00:00:04 John Daub: Hello everybody, welcome to Kochi Prefecture. This is the Kochi coastline. And that's the mighty Pacific Ocean and you can see a beautiful blue color that comes out of it. I hope you can see it depending on the signal. This is the live stream. And I have about 10 minutes before I get to the airport. I've parked the car over there. You can see the RAV4. And I thought I would just do a little pit stop here before I make it to the airport.

00:00:33 John Daub: It's just so nice to enjoy a little bit of nature. And of course I got the drone out and took some nice drone shots. I'm gonna hide the drone just in case, or I might take it with me. So I got the Air 2S and was able to get some really nice shots for the video. All right, let's go down here. I wanted to show you a little bit of a closer look. We can walk down to the coastline. I'm hoping that the signal holds strong. Hey, Bradshaw studio.

00:01:07 John Daub: It's kind of a jungle route, but as long as I take care, it should be fine. I've got an external mic to help knock down the wind because it is quite windy here. Apparently people go this way as long as there's no big spiders. I'm okay. This reminds me of my trip to Ogasawara a few years ago. The mighty Pacific and I'm an Atlantic Ocean kid. I grew up in New Jersey where the water was not quite this blue.

00:02:00 John Daub: See if I can walk a little ways in. See if we can get a nice view. Maybe I climb this outcrop. Wow. If I can get the angle right here. Beautiful. And if I go straight this way, I think I get to America. But I think for me, it's really interesting to see. Even in Tokyo, you don't really see the Pacific. You see kind of Tokyo Bay and the areas where there's a lot of boats, big ships, tankers going through there. Here we just get pristine Pacific Ocean.

00:02:58 John Daub: And Kochi is really famous for its surf and surfing. So this is probably a place that you want to come and bring your surfboard or rent one. I remember drinking at a market in Kochi. A couple of surfers. It was a live stream actually. A couple of surfers came up and we had some drinks together. Really cool guys from Chiba, from Nagoya, from Osaka. They all got together and they drove down to Kochi. Why? Because this surf is freaking awesome here. Maybe not right here. Well, that's not too bad right there. Look at that. But not a ship in sight. I love it.

00:03:36 John Daub: This is on the drive back from Shimanto River. It's just so beautiful. I had to stop and take some drone shots here. Kind of rocky. It's a little bit better maybe from up there. Let me take you back up through the jungle route. And then I got to get back in the car and make my way to Kochi Ryoma Airport. Maybe you can join me for the drive back a little bit. Don't want to sprain my ankle. I shouldn't even say that. When you say that, that's usually when you sprain your ankle.

00:04:18 John Daub: If the sunlight is hitting it at the right time, you see this really beautiful emerald blue. That's a Pacific blue. It's even deeper out in Ogasawara. They call it Bonin blue. It's this really deep blue I've never seen before. It's a little bit brighter here. The wind is what's knocking the phone around, even on the gimbal. It's quite windy. I'm surprised Drone-chan survived some really far off shots. All right, back up the jungle route. Don't forget the drone. I also have to do Frogger and cross the Highway of Death. It's all part of the adventure. Feels like Indiana Jones.

00:05:42 John Daub: Tig! I think I stepped in doggy doody. I don't think it was doggy. All right, one last shot here. Then we're going to go in the car. Ah! The mighty Pacific! I think this direction. Kochi, say aloha! Can't hear anybody. Unless the wind that just picked up is everybody. Looks like a washboard down there. A, B, and B77, aloha. It's this way towards Rapa Nui, Easter Island. Hey! Rapa Nui! Hola! I think they speak Spanish in Easter Island. And the highway just hugs it. This is the Shinahama Coast. Quite rocky.

00:07:03 John Daub: All right, let's get to the car. Again, I got to cross this highway of death. Death because if you're not looking around the curve, you don't know what's going to hit you. Well, you do actually. A car. I'm not going to let that happen. Not live, anyways. I'd do that prerecorded. Then I can get it in 8K. This is good here, but this direction, it's not good. See, it's very tricky. You could swim there. There's some shallows over here that aren't very rough. I would make sure you come with some sandals or some aqua shoes. Aqua socks, so you don't cut up your feet.

00:07:56 John Daub: Okay, we're clear. We're booking to the car. We're out full, waiting for us. It's magic. As long as the key is near me, it opens up. Okay, here we go. Drive along the road for more than five seconds. Oh, my arrival time is getting bad. They say you're supposed to be there an hour before flight. How's 45 minutes? It's all good. Safety first, auto on. Excuse me, on engine first.

00:09:12 John Daub: Why do these things pop out? Rear-view mirrors. Drive along the road for more than five kilometers. Why do rear-view mirrors pop in? Oh, there's a police officer. Sorry, sir. I didn't break the law. It's better if he passes now because then we're behind him. Unless if I drive like a bat out of heck, it could be an issue. All right, turn around. Watch the road. Here we go. Signal. Make sure there's nothing coming on the road of death. Road of death is clear. Signal on. Done. Goodbye, Pacific. Hello, Kochi Ryoma Airport. Destination. Final destination. Tokyo.

00:10:29 John Daub: Speed limit is 50. I'm going 55. Let's slow down. A lot of little teeny fishing towns going through here. A lot of old ladies that are really short, cute, big smiles. People, when they see other people, they really like it here in Kochi. They're really receptive to outsiders. I love that. I think some of them might be outsiders themselves. Kochi is a really, I don't know, it's like the frontier, it feels like. It feels like you're a pioneer when you come to a place like this. Just like you just saw a highway stop. I went through jungle to get to the, like probably a lot of beaches are like that. But it's special here.

00:11:23 John Daub: So the highway, the highway along the coast, it does wind a lot. Speed limit is 50 right now. And on the highway, it's 80. Typically 80 kilometers per hour, which is like 55. Maybe it's not really that fast, but I think they give or take about 10 kilometers maybe. So yeah, you can do probably 90, but I would, you know, follow speed limit because this is a live stream. I should encourage good driving. It says my arrival time is 12:42. My flight is at 1:35. So I think we're going to be okay. Usually when I hit the highway, I make up some time because I might go 81 kilometers an hour. One over just, you know, it's hard to see exactly the speed limit. Let the drive safe.

00:12:22 John Daub: Saga Koen Eki. If anyone is looking on Google map, that's where I am in Kochi Prefecture along the coast. And there's the station right there. The tracks that is right on my left side. There's a tunnel that goes through that mountain. We go around it on the highway. So I really wonder how long we're going to have a signal here. Oh God, I love all these places to turn into to enjoy the coastline and you can bring a drink with you. You know, like some I got some sparkling water down there. Just take it in. There's a lighthouse. Very different structure.

00:13:09 John Daub: I filled the gas tank to this RAV4. According to the thing, I had about 75 kilometers to go before the tank was at zero and cost me 8,000 yen. Wow. Look at the blue color. Hold on. I don't know if you can see it. You got to pan over to the right side. You go a little bit. Red light. Now you can see the tunnel for the train up there on the left. You see it now. Beautiful. Really nice. Hey, Lisa. Oh, great to see it. Remember for 13 months. Awesome. Here we go again.

00:14:09 John Daub: It's straight ahead. And if you go to the right, you go through the town. Oh, there's the cop I passed before. Hello, sir. It's the Yokohama Tunnel. Interesting. Yokohama. I'm probably going to until you don't see me anymore. I usually don't listen to music because I forget to bring some with me. The last time I listened to music, I think, was when, gosh, there's another YouTuber in the car. And he had he connected his MP3 player, which is an iPhone to the car stereo.

00:15:24 John Daub: I wanted to be before we get to the highway. I wanted to talk a little bit about driving in Kochi to end this series. So driving in Kochi is a really pleasant experience. The roads are really open now. You can see on my right side. I just went past the train station. Train is not really an option because there's only maybe four or five a day that go along here. So you have to plan your trip. Or on the train times with the car, you plan your trip around whatever you want to do. But it's a really pleasant experience to drive in Kochi for the most part.

00:15:54 John Daub: The highways are like this. It's very easy driving for a lot of Americans. It's just overcoming your fear of driving on the left side. But for me, I've been walking on the left side, you know, before I got my license. So mentally, I was there. Check out the road. It's kind of more interesting than looking at me. I hear you have these places called michi no eki (roadside stations). On the left side, you can pull in their restrooms. Almost every single town has one of these where they sell local goods. Local vegetables are in their local restaurants. It's a great place. You could also park your car and spend the night there.

00:16:32 John Daub: There's a Lawson's a lot more Lawson's in Shikoku than 7-Elevens or Family Marts. Lawson country is Shikoku. I figured out. But driving here, as you can see, the roads are really open. No traffic. I think if you rent the car inside of the city of Tokyo, you're going to be a lot more stressed out. So maybe you want to jump in a taxi and just go a little bit outside of the city. Or maybe make sure your hotel is a little bit outside of the city of Tokyo when you rent the car. But the Toyota Rent a Car is an ORIX and Nippon Rent a Car is a lot of them. They all have offices at major train stations and believe it or not, in a lot of rural localities. I thought that was pretty amazing. So you always have access to a car.

00:17:24 John Daub: A lot of locals will rent a car. They have small cars to get around their town and they rent a big car if they want to take a trip. I was talking with some people at Nakatosa and the lady at the tourism office, she's originally from there, but she said that she has a small car to get around Nakatosa. This is where I ate the two lunches two days ago. And when she wants to go to like Hiroshima for Costco or Ikea, she rents a bigger car for the day and then drives back in the evening. So that makes a lot of sense. Because the big cars drink gas like a fish drinks water.

00:18:13 John Daub: It's a pretty calming drive. Sometimes you'll see a temple or a shrine on the right side or the left side. They sort of just pop up. And you can stop and park and go take a look. That's the stuff you do when you drive. Whatever you see, you can park and go investigate. Look at that, it's an abandoned Suzuki mechanic garage. Pretty interesting. It looks like we're getting closer to the highway now.

00:18:46 John Daub: So if you're looking for adventure in Japan, you can do it by Shinkansen and then rent a car. You don't have to rent a car from Tokyo. Because driving is pretty darn expensive. But maybe considering the Shinkansen-rent-a-car hybrid pass might be something that's interesting too. It just depends on how you drive. I remember meeting lots of people. I'd say like 85% of the tourists that come here that I meet and talk to say that they have a JR rail pass. Whether it's one week or two weeks. And they time it so that they can travel really hard for seven days. And then they spend the rest of the time in Tokyo in the beginning and at the end. Or in Osaka.

00:19:28 John Daub: My feeling is, I would fly into Kansai every time. Because you've got Kyoto, you've got Nara, you've got Osaka, you've got Himeji. Hiroshima is closer. Tokyo is two hours away. Because around Tokyo there's not that much. You've got Hakone, you've got Nikko. You've got some attractions up in Ibaraki. Tohoku is a lot closer. You've got Fujisan. But Kansai just makes a lot more sense. Because you can do all that in a few days in Tokyo. And you could spend two weeks in Kansai. So rent the car when you get to Kansai, rent the car because it's easier to get out of Kansai. And then drive towards the Sea of Japan. Or Shikoku. Or if you're in Tokyo, you can drive up to Tohoku. But it's so wide up in Tohoku. It takes forever to drive up there. Shikoku is perfect for renting a car.

00:20:17 John Daub: I think this is a frontier. And if you have the car, it unlocks a lot of attractions that you don't see otherwise. The other thing that Shikoku is very popular for is the 88 temples. And we're just passing... Should I honk at her? There's a pilgrim. He's got one of the pointy hats and a towel. He's wearing pilgrim wear. It's like a fashion sense. They hike around Shikoku going to 88 temples and shrines. Usually for three months it'll take. And that's really seeing the country. You could do it in a car probably in a few days. See what I'm saying? So I hope that this kind of guide helps you making a decision.

00:21:06 John Daub: I did this because I want to encourage people who do visit Kansai to maybe rent a car and take a trip to Kochi. And this is a four-day course and you can do it too. Ia for one night. I probably should have spent two. Shimanto for two nights. I probably could have spent four. I wanted to make a knife. I should have spent six. But all in all, the course... I'll put a link in the description. I'll see if I can get a Google link so that you can just follow along where I was on this trip. It's extraordinary to get in a car and just go. And I didn't unlock this until I finally got my license about two and a half, three years ago. And since then, it's been completely... I've seen Japan in a different way.

00:21:51 John Daub: Majority of people in Japan, they drive. They have cars because they don't live in the city. Japan's got a lot of car makers. Nissan, Toyota, Honda, Suzuki, Mazda. Just to name a few. That's probably most. Check it out. We got some nice greenage. Don't know how the signal is. I'm not lying to you. I'm telling you from knowledge. You can either take it or not take it. That's up to you. But I would take it. People ask me, what do you want to do? What's your perfect itinerary? And I say, I don't know. Everybody's personality is different.

00:22:37 John Daub: If you're like an Akihabara guy, you like manga, anime, and you've never been to Japan before, you could probably just spend the whole time in Akihabara. I think that's kind of a waste. But everybody's different. And what I want and what I like is not what somebody else is going to want and like. And this is the big thing. This is why I hate giving people travel advice. I can show you places and you can look at it and you can decide whether or not it's for you. Some people don't like temples or shrines. They all look the same to them after three or four of them. It's like they want to eat. For me, I like to travel to eat too. I want to have local food. Because Japan is one of these gastronomical paradises where you can do that.

00:23:29 John Daub: I like to travel for food. So if you want to get to the roadside places, you're going to need a car to get to the really local stuff. Not everything's at the train stations and more and more it's like chain stuff. So unless you want to, you know, eat McDonald's and Domino's and Yoshinoya, which is pretty good. It's a little bit gold too because they're going to be harvesting kaki no tane (persimmons [?]). Kaina. Kochi is 78 kilometers away. In 700 meters, turn slight right. But driving in Kochi, super easy. Shimanto is a little bit more challenging. There's some places where they're one car roads, but they're two ways. So you have to go slow and stop. Maybe two times I had to go in reverse for about 10 meters or so. Or the other person went in reverse. A couple of times too.

00:24:40 John Daub: We're getting on the expressway. I think I just saw expressway awesomeness achieved. Okay. Kochi. Green sign. Turn slight right at the next traffic signal. Then take the expressway. Yes. Expressway, baby. Turn slight right. Red light. So bright. I really need a pair of glasses. Hey, Brandania. Good timing. Aloha. For some treats to, for some drinks just dropping in to say hi. Can't stay because I'm supposed to be working. Hey, Brandania. Did you hear me say aloha? Did that guy cross on a red light? I yelled aloha from the Kochi coast to my Hawaiian friends.

00:25:27 John Daub: Expressway. I don't know if it's a 56. I just know that the speed limit is 30 and I'm going 50. The car behind me looks like he wants to go 50. All right. There are grooves on the road here so you don't slip off. Kochi has a lot of rain in the winter. It's just really amazing to have these blue skies. I hope it's coming in in full HDR, which the iPhone delivers quite well. Just because it's so awesome. Looks like they're building another highway overpass for something. When the highway extends all the way to Shimanto City, it's going to be freaking awesome. You can get there much quicker, but you might miss some of the stuff like the ocean that I just showed you.

00:26:20 John Daub: That's nice. Just to stop for 15 minutes, get some drone shots, get back in the car. Bada bing, bada boom, off to the airport. Arrive at 12:30. Got 90 minutes. All right, tunnel. Might lose you. I'll see you on the other side. Did I even go through the toll gate? No. Drive along the road for more than 5 kilometers. All right, 70 kilometers. I'm going 75. Lights on. Always turn on the lights in the tunnels. Or keep it on auto and then it does it for you. Oh, we're going to lose this signal soon. Hey, Frenska358. Just caught that in the corner of my eye. Wow, there's a raccoon. Did you see that? There's a sign on the left for raccoons.

00:27:36 John Daub: Some music, maybe some teen spirit from Nirvana. 24 degrees Celsius, it reads right there. The windsock says wind's coming from the right side. Don't know if it's north or south. This is the Tachibana Gawa Tunnel. 936 meters. Probably see on the other side. This one's a long one. Cruising at 75 kilometers per hour. 73. Another tunnel. Whoa, it opened up. Beautiful. Agnes Lim. Thanks. I'm going to stop up at a rest stop if there's one on the way for a quick drink and just stretch my legs. Whoa, motorcycle gangs. Peter probably in there. Probably wearing all leather.

00:29:19 John Daub: Kinjono Tunnel [?]. Two kilometers long. 1,916. I'll definitely see you on the other side. We're going to lose signal. I've been pretty impressed so far, but I'm going to pump it up to 75. Get through this one quick. We're in the center of a mountain. 68 kilometers away from Kochi. But it says 85 on my radar thing because it's going to be airport. Smooth driving on the highway. Joy said yes. It was simple. I could catch it in the corner of my eye. I'm looking at the road, but just in the corner of my eye. I can see chat just like I can see the navigation system. They're kind of together.

00:30:27 John Daub: All right. We're halfway there. 900 meters to go. I can't believe we still have a signal of anything. Even if it's Minecraft quality, that's impressive. They must have put like some sort of signal inside the tunnel. Well done. I do have cell phone reception just about everywhere. There's some places where it's weak, but you can make phone calls. No dead spots. There are, though. Like middle of wilderness. But it's pretty impressive because two years ago, the dead spots are really bad. And now they've fixed it. We had 3G in some spots. Now everything seems to be 4G. Just three bars instead of five. All right. Other side. Nice and bright. No glasses. I forgot my sunglasses.

00:31:21 John Daub: Hey, John. Kimura's here. I caught that. The side of my eye. It's good to have you here. I'm going to pick something up for Kanae. She wants some yuzu kosho (yuzu pepper paste). Yuzu kosho is really famous here. Buy her some yuzu kosho gifts. That's awesome. Thanks, man. Slight right. This is Route 56 I'm getting on. Yeah. Traffic light. Turn slight right. All right. Traffic light. Red light. Turn slight right. Slight right? It's a pretty hard right. Something says this navigator lady is from the UK.

00:32:11 John Daub: Bob Joe chipping in for the yuzu kosho for the night. Look at the money. John Kimura. I've seen you get 55 bucks. Route 55 is Route 56. That's pretty cool. You almost had the route right. That's funny. Franco 358 is checking back in. Thanks. Wow. That's really impressive. The signal is good. All right. Follow that car. Ooh. That car's not supposed to go over the line there. Please restrict. 5.0 kilometers. Turn right. That just tilts you a little bit more towards the other side of the road towards the scenery.

00:32:51 John Daub: Without the navigation, I've probably lost. You can use your Google smartphone instead of the car navigation. Actually, it might be a good idea if you're going to the countryside, use both. This is a good tip because a lot of the places are registered on Google, especially older rented cars. This is a semi new one, I think 2018, maybe 2019, but older rented cars have older navigation systems. So sometimes they might not be up to par, but Google Maps always is. It's good to have both of them going and you can plug in your smartphone. I would encourage you to bring it from home instead of trying to buy one here or get it ordered on Amazon and have it sent to your hotel.

00:33:47 John Daub: But the suction cups that I have to hold your smartphone are very useful inside the car. So you might want to get one of those. I have three suction cups to really get it on there. Depends the size of your smartphone. That's good to have as well as a long wire to keep your phone charged. And you can put it in the middle and it does a really good job of navigating, getting you to where you need to go. Both of them. The thing is that the Google, you definitely need to have 4G, a SIM card. You can't use Wi-Fi with that. Is that the mayor? He's wearing one of those political sashes that they wear in Japan. Pretty cool.

00:34:18 John Daub: I can see a lot of the old houses. They look like, some of them look like akiya (abandoned homes). Like no one is living there. Some weeds growing out of them. There's a Lawson. See, this is the third Lawson's we've passed. I was almost tempted to stop in there, but saving it for a rest stop. Pachinko. It's a shame. Some of these most beautiful buildings in the towns, the old towns, they're all from the Showa period. And then you'll see a brand new, like really nice looking place you'd think is a hotel. No, no. Pachinko. All those bright lights looks like Vegas. Really clean on the outside. Iwamotoji Temple just passing. There's a sign to tell me.

00:35:33 John Daub: There's a rare Family Mart. There's a supermarket, a drugstore. It's nice. I'm gonna be getting on the expressway again. The drive through Kochi through Shimanto, it's sort of mixed between highway and low way, but it's scenic nonetheless. We're going towards Susaki. Hope the signal's good. 12:30 arrival time. I can live with that. What I can't live with is a 12:45 arrival time because that really puts me as a giddy hustle to the airport. Follow that silver car. Well, there you go again. Pachinko place. Really nice sign. Stylish. It's the center of the city. Pachinko. Awful.

00:36:40 John Daub: In a pachinko way. It's gambling, you know. You don't want people, they gamble all their money away. I don't want to see that. The signs, as you can see, really quickly passing over me. They're all in Japanese on the top, kanji, English on the bottom. It's very easy to understand. Not Chinese because they could probably read the kanji, not katakana, not Korean, it's all in English, so I have not had any trouble with road signs in Japan ever in the last 10 years. When I say ever, 23 years ago not everything was bilingual. Everything, a lot of stuff in there. Especially in the countryside, just Japanese and katakana, which is good to learn the katakana alphabet.

00:37:40 John Daub: Speed limit is 50 here. I'm going 60. Beautiful skies. We've had these puffy clouds the entire four days. I have taken some amazing pictures too for the postcard club. This month is Asakusa. They should be arriving in the U.S. soon. They should arrive to our three Patreon supporters in Japan for sure already. But next month, there's a Seto Bridge. Awesome shot that I took with the drone. There's some amazing shots that I took in Kochi and in Ia. It's going to be a tough postcard for next month, but we will see which one, which image wins out.

00:38:23 John Daub: When you go on these road trips, you really can, there's just too many opportunities to take amazing photos. And I have to say the DJI Air 2S is awesome. The one inch sensor, the size. I have the mini which I can fly in certain restricted areas. Oh there's a roadhouse. 100 meters, turn right. All right, it's better than slightly right. Shoot, sometimes it's the same thing. Well, there's a roadhouse. They just turned into one. It's a big one. We don't have time. Another Lawson's on the right. Turn right at the next traffic signal. Then take the expressway. Expressway! Three, two, one, yeah!

00:39:36 John Daub: Enjoy. Yeah, I'm not this happy when they tell you the toll that you just paid. Then it's not so wonderful. That means I can shave off some time. Expressway also means service area and I can get off and hurry up motor dude. Looks like a bandit. Bandana. No bikes, no scooters, just RAV4s. Oh, look at the traffic coming here. Everyone wants to go to the countryside. Whoa, gnarly. God, I want a motorcycle. Dude, I gotta get the license. Whoa, there was a, did you see that? That looked like the Arkansas Razorbacks. There was a wild hog running sign. So there's some hogs, wild boars in the woods here. Pretty cool sign.

00:40:58 John Daub: I met a guy in Ohio. He, in the middle of the night, he would steal the signs. He had a collection in his room. And I told him, aren't you afraid one day you're gonna get caught? He said, no. I guess he lived out, really out there. Some places in Ohio is out there. 70 kilometers per hour is the speed limit right now. Usually it's 80, but I think when the highway gets a little bit wider, I can open it up a little bit more. But I don't really want to. If you look on the left and the right, it's just so beautiful.

00:41:52 John Daub: So what do you think? Let me know in the comments right now. Is Japan a lot easier to drive in than you thought it would be? Now that you're watching me do it, somebody who, you know, gets lost walking around town, who's falling down and stuff, bumping into people. I can do it. And I think if I can, you can too. So what do you think? Is this easy enough for you? Is it easy to drive? Is it cool and calm? Is it chill? Is it easy? Is it navigable? I want to hear from you. Sound off. Drivers.

00:42:30 John Daub: This is Shikoku. So this is the driving paradise. Well, that may be Hokkaido. Shikoku is like really, really close or if not better. Simple. The GPS is in English. It is. Yeah, I feel confident. That's pretty cool. But you seem like you live here. All right. We're cruising at 77.7. Big thank you to John Kimura. I'm extended because of his lovely donation for gifts from Kochi Airport for us. And I really appreciate that. Thank you, John. Can I, Leo and I, we really love you. And I know you're always looking out for us and that special care.

00:43:41 John Daub: I never come and Ramsey's silence the same way. He's always getting to make sure I bring home some flowers or some gifts. And that's great. Stay safe. And I'm glad you're here. It's nice to have you driving with me, too, because it's a lot boring. It feels like you're here, which is why somebody wrote a comment. I never met someone who talks so much. I was like, I laughed. I think I gave that one a thumbs up. Not a hard mark, though, because I think she meant it in a bad way. I take criticism well. Learn from it. Lose it and respond and then delete it. It's like a tweet, a tweet that went private, public, and then deleted. And sometimes I'll write a response and then delete it. And then you stop doing it because you realize it's just a waste of time.

00:44:47 John Daub: I like to send responses if I can. It's nice. Postcards. I love sending postcards. All right. It looks like we're getting close to where we open it up a little bit. But if I remember correctly, there are some tunnels we got to go through. It's getting blurry. Look right now. I'm so deep. I'm going to keep going until John Kimura's Superstar goes away. Out of respect. But if it gets blurry, it might get better again through this tunnel. But if I'm going to keep going for a little bit longer because it's just fun this way. So if you lose me, I'll be back. But this tunnel looks long. I'm cruising at 77 still. Lights on.

00:46:03 John Daub: I can tell you a little bit about this tunnel. It's 2,393 meters long. So 2.3 kilometers. It's going to be a long one. About three minutes, maybe. It stinks. I feel like I'm going to get a little bit too inside here. It smells like my old roommate's bunk. Gassy. I had the top bunk too. It's all mopped up. Had to keep the window open. And then in the winter, you can get all... And cry, them cool. And say, well, I can't breathe. Battles control the window. He controlled his area. And I learned after two years that stopped having roommates. Yeah, this is the cafeteria. So cool cafeterias. They really kind of serve people. That was always pretty quick.

00:47:28 John Daub: All right, we're out of the tunnel. Thanks for keeping me company. I was just talking to myself. Hopefully that audio did not go through the tunnel. You didn't hear my roommate talk. Really, the signal is good through tunnels? This is more of an experiment now, okay? This is as much an experiment as anything else. Marty's in the house. Don't forget to buy something for Leo. All right, you got it. I'll get something for little Leo. I'll see if I can get him a plushie or something. Marty. Oh, that's gonna be awesome. We're gonna call him Marty too, the little plushie. I don't know if they got it. I'm sure they got something at the airport.

00:48:32 John Daub: I don't see any service areas on the navigation, so I wonder if I'm gonna get my hot coffee. My arrival time is still 12:30. Whoa, we are way high up. Sometimes the most marvelous engineering structures are the highway bridges that nobody can see. I'd like to get the drone down there. It's the Kurezaka Tunnel [?]. Couldn't see the distance, but we're following Route 56. If not, the highway is Route 56. See sweet potatoes here flying in. Gosh, if I only had wings, I'd leave the airport. Actually, I'm gonna have wings. I'm gonna fly to Tokyo in an hour and a half.

00:49:40 John Daub: I've already live streamed. You know what? If you are a traveler, I might live stream from Kochi Airport from the observation deck. I'll do a special live stream for all our travelers and our Patreon supporters. So if you're a member, you're using the special emoji. I think it's like 90 yen or something, less than a dollar. I'll do a special live stream from Kochi Airport to look at the airplanes, because I know a lot of you haven't been to the airport in a long time. No, Nakatosa, that's where I had lunch a couple days ago. It might be nice. It's nice to see what's going on at the local regional Kochi Ryoma Airport on the observation deck. After I get little Marty. I'll get a little Marty at the gift shop.

00:50:42 John Daub: I've been talking to little Leo. Marty, I've been talking to Leo through FaceTime, and he recognizes me over FaceTime, and it's so awesome. He recognizes me through facial expressions, funny faces, and strange sounds that I do. And I do these dance beats, and he recognizes me through dance beats. It's pretty cool. I have a couple ones. I can't do high-paced dance beats, but mostly like mid-tempo, and kind of a deeper unch, unch, unch, unch. Kanae doesn't like the unch, unch one, because she says it sounds like unchi, which is poo. Signal is gone. I apologize.

00:51:39 John Daub: There's a turnoff for Nakatosa. I don't know how the signal's going to come in, but John Kimura's chat is still hanging in there, so I'm still going strong as I can. This is the end of the Kochi episode, too. Driving Kochi, the course. I'll put a link in the description. I'll show you when I get back to Tokyo what I did, just to round this off. But I love this drive. Let me tell you the cost of this car. The rented car that I got, it was about, it was less than $100 a day. This is like a really nice SUV. I think it was maybe $80 a day, $75 a day, plus the tax. And then that came out to under 50,000 yen. So that's about $450, so with taxes and everything, that's pretty reasonable.

00:52:56 John Daub: And then some motor guys. That was awesome. I think the line is really close. And then there was a charge for them to drive it back to, from Kochi to Kyoto, and that cost a little bit over 20,000 yen, like about $200. But if you factor in gas and tolls, probably I'd come out ahead, okay? Because even the toll crossing the Great Seto Bridge was like $35. And then the other highways, it was like $75, $80. That's $120 just for the tolls plus the gas. Probably come out about the same or something. So that's a little bit ahead. So all in all, cost, with my 20% gold member discount of Toyota Rent-A-Car, about under $700 for four days, which seems high. It's worth it.

00:53:36 John Daub: When you're going out there to film a lot of content, it certainly is worth it because getting around, traveling is probably the biggest expense. And we have a really good community on Patreon, and I'm glad that I can use that now for traveling, adventure, showing you around, sharing. So I have an obligation to show you tunnels. The depths of Kochi. This smells like my roommate again, except it's more pleasant because it's like gasoline gas. Probably more dangerous, although you don't know what he ate. All right, we got another tunnel. So you get a little air break here. There's a little parking place, so if your car breaks down, you can be able to...

00:54:47 John Daub: This tunnel is... I missed it. I began with an S. If I even come close to that white line, it goes off. On the right side, there's like a blackness. I think that's where all the dirt goes in the middle for years. I don't know. But it makes the line look like it's a lot closer, so you end up going a little lower to the left than the right. The gassy smell is the depths of this tunnel. Kochi is a land of tunnels. It's the land of a lot of things. Some of these tunnels... There is a tunnel. It was 5 kilometers long. I'm not joking. That's like 4 miles long, right? A little bit over 5K. But 5K is 3.1 miles. So about over 3 miles long.

00:55:59 John Daub: I remember 5K is 3.1 miles because I ran cross-country and we would do 5K races, which were 3.1 miles. 10K is 6.2 miles. So we kind of figured it out. But it's easier just to use 5K. 10K, why we don't use the metric system in America? We didn't. It's not better. Use the metric for a couple of miles. It's so much better. All right. I see sunlight. Or very bright headlight at this point. It's hard to tell. Looks like it must be sunlight. I'm impressed that we have a signal for this long. Susaki Nishi. Awesome. We just left the tunnel.

00:56:54 John Daub: I don't know if the signal is any good, folks, but I am driving now to Kochi Airport from Shimanto. And I'm kind of going... I can see some of the ocean. Another tunnel! No! It's a double tunnel. There's one on the left side, too. Tosa is 19 kilometers away. Still no... Oh, there's a parking area at Tosa. Well, that was the first time that the signal stopped. It did it again. It said reconnect. And it had to touch the screen for a second. All right. Thumbs up. Thumbs up for the moderators for hanging in there for like an hour. Tokushima, 192 kilometers. This is the Auma Tunnel [?]. 505 meters.

00:57:57 John Daub: If you take a look at Instagram, I put in a hyperlapse that took me like 10 minutes to make. And you can see 10 or 15 minutes in like 50 seconds, I think. 45, 50 seconds. And I'll see if I can put some drone shots up on Instagram today. Just so beautiful, some of the shots that I got from the Shimanto. Can't wait to come back here in November. I'll be back in Kochi with Kevin Reilly. And we're going to do some live streams with Kevin. Eat some food. Have some fun. Kevin's been in Japan longer than me. And the dude has never been to Kochi. Insanity.

00:58:47 John Daub: I've been to every prefecture a minimum of three times. Most of them like five, six, seven. But there's a few places I've only been like three times. Like Saga Prefecture and where? I think just Saga. The rest have been four or five times. Fukui, maybe five times. Four times. Five times. That's one that's kind of hard to get to. Hyogo is Kobe, but Hyogo goes all the way to the other side. So deep Hyogo. I've only been there maybe three, four times. Tottori and Shimane have been to more recently a lot. But I didn't go to Tottori and Shimane. There was Saga, Tottori, and Shimane were the last three prefectures that I didn't visit.

00:59:45 John Daub: We can play the game. Can you name all 47 prefectures from south to north from Okinawa to Hokkaido? I think I can do it. I think I can do it. All right, let's try while I'm driving. I'll start from Okinawa. Next is Kyushu. There's Kagoshima, Kumamoto, Saga, Nagasaki, Fukuoka, Oita, Miyazaki. Next we have Shikoku. Ehime, Kochi, Tokushima, and Kagawa. Then we go from Honshu. We have Yamaguchi. We have Yamaguchi, Hiroshima, Shimane, Tottori, Okayama, Hyogo, Osaka, Kyoto, Fukui.

01:00:49 John Daub: Fukui. We stay on this side. We have Ishikawa, Toyama, Niigata, Akita. We go up the other way. Why do I know this? I said Osaka already, so we can't remember. We have to, can't forget Wakayama and Mie. We have Aichi. And if you work your way up there, we have Gifu, Shizuoka, Yamanashi, Tokyo. And if we work our way up from there, we have Gunma, Tochigi. Then there's Fukushima, Miyagi, Iwate, Ibaraki, and Chiba. Don't forget those on the corner there. What's next? And Nagano's up there. Nagano's snug in the middle. There's no sea access to Nagano. And then there's Tohoku, right?

01:02:10 John Daub: I've already named it Niigata. So on the other side, there's Iwate and Aomori and Yamagata, which is snug in the middle of there. Don't forget Yamagata. Miyagi, Fukushima. The other two for the six prefectures for Tohoku. And then there's one more. That's 47. That's crazy. One more is Hokkaido, and then you have Okinawa right down the bottom, in case I didn't write that down. Boom. Did I miss any? Did anybody count? Did I miss any? Oh! I forgot Nara! You were so right! I forgot Nara! There's the one, 46. Okay. Good call. Nara.

01:02:55 John Daub: Hottori and Shimane. I went up the coast. Yamaguchi, Shimane. No, that's the city. That's not a prefecture. Nara! Sometimes it's hard because you think Nara's a city, but it's also a prefecture. Dang, nabbit. I knew it. And I forgot Shiga. That's an embarrassment because I was there. I forgot Shiga. Shiga's Lake Biwa. Yeah, good call. I missed Shiga. So that's, alright, 45. I can, I think back when I travel mentally and I can go through it, I think I was saying, I missed Shiga because I was going through the toll booth. Here come the excuses.

01:03:48 John Daub: But, if you can name all the prefectures, then you are a traveler. Yeah. Shiga and Fukui is one a lot of people forget. Shiga, Nara, the ones in the middle there. It's easy to forget Gunma and Tochigi, but I lived there for a long time. And you think of the onsen too. A lot of onsen are in these countryside. So when you travel around, you do, especially for onsen and for food, you go to these, to a lot of the prefectures that are out there. Saga is one that people forget. Nagasaki and Saga. Saga is easy, easy to forget because it's so nestled out there and it's, there's no airport and there's no Shinkansen. So it's really out there. Oita as well because you got to go there. Go around. There's Shinkansen in Oita. It's pretty, it's fun.

01:04:43 John Daub: But I like to do that every now and then. I, just so I can remember and then I don't, I don't forget the prefectures. I keep doing it. Same with the Yamanote Line stations. You can play that game. Go around. Yeah. If you're enjoying the drive, sponsored partially by John Kimura, thank you. Click that like button. You know, just encourage me to keep going. Just kind of running on steam here. I'm waiting for a service area to stretch my legs. I thought there was a, there was one a lot closer. Glenn writes in, it's blurry now. This is also for science to see where the blurry parts are and now we're going to, I'm like, I am literally a topographer. I'm mapping out where the signal is good by this.

01:05:43 John Daub: So based on the signal strength of this, we'll get to know where the good places to stream and the bad places to stream are. This is for science. That signal was a thank you for all the thumbs up you were just giving. Google Street View should have signal strength in there too. No, John, don't do it. I was going to end. No! John Kimura extended this. It's like a, this is like a jukebox. John, I'm going to end this. John Kimura just extended, added to the jukebox. It was like really bright pink for a second. Okay. I was like out of ammunition too. I don't know. What else do I talk about next?

01:06:51 John Daub: Can sing original songs. Sometimes they don't come out politically correct though. I mean, I mean that in the sense like, I don't know what's changed in the last 20 years in the US. Sometimes I say something like commando or raw dog or something. I don't know what they mean. I can't comprehend. Sometimes you can take a tune and turn it into something good. I learned that there were extended lyrics to the Jingle Bells Batman smells song. Somebody told me that there were extended lyrics. What about the growing here? You know, this is the land of yuzu. The arrow is telling me to get back in my lane. Oh, there's a parking area there. I should have stopped. Dagnabbit.

01:08:00 John Daub: You know what? Still looking for a service area. It's 11:42. A hydrogen car did not pass, but they do have hydrogen cell buses in Tokyo. They're kind of cool. Actually, I sent my Daimyo supporters a Tomy car. I've been doing that every few months. This month is I'm not going to tell you what it is, but it'll add to your collection for the Daimyo supporters. But they also have the hydrogen cell bus as a Tomy car. That's so super cool. So maybe that's something I can send. So we're now going through the Tosa area. So you can see it's just really beautiful. Lots of rice that's golden. They're gonna be harvesting that soon. It's a little bit later here. Usually October is the month of harvest. That's why they have that shimmie burger. The harvest moon is in the McDonald's shimmie burger. That's why they put the egg on top of it.

01:09:01 John Daub: Yeah, the hydrogen cell buses are pretty cool. So maybe I'll send that as a Tomy car in a few months. Every now and then. Thanks again for the further encouraging for me to find a ready car. Yeah, you're welcome. I think it's important. I think it's really good to rent the car. Get out of the tourist area to see something more natural. You can see that here in Kochi. A lot of nature. Mount Fuji also you can circumnavigate. Is that just a sailing word? You can circumnavigate Mount Fuji. And that takes you past that forest that people go into and never come out of. There's also like the dark side of Mount Fuji. Where it's just all forest. But you can do that in six hours. Drive around Mount Fuji and come back. But you probably want to take 12 hours.

01:10:12 John Daub: Get the rented car at 8 a.m. And come back at 8 p.m. And you can drive once around Mount Fuji. Take some pictures from all different sides. It's beautiful. The highways are so nice. Usually not very crowded. Especially on weekdays. The service areas are second to none. So beautiful. Especially on the Tomei Expressway. There's a couple of really nice ones. Really nice service areas. With beautiful views of Mount Fuji. But rent a car 12 hours. Drive around Mount Fuji. Come back. It's something you can definitely do. Really make a great day out of it. Or rent the car for two days. And spend the night somewhere. And then loop back to Tokyo on the next day. Leave your luggage at a main hotel or something. Or take it with you.

01:11:01 John Daub: That's the great thing with the car. You have a boot. You have a trunk. You don't have to leave your luggage around there. You don't have to wheel your luggage around. You don't have to. You can totally just get on it. Just throw your bags in the trunk and then you're off. You forget about that with the cars. Where are you going to go? I don't know. There's a car behind me. I wanted to let him pass. Because he's faster than me. Sorry, truck. I don't know if he wanted to pass or not. You have to do visual communication. I learned when I was getting my license to triple check everything. All the time. It made you paranoid. Taking driving lessons here in Japan. It's really hard.

01:12:10 John Daub: I'm going at 85 because the speed limit is higher now. Yeah, after you. 85 kilometers an hour. Not miles per hour. You drive for a while. You get paranoid. You start doing all the safety checks and stuff. It just follows you through the rest of the years as a driver. I'll never forget. The hardships of learning at the driving school. So I could pass the driving test. It was hard. But necessary. Look at those blue skies. Kochi, 18 kilometers. Awesome. We're almost there. I'm making awesome time. Arrival time is still 12:30 though. Uh oh. I better do 86.

01:13:15 John Daub: Chan is here. Trunk for your junk. Or a Chan. Wait, did I just say that out loud? What does that even mean? Chan! I'm telling you. We're going to. I'm going to donate a hammer so you can get out one day. Make sure you get some sunlight. Get some vitamin D. All right. I like the little sounds. Ino Town. We're passing through. Big shout out. Thank you, John Kimura, for extending this live stream. But yours truly has got to go because the phone is going to die.

01:13:53 John Daub: This extended live stream for science to check where the signal strengths are strong and weak and to test my ability to marathon talk for 75 minutes. I think I succeeded. Kept you entertained. And you kept me entertained because if I talk to myself without you here, that makes me insane. But if I do it with you here, it makes me an entertainer. So. Or a YouTuber, really. All right. For travelers, if you are, if you pay a buck for the channel, I will show you Kochi Airport as soon as I arrive for a very quick stream from the observation deck of Kochi Airport. Take a look and take a look around there.

01:14:33 John Daub: So I do appreciate the support that we've gotten over the years through Only in Japan Go. And I want to say thank you for everybody who's a traveler and a Patreon supporter. See you again really soon. I'm going to leave it here. Shout out. Thanks again, John. And drive safe. That's what I'm doing. Eyes on the road. Gassy smell again.