00:00:00 John Daub: Welcome to Shizuoka Station. This is inside the JR line and I'm about to take you on an ekimae (station front) adventure as we go outside and explore from here all the way to Sunpu Castle, which is an old castle ruin that's now a park. It's about a 15-minute walk from here.

00:00:45 John Daub: For those that used to live in Shizuoka, this might be a trip down memory lane and I haven't been here for 17 years so a lot has changed. This station, Shizuoka Station, had a renovation around 2006 and 2008 and it's pretty nice inside. A lot of new shops and it smells like green tea everywhere. This is also a major Shinkansen stop.

00:01:30 John Daub: This station was built in 1889 I believe and yeah on the day they were going to launch Shizuoka Station it burned down. I don't know why I'm laughing but a thousand buildings in Shizuoka burned down that day and so they had to cancel the opening party of Shizuoka Station but here it stands the history now behind us and let's go out this door and I'm going to say hi to you.

00:02:15 John Daub: Welcome to Shizuoka, a city in between Nagoya and Tokyo famous for Mount Fuji and green tea and a lot of other stuff. How you doing Brandania? All these smaller cities in Japan have such a different vibe to Tokyo. I really love it. The sun has just gone down here. How you doing? Welcome!

00:03:00 John Daub: So I got a funny story I'm going to tell you on the way why I'm still here. I didn't go back to Tokyo but I have to spend the night in Shizuoka and I'm filming at 6 a.m. tomorrow when the sun comes up to go to another spot. If you want to see what the tea harvest looks like I was at a green tea plantation about five hours ago. Beautiful location and tomorrow morning if the sun is right I might do another live stream there.

00:03:45 John Daub: In the front of the station which we call ekimae and if you ever come to Japan you're going to want to hear what an ekimae is. It means station front and in Japan the ekimae or the station fronts are so important because that's where you're going to find a lot of shops. You'll see a lot of these older statues here, historical statues because this is where Tokugawa Ieyasu has a long history here.

00:04:30 John Daub: In fact there's a statue of him over there or over yonder you can see standing over there so maybe we'll go take a look at that before we go down this main street here straight to the castle and the old castle grounds which is a little bit more of a park. I haven't been there in a long time. I wanted to show you this vending machine first. So you got a drink corner. This is a 24-hour gyoza vending machine. Check this out right in front of the station.

00:05:15 John Daub: Now I would get this if it was cooked but what comes out of here is frozen so it's meant to take home. Oh wow that looks good. Looks like a savory pork. 700 yen. It comes out in a frozen pack and you can take it home. I wish they could microwave this that'd be pretty cool. You even get to take a little bag. You can put it in. We're finding more and more of these vending machines where you take stuff home because of the pandemic which is a pretty smart thing I think.

00:06:00 John Daub: Now it's a really busy road. This road that goes past Shizuoka station is Ichigō-sen Route 1 which is the old Tōkaidō highway and if you've ever seen those old ukiyo-e (woodblock print) artwork that usually of the 52 stations of the Tōkaidō. Tōkaidō highway from Tokyo or Edo to Kyoto and this was on the route there. So it's a very big road that goes by here and I rode my bicycle past here 17 years ago.

00:06:45 John Daub: That's was the only time I've been here and today let's look back. Here's the front of Shizuoka station. I believe this is the south or north north entrance. All right let's go underground. Oh wait no I wanted to go see if we could see a little bit more of the Tokugawa statue. It's hard to get to. There you go. I'll zoom in. It's going to be a digital zoom but kind of a neat statue. It's a little washed out.

00:07:30 John Daub: That's right you're watching this live. I think they got some pretty cool manhole covers as well. That's not one of them. Timur T writes in here, does Japan celebrate May Day? I don't think so. I don't think so. This is Golden Week holiday. So I forget what day this is. There's three special days that go along. Golden Week and uh this is a holiday and so is tomorrow and the next day. So I'm not sure exactly what it is.

00:08:15 John Daub: In Japan, everybody has a day off pretty much except for the people who harvest tea apparently. Oh they just took it away. No this was this beautiful green tea like tea house that they had here. Look at the carpet. They took it away. Oh my timing couldn't have been worse. About five minutes ago. everything's closing. Shizuoka City Museum is also in this direction which is a pretty nice museum I guess I've never been in there but this underground walkway is the only way to get under the Tōkaidō Route 1.

00:09:00 John Daub: That song is so poorly sung that I don't think the copyright infringement will happen on it but it's the note let it be you just kept saying that it's just like can you let be this song just let it be someone should pay I think you know what that's smart some people just pay him to stop. This is one of the stations that the Shinkansen flies by at top speed because it's not a major station the Nozomi super express won't stop here so if you're riding the Hikari the Hikari will stop in Shizuoka station and it will zoom by at 300 kilometers per hour you it's pretty cool all right off we go.

00:09:45 John Daub: Remarkable how clean this city is it's just so well redone I guess from the last time I rode past here 17 years ago this is the city museum on the left side so we're going to the castle park at the end of this. That was built in the 16th century by Ieyasu Tokugawa I believe and was destroyed in 1635 by a fire and they rebuilt the castle but they didn't build the donjon which is the big tower so there's no really big castle like you see in Osaka or Himeji or Matsumoto it's kind of different so I've never been there so this is my first time.

00:10:30 John Daub: You know the quality of the 4G I'm seeing the comments here that spot I was in was not a good spot so the gonna get a little bit better but the download speed is really good the upload speed is abysmal in so many places and I do apologize it will get better just refresh your screen in about 10 seconds because I walked through here to check the signal strength there was a little bit weak around the spot where I just walked through.

00:11:15 John Daub: Shizuoka as a population of 3.6 million people is that the city or the prefecture Daniel thank you for sharing that hopefully this signal gets a little bit better I'm sorry I don't really hear you though I don't really understand this stuff you say. It is not the plan obviously Meg don't bother protected heights one that was. It's more manhole cover. It's more of a water cover. Water for fires, like a fire hydrant.

00:12:00 John Daub: Wow. Ultraman, for those that like pixelated pictures. It's a retro toy store. Lots of ramen shops I found. This one shop looked really good, and I might go in there for dinner. It's a little crowded right now. It's a good-looking ramen right there. And the prices are much cheaper than in Tokyo. I say that much cheaper. I don't think they have the same inflationary problems here, or they just haven't raised the prices yet.

00:12:45 John Daub: Hopefully the signal gets better. I don't know what's going on. It should be a lot stronger. This intersection, all of the traffic lights turn green, and all of them turn red here, so you can cross from every direction. Kind of like a Hachiko scramble of Shizuoka. Gofuku-chō. That's a nice manhole cover there. I like the color. The clocks, they're on every corner here. Really gives it a different feel compared to other streets. High quality, stylish.

00:13:30 John Daub: Alexandra writes in here, Super Minecraft quality. Is it like three pixels? Various colors. What do I look like? What do I look like in Super Minecraft? What is it? Oh my gosh, Super Minecraft. I can't even imagine. I guess it's like six pixels or something. 18-bit? That's better than 8-bit. Well, listen to the sound of my voice. I'll just keep talking and describing the things left and right. Very nice, very stylistic park benches here. Everything, even the telephone poles and the light posts, like made of a designer metal. So it gives it a, I don't know, like a more classical feel like you're walking around Europe.

00:14:15 John Daub: Lego resolution. Are you guys really, is it really that bad or are you joking? It's hard for me to tell if you're joking or not. Potato head pixelation. What? 1980s TV. Actually, that wasn't too bad. It was in color. You mean like a Trinitron? Like Betamax quality? Yeah, Prism Live, if the signal's not good, it won't do 1080p. So it doesn't matter. That's a crazy thing. I don't know if it's the Korean company, I believe, that makes that. I don't think it really matters.

00:15:00 John Daub: Shizuoka's a very cool city. It's quiet compared to Tokyo. Not as many people, but the people that are around, they seem to be pretty stylish. I mean, I'd be wearing sweatpants and a t-shirt around here. But not these people. They're very well... I'm like in this pandemic twilight zone where I can't get out of sweatpants and t-shirt mode after two years of this. But, you know, I'm not the only one. Right? Right?

00:15:45 John Daub: This is called a 100 yen store, but it's called Lemon. 100 yen house Lemon. So it's like a Daiso, but it's not a Daiso. Seem to have... for old ladies. Nothing wrong with that. Daiso wannabe. I like it. They have like these artistic... Here's one of these old ukiyo-e woodblock prints. With Mount Fuji. I couldn't see Mount Fuji when I came here this morning, but I got a feeling that I'm going to be able to see Mount Fuji tomorrow. There it is right up there.

00:16:30 John Daub: Daiso is crazy expensive now. You're not wrong. I had to go in there because I wasn't expecting to stay here tonight. I wasn't expecting to stay in Shizuoka tonight, so I had to go to Daiso to get some USB-C cables to charge some stuff. They're like... Those were 100 yen, but I saw that Daiso also makes cables that are 500 yen. They got a lot of stuff that's like... 1000 yen now. So maybe you're kind of right. Some of the stuff is better quality, but you pay for that. It's not 100 yen anymore. They found a way to get more money out of you. But I don't mind paying a little bit more if it's better stuff.

00:17:15 John Daub: This is interesting. So halfway between, there's this sort of crossing that looks like a park. I guess this goes to the prefectural building. I'm not sure. But I'll pan around because this is not in 1080p anymore. We just walked down this street. Looks like there's some sort of beer garden going on here on other days. Except tonight. Oh no, it stopped at 6pm. Darn! 11 to 6. Oh man, that would have been nice. Get a cold one right here on the street. That's right in front of the city hall, I think.

00:18:00 John Daub: Daiso is the 100 yen shop, but it's a chain, and there are many other 100 yen shops around Japan. But Daiso is the biggest. Check it out! That's a beautiful manhole cover. Esparas no Shizuoka [?]. I don't know what that is. But it's got Mount Fuji, and that's kind of cool. That's a nice manhole cover. But actually, the manhole covers that I see, the majority of them are pretty simple. I found that Kagoshima also had very simple manhole covers.

00:18:45 John Daub: And I asked the people in the city, people working at the Kagoshima City Hall, why are the manhole covers, why don't you have something like Sakurajima, which is an active volcano, why don't you have something like a designer manhole cover? And they said, look, John, the volcano erupts around us, Sakurajima, and it spews ash onto the streets all the time. I mean, the people of the city of Kagoshima have had to wipe the ash off of their cars a lot of mornings. So they decided that since the streets are covered, they don't want to put designer manhole covers down. So they don't do it. That was their reasoning anyways. That was interesting.

00:19:30 John Daub: Most cities in Japan do have designer manhole covers. But maybe Shizuoka is the same with Mount Fuji really close by. Could blow at any time. Maybe that's why they play relaxing background music walking down the shopping street. So, hey, Peter's friend would be interested to see this one. It's an Indian curry place called Chai. Looks like they've taken his idea. They added curry instead of just chai. I like the heart sign. Indian curry house. Very nice.

00:20:15 John Daub: Partying is okay. It's a good party of one. Smells good. If you didn't see the livestream from about five hours ago, the green tea harvest in Shizuoka, it is amazing. I was only there livestreaming for 10 minutes, but the signal was better up there in the mountain than it was down here. So the signal was amazing too. Look at this. 7-Eleven is playing Mozart. It's very cool. This looks like the entertainment district right here. Let's keep going. Everybody is wearing a mask too, so I'm just gonna do as the locals do.

00:21:00 John Daub: I'm staying at a business hotel. It's about $50 a night, which is not too bad considering that it's Golden Week and the prices are usually three times the price. But for business hotels, people aren't doing any business right now. They're off. It's not a desirable place to take your family on vacation. So they still keep the prices pretty low. It's kind of lonely after 7 p.m. because Tokyo doesn't really close down this early. At least I don't think it does. I like these bicycle parking lots. A lot of them have double deckers, right? You have to pull it down. You pull it and it swings down over the bicycle.

00:21:45 John Daub: But not a lot of people use it because it's complicated to do and you need a little bit of effort. And if you're not tall enough, it's very complicated. I hear there's a beach in Shizuoka City called Nihon no Matsubara where you can get a clear view of Mt. Fuji. Not like Enoshima in Kanagawa. I don't know. I think you might be able to do that. It's such a small, handy city this is. Very easy to navigate. It still feels like a city, Shizuoka. But it's so small and comfortable. You can get a handle of Shizuoka City in a day.

00:22:30 John Daub: This is a nice looking shopping mall. What's this? Wow. Is this a hotel or a shopping mall? Beautiful. Of course there's a Starbucks right here in the corner. Must be an office building? I don't know. It is nice. Again, not expected in Shizuoka. Who wants to drink coffee at 8pm? I don't get it. Keep you up. I'm guessing very soon I gotta make a right to get to Sunpu Castle. But I'm already getting a really good vibe from Shizuoka. And I think we've just walked through the entire city it looks like. Because there's no longer as many people. There aren't as many people. And this seems to be the end of the line for the shops and the very stylish buildings.

00:23:15 John Daub: We have to go through this arch of love right here. Interesting. So now we're getting to Sunpu Castle. Which was the Tokugawa Ieyasu's main home, I believe. Before he passed away. And the Tokugawa family, I believe during the Meiji Restoration, was exiled here. Where they decided to live here. And they could for a year until they took everything away from the shogunate. Arch of love. Good way to put it. Thank you very much. So this looks more like a 1930s bank, doesn't it? Look at this on the right. Sorry, on the left side. Shizuoka is a very old city. But this ekimae looks pretty new.

00:24:00 John Daub: Eric rates in here. How's Leo and Kanae? Disappointed that I couldn't go home. Me too. I was going to jump on the Shinkansen around 4 or 5 pm. But because I lost all the data. The Sony A1 deleted one day's of work. But I was so fortunate at the timing of it. Because I just had time to film the processing, the factory portion of it. Are we going to cross the street and make a right? I think that's the way to the castle. Yeah, Joy, it was awful. I was almost in tears.

00:24:45 John Daub: Because my main camera, some beautiful cinematic shots on the tea field. In fact, if you're on the Discord server, if you're a Patreon supporter, I put the drone master shots from the Mavic 3. If you turn it around here. It took a bunch of shots from different perspectives. Every 15 seconds it would switch an angle. It's stunning what the Mavic 3 could do. The new DJI drone. I'm going to go back to the car. It's one of the most beautiful on the side of a mountain. This green tea plantation. And we got permission to film the harvest and then the factory. How they make it all the way to the final tea that they sell in bags.

00:25:30 John Daub: But I wanted to take it a step further. And film it to where they make matcha powder. And then they sell that to companies to make food out of it. The ice cream, the breads, the Starbucks matcha tea latte. All comes from matcha powder. Mostly from Shizuoka. Which is really fascinating. And I think they have a very ambitious plan to try to increase matcha food. Matcha confections. You don't have to use Kyoto matcha. Matcha can be made from sencha. It's just a different process. How you doing Trevor? Welcome aboard.

00:26:15 John Daub: I think we lost a lot of people with the Minecraft quality of 20 minutes ago. Right, I can record it again at 5 a.m. tomorrow. Right, I can record it again at 5 a.m. tomorrow. So I couldn't go back to Tokyo. I had to stay here tonight. I have to wake up at 4:30. Get everything ready. Check out at 5. Emi, who's my assistant who's been helping me for the last several months. Is going to pick me up.

00:27:00 John Daub: Gosh. I feel so bad. I told her she didn't have to do that. I could just rent a car tonight. And then use that first thing in the morning. But no, she wouldn't have it. So she's going to pick me up. Look at that torii right there. I think that might be the direction to go. But there's no crosswalk. Oh, there's an underpass. I'm live streaming. Always follow the laws. Don't try to be a smart aleck. Rob C. writes in here. In the land of tea. Grab yourself a coffee. You got it. Can I get that tomorrow morning on the way to the tea plantation? I'm going to use that to buy. I'll buy Emi one as well. Thank you.

00:27:45 John Daub: If this was in other countries. I don't think this would be as clean and safe. It doesn't smell like urine in most countries. But in Japan, it smells like normal. It smells better than my house before Kanae moved in. Let's go to the shrine. I guess it's this way. All right, Chan. Don't drop your jaw too far. We're back up here underground. I'm not using 5G. Because the upload speeds are even worse, I found.

00:28:30 John Daub: I thought that 5G was going to be the savior for live streaming. And it ended up not being much anything. Which is a shame. It's all about the upload speeds. And 5G just doesn't have it yet. Draw a Joppin [?]. We decided to do something with the tea crane from Kyoto. The knowledge they have about tea is amazing. Yeah, you know, Kyoto tea, the Uji tea. I believe some YouTube creators went out there and filmed. Most of them had sponsor deals. Or they had some inbound tourism budget to make those videos. And brought it out, brought out there. I didn't, I don't have a budget for this.

00:29:15 John Daub: I mean, a lot of big YouTubers would be able to get, I don't know, usually get, you know, a few thousand dollars for a production budget to make something. But, you know, I think, I don't know. Then you, I don't know. There's some beautiful videos in Uji. I didn't really have that. So. Just wanted to come out to Shizuoka. Kyoto's nice. But I don't want to, I don't want to promote any brand with this. I just want to do one on tea. And if I don't take any money from people and just use, you know, Patreon support. I can just do it the way I want to do it. Which is how I normally do it anyways.

00:30:00 John Daub: But I want to focus on several other brands and different kind of angles with the green tea episode that I'm making now. And it's different than the one that I made about 18 months ago. In Shizuoka. That was more about the perfect cup of tea. This is more about the process to make the tea. Whereas the last one was how to make the perfect cup of tea. So I won't go into the temperature on how. If you make green tea, the temperature controls the caffeine. So if you use 65 or 70 degrees Celsius, it's sweeter and it has less caffeine. If you use boiling, like 90 degrees Celsius, 100 is boiling. Then there's more caffeine and it's bitter.

00:30:45 John Daub: So the temperature of the water brings out the flavor of the green tea. Which is interesting. I didn't even know that before I made that episode. I'm not going to recreate that episode. But I'm doing it in a different way. I'm showing the harvest and the processing. Which was incredible. I left there, I had green powder all over me. Looked like Moss Man. Am I going the right way? I thought I was only 15 minutes away. I'm going to have to take a taxi back home. Hey, does anybody know where I am? Can we do, do exclamation point map? Check Google Maps. You're in Sengen Dori. I don't even know what that means. I don't live here.

00:31:30 John Daub: You know what, I think I got to, I think I got to, alright, just, I have to stop the live stream. Not stop it, but take a break and look at Google Maps. This is, this is a lonely street. You're heading towards the shrine. If you want to go to the castle, it's behind you to the right. Alright, Chan, that's good information. I'm going back the way I came. To the right. Right? I still don't know what that means. I thought I'd be there by now. Chan, thank you. I'm glad you get better reception than me in your trunk.

00:32:15 John Daub: What's that restaurant right there? I take a right now. This looks like a city street. Chan, I don't see a castle this way. Keep going until you see the Tōdai Gate. You should be on the left. There's nobody here. The quality better be good. Alright, I see the Tōdai Gate there. Gosh, I'm so tired. I'm never going to get home. I have to sleep on the streets here. And, you know, I'm in a business hotel. So, they give you this, they give you this key. You see this? You have to put this into the wall to get the power to turn on.

00:33:00 John Daub: And usually you can put like a credit card or some other like a book, a library card in there. Does anyone have a library card? Minecraft on PS5 now. I don't know what that means. I don't, nobody in Japan can get a PS5. So you put it in usually. But this card has some microchip in it. And it, I tried to put my library card in there. And it wouldn't work. It can only, it's so, they gypped me. So I can't charge my batteries while I'm away from the hotel room. It's awful.

00:33:45 John Daub: Alright, John. Cross the road now. Stay to your left on the left of the torii. Okay. I'm going to cross the road and stay to the left. I'm looking both ways. This is really creepy. Everything's closed. I wish I had a bike. Shizuoka City gives you a very warm, cozy feeling. Maybe it's the yellow street lights. It could be. The ekimae area is just so beautifully redone. They had renovations about. 10 years ago. About 15 years ago. So it's pretty nice.

00:34:30 John Daub: This is, Shizuoka is a city I think I could live in. It's a very livable place. Very suburban-like. You have, you open up your window. You usually have a view of Mount Fuji. You have the ocean and the mountains right there. Shizuoka seems to have it all. It's such a beautiful prefecture. The vegetables are good. It's between the major cities. So the air quality is very good here. Again, the water is coming from Mount Fuji. So you know it's going to be really fresh. Fresh water. It's just that one day there might be an explosion. From that Mount Fuji. And this might have be the front row seat to it.

00:35:15 John Daub: All right, Chan. I'm stuck to my left here. And I veered left. I'm at the underpass now. And I guess I'll make another left. Seems to be around here. Okay, go straight. And cross the road. Okay, I went straight. I crossed the road. This is the, what is that? Taxi stand. There's nothing here, Chan. Recently finished bridge. Binge watching all your videos. Now I don't know what to do with my free time. That's when you get stuck on live streams. And then John gets lost. The quality goes to Minecraft and you unsubscribe. That's happiness on people. Keep going straight for more. One more block.

00:36:00 John Daub: This is awesome, Chan. You're like guiding me. This is pretty cool. I thought I'd figured it out. All right, wait. I see something with a very dim purple light. Chan, that must be something. All right, car coming. That looks like something, Chan. We just stumbled on something. All right, left here. Right here. Okay. If it's not the place, it's something. All I know is that I can use Google Maps going home. So I know my hotel's in the east. I'm on the other side of the station, though. So it's going to take me 30 minutes to walk back. But gosh, I could use the exercise. All right, here. Keep going. Follow Purple Haze. Purple Haze. Isn't that an album? Who's that? Lenny Kravitz? No. That's the group. Hendrix.

00:36:45 John Daub: Boom. Whoa. Look at that. Boy, if Hendrix was around, it'd be awesome. He could stand right there on the edge. We get some speakers that go to 11 and just totally blow off the roofs here in Shizuoka. We found the castle. Are ye my days? You've reached your destination. Really? Is this it? Is that it? This is it? That's not the donjon, which is the tower. It's one of the castle turrets. But it doesn't look real. It seems like it's been filled in. The windows are covered by blocks or something. But it is pretty nice.

00:37:30 John Daub: Chan says you want more. Take me to closest konbini. But how do I get in there besides swimming? How do I do it? When you can make a U-turn. What? Carl? Chan, is that right? I confirm. Anyways. Anyways. Our friend. Our friend WRX Turbo is in the house. I'm not going to be swimming in there. Tomorrow morning. I don't know if there's some time. I'm going to try to do another live stream from the green tea point. Is that green tea growing on the side of the castle? It looks like every time I see a shrub now, I think of green tea.

00:38:15 John Daub: I guess there's a gate to get in here on the right. Since we saw the castle, we can turn. Really? You're going to give up? Chan, am I going down a street to nowhere? Or is there a place to turn into the castle grounds? You deserve a gold medal, Chan. Chan! What about me? I'm doing all the walking. Can we do a snack run? Maybe. I haven't done a midnight snack in a while because I'm sort of on a diet. And I said that I'm not allowed to eat after midnight. Something. I think she said that after we watched Gremlins. So I'm guessing there's some sort of a...

00:39:00 John Daub: How about purple stain by red hot chili peppers? I haven't seen. I haven't heard any of their new stuff. I'm talking like I stopped listening around 1983 with one album. Road to Nowhere. Now that... Okay, really? Is this... There's another entrance the way you're going. Okay. I see a light. I'm still walking. Shizuoka is such a chill place. The people are so friendly. I mean, when you compare it to Tokyo where everyone is suspicious of everybody. One of the things that... I've lived in like seven cities. 17... I've lost count. 17 or 18 different places over the last 23 years in Japan.

00:39:45 John Daub: I used to move every six months to a new destination for the job I was in. So I've gotten a chance to live in so many different areas of this country. There are places where your neighbors are so friendly. They'll knock on your door and say hi and check in on you and make sure you're okay. They talk to you. They say, you know, konnichiwa. Ohayō gozaimasu. Tokyo is not that place. I almost never get my neighbors to... Even though I try. Maybe you get a konnichiwa. But they never do a stop and chat.

00:40:30 John Daub: I guess it's because people are suspicious. Because if you become friends with people, sometimes they start asking for stuff. And if you don't get to know them, they won't ask for anything. There's a risk to getting to know people. They might need your help. They might need you. So it's better not to get to know anybody, maybe. I don't know. But in Japan... One of the hardest things for me to do was to make friends. Even if I could speak a little bit of Japanese, it was still really hard to make friends. And I'm not talking about people who want to speak English and sort of want to talk to you in English so they can practice their English and that's why you're friends with them.

00:41:15 John Daub: People who really want to get to know you and be your pal. It's hard to do here. Because everybody's a little bit... I don't know. It just takes time. It takes a lot of time. And this is really creepy and dark. That's me. Chan, is this right? I thought the iPhone 12 Pro had good low light. This doesn't get any lower than this except for pitch black. It smells fresh around here. So there used to be a castle here. I believe a lot of it was destroyed. And then some of it might have been torn down after World War II and after the Meiji Restoration.

00:42:00 John Daub: They didn't like the old feudal powers at all. They wanted to change the system. So I believe they even destroyed some of the castles to try to get rid of the feudal system and their feudal way of thinking. Which is such a shame. There are very few remaining original castles. This is not one of them. Looks like a construction zone. This was the old prefectural building area at a point in time in history. But yeah, apparently there's nothing here. Chan, I give up. I think I'm done. I think we've come to the end. Because this is scary. Nothing here at night.

00:42:45 John Daub: You know, if it was any other country, I might be