00:00:01 John Daub: Hello everybody! Welcome! I'm now driving in Osaka-fu (prefecture), and you just may have seen the premiere explaining the route that I'm on. Today I'm driving to Shikoku Island from Kyoto. I gotta turn left here and make my way to Okayama. At Okayama they have a bridge called the Great Seto Bridge (Seto Ōhashi), which is pretty cool. Wait, I couldn't turn left. It's under construction. What do I do now? Alright, you just kind of make do.

00:00:43 John Daub: It said turn left. I've never driven... this is the Meishin Expressway. Keep straight. Due to construction work, traffic is restricted. Alright, sometimes it's not so easy. That was Kansai Airport. Check it out. So this is the highway. It says there's gonna be some construction ahead, so take a left to Kansai Airport. Interesting.

00:01:22 John Daub: Alright, let me get in this other lane since the traffic is merging. Help out these people. So I got about two hours to go to Okayama before I cross the Great Seto Bridge. It's pretty crazy. Oh, there's a rest area. In 20 minutes I'm gonna be at a service area, and the service areas are pretty cool. I've introduced this to you in live streams. There's restaurants, vending machines. The restrooms are usable at every service area. And there's always really good food at those restaurants too—bakeries, a couple of cafes. It's like a shopping experience on the highway, but each service area has local culture injected into it too. The next one's at Nishinomiya SA, I believe.

00:02:18 John Daub: I used to live near there when I lived in Kakogawa in the Kansai region 20 years ago. But the drive's pretty good. There's not a lot of traffic. There's supposed to be some construction coming up but I haven't seen it yet. I just hope I'm going in the right direction. The navigation system is pretty interesting. It allows me to change it to English so I get this one lady who's navigating me in the right direction.

00:02:49 John Daub: Alright, I'm going to skip Suita and just go on to the next one and then I'll answer some of your questions there. But this trip is so exciting! The state of emergency is over and I get a chance to do this. Kyoto to Kochi—I always wanted to drive to Shikoku to cross the bridge. And we're going to be doing this together. If there's a signal, I'm going to check it out. I will live stream going over the Seto Ōhashi. It's super awesome. So then you'll be able to go over this bridge together between Honshu Island and Shikoku Island. I think it's about 30 minutes to cross it because it crosses over a few islands. This is also a really amazing bicycle course that you can ride.

00:03:38 John Daub: Let me swing back in the left lane because it's not good to ride in the right lane. Somebody said you can get a ticket. That's the last thing I want. Smooth driving. Yeah, the Great Seto Bridge, man. I've crossed over the Akashi Kaikyō Ōhashi, which I believe is still the longest suspension bridge in the world unless China has built something bigger. That was built in 1998, the year that I came—it was completed. So I love going over that bridge. That's closer to get to Shikoku Island. That goes over Awaji Island. And then there's the Great Seto Bridge, which is also super awesome. I remember taking a look at it when I was doing training in 1998 too for the children's teaching job I was doing. That was based in Okayama. And that was a cool looking bridge. Now this is the first time that I drive over it. I've only gone over it twice by train, which is also cool.

00:04:45 John Daub: If you want to get to Kochi Prefecture, the easiest way from Tokyo is to fly. You can take a train, but it's kind of hard. For those that don't want to fly or you have a Japan Rail Pass, you switch at Okayama. Flying is pretty cheap though. They used to have budget airlines like Jetstar that flew from Narita to Kochi—took like 75 to 90 minutes. Kochi Airport is not too far from the city center. So you could jump on public transportation and you'd be in the center of Kochi in like two and a half hours, which is crazy. But if you do take a train, it's also an adventure. You go through Okayama and there's a direct train from there that'll take you to Kochi.

00:05:55 John Daub: On this trip, I introduced it in the video before, but I'm going to be going to a place called Iya. Iya is in the center of Shikoku in Tokushima Prefecture, but it's on the way to Kochi. And I'm going to be spending the night there in an onsen ryokan (hot spring inn). I really wish Kanae could come, but I'm moving so quickly, it's better if it's just me. I do wish I had a co-reporter or somebody with me. How you doing? I see some people in the chat here. Not that the road's not too busy. Alright, I'm going to turn left here. I do want to hit that service area though.

00:06:36 John Daub: This is the Kansai region, and I kind of dig what Kochi's doing right now. The governor of Kochi Prefecture is originally from Osaka—he's very business-minded. Attracting visitors from the Kansai region to come to Kochi is really smart, because Kochi's kind of off the beaten path. If you look at all of Japan, the Kansai region is stacked. You got Kyoto, Osaka, Nara. You have Himeji Castle not too far away. You got Kobe. You got the Akashi Kaikyō Ōhashi. You have Akashi, which is the best octopus in Japan. And when I entered Osaka, the navigation system showed a picture of takoyaki. How cool is that?

00:07:45 John Daub: Okay, so I got to take a left here. I got to follow the instructions. I wonder if I put in the right destination. I hope I'm not going out to Yonago or something. Alright, you can see the sign for Osaka Airport. I think that's Itami. Turning left. I want to stay in the right lane. So we're going to Ikeda. Go slowly. Alright, we're skipping Osaka City. That's on the left—you can see Osaka City. There's another toll! Man, they really milk you. The toll gate is 1,990 yen—20 bucks!

00:09:03 John Daub: See, it said 1,900 and here it said 1,300. I don't know what the real price is. This is Osaka. Look, there's a love hotel over there. There's a lot of them. Boy, a lot of love in this area. The tolls in Japan are really expensive, but if you're taking the train all the time, driving is so... you feel so much freedom. How about going the right direction? It doesn't seem like the highway. Kind of scary. I guess this is a wrap around because of the construction. I'm still going to Okayama, but I'm not sure why I'm going this way. It's weird. You just kind of follow. It is highway. It's highway robbery, the toll, but I don't know why I got off of the highway. I thought I could just drive there directly. I don't even know where Ikeda is.

00:10:47 John Daub: Nobody likes traffic except for cops because then they can ticket people. I've been driving for two years and I just find that it's so much easier, especially for location shoots because I travel with a drone, cameras, tripods, lights. I have a lot of equipment for this trip. I just put it in the trunk, but this car that I'm driving is pretty sweet. I showed a little bit of it and edited that video in like an hour and 30 minutes before I started to drive from Kyoto—the premiere that I showed before. This is a RAV4. Pretty sweet car. I'm kind of enjoying the experience driving this.

00:11:44 John Daub: I can't understand why I'm going in this direction. Can somebody tell me? Somebody help me. All right, just stay the course. Yeah, the RAV4 is really nice. I drove the camper van with Greg about a year and a half ago. We drove to Fukushima in a camper van and that was really stressful because it's such a big car driving through the narrow streets of Tokyo. But here's the thing—if you get a smaller car, you're not going to be able to... you can navigate. There are no rental self-driving cars that I know of yet. The smaller cars are good because they take up less fuel, but they're also easier to drive, especially if you're driving in the city. If you're driving out on the highways like I am today, it makes a lot of sense to get something a little bit more comfortable.

00:12:47 John Daub: They do have an economy class, like 50 to 60 bucks a day. But if you upgrade another 15 bucks, you get economy plus and those cars are usually a little bit more spacious. And if you're driving long distances, you probably want to go that route. I noticed on the app there's cars and then like SUV truck things. I discovered these mini SUVs that they have, which look really cool. I rented one for the first time last year going to Niigata and I loved driving it. It was just so much fun. Why aren't I going on that expressway? I don't understand where it's not taking me on there.

00:13:37 John Daub: My next destination is going to be in Okayama. Either I'm going to live stream the Great Seto Bridge or go to Kojima, which is very famous for being a town with jeans. They say they make the best jeans in the world. I kind of agree because they look really good. So I'm either going to stop there or live stream the Great Seto Bridge. You guys can leave a comment below if there's one you prefer to see. Driving over the Great Seto Bridge—I'm not sure how the signal is going to be, but it's worth giving it a shot. And tonight will be in Iya. If I can, I'll try to bring you some images from Iya, the place that I'm staying at or the town in the morning. And then the second day, I'll be going to a fish market, which is going to be pretty nice. The fish market owner is going to give an interview and show us around. That's a nice way to get an introduction to Kochi Prefecture and the hospitality of Shikoku because people are a little bit friendlier when you get out of the city center.

00:14:41 John Daub: All right, everybody, I'm out of here. I'm going to drive as safe as I can and focus on the road. You do too. And I'll see you again really soon on this driving to Kochi special series. Three, four days of live streams from Kyoto to Kochi. Thanks for joining me. I'll see you really soon. I really hope I'm going in the right direction. If I'm not, somebody let me know. It's supposed to take five hours to get to Kochi. I've already been in the car for like two and a half. I don't know what's going on. I'm only in Osaka. Kyoto is not even that far away. All right, better get to it. See you soon.