00:00:00 John Daub: Hey, how you doing everybody? Welcome to my apartment. It is time for a little Tokyo camp. I have a tree, a campfire, a table, some camping goodies, and a camping light. It's like the moon. And I bought some goodies here. Today's theme is Japanese foods that make you blue. Or just blue Japanese food. I don't know.

00:00:32 John Daub: We're going to have some blue beer, blue gum, blue potato chips, and whatever I can find in the refrigerator, probably some blue stuff in there too. There are a lot of mosquitoes out tonight. Probably you can hear them in the background. Listen. Actually, it is a light that was given to me by Katayama, who might be in the house. Blue fire. Well, it's a kind of a blue sunset there, so that might qualify. Slightly.

00:01:05 John Daub: It's about two in the morning, so we have to keep it down because the neighbors in other tents nearby might call the cops on us. We're still in the city. So in the past here, and I'd be able to take some of your questions because this is a campfire. We can do just about anything in a Tokyo camp, Tokyo camping episode. All right. Hey, bearded gamer. Welcome.

00:01:39 John Daub: This is a very interesting bag of potato chips that I ate. I don't know. Was it like two months ago? I think I ate this outside. It was pretty good. And if you look at the package here, do you see that it has some blue bubble gum? Well, guess what? I have that gum here today and I've never had this gum, believe it or not. So this time we're going to try the potato chips and see if it actually does match with the gum. Blueberry potato chips, blueberry gum potato chips and blueberry gum. I've been curious to see. So I've been saving this up for a while.

00:02:10 John Daub: Actually, the Damien supporters on Patreon, I sent this to them to try last month. Actually, these blueberry potato chips probably have an expiration date, right? Oh, August. We're all good. But you know what? I cannot eat this blue stuff without something blue to drink. So come with me. Let's go to old Frosty, who in itself is kind of blue. Keep it down. This thing is driving me crazy. Do you know this thing? What? I told you to keep it down, dude. He makes fun of me.

00:02:57 John Daub: This beer next to the penguin is Ice Drift beer. It's actually made up in Hokkaido, Abashiri. He's saying hurry up and close the door. Dude, chill out. Okay. So let's take this with us. Yeah, mata mata. Come on, man. Let's close it because that stupid penguin. All right. So this is a blue beer from Hokkaido. Do you see there's a symbol in Hokkaido? Abashiri. I might have drank this before, but we're going to drink.

00:03:32 John Daub: So I need to get a glass. Hold on a second. I don't just look at this wall for a second because I don't think I want you looking up in the glass section there. Okay. I've got a glass. I got my Belgian beer festival glass from Roppongi. Okay, let's go do this. It's Frosty. All right. There's the moon right there. All right. Here we go. We need something blue. A blue drink. Really bothering me. Can I turn this off? Katayama. Hold on. It's like a big mosquito. All right. Oh, now you can hear the nature.

00:04:22 John Daub: Hey, Cheryl MP. Here's something to keep the fire going. I'll put that $10 right on the fire. That's pretty funny. Thanks so much. And Gazi Media, are you blue guy in a blue world? I'm a little bit blue tonight. And Leo are at her family's house. So it's a little bit blue tonight. It's all good. All right. Let's try this out here. It's blue. It smells pretty good. Kanpai everybody. But then again, I was really thirsty from the really hot day. Anything would have been pretty good. Even the bubbles are blue. I don't know if that's food coloring or what. It doesn't say. Yeah, blue coloring. That can't be good for you. Definitely only in Japan.

00:07:05 John Daub: Help the blue beer. We need some blueberry potato chips. In Japan, they open the chips from the back. It works pretty good at parties. Maybe you can do this with your hers potato chips in California there. Open it from the back like this. And that becomes a party bag, right? It's a bigger hole that you can grab stuff in there. Now the thing with the... Oh, this is a bad memory from two months ago when I ate the entire bag. You can see slightly... Oh, I gotta get the blue in there. Can you see it? Slight blue powder. Now chase it. Chase it. It's a pretty good combination. It's got a candy. It's got like a candy blueberry taste to it. It's not blueberry like the fruit. It's blueberry like the blue slushies you used to drink as a kid.

00:08:38 John Daub: Hey, how you doing, Raymond? Papa Smurf. Something for you, Papa Smurf. All right. I'm gonna open this up here. This is blueberry gum. It's good for your teeth. So it says. Whoa! It's really, really close. All right. There's only one way to do it. I gotta eat the gum and the potato chips at the same time. All right. The gum looks like this. Hey, how you doing, Yamato? Welcome, everybody. The gum looks like this. It sort of looks like the bubble gum you got in baseball games. I mean, I remember playing with my baseball cards back in the 1980s. By baseball cards, I'm talking like Topps, because they were the only ones who put bubble gum in the cards in the 1980s. I don't think... Fleer did it, too, for a while. And Donruss. But, yeah, Upper Deck never did it. Upper Deck. They came out in '88, I think. All right. Itadakimasu.

00:10:16 John Daub: The gum and the beer don't go good together. That's pretty good. I like this gum. No. Oh, is that Danny? Hey, Danny.

00:10:37 Danny: Hi, John. How you doing?

00:10:39 John Daub: I'm doing good. I'm having a nice living room camping. Just finished watching the fireworks video. Oh, from Kickstarter. It was a lot of work. Thank you so much for everything.

00:10:44 Danny: You're welcome, Danny.

00:10:47 John Daub: Danny was one of the backers of the Kickstarter project. I had to edit the Kickstarter video a little bit extra and put Danny's name in it. I forgot to. Sorry, Danny. But it's in there now. For a few more blue beers. David Welch, thank you. This beer cost about $3.50 at the Hokkaido store in Yurakucho, which is not too far from Tokyo Station. You can get that there. Sometimes you can find it in the supermarkets. It's getting more mainstream, this Abashiri beer.

00:11:18 John Daub: All right. While I got it here, the blueberry gum and the blueberry potato chips. Time to try it out here together. They don't taste too much the same. UFO Bob. I'm not going to sing the blues. I don't know any blues songs. The only blues song I remember, there's a movie called The Jerk with Steve Martin. It's one of my top three favorite movies of all time. It's a little bit dated, okay? But The Jerk is... You have to see The Jerk. Navin R. Johnson. It's one of the best movies. In the beginning of it, you can see... I think they were singing the blues. And Navin R. Johnson, Steve Martin, had no rhythm whatsoever. But he opens up the movie, Steve Martin, I was born a poor black child. And he was adopted by a family. And he was just like this weird outlier in the family. It was hilarious. You have to watch... It's a very dated movie. It's kind of pretty on the edge of what today would be politically incorrect. But it's a good movie. Classic, Jason. It's a classic. I like the one where he's in the phone book, right? I'm somebody now! I'm somebody now! Because his name was listed in the phone book.

00:12:53 John Daub: Anyways, I'm going to have to get rid of this gum. Life hack. You need to put another log on the TV to keep the mosquitoes away. I could put a potato chip in the fire. Oh, you know what? Heating it up really brings out the flavors. Whoa! A little bit of mosquito in there. Nice. Good idea. I'll have to get another log on there. You know, there's a couple of really good campfire videos, but I always use this one because with the sound effects, I just think it's a perfect campfire. I actually... Dare I admit it, I actually will put this on in the background sometimes if I'm feeling a little sad. I'll just sit on the sofa and pretend like I'm outside because we're still in a state of emergency.

00:14:01 John Daub: My feedback on this is, alright, the gum is really good. I was surprised. I didn't think I would like this gum. It doesn't taste like blueberries, but it tastes like blueberry candy would be. Like blueberries slushy, like the blue flavoring. That's what that tastes like, but more so because it's from Japan. It's got this extra strong sweetness to it. It's pretty good. The chips are classic. Classic chips. I love these. Calbee makes some excellent chips. And the blueberry ones, if you can still find it. Don Quixote has them maybe on sale now if they're still around. It's a good pickup. Very good pickup.

00:14:49 John Daub: Yeah, I've been a little bit sad because Leo is not here in the house. And Kanae is not here either. But hopefully, they'll be back soon. I've been editing the viewer video and I have to kind of break it up. So I've got to do some more editing before I go to bed, which is probably never. Going to bed. How are you today, John? I'm sorry I can't do super chats. It's okay. I doubt you will see this. I see everything. Except when I don't. I don't like blueberries, but we don't have any blueberry flavored stuff. Really? I think, don't you have like blueberry pie? Everybody has blueberry pie. No? Mike Chan is here. How you doing, Mike? How about some s'mores?

00:15:33 John Daub: You know, actually, the moderator sent me graham crackers, but I couldn't find the marshmallows. I'll do some s'mores next time. But you know what? I tried to get a campfire in here, which is a gas burner, and people got really angry at me and said that I was going to burn down the house and probably my neighbors are going to watch this and call the cops on me. What would you recommend one sees when they're the first time in Japan? I don't know. What did you see?

00:16:09 John Daub: You know what? I don't think that if it's your first time in Japan, I don't think that there's anything that... I think you should just not try to plan too much and just walk the streets because it will freak you out. You are not in your home country anymore, and you're not in the West anymore. You are in the East, man. And just, you know what? You should spend a day just walking the streets, okay? Walk Shinjuku, just walk around a neighborhood because it's going to be the best day, and you're going to be glad that you didn't plan, like, going to attractions and stuff. Just walk in the streets of the city of Tokyo is awesome, or Kyoto or whatever. And you discover a lot of things that makes it your own in a way. So try to spend a day that just walking around and not planning too much. Eating at a convenience store or just finding a ramen place that you didn't plan to eat at and just walking in and trying it. Like, things like this, spontaneous things you'll find.

00:17:10 John Daub: When I was moving around, again, I lived in Japan for 23 years and I moved now 18 times over that course of the time. Each time I moved, I had to establish myself in the neighborhood and get a feel for what was around. And I would do that on my days off, just walk everywhere. And I would discover all the things that my neighborhood had to offer, and it was pretty cool because I got to meet the neighbors too and quickly make friends, which is valuable because I was able to figure out places to go really early on that enriched my experience. So maybe that's what you should do. Don't miss the streets of Japan. And I've taken you on some really good neighborhood tours where you can go and get an idea of what's out there.

00:17:58 John Daub: I wanted to do a night walk today but Shibuya by bicycle is like 50 minutes away. And it was already past 1 o'clock when I was finished the editing for tonight. So I couldn't ride to Shibuya, but I'm planning to do a Shibuya midnight snack run because I have never done a Shibuya midnight snack run. So maybe this week since Kanae's away. Hi John, good to catch a live stream. Hey Jim, nice to see you again. How you doing? Totally agree with not planning too much. It robs you of... Because it robs you of the feel and vibes of actually being in a foreign country in my opinion. Exactly.

00:18:42 John Daub: I think if you try to plan your trip too much and try to see too many attractions like, and Skytree is pretty cool and you know Tokyo Tower and like amusement parks and Pokemon Cafe, these are all pretty cool stuff. But sleep in a little bit, you know. Eat a breakfast at the hotel. Walk the streets. Just take it chill. It's so rewarding to spend a day like that. And plan to stay in Japan because it is usually a 14 hour flight. Plan to stay a few days longer. And really so you can get up. But you hear the, you know when you walk the streets of Japan, you hear the sounds, the noises, the vending machines, the cars that talk to you. "Migi ni magarimasu. Go-chūi kudasai." Like you'll hear talking things all over the place. The traffic lights. You'll hear people talking to each other. Restaurant owners going, "Irasshaimase." You know things like this. And that all comes from just walking around and absorbing Japan. That's when you start to really learn the country. When you get off of the beaten track and just absorb your surroundings.

00:19:51 John Daub: And a place like Asakusa, which I took you to yesterday, two days ago, two nights ago. That's a kind of a place that's still traditional that you can really absorb on the streets just walking around in the back alleys and whatnot. That's a pretty cool place to do that. Great, great comment there. I had the best time in Japan and every day was spontaneous for the most part. This comes from Riff's Scales and Fish Tales. The hours walk down the Sumida River to the Sumida Aquarium was as much fun as the actual aquarium. I know, right? And that aquarium is pretty cool. The penguins are, I like the penguins there. I used to be a one year member where I could just show it and go in there. Because you can get a one year membership for the price of two visits. And I actually only went there twice. So it didn't really pay for itself. But I always planned to go back there to see the penguins to try to make friends with them. I always wondered if I'd go there every day. Will they know me? Remember me? I never got the chance. I'll tell you who remembers me. That's that penguin in my refrigerator. I should turn him off and take out his battery.

00:20:57 John Daub: Um, hi Eddie. Happy birthday. Happy birthday, Eddie. I once walked around the Yamanote Line. It took ten and a half hours. It was a fun adventure. Robert, they call that the Yamathon, I think. The Yamanote Line Marathon. Yamathon. Um, I walked around it as well. It took me nine and a half hours. And um, there's a lot of stops. You can see a lot of stuff when you walk around the Yamanote Line. You definitely hear and see much. Um, it is, I think it was 44 kilometers. It's almost exactly the same as one marathon to walk around the Yamanote Line. So you could run it in about three hours if you're a marathon runner. But the problem is that there's some places with traffic lights that you can't go by. So, um, I think the fastest that anyone's ever done it was, somebody said that they'd done it in three hours, but they'd run it. Which, um, is debatable because how do you prove that? Toby's not here. Um, Okapi is in the other room. He's chilling out. I'm trying to rearrange it for Twitch this weekend.

00:22:11 John Daub: Oh, oh, oh! Oh, by the way, um, this, this Friday, does anyone have their calendars out? Mark your calendars. Um, me and Peter are gonna be at Tokyo Station at the JR Japan Rail Cafe. Um, live streaming in there, talking about a new video I'm gonna be releasing on the main channel any day now. Um, where we rode the Tohoku Shinkansen, a private car, all the way up to Shin-Aomori, eating six bento, um, celebrating every station, um, on the route. A private Shinkansen from Japan Rail, which is awesome. Gave us some really good access. That video's gonna drop, um, I believe this week, as soon as they get permission from JR. They're kinda checking it over. And, uh, we're gonna do a live stream to celebrate with Peter answering questions, uh, at the Japan Rail Cafe inside Tokyo Station. They gave us access to hang out in one of their little tatami rooms there. So, definitely join us. I'm planning to do the live stream at 9:30 to 10:30, um, on Friday morning in Japan. So that's like Thursday night in the US. It's gonna be pretty, I think it's gonna be pretty awesome. And I'm gonna try to do it as a, as a, um, studio live stream, meaning I'm gonna have multiple cameras, and I'm gonna queue up some, some parts of the video, to, to play back to you. And Peter and I will talk about that. Because we're gonna be talking some trains. And, um, if this goes well, I'm hoping we can do more of these at, at Tokyo Station. And, and unlock more, uh, amazing, um, things we can do at Japan Rail. Because, um, you know, they, they haven't worked with too many influencers. And, um, uh, since I had to start over, I'm not the biggest influencer out there. But I think I do a pretty good job when I do have a, a video to make. And, uh, I'm just happy, uh, with the trust that they put in me to, to do this kind of content. With them.

00:23:54 John Daub: You know, this gum was so good, I'm, I'm thinking about having another piece. Hold on a second. Is it real sugar? Or is it, like, saccharin or something? Nat, it is, um, chewing gum. Chewing gum. Oh. Katakana. Chewing gum. Interesting. Um, Zerachin. Oolong tea. Ooh, there's oolong tea flavoring. What? That's gotta be wrong. No, it's not. It says so. It says there's oolong tea flavoring. Look at that. Do you see that? Oolong tea flavoring right there. Right there. That's weird.

00:24:46 John Daub: Hey, is that Samantha? Hey, Jeff Kennedy's here. Jeff! I was just watching Rocky, the first one, and, and thinking of you when I saw him running through the streets of Philadelphia. I was, like, um, three years old when that was being filmed. It's a disco era.

00:25:18 John Daub: Any last questions? Family's doing pretty good. Uh, hey, I'm MJ. MJ, I have, like, one year of postcards. I'm still waiting for, for, um, UAE to open up. But I still got all of your postcards, buddy, so don't worry about it. It's gonna come in, like, a book. Hey, Nagoya. Nagoya Zero. Hello, John. I'm Japanese and always watching your streams. Keep up the good work. Thank you. Speaking of Nagoya, um, I definitely want to get back to Inuyama. I wanted to do a street food episode at Inuyama Castle and hang out a little bit more in, um, Aichi. Nagoya is a city that we just don't focus on enough, I think. Not enough YouTubers in the area. And, um, um, you know, Rachel and Jun used to live in Nagoya, but they moved to Fukuoka, so you don't see, see, I don't know how many, how many, um, YouTubers are actually living in, in the Nagoya area. But I, I lived in Okazaki. I lived in Fujigaoka, which is inside of Nagoya. Uh, Kasugai, which is where Ichiro was born. Um, Kasugai, I lived there for a while. And, um, where else did I live? Toyohashi. Which is in Aichi-ken, but kind of a, an hour away on the Meitetsu train. But, yeah, Nagoya's a really cool city. It's a good place to live, you know. Not a lot of attractions, maybe, but it's a good place to live.

00:26:37 John Daub: Where's a sake place where you can buy samples? Oh, um, wow. Um, the place I buy sake shots is at the train station. You can buy sake shots at Echigo-Yuzawa Station. Mark it down on your, on your notes that you take when you watch the show. Echigo-Yuzawa is the most amazing station for buying gifts and snacks and foods. And inside there, there's a vending machine with 150 different kinds of Japanese sake. And you give, you put 500 yen coin, and you give them 500 yen, you get five coins. And you can try any five, um, vending machines to try which sake you like. And if you find one that you like, you can buy it at the store right across from all of those vending machines. It's pretty cool. Uh, the way that they have it set up.

00:27:24 John Daub: Um, Asiraf Zainal, how you doing? Finally get to catch you live from Singapore? Hey! I guess, I guess it's like an hour behind in Singapore, right? So it's probably like one o'clock in the morning or something. A lot of people are up pretty late. Takes out notepad, scribbles furiously as only Japan Go talks. There is so much, uh, unnecessary and irrelevant information about Japan inside my head. I'm very happy to answer your questions and, um, maybe enhance your experience here. Um, a lot of the episode's ideas come from you as well. So, we always, it's pretty cool to exchange information. And quite often, um, I will go on Discord. Actually, I wish I had Discord, um, set up so I could talk to you. I'm gonna do it in the next, um, camping too. I'm gonna have Discord set up on the other, um, smartphone and then you'll be able to talk with me in a fireside chat. Literally fire- Nosh! That's a fireside chat! I should, I should have done Discord! Oh my god, this is a fireside chat! This is literally, there's a fire! Oh my gosh, can I hit the reset button and do this again? We're gonna do this!

00:28:43 John Daub: Alright, alright, you know what? Okay, what day is it? Um, today just, let me get my notepad out here, um, alright, I'm gonna do a fire, a real fireside chat at the fireside soon, okay? We're gonna make this happen. This is pretty cool. So make sure you get, you get on, um, uh, Discord. So then you can join us. This is gonna be cool. So you can call in and ask me questions in person with your own voice. And then I won't feel so alone, except for those, you know, mosquitoes and bugs and crickets and stuff. I think there is one mosquito in the house, though. Something's been biting me for a while. John Haynes is in the house. John, you deserve a sip of blue beer. I took that down for you, thank you. You know, wearing bug spray, that seems like a great idea. And then I'll get that all in my futon when I go to sleep. The good thing is that no bugs will attack me then. That's true. That's true. Um, what's the weather? It's slightly cloudy. The moon is out. It's kinda smoky in here. UFO Bob's trying to activate Nightbot. And he did! UFO Bob did it for the win! Weather for Tokyo conditions are fair with temperatures 18 degrees Celsius, 64 degrees Fahrenheit. The wind is blowing from the south. Um, and the current humidity is 85%. It is pretty humid, yeah. I have all the windows open, for real.

00:30:19 John Daub: Um, I want to see if, um, I can go camping for real and take um, take a camper van from my friend Jared, who owns a company named Dream Drive. It's a plug for him. Dream Drive. He owns all these camper vans that have beds inside. You can rent them from Narita Airport and just start driving, right? It's pretty cool. Um, but he said that I can take a van out sometime, and um, maybe it's something that Eric would want to do. I don't know. I have Eric's candle here, too. That'd be pretty cool to go out and spend a couple of days out in the wild. Um, for real. For real. We can do it. We can do it. Um, Kanae's not a big camper, though, you know. She gets freaked out by bugs and stuff. Dream Drive for all your camping needs. Exactly, yeah. Dream Drive has it all. They got all sorts of different kinds of trucks. That was the first time that I ever drove a truck that was so wide, and I was driving it to pick up Greg in his neighborhood, and Greg lives in an old part of the city of Tokyo, and I was scared to death to drive a big, um, what do you call it? Um, HiAce? Was it HiAce? Very, to, to, um, I was calling them Hiachi, but it's called HiAce. So I was afraid to drive these down these thin roads because the telephone poles are kind of in the middle of the road. Not in the middle, but they're very close to the sides, so I'm always looking at the rear view, the side view windows to make sure I have mirrors so they don't get smashed on the telephone poles. A lot of the telephone poles have gone underground in, um, in the city center, but they're still above ground out there, um, in the, uh, older parts of the city.

00:32:07 John Daub: Isn't it dumb to take a shot of sake when the alcohol level is the same as wine? No. You know, Sean, actually, people don't take shots of sake, alright? That's a big misconception, I think. Um, they might do it at parties, but actually people don't take shots of sake. That's not how you drink it. Sake is supposed to be, and this is, I'm talking about good sake. Exactly, the chomp has it right. You sip sake. You're supposed to sip it, alright? You don't shoot it. You sip. So, just for the record, sake is stronger than regular wine. That's true. It's about 15%. So it's just slightly, um, good. Um, shots of sake equals movie fakeness. I've never met anybody in Japan that does it like this. You sip it. I usually will take three sips, and then there'll be some dude next to me who sees that I'm finished with it, and he'll start pouring it. It's like magic. All of a sudden the sake glass is full again. Speaking of sake glasses, I have to finish this. It's my goodnight beer.

00:33:27 John Daub: Um, this is a pretty interesting chat. We got some pretty interesting chats going on here. Danny, I understand, Kanae, I'm not a big fan of camping too. But Danny, you live up there in Quebec, man. I thought that's like, in the summer, that seems like such a beautiful place for camping. Um, it is blue beer. This is, uh, Ice Drift beer from Abashiri.

00:33:57 John Daub: John gets some coffee in the morning. What sake is recommended? That's a great question. Um, pfft, okay. Hmm. This is, this is how sake goes, alright. Um, I, Cheryl, I love to buy some, we actually have some land in Tokyo. Kanae's grandfather's house has, it's a big piece of land. Alright, alright, listen. This is how sake goes. I'm gonna, somebody write down your notes here. Alright, if you've never drank sake before, um, even if you're young and you might not have a lot of money, I encourage you to splurge on really good sake to start off with. There's something, especially if you've never had sake before, don't go with really dry stuff. Go with something that's easy to drink and a little bit pricier. Go for the Junmai Daiginjo. Alright, Junmai Daiginjo, which is the best of the, which is pretty good stuff. I like Dassai to start. Dassai is D-A-S-S-A-I. Um, I've featured them. I know the CEO of the company. He's a really nice guy. Really successful. Um, he, uh, his sake is polished down to like 39%, meaning they throw away 61% of the rice and only 39% of the core still exists. That's just the starch. So, the impurities are taken away and you have just the purity of the center, alright? So, they also have a sake that's polished down to 23%, so that means they throw away 77% is thrown away and they keep just 23% of the rice grain.

00:35:41 John Daub: Alright? Um, it when the rice is polished down that far, the impurities are away, so it's so smooth to drink. It's too smooth, alright? But this is good to start with. When you drink, when you're drinking Dassai 39, I think is a good one to start with, cause it's, um, you're not wasting your money on it. Start with Dassai 39 and Dassai 23 next. And then do 50, alright? It's a good entry in it. My problem is that Dassai doesn't have a lot of characteristic to it. After you, you, you start to like sake because you like the smoothness of Dassai. It's a little bit sweet. It's very pure. It's a good sake. It's very easy to drink. Once you fall in love with it, then, then you start to experiment, right? Koshino Kanbai. I saw that. Y.E. Gassan. Then, this is where I'm going to, then you, after Dassai, you're gonna start to experiment with Niigata sake. Especially, um, Kubota Gassan and Koshino Kanbai. My favorite first sake in Japan was Koshino Kanbai. I love that. It was so smooth to drink. It's a little bit pricey, but it's, it's also so smooth, but unlike Dassai, it has a little bit more characteristic to it. A little bit more. Then, that's when you start to get into the rougher sakes, alright? You start to search out flavor. First, you have to start with the pure sake. Then you start to search out characteristics and flavor. Like, there's a little bit of hinoki, um, wood in it. Like, you can taste certain characteristics. But you have to start with a very flat, easy to drink sake, and that's Dassai. And it's an awesome sake. But, um, for me, it doesn't have much characteristics, but that's the beauty of it. It's pure, right? I hope that helps you with your sake drinking. That's the way I discovered it.

00:37:34 John Daub: Um, Dassai 23 is 50 Euro a bottle here in Holland. Start with 39, then. Um, 39 is pretty good to start with. You don't have to start with 23. But, for your first sake, I really want you to like it. Do you understand? Of course you do. I want you to like sake. I want you to enjoy it. And everybody likes Dassai. Because it's so neutral, so smooth, a little bit of sweetness. You can taste the purity of the rice. Um, that's the gateway. And then from there you'll get into cheaper and different sakes. And you'll be able to understand it. But you have to first like it. And Dassai is like that. Hakkaisan, if you can't find Dassai, Hakkaisan is a very good backup. And that's everywhere. That's a pure Niigata sake from, um, the center, um, Uonuma, Minami Uonuma area, where they have some of the best rice and water in Japan.

00:38:31 John Daub: Is there a Ninja sake? You lose track on how much you drink and you wake up somewhere new. Um, do you know that story? I'm not gonna tell it again. When I lived in Hiroshima, um, alright, I was an English teacher. I think a lot of you know that. I used to teach children. The children, alright, I helped, I helped, I was, I didn't, I wasn't the genius behind it, but I helped to write the textbook for teaching children not born yet. We called it prenatal stimulation classes. And this was in the year, um, 1999. Um, we were writing and submitting lesson plans for prenatal stimulation classes, teaching children English not born yet, in the womb. Alright? So, I was teaching kids not born yet to high school, um, in this job. It was an awesome job. I love kids and, and, uh, you know, I think that they're smarter than adults in Japan sometimes. They're really, they really say what's on their mind, which I respect. Because adults here don't seem to do that too often. But kids do. They let you know if they like you. Right? Kids, kids will tell you right away if they like you or not. But adults, they don't say right away if they like you, and they play head games here. And, you know, I wish they would just say, you know, I don't, I don't like you right away, and then I don't have to waste time hanging out with these people. Some people, some people do when they get drunk, though.

00:40:12 John Daub: So, um, in Hiroshima, I was, um, going to a party with the other English teachers, and they're all women, and me. And, um, I was drinking hot sake. This is off Hondori in, uh, near the park, near, um, I think if I, I think I might remember it if I walk in that area again. Um, on Hondori, behind the Starbucks a little ways. Starbucks wasn't there at the time, by the way. Um, I got so drunk off of this hot atsukan, hot sake, I'd never had it before. This was in 1999. I got so drunk, and, um, I told the ladies, my co-workers, I was going to the bathroom. Alright? This is 1999. I said, I'm going to the bathroom. I went to the bathroom, okay? Which, I had to go, go to this little tatami room, had to go up some steps to the bathroom, which is near the exit. So I got out of the bathroom, and I don't know why, I didn't go back down the steps to where they were. I actually went outside and I just kept walking. I didn't, I literally had just forgotten that they were there waiting for me. Um, so I started walking home, and I lived in Yokogawa, which is about a 25 minute walk, um, from Hondori, on the other side of Hiroshima across the river, from the A-bomb dome. So you have to walk past the atomic bomb dome.

00:41:32 John Daub: Um, so I'm completely plastered. They had a Sega World on Hondori, the shopping arcade, the shotengai (covered shopping arcade). And I remember, I, I re, I remember, I'll tell you why I remember it. I went in there, and there were some yamamba, these girls that, um, that are teenage girls that, that had black, dark skin, and white hair, and, um, they looked like monsters, but it was a very unique time, the yamamba era, mountain girls. And, uh, I remember playing House of the Dead, this game that you would shoot, um, a screen through a haunted house and kill zombies and stuff. I was really good at it. I can almost finish the game in 100 yen coin. Alright. So I was shooting the zombie, and I was so drunk, I just started shooting the yamamba girls, who were taking purikura. House of the Dead 1, the first House of the Dead. Alright. So I started shooting them, and they were going like this, ahhh! Stuff like this. And they, at, they called me over, um, and I didn't want to go because I was still playing the game. And then they, zombies got me, and then I had to go over there. Um, and then we took a purikura. Alright. With the yamamba girls. I think there were three of them. This is so far ago. I'm just trying to remember the, the purikura pictures. I think there were three of them. So, they didn't give me the, the whole thing, but they cut, because there were scissors there. Cut me a piece of the purikura, and I, I kept it. I put it in my pocket. Um, and then I walked past, um, the A-Bomb Dome, and I always, when I'm drunk, I'll, I'll linger there, and I, I start to get really sad, and think about stuff, and, you know, you let your mind wander. And then I wandered up the river, back to Yokogawa, which is about a 20 minute walk. Along the way, I must have stopped in at the family mart there. I think it was a Lawson's. And bought a Snickers bar, because Snickers really satisfies. And, I got home, and I must have just passed out. Don't remember anything that happened after that. But I know I got home.

00:43:26 John Daub: Um, I woke up, um, like 5 in the morning, and that Snickers bar had melted on my chest. It was just this big, like, mush on my chest, okay? So, I didn't eat that either. I, I don't think, I don't think you can, I don't think you can bring that back to life either. I should have maybe put it in the refrigerator and congealed it or something. I don't know. I let it go. Um, but I remember I, I put my hand in my pocket when I, when I finally did get up and I pulled out the I'm like, whoa, I must have had a really cool night. And that started to hit me. And then I traced my steps back, like that movie Memento. And I'm like, oh, like all these things went into my mind. And I went, I read answering machines back then, like hard lines with answering machines. And I had like about 15 messages from, there was a lot of messages from the teachers asking me where I was. They started off as casual to panic. So I had to call them back and leave a message on their answering machine. We didn't have cell phones at the time. Well, not, not many people did. Um, and uh, yeah, that was pretty, that was pretty funny. Uh, I never, and that was the result of atsukan, right? Hot sake.

00:44:38 John Daub: I have a friend named Alan Welsh. He has, he has a channel called My Life Japan. He's no longer in Japan. He's working for the History Channel. Um, as a cameraman. Um, doing some amazing projects for the History Channel. Now he lives in, in New York, New Jersey area. But his channel, My Life Japan, um, he would, he would film foreign, stories about foreigners. And he was gonna make that into one of his episodes. But, um, he left before we got a chance to do that. Um, yeah, I miss, I miss him. That, that was a shame to see him go. Good friend. Uh, we were competitors on iTunes back in the day. Thanks for listening to that story.

00:45:20 John Daub: I totally missed all the, all the super chats that Benny came in. I can't, I'm, I'm trying to scroll back. I can't even see any of them that were there. It's, that bug is still here. It's awful. Um, so, to sum up, blueberry gum and blueberry chips do taste similar, but they're so different at the same time. Don't eat the gum with the chips because the chips will enter into the gum and it just makes your gum taste like really gross. The blueberry beer, the blue beer is extremely good, and I think it is something that you should drink at least once in your life. Reminds you of Hokkaido. If you're gonna drink sake, start with Dassai 39, pure sake. Start with more expensive sake, pure sake, and then start to experiment with different flavors as you, as you start to like it more. But start with your gateway. I always think Dassai. Just pay a little bit more to get into it. It's an investment in your, in your, um, interest of sake. And then grow from a neutral sake into something more. If you can't find it, Hakkaisan is also a good backup. You'll find that just about everywhere, but make sure it's fresh. Sake does not do well on shelf. It's not a spirit. It's like beer, okay? You want your sake brewed fresh. This is the biggest misconception about Japanese sake. It is not like, um, um, spirits like vodka. Sake is more like beer. So it has an ex- Once you open a bottle of sake, drink it like within a week, maybe. A month at the most. Because it starts to turn. Okay? That might help you out.

00:47:09 John Daub: Alright, one more question. It's, it is kind of like blue hair. I need to get a haircut tomorrow. For, for real. Uh, we need to see, um, Purikura. I, it's back in America. I moved back home and I came back here. I don't, I do have some Purikura. Actually I have a Purikura of my ex, of an ex-girlfriend in a photo album and Kanae gets really angry at that. And that's my fault. I shouldn't do that. Keep up the good work. Greetings from Denmark. Hey! Hey Thomas! Or is that Swedish? Thanks for the advice, but sake, you're welcome. Um, John Lang, some knowledge. I do what I can. So no sake at restaurants. You can drink sake at restaurants. I, I think, um, atsukan is dangerous. It is, actually it's not typical to drink atsukan. It's something in the winter. But in the summertime, you don't drink warm sake. It's not, when James Bond goes, I like it at the correct temperature, 100 and 1 degrees Fahrenheit. Or he says something like this to Tanaka.

00:48:22 John Daub: Actually, sake is, is better when, alright, here's, here's tip number two. Get your pen out. Um, sake tastes really, really good when you put it in the refrigerator. Alright? But wait. Open it, and, and let the sake start to warm up a little bit to room temperature. This starts to um, release some of the natural flavors from it. So it's chilled, so everything gets a little bit tight. And then when it warms up from the, into room temperature, it starts to open up like a flower. That's pretty creepy. So, the natural taste of the sake, like breathing, exactly. But it, it should be in the refrigerator. So, as the sake starts to warm up, it starts, it starts to open up the taste a little bit more. So, um, if it comes out of the refrigerator, and, and the restaurant serves it to you, and it's a little bit too cold, just wait a couple of minutes, and the taste is going to start to just, it really does come alive as it warms up, naturally. You don't want to drink room temperature, so somewhere between, um, 10 degrees Celsius and, and 20 degrees is really good. I don't, I, I think that, that, that's really good advice. Um, the flavors really do come out. If it's atsukan, I, I don't like it too much. Because it's dangerous. It's like injecting it, like, um, in that Breaking Bad TV show. It's, it's not good. It's, it's like, uh, it, it hits you hard. Okay?

00:49:54 John Daub: It's not like cheese. Who wrote that? The first sake atsukan is during winter in Ginza. Glad I didn't break the norm. Yeah, that's very dangerous. Don't do it. Don't drink atsukan. I never drink atsukan anymore. Seriously. In the winter, I won't touch it, unless it's already there. Or the, it's, that's it. Then I'll drink it. I try to stay away from atsukan. It is dangerous. It, seriously. Folks, don't do it. Okay? Do you love Skyler from Breaking Bad, John? No? Actually, that name Skyler, I don't like it. It creeps me out. It's like her parents, I don't know. It's, it's too experimental, the name. I'm old school. Skyler. It sounds like Tyler, but it's Sky. I don't know. It's, I don't know. I'll tell you this, though. Skyler sounds like Skynet. It's true. It's true.

00:51:04 John Daub: Alright, I'll tell you this, okay? This is, I'm gonna leave you with this parting wisdom, alright? Alright. Um, Skyler is, what? Is not. Alright, listen. I think that Kanae looks very much like Adrian in Rocky. Just putting it out there. And when I met her, and she had her glasses on, she was very shy. She did not work in a pet shop, but she's very shy, and it took a long time to get her to come out of her shyness bubble. So that would make me Rocky. That's all. And then I wanted to say to Kanae, you know, look, when Adrian said to Rocky and said, Rocky, you can't fight anymore. You're gonna, you know, you're gonna shoot your eye out. And Rocky said, look, he said, yo, look, I don't ask you to stop being a woman. Don't ask me to stop being a man. I don't, I don't know if that Kanae would understand that. That's from Rocky 1. Rocky 2? Yeah. Rocky 2. It's wisdom. Rocky was much smarter than we thought he was, okay? As you watch the series, and you, over again, you start to discover that Rocky was pretty, pretty smart with his wisdoms. Yo, Kanae!

00:52:45 John Daub: I wanna get on TV after I do something and shout out Kanae's name and see if she's watching. I actually did that. I don't, I wish I had that on YouTube. I did that on a, on a Asahi TV. Was it Asahi TV? They followed me to a crane game center and they did a little episode on me filming the crane game. And, um, and the producer said, can you send me a picture of, of your girlfriend? And I said, okay. So I sent them not this picture, is it, I guess it's a, I think it's a picture, not this picture, this picture from New York. So not this one, but something, I think I might have sent that one. There's another picture that's in our Discord server that's one of the emoji of Kanae and I. And, okay, listen to this. So they didn't put Kanae's name, they put John's girlfriend. They put on the thing there. They didn't write Kanae, they go, um, and John, and this is John's girlfriend, and they wouldn't introduce her name. Just, they wrote in John's, John no kanojo. And I felt that that was, that was sort of insulting. I told them what her name was. They should have just wrote her name, but they wrote in John's girlfriend. That's, that was, that was pretty funny. Um, it was Asahi, Asahi TV, yeah. Remember that, that was, the disrespect, I know. They totally disrespected her. Totally. Yeah. Don't push me, yo. Yeah, you don't want to fight with me, I will fight back. Alright? Look, you know what? There's some things that I learned from watching prison movies. Alright? If you want respect, you can't be pushed around. You have to fight back, alright? You can't, look, you don't take it and just shake your head and walk away. People are watching you, man. The whole population. You have to fight back, and that's how you get your respect, alright? It's true in every walk of life. Don't let people walk all over you, alright? You have to fight back. That's why that's one of my favorite movies. Hold up. Do I have it here? No, I don't have it here. It's a movie called Revenge of the Nerds, alright? Point Dexter and Lewis Skolnick, I forget his name. They fight back, alright? The nerds win. Remember that, 1984. Adam College. And they win good, alright? And there's a Japanese guy in there, too.

00:55:32 John Daub: What was his name? Yo, Booger! Oh, man. I remember when Booger was on a TV show. I remember seeing Booger on another TV show trying to do a non-Booger role. I couldn't not see I couldn't unsee Booger. What was he, like a lawyer or something? Yeah, Revenge of the Nerds was pretty classic. And then, um, yep. Um, who was it? Uh, Ogre and Booger. They had the competition. There's one scene where, um, Lewis, is it Lewis? Is on the moon with the Alpha Beta girl. That he probably, that would be maybe a crime. Actually, in 2020. He'd probably go to jail. He'd probably go to jail for that. But, um, yeah, the moon scene was kinda creepy. Where he dressed up as somebody else and then, you know, they did it on the moon. That scene was pretty weird. But that's a pretty good movie. There's a Japanese guy in it, and it was pretty stereotypical, but Kanae liked that part. And he said, oh, he likes, um, what was it? Hair pie? Yeah. Not, oh, not my pie! He gave that scent, right? That's fair. Why are we talking about this? Yeah, that's the best part. And he's still up in the morning watching the spy camera. These are all like crimes now. You can't make that kind of movie today. These would all be, this, if they produced that kind of, like, Porky's and stuff like that, if they produced that kind of movie today, I think that this would, people would go to jail. Actually, I'm not that drunk. At all. Really. It's not even a Yeah. Just relax. Living old memories from the 80s, man. This is what we do with Camp Fireside Talks. Takashi was the Japanese guy. Do you remember, there was an actor in Sixteen Candles. Um, he was Japanese, but they called him Long Duk Dong. I thought that was pretty weird. And, and the, um, grandparents would go, Dong! Chop chop! And, uh, Kanae and I found that somewhat racist.

00:57:47 John Daub: Michael gives up. Sorry about that. Um, I am a little bit tired. It is 3 in the morning. Thanks so, I was, I think it was Dong. Not Donk. Really. Not sure. Sixteen Candles was a pretty good movie, too. I think that is actually Long Duk Dong. That's it. Yeah. Long Duck Dong. But he was Japanese. Which is pretty, pretty weird. Um, Yeah, I was, all these are on, like, Netflix or Amazon Prime here, which is pretty weird. Actually, Amazon Prime has, has friends, uh, or Netflix still has friends. Netflix has shows that are not on the Netflix in the U.S. here, which is pretty, pretty funny. Um, so we get to see. Uh, Netflix has The Office as well, by the way. So, I thought that was pretty cool. Warren Von Toronto. How you doing? Nice to see you. I want to be, become JP, uh, English translator. Any thoughts? Yeah, sure. Um, start translating the Only in Japan subtitles, and I will gladly recommend you to all my friends as a translator. Translating is really hard. Uh, this is a job I, I have a lot of friends who are translators. Number one, over the course of the last two years, they have made a lot of money because of the Olympics and a lot of companies wanting to translate everything into English. Their websites, their manuals, their, their, um, webs, um, like, all the information has to be into English nowadays. So there's a ton of money to be made in translating. Um, you have to be really good at it, and the game, the jobs to get to translators are very inside baseball, meaning you have to know somebody, um, to get the jobs. And I have a couple of translators, um, that are my friends' wives, and I, I give them jobs every now and then. Um, uh, whenever I need to get something translated, I'll send it to them. Uh, Japanese translators also are paid pretty well. I think it's, okay, I think it's like six, six, uh, the norm is like six to eight yen per character. And then, for technical Japanese, it can get up to twelve to sixteen yen per character. So it can be quite a lot. So for technical, twelve to sixteen, and for basic, it's like six to eight yen. But it's also, depending on the amount of work to translate, it's also, um, highly negotiable. Meaning, if you give them, it says, I will give this back to you in three weeks if you, and I'll lower you the price. So if you need it back within a certain amount of time, they'll charge you a higher rate. That happens a lot too. But they'll give you discounts based on volume as well. Translating is a, is a, is a good, good gig to have on the side. A lot of friends, uh, Ruth was a translator as well. Yeah. Baby is, is not here tonight. He's at the Kanae's family's house, but hopefully coming back really soon, cause I miss, I miss little Leo. Brandani is in the house. Nice to see, aloha.

01:00:49 John Daub: Alright guys, I'm going to bed now. It's been an hour. I didn't think I'd be up this long, but um, English to English translation is, is highly unprofitable, and for the most part, it's basically fixing the mistakes that you make yourself. Ruth is doing good. Thanks for asking, Mrs. Quills, about Ruth. Um, I just talked to her today. Uh, hopefully I get the chance to see her in June on another project. Um, um, we might be going up to Tohoku again to film up there. I'm going to be in Tohoku a lot this year, because I think that they really deserve to have more, um, of the spotlight shined on them. Yeah. Oh, Lunar Eclipse on Wednesday! Thanks for the, thanks for the reminder. Thanks for the reminder. Hey everybody, thanks so much for watching. I appreciate it. Uh, I'm going to get back to editing the video before I get to bed, and I'll try to have that fan video up really soon, and, and within a couple of days, um, we're also going to have the, um, JR Train video going online. Um, so there is new, um, main channel content coming, but, uh, it's been a pretty tough, um, pretty tough month, uh, for us as a family, and, um, things are starting to get better now, so I can do more content. And I'll take you on, on some more neighborhood walks and stuff, while, while we're in the state of emergency, try to do the best I can to share you the experience, experience of living here in Tokyo. Good night from Camp Spot, um, Tokyo. Bye-bye.