00:00:05 John Daub: So this is almost into the town of Kosaka. Welcome to Akita Prefecture! How you doing everybody? We're going into town right now and I wanted to give you an idea of what Kosaka is like. This feels almost like a typical small Japanese town. And we're just on the outskirts of it and we're going to be driving into the center of Kosaka from the Akita Inaka School.

00:00:29 John Daub: Driving is Dom because you have a license and so do I. But keep in mind that this is a totally different look, different seasons. This town looks completely different. I'm already noticing on the left side these poles here. That's different than in Tokyo. What's the significance of these poles? That's for the snow because usually it's above the top of the poles, the amount of snow. So you can see the road. You need to know where the road is. And all the white tambo stuff. That's rice fields. Lots and lots of rice fields here.

00:01:22 Dom: It's kinda chilly out there. It's a little bit weird. The snow is melting but usually there's so much snow. It gets warm and then it gets cold and right now the temperature is above freezing. It looks like 6 or 7 degrees with sun. So it can get quite warm during the day and get kind of chilly at night.

00:02:03 John Daub: Thank you WRX turbo. We are now turbo jetting into Kosaka so this is kind of where it starts right. I see a traffic light. Speed limit is 50, we are now going 40 so it's okay. Oh fire department, big brown building, interesting, they have nice old cars. And so this is downtown, is this the center right here? Almost. Oh I see a convenience store. And station.

00:03:05 Dom: Usually there's much more snow, they keep removing snow. To get from the Inaka School by bicycle this is about 20, 25 minutes, depends how fast you are. But we have some electric bikes. Usually we pick students up by car which takes 10 minutes or they can take the bus. Happy bus, happy driver.

00:03:41 John Daub: Renee writes in that today reminds me of Niigata. They're all kind of look alike but Kosaka is different because up here in Tohoku and Niigata is sort of on the fringe of Tohoku, it does have a different feel to me as someone who's been living in Japan for so long. Niigata is pretty inaka but it's just a different feeling. I did a lot of hitchhiking up in Akita and I always got a ride pretty quickly. They picked me up because I was smiling. This is downtown Kosaka everybody, this is what you're getting into. Liquor store, Ichiban shop. Oh there's a supermarket, Max Valu. They call it Max Valu but this is Disneyland because it's kind of exciting to go in there.

00:04:58 John Daub: We are too late, we'll be driving, go around the court again. Open the windows and blast the music because that's what I did in college. That's why I got kicked out of college. Hey Shane, yeah we're gonna stop in at the guest house here. TDS DR writes in road munchies, we gotta stop off and get some road munchies. Vikvik is giving a big thumbs up, the sun is in my eyes, I'm squinting like Clint Eastwood. First I will drive around and then we'll just stop because that's the veggie market and the morning market. Drive slower. There's the local politician on the left. Did you vote for him? No. Where is the crowd? What's the population of Kosaka? Below five thousand. Wow, under five thousand people so there are a lot of abandoned houses and again the Akita Inaka School was an abandoned school, they just didn't have enough kids to do a school.

00:06:57 Dom: Wow, what is this here? This is like the shopping area, a 100 year old street and they have a railroad park with the old trains as well. Great history with mining, now they're doing recycling. This is the old mining building, the old mine office. More expensive slightly. This is the parking lot. That's the oldest in Japan. Oh right, this is the theater, look at the back side of it is all dark wood, a wooden playhouse made by the mining. They were very rich back in the day. You can't just go in there, you need an appointment. This is the old road with all these flags here, they're bamboo flags too. The rail park, what's inside there? It used to be like a rail station but they closed it to become a rail bike park, like something new you can do.

00:09:19 John Daub: And this is the school that's still open. Elementary and primary, I think. Junior high school. Elementary, my dear Watson. That's the gas station. We've done a circle around the center of Kosaka. Click thumbs up if you like Kosaka. Students love riding bicycles around the town. Hirosaki's not too far away. And there are like nice waterfalls and the dams. Many nice places but we don't have time to go everywhere.

00:10:20 Dom: We'll be stopping at the shared house. This is where you park. Because we don't use the house and like abandon house. So this is the place, the guest house, the share house, one of the share houses.

00:11:08 John Daub: Quick look. There's nothing quick about Only in Japan Go. There's a lot of snow. It looks better when we use it. So that's not a typical house. Wow, this is pretty nice. The adventure starts here. That's so Angela. Oh yes, she did this. The adventure starts here, mate. I'm from New Zealand. There's only 4 million people there, I can't offend everybody. You can't see outside because there's snow protection. For the winter, they put that stuff to make sure the snow won't.

00:12:47 Dom: We're inside, this is where people hang out and study here. Actually they usually drink there, they don't study. Yuji and Sayaka, you guys are students, do what students do.

00:13:03 John Daub: Dave writes in worst New Zealand accent ever. I'm sorry mate. Somebody said that Kiwis have a higher voice. See she said yes. If Mel Gibson he does a pretty good American. Mel Gibson's Australian, a lot of people don't know that. Fish and chips. Anyways nevermind my Kiwi accent. Just look at the beautiful tatami mats here. This could be yours if you stay here.

00:13:46 Dom: These doors close. What is this room for here? Originally yes, this kind of, so for example one student prefers that room. They close this one, that one. Is this a kotatsu? This one is not kotatsu. We have kotatsu somewhere else. So basically you close this one, one another one, and you separate the room. So typically it's closed. So one person stays there, one person stays here.

00:14:23 John Daub: I like these walkways as well in the hallway so you can get from one room to the other without having to open those double doors by going through here. And there's even a door also. And this is here, this glass wall on the other side is to keep the snow out, right? Interesting. Wow. I like your little doll collection here. It's very nice. Which one is Angela? Angela was burned on the floor. Hi I'm Angela. She's going to kill me after I do it. So it looks better when it's ready but now it's empty. Wow, it is a lot of space. If you compare this to Tokyo you actually can't. This is as big as my apartment, this one room. Not every house is different. This one is the bigger one. Oh there's a dryer, thank God. Nothing dries in the winter. Washer.

00:15:44 Dom: Angela is one of the co-founders of the Inaka School. The beautiful one.

00:15:51 John Daub: What are you saying Dom? You can't compete with that. People come and they cook together if they want to use the rice cooker, various things. So you can learn. I think for me the hardest thing in the first week of living here was how to use the suihanki (rice cooker). Once I learned how to do the rice cooker I could actually start to cook. Without learning how to use the rice cooker you can't actually make Japanese food because rice is so...

00:16:31 Dom: Do you know how to recognize why this house is a boy's house? Because there's two fridges. One is for beer and alcohol and the other is for food.

00:16:49 John Daub: I would put beer in this fridge you know? A lot of Japanese homes especially in inaka when there were more than one man living in the house it was just cost effective in the countryside to have a urinal. I was amazed, whoa this is cool. So you don't have to flush all the time because they need to pay every month. And that's the last room on the first floor. Looks dark now but looks not that dark.

00:17:28 Dom: So this is a bedroom. Japanese bedrooms you see here there's not an actual bed so that you would sleep in a futon on the floor and the futon would be in the closet here. You could just get the futon out and when you're ready to use it then the futon goes in. In the morning you put it away and it makes it a big beautiful room.

00:17:51 John Daub: But the futon I still use a futon and if I didn't I just wouldn't feel like I was in Japan to be honest. You use a futon? We have also normal rooms with normal beds also. Without a bed I would be a little confused. Everybody's like that but when you come into a different country you got to learn how the people live here. There it is right there. So men, men. It's pretty convenient to have. Oh thank you, I forgot the slippers. It's actually chilly on the floor here. Let's go upstairs.

00:18:38 Dom: For those just joining us we are in the Akita Inaka School Guest House. Just drove into the city so actually I like that this guest house is in the city so they can enjoy just as much as you want. Enjoy the supermarket across the street. Yeah town. There's like western style rooms that's student ones. Christian you can stay here, it's a bed. So more than one person would stay in this room I think right? Yeah you have options to choose a shared room or single room. The decor it is very Japanese style very countryside Japanese style wooden walls wooden floor. Lots of space. This is the master bedroom. Oh but that one comes with piano and guitar. Look at the views. Very nice. And you got this beautiful countryside view.

00:19:53 John Daub: This view could be yours if you want to live in Kosaka. We have better views. This is a pretty good view. I like the electrical pole right outside. I've lived in 17 apartments in Japan. Yeah I've moved a lot. This is not a bad view. It can get much much worse. And it can be much better. Play a Saturnian yellow woman. Play it all night.

00:20:26 Dom: So pretty much that's the house one of the houses. If we have luck and good reception we can expect. There's the one near the school which is even further deep into the countryside. Yes that's more like countryside. So at the end we're going to drive back to the school later and then we'll try to stop in at that one and have a quick look-see. Yes and we renovated the houses and now we're planning to get new houses I mean more renovated.

00:21:03 John Daub: I'm really surprised at the size of this. I thought it was going to be smaller. From the outside it doesn't look this big. Oh yeah it's long. From the outside it doesn't look as big as this. Was this an akiya (abandoned house) before? How did you find this house? The town hall found it for us. So this is an Akiya Bank acquisition. So you can get abandoned houses and you do get a reasonable price on them but they're not always free. You still have to pay something on it because the houses even though they're akiya are still owned by somebody. So it's owned by someone to be on the Akiya Bank. You have to pay that person something but it's usually not a lot. Just something. And the reason why they like to have it on the Akiya Bank is if you're not paying something then they're paying. And now since you're paying they're not paying anything so you're saving them a great amount of cost just by paying what they would have to pay.

00:22:05 John Daub: Out we go. Careful. Akita snow. Let's get back in the car because we are driving Kosaka. K not Osaka. Kousaka. K-O-S-A-K-A. They got an ATM. Awesome. And we're off. Yeah I know the snow got in my sock again. See in the winter it happens all the time. Oh we get to go to the Siba. At least the parking lot. So this is the most amazing place in this town. Supermarket. Is Max Valu cheaper here compared to different places? It is cheaper. Especially like eating outside going to restaurants it's way cheaper than big cities. Some people are disappointed because there's no pachinko parlor here. Not in Kosaka. In the next town. But not the best place to spend time. Well it's like smoking 20 packs of cigarettes you walk in there. Look at the a lot of open spaces here. The buildings there's no skyscrapers. There's a school right there looks like a high school. There's a couple of gas stations a couple of convenience stores.

00:24:21 Dom: It's a very manageable town and I think after about two or three days you'd know it pretty well right? A lot of shrines around us. It's close to Lake Towada. We go to Lake Towada which is very cool. There's Odate which is not too far. There's Hirosaki Aomori City. Are we closer to Aomori City than we are to Akita City? Yes closer. Halfway.

00:24:52 John Daub: And you have two competing convenience stores. Which one is your favorite Sayaka? Lawson. Family Mart. Yuji which one? Lawson because I love the beer. Better beer selection at Lawson's. I like Family Mart I don't even know why because of the jingle maybe. Ding ding ding ding ding ding. That's copyrighted music. I can't. But the best attraction is like really interacting with the locals. That's the whole point of coming. Where are they? I only saw two locals. Ah but they are hiding. And when they do the festivals it's like you feel like 50,000 people around. So most of the time they're indoors and when the festivals are you come out you meet everybody. That's about my same experience. It wasn't until the festivals.

00:25:51 John Daub: But in life in Japan it was before they had plumbing they used to have a pump or a well and everybody all the Japanese would hang out in front of the well to get the water. And traditionally that was especially in Tokyo where the community area was because everybody had to pump water to get it for cooking or for bathing. So they got a lot of information there. But some of those old pumps are still you can still see them in Tokyo actually. But when life changed with plumbing actually it's funny how much plumbing has changed Japanese culture. So how fast can this car go? No I'm just kidding.

00:27:00 Dom: What's it like here in the summer? We know in the winter it's cold and snowy. Oh it's the rice fields are so wonderful and green and like swaying in the wind. All that white becomes green. There's no best season I would say. Every season is totally different. Different activities different food different experience. So it's yeah totally different like different place.

00:27:32 John Daub: I've been living here for a long time. Over a year here. And even when I look back at photos it seems so different every season that I'm like whoa this happened. What's your favorite season? Autumn or spring. I like spring because I know winter is finished. Spring we planting the rice with local high school students elementary students. This is nice experience. Yeah I like taue (rice planting). Get muddy.

00:28:14 Dom: Don are you happy living here? I mean you've lived in other countries and you lived in other places. You've been here for a while now. I was staying here two years. Definitely. I've been living in big cities around the world and mostly in big cities and in Japan. I've been here basically and this place was the best for me. It's a good fit. It's actually close enough to big city like Tokyo. One hour flight. So we can enjoy now more Tokyo than when we were living in Tokyo for example. Without all the disadvantages of Tokyo. We can go anytime on the weekend. Some people go to work on subway they stay more in Tokyo living in Tokyo you're going to work every day. Then the flight from Akita to Tokyo. So Tokyo is by Shinkansen it's three and a half hours to get here or so but by flight on a flight it's one hour.

00:29:23 John Daub: I don't think if you live out here you don't really need to get to the city too often. You don't need to absolutely. Yeah it's kind of like the grass is greener on the other side. If you live here you like to go to the city maybe once in a while. But I live in the city and I like to come out here once in a while actually more than that if I can. I try to get out here as much as I can. Flights are cheaper than the train too right? Yes. Even last-minute flights can be comparatively the same as because the Shinkansen is 18,000 yen one way from Akita Station to Tokyo Station. So that's almost $350 for a round-trip ticket to Tokyo from here. But a flight can be half that and take a lot less time. Plus if you are a foreigner the flight is usually 50 bucks if you have a foreign passport. Even me? I'm a resident though. Yes even you. You just need to put your passport number and then you pay 50 bucks. Try to do the right thing. Try to adhere to the laws. Katayama's in the house. Hey Katayama! Going home tonight. Wish I could stay here forever. Build a house. Take over in Akita.

00:30:36 Dom: If the signal does get weak we'll be back. If the signal does die I hope you enjoyed Kosaka.

00:30:43 John Daub: Leave us a comment below absolutely. And in the last stream we talked about the Akita Inaka School and a lot of questions. One question was are you accredited? What does that even mean? And are your teachers licensed? What does this mean to you? Did you ever respond to that?

00:31:11 Dom: Yes. We are not accredited because for us that means you need to follow some rules. And our rules are different than schools. We think better. So being accredited is a big disadvantage for us as we cannot provide unique experience in teaching. So we are not accredited. The teachers don't have licenses? They have JLPT license. But license is not important. License doesn't make you a good teacher.

00:31:48 John Daub: That's very true. This is like exactly this is a paper. Totally plain and useless. So our school is not focusing on papers. We are focusing on getting out something in the quality. I'm not a licensed teacher but I taught for seven years children and I was a pretty good teacher dammit. I was a darn good teacher. We just went over a lot of snow. Is this four-wheel drive? Yes it is. Actually I taught at a real school too. Because I know how to teach. I'm a motivator. I will motivate you.

00:32:36 Dom: Love what you do and do what you love. Alright so this is another guest house. And we passed the school. We drove past the school about a minute ago. This is the other guest house. I'm glad that you're showing us this. Thanks for the tour. I cannot show you all of them I guess. So how many guest houses do you have? Share houses. We are using four. In general it's four. This used to be for our staff and Eugene's house. Because it was close to. This is not really convenient because it's far from town. So there's no shops around. But some students actually want to stay here. So we will offer this as an option as well. Especially for couples. This one is smaller one. This is my dirty room. Actually this is really clean. What are you talking about? Oh my dirty room. Look how dirty it is. There might be a fingerprint somewhere. And you even put your futon away. I never do that. I kick it in the corner and I get in trouble.

00:34:02 John Daub: So this is another room here. Oh it's got the double doors here so you can turn this into a smaller room. Nice. And this looks like really new tatami. It is new yes. We replaced all the tatami. Because tatami has nice smell when it's fresh. Is this original as well? Yes this is handmade. I'll buy it. These are always very expensive. Sometimes the most expensive. Yuji what do you call this part in the house up here? Ramma (transom). Ramma is always very expensive. Especially if they're hand carved. So finding that is pretty neat in here. But it also lets despite closing the door air to circulate between the rooms. Because in Japanese homes they're quite cold in the winter and hot in the summer. And the ventilation is important in the summer. And in the winter I guess if you do have a heating source the heating source hot air rises and will be able to make its way into the other rooms a little bit despite the doors being closed.

00:35:11 Dom: Oh the toilet. Whoa! Do that again. It opened up. Close it. Does it talk? Will it close? It will take a while. Oh it takes a while? It has the sense of. Can you trick it? Yes I can. Just open up a little bit. I think we need to still close it first. Wait a minute. It's open. I will close it like. You'll close it. I know it. It's going to notice us. Wait. I want to do it. See like because we can spy on it. It doesn't see us. It won't get angry at us. Because maybe I might want to close it so. Okay it doesn't know.

00:36:16 John Daub: You broke it. Yeah. It's sad now. You did it. That's why. You pushed the button. It's not the same. The toilet drama of 2021. Mark your calendar. Every year in February we're going to remember this episode and celebrate it by going to a toilet and playing with the lid. That's what we do on this channel. We have some fun with toilet lids. So this is the kitchen here. This is nice. Kanai's always telling me my wife why don't we have a kitchen table? And I said well why don't we move out to the countryside? We just don't have the space. I actually have a folding gas lift table that I put underneath the sofa but it does pretty good. That's a nice table. And I like the umbrella in the corner. It's very nice. Is this from Ikea? Or Nitori. I used to have this one. Ah yes. It's from Nitori. Nice. Yuji look at that. Don't break it.

00:37:19 Dom: There's one more room upstairs but I don't know. Yuji left condition unknown. Oh did you even know you're going up? Should we go? You can say no. No. Oh really? That's so kind. Wow this is a big big room. That's not dirty at all because there's nothing in it. Yes Yuji did a good job. Yeah Yuji did a great job of cleaning it. Oh that's a nice view. Very countryside feeling to it but you can see. I'm going to leave it up here. It's a pretty large tatami room. You could have karate competitions in here kung fu. This is where the Matrix took place where Neo was fighting Lawrence Fishburne. And this is Yuji Sensei's house. So you can spy on him from the second floor window. Yes. If you want you can come in. You don't have to spy? Because it's Tokyo. I would totally spy. There's a lot of traffic on this road. There's like not one car. So it's one car an hour. Is that what you're saying? At best yeah that's how much it might be. One car an hour. I like it. There's a heater and an air conditioner up here. The lighting is very nice. I love these shoji doors. This is where the futon is probably hidden and where all of Yuji's stuff is in there right? So if we open it it's all dirty. No it's too clean. You tricked us. I thought there'd be like all your papers and stuff is hidden in there. No it's like clean. I guess you moved it into your house already. Not my house. It's not fair. Actually you know what? I could sleep in here. There's so much space. This is like a horror movie. Ju-on where the Doraemon lives inside the closet. Yeah this is where Ju-on is right? Didn't you ever see that movie? One of the horror movies? You open the door and there was somebody in the closet. That's a lot of space. You could sleep in there. This is the space of a Tokyo apartment actually.

00:39:47 Yuji: Usually we hide girls. You hide girls in there? So when your wife is coming back you just close the door. And say okay honey can you go for a shopping? And they could stay in there for an entire day if you put a miniature refrigerator. Doraemon.

00:40:06 John Daub: What is rent like typically if it's not in akiya? Is it like 10,000 a month or something? To rent a house. It really depends. For example before Yuji bought it they were asking 50,000 yen per month. For the house? For the entire house. What the heck is that? Do you understand how cheap that is compared to Tokyo? A house for 50,000 yen? That could be negotiable. And you can negotiate that down? Yes that was their starting price? Yes. You are crazy. Really? That was by the agency actually. So basically it's like $400 a month for the entire house. That's. I'm paying so much more for my apartment in Tokyo. Good. I'm happy. Why are you happy at my misery? It's not fair. You know what? I gotta get out of here. That was really fun. So this is one of the houses one of the share houses here. And again 24 people can stay can study for a month at the Akita Inaka School. Pretty cool. I'm glad that I got a chance to drive around Kosaka. That was a lot of fun.

00:41:40 Dom: So where are we headed to next? Going back to the school? Oh yeah.

00:41:51 John Daub: Okay. Oh the station. I gotta go back to Tokyo tonight. Dang it. How many people use Shinkansen? Yeah. I have the pass. Shinkansen are pretty expensive. But the rail pass that I have the JR East Welcome Rail Pass is so cheap. It's just 12,000 yen. It would have cost me 18,000 just one way. I don't have a reserved ticket yet but I have a feeling the Shinkansen is not gonna be. Oh we're trapped. Yes. We're stuck on ice. I guess I won't be making. Kanai I'm not gonna be home tonight. I'm trapped in Akita. Momentum is our friend. Yes. I'm not pushing. Although you had a good story about that in the tunnel right? Oh yes. Yeah the policeman pushing. We've been swapping stories. Yeah I wanted to make a video but that. Yeah they won't. You need a dashboard cam in the front and the back. Yes. Dashboard cams man. There's the Akita Inaka School right there. Wow that's like a big. That's the biggest building in this neighborhood huh? Yes. There's a nice pond and koi fish in our neighbors. They are cooking. So all these local residents here come to the school sometimes and bother you? Yes they don't bother but they kind of make it interesting.

00:44:21 Dom: Well Dom thanks so much for the ride here. Thanks so much for the ride. Anything else you want to say about the experience at the Akita Inaka School? No any more details are on the website or anyone can send us mail questions comments. Sayaka can answer I can answer you can answer Yuji can answer.

00:44:44 John Daub: I could try to answer. I will totally give you. I'm going to make up the information if I answer. That wasn't that funny. So this is what it looks like at sunset. It's starting to. The sun is starting to set. I'm on my way back to Tokyo. This was a lot of fun. And I'm really glad that I got a chance to come out here to Akita. Again I was invited out to this wonderful prefecture to take a look at yesterday the Namahage Soto Festival. If you haven't seen that it is an incredible look into one of the top winter festivals in Japan the Namahage Soto Festival. And I'm sure to be back in Akita really soon. Again I'm already coming up to Aomori. I'm going to be in Aomori on a job in the beginning of April which is pretty awesome. More news on that really soon. Really cool job. It just came up. But yeah there you go. Akita the Akita Inaka School. Thanks so much team for showing me around and joining me on the experience in Oga Hanto. And I'll be back. Bye everybody.