00:02 John Daub: Good morning, everybody. Welcome to Ochiai Miyoshi. This is a beautiful place in Iya. Check it out. Look at this. It's 7:15 in the morning. Seems like nobody is around. And we're going to walk around for the next 30 minutes or so. You could actually stay here. There are a lot of renovated huts up here that are just beautiful inside. Some of them hundreds of years old. Good morning.

00:59 John Daub: Actually, the drive here scared the bejesus out of me. It's really scary because the roads wrap around with no railings on a lot of them to get up to this point. Narrow, rail-less roads going over ledges of horror. But the price is worth it, I think. Another reason to get up early and do this because I absolutely don't want to do it during high season. I'm so glad there aren't any tourists around because it would be a disaster.

01:41 John Daub: You can hear the sound of water. The air is so fresh here. It is really nice to be here. I'm going to take you to the ledge here and give you another view. All right, we'll just keep walking around. I was surprised how untouched this region feels. It's so beautiful.

03:06 John Daub: I'm walking around from the hotel that I was staying at. I did an Instagram live last night. I think it's still available of my dinner. That's not too far from the highway. And coming in on these local roads is a totally different experience than what I was thinking. Do you see the road here, how it's narrow? A lot of the roads here are one car only. So you have to be really careful and kind of snake around the corner just to see if there's another car coming.

03:55 John Daub: Wow, the air is really sweet. Okay, here's one of the huts. There's even a place marked in English as toilet. So I believe it's still kind of old style—benjo (outhouse), we would call it. The outhouse is separated from the main house. But I can see myself eating breakfast right here at this hut and then enjoying the view. Check it out. I want my morning coffee.

05:30 John Daub: Now, we tried to book these online like a couple of days in advance. A lot of them don't take last-minute bookings. You have to book well in advance, especially now because of the pandemic and everything. So it's best to call ahead and see if something is available. Quite often it is. Down there you can see a lady taking a walk. She's in an apron. Color is so much green. I love the fact that this village is here in the middle of the mountain.

06:44 John Daub: I put a link in the description to the map here, so you can take a look and see exactly where I am right now. Look at the way the road hairpins around there. Why didn't I take that road? I took the road of death. But I'm still alive. Oh, in the distance there, you can see on the side of the hill there's another village. They're not very easy to get to. You think you see a road that's easy to go up—it's not the case. It's really hard. Below me is another one of these thatched roofs. Beautiful. Let's walk down there.

07:57 John Daub: So serene. This is so peaceful. I'm now driving to Kochi, so today I'll be entering Kochi Prefecture. But this is actually Tokushima, a place called Iya. And this village is called Ochiai Miyoshi. It's really peaceful here. And Alex Kerr, somebody who you're going to get a chance to meet in November on this show—he's an author and speaker who cares very deeply about Japan and helping renovate a lot of areas. I've been following him on TED Talks and talked to him yesterday. He's renovated a 300-year-old house from the Edo period. He came here in the 1970s and has been living here since. I'm looking forward to talking with Alex. If you haven't picked up his book, absolutely do—it's fascinating. Everybody who has read it has really enjoyed it. Afterwards, I'll put a link in the description. He's going to be reading excerpts from his book in November when we meet him in Kochi.

15:11 John Daub: We're coming around the bend now. If I have some time, I want to take you to the peeing boy. There's a statue of a boy who's peeing over the ledge, and apparently the pee falls quite far away. It's weird—don't ask questions, just soak it in. So we're going to go up to the ledge here and get a pretty good view. Here's the path that we just walked. Look at that—they're drying the grass. It's such a nice view. It's such a peaceful place.

18:32 John Daub: That dog still sees me. I gotta walk back that way too. I guess I really left an impact. Dog letting you know the whole village that you're here now. Right now there are thousands of heads popping out of doors, making sure. This is a beautiful thatched roof place. A lot of these are available to stay in. I would love to stay here. Look at the chair there—have morning coffee. And if you pan up, you can see even more houses all up the mountainside here are places to stay. Really quiet. I gotta go through the road of death to get back, but absolutely beautiful—absolutely stunning place.

20:53 John Daub: It takes about an hour to get back down to the main road. Again, I'm up on the side of a mountain. This is a very peaceful area. I think it's really worth visiting. This is Ochiai Miyoshi—a beautiful remote mountain village in Tokushima in the center of Shikoku. I think it's really worth a visit because if you ever rent a car, you have to come here—it's easy to access. It's not really a train place, but if you do have a Japan Rail Pass, you can get here from Oboke Station—you can catch a bus. But you better rent a car.

24:21 John Daub: There's also a vine bridge that you can go across here. I don't know if a lot of you have seen this on social media, but the vine bridge is pretty cool—it's made of vines, pretty high up over the river. Shikoku is also quite famous for the hike around the 88 temples, which can take up to three months. Some people do it over the course of their days, hiking to the next temple—you start to find yourself again. In this age that we live in, it's very easy to lose yourself. But stopping to smell the air—it's really nice.

28:30 John Daub: If you're enjoying this, click that like button. Let me know what you're thinking—this is the part of the live stream where you can say where you're watching from. If you haven't made a comment before, that's an easy one. Last night there was a big earthquake in Tokyo—Shindo 5+. Kanai was shaken, Leo got freaked out—about 10pm, I believe. I didn't feel a thing here in the heart of Shikoku. This is a beautiful place. Little garden here—so you have fresh vegetables, self-sufficient. Nice. And there's a nice view. My car's right there, so we're going to go over there and I got to drive back. But very nice view. I'm glad that I came. I wish I had stayed here though.

31:29 John Daub: This is why you leave the city of Tokyo. I think some of you might not be into the rural parts of Japan, but I like it. It's very easy to get to—you get to drive in your car. It's on my path to driving to Kochi. Whoa, that's a big spider—dude, do you see that? He's creepy. He's got a little horror show going in his net. Nope—leave him be, it's nature. Try to leave places untouched. My footprints are here, but that's all I leave. This is so beautiful—I'm just trying to soak it in. I'll be back. It's going to be different in November—I think we're going to be able to see the leaves changing. I bet the colors are really vibrant.

34:52 John Daub: It's pretty chilly compared to Tokyo—about 18 degrees, probably less. There's a place in the valley that was 13 degrees Celsius, in the 50s. So yeah, I guess I can try to drive with you, but hold on—I got to get back to the hotel. Here's the navigation. I want to get back to this main road, but the only way is the road of death. Do you see this? It goes way up into the mountains and then you have to come back. It's about 15 minutes to get back, but that's really crazy. This is the side of a mountain—it was really challenging to get up here.

37:28 John Daub: I'm going to just show you what the road is like so you get an idea of what I have to do to survive. Driving this road is very one lane—so if another car comes, you have to go in reverse or find a pullout. See what I mean? It gets even more narrow and crazier. But it was worth it. Thanks so much for watching. If we can get to a thousand likes in the next couple hours, I'm going to take you to the peeing boy statue—that's worth it. See everybody. Boy, this is going to be fun. Just go slow and take it easy. Bye.