00:07 John Daub: Hello everybody, how you doing? Welcome to Nemuro Station. As you can see, it's not a huge station. It's a very small regional station. Although Nemuro is the largest city in East Hokkaido. There it is. There's the station sign. I parked my car over here. So there is a parking lot for Nemuro Station.

00:26 John Daub: How you doing everybody? So this morning I was in Shibetsu. I drove about an hour and a half to get to Nemuro. Shibetsu is also on the east side of Hokkaido. And I'm going to be taking the Hanasaki Line. I'm going to tell you a little bit more about it on the train. It's just starting to board right now. But the Hanasaki Line is interesting because JR Hokkaido was thinking about cutting the Hanasaki Line about six years ago.

00:55 John Daub: But recently they started to crowdfund. A year after that started to crowdfund. And this line only exists because the citizens of Nemuro are crowdfunding the money to keep this Hanasaki Line afloat. And I'm coming here to scout out this train line to see what it's like and if it's worth making an episode about. I'll be back here in May anyways to film this. But I thought that it would be pretty interesting. Let me switch the camera to show you a little bit of Nemuro Station. This is a map of East Hokkaido.

01:28 John Daub: And you can see right here where we are. And those islands on the right side is Russia. There's Kunashiri Island. And then the other islands. I'm going to go to this point tomorrow morning. But these are all Russia here. And it's kind of not fair. I was driving and I could look across and see Russia from the car as I drove here. So not a huge town but it's shrunk a lot over the last 20 years.

01:56 John Daub: It's very famous for crabs. But the season is coming in a couple of days. This is my ticket from Nemuro to Akkeshi. I'm not going to be going to Kushiro. I'm going to Akkeshi. And let's go onto the train. I want to show you inside the station here. We have access to film. We got a permit to do this.

02:21 John Daub: There's a waiting room. A vending machine. The restroom is over there to the right. And there's not a lot of trains per day. There's a map right there. Show you some of the attractions. And then there's only five trains a day. Thank you. So this is it. This is the Hanasaki Line. It's a one-man car. So you can see. That's it. One train car going back and forth. So cool.

02:58 John Daub: I'm going to ride this for about an hour or so. And get an idea of what it's like to ride the Hanasaki Line. It's a super scenic line. There's the Nemuro. There's the JR sign here. Very cool. This is how far I am. There's no next station. This is the terminus. And you can see just around the city. There really isn't a lot around here. But from the window, we should be able to see some interesting stuff here.

03:40 John Daub: Take off my mask here. So I'm looking forward to riding this train just for a little bit. I want to show you as well. I've actually got my camera here. So I'm going to be filming some background for the next episode of Only in Japan. But I like to bring you with me scouting when I do Only in Japan Go. Get a feel of what it's like. Hey, I see Bob Joe's here. How you doing? That's how cold it is. Six degrees Celsius. It's 25 in Tokyo, I heard. Crazy.

04:16 John Daub: So let's grab a seat here. Certainly not a Shinkansen. It says wanman (one-man operated train). One guy does it all. I love it. See if I can get a picture of the train here as we leave the station. Very cool. All right, let's go inside. Get a seat. I'm going to tell you a little bit more about the Hanasaki Line.

05:01 John Daub: Now, I can film going out of the rear. But JR has a policy that you're not supposed to be filming from the front of the window. So I want to keep that in mind. So you can see the train is not very big. I got my own row, at least for now. Because we're in a crowded space, you have to keep your mask on on local trains. It's only polite to do so, especially as an outsider.

06:25 John Daub: So in these kinds of situations, when they have a board like this, always grab a ticket from here. And the ticket will have a number. And that number corresponds to this board. And the board will tell you how much you have to pay. So that's the system. You have to get a seiriken (numbered ticket). If you forget to take that number, you're not going to get a ticket. Sometimes they'll charge you the entire fare for the line. So make sure you take that number there.

07:03 John Daub: This is cool. Temperature went up a degree. Seven. Alright, bye bye, Nemuro. I want to tell you a little bit about the Hanasaki Line. This line goes all the way to Kushiro. And at Kushiro, it turns back around, I think, just for a day. But it's really beautiful. The scenery on the Hanasaki Line is outstanding.

08:04 John Daub: Alright, out here, I can kind of be relaxed away from people here. The Hanasaki Line, it's been on the cutting block. And this is a crowdfunded train. So people are keeping, the local citizens are keeping afloat. Not just with crowdfunding, but furusato nozei (hometown tax donation system), which is a local tax that people can pay. And they get things from that local area. It's a genius thing. If you buy something like a premium good, like crabs or rice or something really good, really special from a local area, you get your tax reduced by that amount. And it helps to support the local area from which you're buying.

08:55 John Daub: So this train line is kept going from that and from crowdfunding, which is crazy. Alright, they just blew the whistle. Off we go. So I can only film out of the back window. You can't film from the front window, but it's going to be... When I do video editing, I can just reverse it so it looks like I'm going through the front. So that's the way. That's the way you do things. As long as there's no cars or people, you can reverse it and nobody ever knows that you're going in the opposite direction. Bye bye. Oh, they're waving at us. They're waving at us. I wish we had a cleaner window. Did you see that? They're waving at us. Bye bye, Nemuro. I'll see you in a couple hours when I come back because my car's right there.

10:01 John Daub: Alright, we're leaving the big city, which is a small city, but looks pretty big if you've been where I was. So here's the last thing I want to say. And then you can enjoy... This is the last thing I want to say and then you can enjoy looking out the window for a little bit before we end the livestream. At 11:24, I made a reservation for a bento to be delivered to the train from a local area along the line. How cool is this? It's a thousand yen. I have exact change. And the chef is going to bring the bento to me. I'm going to try to film that. So I got to be ready for that. And I get to eat the bento on this train.

10:39 John Daub: Now, you might be thinking, can you eat a bento on the train? Yes. I talked with JR Hokkaido and I talked with the local office, tourism office, and they said you're allowed to eat ekiben (station bento) on the train. So some of you who say it's a local train, you can't eat it. That's not true at all. You can eat it. So there you go. Alright, masks on. Hands disinfected. Oh, there's a restroom here too. Interesting. Small and clean.

11:22 John Daub: The first stop. I guess this is the first stop here. Local stop. Better get in my seat. Alright, sorry guys. So we get a chance to look out the window. You can see there aren't a lot of tall buildings here. Everything looks around the same height. Two stories. The name of the station I'm getting my bento at. I just know it's a seaside place and it's an octopus bento. So should be fresh. I think you can see Russia over there. Is that Kunashiri? And there's still some snow around, which is crazy.

13:28 John Daub: This is the wanman experience. The wanman train. Here's my ticket. So I'm going to be getting off at a station called Akkeshi. And they're famous for making whiskey. I'm not sure if we can go in there and take a look at the whiskey, but I'm just going to get off there, take a look around the town, get back on the train, and then come back to Nemuro. So I'm just scouting this out for a main channel episode today. I really wanted to take a look. Are there tray tables? No, there aren't actually. It'd be pretty cool if there was, but no tray tables.

14:09 John Daub: Wow, look at the view. Okay, I got to get out of here. Whoa, it's so much better from here. I'm not somebody who likes to stand in a seat. Look at the horse. There's a horse. Look at the horses. Horses. Did you see the horses? They got horses. There's more horses. Cowboys in the area. Cool. I saw a lot of cows. This is where a lot of Hokkaido's milk comes from. The milking and dairy industries are up here. You can see the sea. Beautiful.

15:19 John Daub: I'm getting kind of the reason why they don't want to lose this train line. It's such a really nice train line. And because it's Hokkaido, you can see everything's in a straight line because they have so much space. There's no reason to go around anything. They just go straight. Now they're going around something. This is so awesome. Fresh air here, except in my mask it's not so fresh, but I brushed my teeth, so it's okay. Wow, look at this. That's a seaside.

16:33 John Daub: But you can see just how flat this area is along the seaside. But as you get closer to Kushiro in about 15, 20 minutes, it's so beautiful. And the reason why I want to come back in May is because everything is green. Right now it's kind of dead yellow. But in May it's going to be so much, the color's going to be so much better. So I'm looking forward to coming back. And I'm going to be showing that. But I'll get some background footage to show you what it's like in here. More horses.

17:26 John Daub: I'm just playing with you, Katayama. I feel bad now. Colin writes in here, hey John, I'm a student from Wisconsin and I love the cold weather. I've been watching for about a year now. I can never catch a live stream, but you did today. Thank you for that. We're going to name this bento, Colin. We're going to dedicate it to you, buddy. Thank you. It's nice that you could join me on this one. I'm so excited to be in Hokkaido riding a train that I've never ridden on. I've never ridden a Hanasaki Line before. Horses.

17:54 John Daub: This is a local line, so you can ride this on a Japan Rail Pass. But you can also, it's so cheap. I think it's like $15 that you don't really need to use your pass. Maybe you can save a day or activate it later, unless you really want to. But local trains are so much fun. They bounce up and down and they got a different sound, different feel than the Shinkansen. And a different look. And that's why I just love local trains. And the ekiben too. Get off of the beaten path. Because this is, you don't get any more off-beaten than Nemuro.

18:49 John Daub: Wow, let's go to the other side. Holy cow. We're beating the cars. Awesome. I'll see if I can find the link to their crowdfunding, because it would be pretty nice to help them out. But I'll be back here in May to make an episode on this train line. Get some nice drone shots and footage from eastern Hokkaido. Show the people around. Show the beauty of this area. I think doing it around the story of a train is really good. Alright, next stop.

19:42 John Daub: Some of the stations here in this area are actually old train cars. Which are really cool. There's just not a lot of people here to use the facilities. So they just make it like, oh we got an old train, let's make that into a station. So there's actually some really cool looking stations here. Nishinoura. I'd say the train is about 20% full. Let's see on the other side here. Yeah, it's about to get a little bit more beautiful.

20:27 John Daub: I'm not going to livestream too much more, maybe for another minute or so. This is the Hanasaki Line. H-A-N-A-S-A-K-I, JR Hanasaki Line. It's JR Hokkaido. You can ride this. It's really nice. And I've come here to scout and film some background footage. But I'm really happy that we could share this experience for a little bit. Leave me a comment. Click that like button if you want me to do some more content from Nemuro. I'm going to be here for the next 24 hours. I'll leave here 24 hours from now. But hopefully go to the easternmost point of Hokkaido and show you a different place, different region. It's nice to get out of Tokyo and show you something original for once.

21:11 John Daub: Looks like Kansas. Katayama should be out of his time out by now. Sorry about that. I feel real guilty. Something had to be done. Hey, Shane's here. How you doing? Tartarapoco. There's still some snow remnant here. A little bit of snow. And we have the seaside in the back there. Welcome back, Katayama. Alright, everybody. Have a good day. Have a good night. Back to work.

22:05 John Daub: Who's driving this train? Gotta give Kanae a call after this too. You know, I might livestream from Akkeshi, but I have time. Which is a really local station between Kushiro and Nemuro. So until then, I'll see ya. Have a good day. Have a good night. Later, Gator.