00:08 John Daub: Greetings from Nagano. This is the Nagano side of the Kurobe Dam. I guess it's connected with Toyama, but you're seeing a panoramic view of the area as I move closer to the dam. You can see it on the left side of your screen. Wow, it is beautiful. The scenery all around is... You can come here for the dam, but I come here for the scenery too. Check it out.

00:47 John Daub: Nobody on this lake here. There's a bridge in the distance there. I've been here for about 5 minutes checking out the area. It's really beautiful. This platform here. How you doing everybody? Welcome to Kurobe Dam. I drove here from the hotel. It was about 15-20 minutes from Omachi, a beautiful little town in Nagano, famous for oyaki (stuffed buns) and retro stuff. I took some drone shots. The documentary for the fireworks video is going to be amazing, with a look at this little town and this area here in Nagano.

01:23 John Daub: But the autumn leaves have changed, and it's just absolutely stunning. Check it out. I'm going to pan up to the snowy cap mountains. Almost no wind here, which is also perfect. Look at that. It is a massive dam. Let me walk around here. Built in the 1950s, I believe around 1956. I don't know too much about the history of Kurobe Dam. This is my first time here, believe it or not. I've been to the Tateyama Kurobe Alpine Route on the other side in spring when it starts to melt. But this area is closed in the winter, maybe not this side, but the Toyama side, just because there's too much snow. And then once the snow stops and they plow it, it's amazing to see the snow walls on the other side, the Tateyama Kurobe Alpine Route. And this eventually makes it here to Kurobe Dam.

02:24 John Daub: So in the summer, fall, spring, it is an amazing ticket to go from Toyama City to here, and then you can continue on to Nagano. I showed you a nice view. Let me take you around here. They take pictures for free as a present. I guess you have to pay for the second one. You pay for the photo. They'll take your picture for free. It's kind of a good idea.

02:51 Kanae Daub: How do you feel about Kurobe Dam? Leaf colors. Yeah, nice view. Yeah, nice view. It's so quiet.

03:05 John Daub: Leo, you have any comment? Leo, how do you feel? Better than the fireworks, huh? The fireworks are freaking him out. Yeah, there's nobody around. You should wear your mask when you're around people, but use common sense here. Now this water is called wakimizu (pure spring water). And wakimizu is water that you can drink, spring water. Let's taste it and see how it is. Oh, it's so cold. It went down the wrong pipe. I should capture this and make coffee from it when I go back. Wow.

04:02 John Daub: Alright, I'm going to put my mask on because I don't know who we're going to pass on the way here. So let's walk down to the Kurobe Dam rest house, maybe. We'll see how far we can get because we do have to get back. This is more of a scouting trip. I have an episode I'm going to be doing here. Brandania, we have to watch out for bears. Oh no. Leo, that's what you look like when you wake up in the morning to me and Mama because Leo is a terror. Wait, you can walk to Toyama? That's not right.

04:49 John Daub: So this place is famous for dam curry too. Let me take a quick look in here. I guess in the winter this would be even better because it's nice and warm. Oh, you can go and walk onto the dam. All right, let's go do that.

05:38 Kanae Daub: Kanae, you can walk on the dam. Dam.

05:44 John Daub: How many ways can you say dam? Hey there, Bob Joes in the house. I see Deathraven is here. Hey, Kanae, I want to take a pleasure boat. What kind of pleasure happened on that boat? Probably a lot of scenery. This is the bubble era. I think that attraction might have been made during the bubble era. Wow. Dave Jeffery. It's a dam pleasure boat. Oh, the jokes are not going to stop for a while, are they?

06:45 John Daub: The air is cool. I thought it would be a little bit colder than it is, but it's not. The sun is keeping us warm. We have about 15 minutes before we have to go back to the bus. So it's a very short trip. Typically, a trip to the dam, you can expect to budget for your time about two hours. We're doing it in an hour or less because you have to check out and I have to film the town and Matsumoto Castle today. I don't see the dam pleasure boat. Hey, Danny, our buddy near Montreal in Quebec. Wow. Wasn't this in like James Bond or something? They should totally film a bungee jump. I would love to bungee jump off of this. The Kurobe bungee.

07:49 John Daub: Dam stairs. Be careful of the dam stairs. Just take it one at a time. What are we going to do? There's no time. We can't go that far. I don't think we can make it down there and still get back up. The last dam step is very dangerous. Most people trip on the last dam step. More steps. There's 220 steps from the bus station to get to... Wow. And there's the bottom of it. Oh, that's a rocky jump. Just be careful. Take your damn picture. We're not going to get enough of the dam comments.

09:01 John Daub: So the dam steps, there are 220 dam steps. And it takes about 20 minutes to get to the dam from there. So I'm not sure. What are we going to do? We can't go that far. So we're trapped. Oh, yeah. Oh, no, we have to go all the way down and then up. And that's where the damn curry is. Kanae, the damn curry is over there. I don't think we're going to get a chance to see the damn curry. Kanae. Yeah, no. Leo, your damn curry is here. It's over there in that building. I'm serious. They have damn curry. Oh, it's not that way. We're going to have to get some. I don't think we can get there, Kanae. There's the damn pleasure boat. You know what would be cool? A space boat would be... A space boat was here. Ann Dugan has some very good advice. Kanae, Ann Dugan said don't miss the damn bus. Maybe it's the way you say it that makes it bad. It's spelled completely different. It's not a bad word. Not when you're at a dam. You can say damn all you want when you're at a dam. Right?

10:24 John Daub: How far are we going? There's a lot of damn stairs. This looks like the stairs at Squid Game too. This looks like Squid Game steps. I think we shouldn't go anymore. I think we have to go like in 30 minutes. Let's go. We can go to this damn spot. Yeah. Look, Ann has it right. We can't miss the damn bus. Okay, I'll hold the damn bag. Be careful. There's a livestream documenting the damn stairs. What is this damn thing? That looks like a ruin from the 1980s. Jersey Traveler's here for the puns. Oh no. I have to retitle this livestream now.

11:40 John Daub: All right, the fact that we have a signal here and it seems to be a pretty strong one is impressive to me. Kanae and Leo, you shouldn't go any further than here because we're not going to be able to get back. For me, the autumn foliage is the most impressive thing and I wanted to use my drone but again, I think it's very strict that we shouldn't be using drones here so I want to get permission before I do something that crazy. But I'll get other shots here and then we'll be able to add that into the documentary for those that backed the Kickstarter. It's like fireworks over there and Mother Nature's fireworks. We shouldn't go any further. You want to go more? Yeah, we can't. Where's the bus? Where's the bus station? Kanae, wait a minute. If we have to go back to bus, where's the bus station? But where? From down or up? From down here? Oh, I didn't know that. Kanae is getting mad. It must be the dam. Are you sure we don't have to walk all the way back up to catch the bus?

13:35 John Daub: Kanae is asking about if we go all the way down, do we have, is there an elevator? Yeah. Okay. He said better to go up than down. Wise words. I still want to know what this is. It says it's a concrete, concrete packet. Don't know what that would be. Anyone in the concrete business knows what that is? Kanae, so you're going back up? Dam was too much for you. Take your damn time. Let's do this. Oh, a counterweight. All right. I'm going to zoom one last time. Just take a look here. This is a nice view of that mountain in the distance. And then I'll take you back up and then we have to get the heck out of here. Can't think of a damn pun for that one. It's not grass. Not. Thank you for the fireworks. Sailing boat would be pretty cool. I don't have one here and we don't have a lot of time. I'm more or less scouting this area cause I'd never been here. It was only a very short drive from the hotel.

15:00 John Daub: Now, if you can book the tickets online for Kurobe Dam and it's a lot cheaper. We didn't do that, so we had to pay. I think it was 2,200 yen for a day pass. I'm out of shape. It was 2,200 yen or about $22 for each person. There's nobody coming. For each person. It's 4,400 yen for both of us. I'm not paying for Leo. Any kid under a year old, you shouldn't have to pay extra unless he's taking up a seat. So I'll be back here for the damn curry. All right, back up. I guess it's a reasonable price. And when you see the engineering and the cost that must have taken probably in human lives too, it's pretty amazing.

16:08 John Daub: Sarah Toka uploads. I'm loving the puns. Grant, Grant will be waiting a long damn time. Jordan writes in here. Damn the thin air. John the beaver has an expression. It says get off my damn house. Look at all these people checking it out here. It's a lot of damn people. If you like these damn streams, click the thumbs up button. And if you want me to stop saying damn, click the thumbs up button. So either way we kind of make it up. And if you don't want me to just click the thumbs up button, just click the thumbs up button. All right, I'll take you back to the, I don't have to say the puns anymore because just read the live chat. It's silent, but deadly in there.

17:48 John Daub: 220 steps to go down to the bus. There's Kanae. She's going faster. Atsui (hot). All right. Good morning exercise. Yeah, he is. We can switch. You want to carry the bags? Oh, the next bus came. I want to get in this group photo too. My advice, don't stop here. Keep going. If we'd left and gone down there from the beginning, we would have made it. Those people arriving are probably from our bus. They come in waves.

19:11 John Daub: So one last time before I end this damn live stream. That's the last time I promise. Raymond, stop it. You're making me laugh. All right, this is the last time that we're going to do a little panning here. I'm going to go down here. I'm going to make a little panning shot here. Did you like Kurobe Dam?

19:30 Kanae Daub: Yeah. But stairs are hard. You know? Yeah. Stairs are hard. Yeah.

19:37 John Daub: Leo, when you grow up, you're going to really love this damn stream. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You have to. I promise to. It's awful. You have to climb stairs. All right. You got to climb a lot of stairs. Remember, the mommy and daddy climbed a lot of stairs and we counted 220 of them. Yeah. We should have come back all summer. Yeah. What time is it now? 6 o'clock. Take your last shots. Yeah.

20:09 John Daub: All right, everybody. Thanks so much for watching. We're heading now back to the hotel and onsen and then to Matsumoto to get some videos of the Matsumoto Castle for the documentary. So thanks, everybody. I'll see you. If you do come to Japan and you're thinking of coming to the dam, I really do recommend it. Just the trip to get here is fun. All right? So it's worth it just to get here. And I know you won't be sorry. Bye-bye.

20:37 Kanae Daub: Say goodbye. See you. See you in Tokyo, maybe. Yeah.

20:46 John Daub: Bye, everybody. Thanks for watching.