air or it's being blown around inside of an airplane. So that's a good thing. That air is renewing itself every three minutes and they showed ANA showed on the video after the seatbelt safety video. If you haven't flown ANA, Peter von Gomm, my friend Peter is the voice of the safety video. Welcome to ANA. It's kind of neat to hear, like he's stalking us everywhere.

00:28:27 John Daub: But after they showed that video, they also showed some of the safety features to try to assure people that they are safe riding on the airplane. Now, you're never going to be 100% safe, but I thought that was really good to do, to show that the air is circulated from the engines coming in and circulating every three minutes, and new air is always coming in, and they have new industrial filters that will remove micron particles this big and things like this. So I was actually more at ease on an airplane than on the Shinkansen, which is interesting, right? But on the Shinkansen, people are pretty much following the rules.

00:28:55 John Daub: I did have a confrontation with three salarymen coming back from Sendai about 10 days ago. I was coming from Akita down to Tokyo. They got on on Sendai, and I was sitting in my seat by myself, and they were on the other side where there's three seats, and they just brought a lot of beer and a lot of food. They removed their masks and started talking like it was an izakaya (Japanese pub) or a bar. Like, laughing. They were laughing really loud, and they were getting drunk on the Shinkansen. And after about five minutes, I turned to them, and I told them, look, you know, I feel really uncomfortable because your masks are off. This isn't an izakaya. You're actually on public transportation. Could you maybe keep it down?

00:29:42 John Daub: And very quickly, they understood what was going on because I wasn't the only one that actually felt uncomfortable. People around them were, but Japanese, a lot of people won't say anything. They just will look down or feel really embarrassed or really upset. So I went out there. I talked. If this was America, someone might have been, I bet you people would have been clapping at me. But it wasn't. People just maybe nodded a little bit. But they did keep quiet. However, after about 30 minutes, I think they forgot that conversation. So I figure I'm okay because it's been 10 days ago, and I'm all right. But I was a little bit worried about that. So I think that there is some complacency.

00:30:28 John Daub: Sometimes you have to say something. It is the responsibility of me as a human to protect my fellow humans because that's what we do. Superheroes. I didn't play the gaijin card. I actually said it in Japanese. I should have said it in English. That would have freaked them out more. Those are fighting words, right? Yeah, you know what? I don't look that scary when I get angry. The only one scared is probably Peter von Gomm.

00:31:00 John Daub: That's pretty much all that I have here. The protocols are in place. You know, I think international travel, the most requested question that I get is when can we come back to Japan? Actually, for a lot of countries, there is some sort of protocol to possibly come back, especially if you're a Japanese citizen or you have some kind of connection to Japan. A lot of the visas were suspended. The best resources, and I've written it in the description of this video right now. You can go and check them out. JNTO. Japan National Tourism Organization has a website. If you just search JNTO coronavirus or COVID-19, they have a section in there that allows you to see all the things, all the visas and all the countries that are allowed into Japan and not allowed into Japan. This is a huge resource and they update it daily. So you might want to bookmark JNTO's coronavirus page.

00:32:01 John Daub: Kyodo News' coronavirus coverage is amazing. Every day they have a section based on stories here in Japan that encapsulate that day of what happened. And what I read to you, a lot of it comes from Kyodo News. So I think that's an amazing resource in English, too. So you might want to bookmark that as well. I also have hotlines. If you are in Japan, you live here, you might want to take a look at those. And if you ever feel unwell and you're not sure what to do, call those hotlines. It's 24 hours a day. JNTO has one as well and they'll help guide you to where you should go and keep everybody safe. I mean, if you feel sick, don't go out. The best thing to do is to call a medical professional and then they're going to help you out and arrange for you to come in and take your test and everything. So the procedures have really gotten streamlined.

00:32:56 John Daub: I've been doing a lot more wagyu episodes. This is Kobe beef potato chips. So I might try to have a couple of them during this live stream. I'm really curious about it. Do these really taste like Kobe beef? So you might want to stick around for another couple of minutes. I like this brand, too. This is the Pride potato brand. They kind of make it in a really premium looking bag as well. Kobe beef potato chips. And you know what? It wasn't even that expensive. I don't think it's A5, though. It's hard to tell. It just says Kobe beef. So if you can't afford a Kobe beef steak, you can get the chips.

00:34:03 John Daub: Good news. Kickstarter backers, your postcards are going out. This one doesn't have an address on it, but this is the poster. You can see Kanae and I down here in the middle. How cool is that? This is made by Dakota and the first ever Only in Japan Hanabi Festival 2020. I love this postcard. This is going out to backers that asked for it. So we're just about finished with all of the backers, rewards and everything. This Kickstarter campaign went a heck of a lot smoother than my first one. So I learned my lessons.

00:34:42 John Daub: And for the postcard club, this is the postcard for this month. This is Buddha glasses, sunglasses, and it's pretty cool. And if you go to Patreon, you can get one of these. I will send these like right away to you from Tokyo Station. So it comes, I think to the US, it took six days to make it, but it's a pretty cool image. You're going to want to have that on your refrigerator. And I have a temples of Japan postage stamp. Stamp is very important to me. I'm a stamp geek as well.

00:35:11 John Daub: If you're Australian, good news. I'm putting this in the mail today. These are May's postcards and they're going in the mail as well as June's, November's postcards. And every five days, I'm going to be putting in Australian mail in here. So Marty, Kerry from Queensland, Robin from New South Wales, Ken, Amanda from Victoria, Emily and Josh in New South Wales, Timothy in Western Australia, Marty. It's on the way, buddy. Tarjay in New South Wales, John in Brisbane, Sky. Some of you might have missed this. I've already quit the postcard club because no postcards were coming. You thought it was my fault. You didn't think I was going to send them. They're right here. Erica in Victoria and Angela in South Australia. Not too far from Adelaide. Nick in Gatton. Joshua in New South Wales. This is great. Rodney in Roeville. Joanne in Cook in ACT and Daniel in Queensland. These are on the way.

00:36:44 John Daub: I've been saving our Australian postcards forever. And three days ago, two days ago, Japan Post started up Australian airmail. It's very cool. Airmail to the United States packages have resumed small packets under two kilograms. So if you order something from Japan, keep in mind that if it's over two kilograms, it's going to be sent by sea-mail or it's going to be held. Small packets are under two kilograms. As long as it's under two kilograms, it will go airmail now, which is huge. So actually, I sent two packages in September and October to our Patreon supporters. They have not arrived yet. I sent November's packages last week. They arrived. So if you're a Patreon supporter at the Daimyo level, be prepared to have two boxes coming to your door like really quick.

00:37:58 John Daub: For the show over the next week, I'm going to be going up to Tohoku next week. Sorry, this week, Peter von Gomm might go along, which is cool. I'm going to go to Yamagata and take some B-roll for drone shots of the Shinkansen and some train for an upcoming episode coming at the end of November next week. I'm going back to Tokyo. I'm going back to Tohoku to Morioka, Kakunodate and Aomori. And I'm going to be filming an episode on food in collaboration with Japan Rail, which is awesome. And my buddy Cody from Japan Ramen Guide is going to be joining me.

00:38:29 John Daub: Cody is, he is like my go-to guy for ramen noodles and stuff. And I met Cody when we were, Trevor from Food Ranger. So me and Trevor and Ting and Cody, the four of us were driving around Shikoku in search of noodles. And that's where I met Cody and Trevor got in touch with Cody and collaborated and Cody traveled with Trevor and Ting all over Japan. And I went down to Okayama to meet Trevor and Ting and we drove around for a few days, which is really fun trip. Since then, I've really been keeping in touch with Cody because his ramen site is really great. And his ramen knowledge far exceeds mine. And whenever I do an Only in Japan episode, I'd like to have the best, the professionals. He's a professional. He's a ramen noodle professional.

00:39:36 John Daub: Do you smell it? Smell that. You smell that? That smells like Kobe beef. It smells like beef. I don't know if it's like, it smells like Kobe beef. Let me get one that's slightly burned. I like the ones that are always slightly burned. They're the better ones. Okay. Let's try it here. Hmm. That's interesting. Wow. All right. This is actually, I would want to say that of course it's not vegan. Okay. It's not vegan friendly. There's beef powder in this, like real beef. But what is interesting to me is this actually has like the blood taste, like slightly raw. I don't know how they do it. It's bizarre. And it's like medium rare.

00:41:31 John Daub: Here it is. Look, when I was up in Akita, I can't drink this now. It's too early. I have a pact where I'm not going to drink. This is the Amabie. This is the coronavirus, like go away mascot. So I found a beer that is dedicated to the coronavirus. And I'm not sure if by drinking it, if that has any impact, I would say no, but it's interesting. I just wanted to show that to you. I do like that Japan has a mascot, historical mascot to help prevent diseases.

00:42:19 John Daub: This is the JR East Welcome Pass 2020. Some people have been asking me. Is that my fingerprint there? That's somebody's fingerprint. No way. The staff member who stamped it got their fingerprint on it. I could totally do some sort of Sherlock Holmes kind of dusting and see what they've done in their past. Fingerprint is power. I should, I know I sanitized, maybe it's mine. After I got the ticket, I kind of alcoholed my hand up. This is my ticket for going up to Tohoku next week. I got it in advance and it's pretty neat. I like the fact that it's just a ticket. You don't have to show anybody. You could just use it like a ticket through the ticket turnstiles. And that's a game changer for me, the ease of it.

00:43:14 John Daub: These are my reservation tickets for those that have never seen Japanese reservation tickets. This is my return ticket and the ticket back. It's pretty cool. One trip to Aomori is 14,000 yen. This whole ticket, 12,000 yen for three days on unlimited travel in Tohoku, East Japan. Awesome. It does not happen very often where Japanese residents of Japan get a little bit of a bonus. These chips are pretty darn cool. Actually, there is a pretty expensive piece of paper. Better not lose it, huh? I don't have insurance.

00:44:06 John Daub: The show is going to be having some more updates. I have an episode ready to drop. You can watch it. Either tonight or tomorrow in collaboration with Greg, Life Where I'm From. We both went up to Fukushima to visit some onsens (hot springs) and we kind of have a different take on this trip. I thought it would be good together to drop a video, both of us. He's a bigger YouTuber than me. He's got 1 million subscribers and I just have 75,000 now. But it's not about subscribers. It's about your channel, how hard you work at making the content. And I love what I do. And I love the fact that we have really good people supporting. If you want to be a sponsor, you can just join this channel. And I really appreciate it. We put that money to good use.

00:44:59 John Daub: If you have any questions and you want some follow up on this, I do look at the video comments a couple hours after each live stream. So definitely leave a comment below. Let me know what you're thinking, what you've heard about. I know some countries are getting priority. Business travel to Singapore has started. They're allowing people from Vietnam, which does not have a very high infection rate to come in. Just was it yesterday, about 120 nurses came from Vietnam into Japan to help with the take care of people here in this country, which is great. Vietnam and Japan have a pretty good relationship recently over the last couple of decades. It's just been getting better and better.

00:45:40 John Daub: Philippines is not too far away. Korea, China, depending on the situation, we're going to see Japan open up based on where Japan is, where the vaccine is, where rapid testing is, and then where each country is. And then they're going to be making pacts and regional travel. The United States might not be high on that list. Most of our viewers are from the US, including me and my family. US is probably really I don't know when I'm going to be able to go back to see my family. Actually, I'm just about to set up my Christmas tree in Japan. Christmas starts on October 31. The day that the Halloween is done. So it's time to get up the tree.

00:46:46 John Daub: I got up my German Christmas smoking Santa, which smells like a cathedral. And yeah, I kind of like that Christmas should start early this year. We need something to look forward to. Now that the fireworks project is done, we need something really good to look forward to in the holidays or that time. And I'm really happy and excited. Despite the cooler weather. Even though we have a really nice day today kind of warm. I'm really looking forward to the holidays and I hope that all of you and your loved ones are doing well and stay safe and keep in touch and I will have another live stream tomorrow up into Tohoku or the day after tomorrow and some more travel videos coming for the rest of November. And I'm going to stay as safe as I possibly can. The best from us. Have a good day and I'll see you in the next live stream. Until then, stare at this. Because it's staring back at you.