00:05:00 John Daub: Hello everybody, that's the JR train going through here. And this is the Yubari Takino Ue Park right up there. This isn't a place that I don't think a lot of people are going to bring you. I mean, I'm just driving around here, looking at some of the real attractions of this area of Hokkaido. This is Yubari City, which is very famous for the melons. And this morning I was at the first harvest where all the news media from all over Japan—well, there's like maybe 10 cameras there—but a lot of people were here to take video for this afternoon's news. And I was the only documentaryist there. So I stayed there for a few hours with the farmer, his name is Goto-san. I was very happy to get the chance to take a look at them harvesting the Yubari melons.

00:55:00 John Daub: These melons are incredible. They can fetch—what?—in 2019 they fetched a pair of them about $50,000. And I got to eat two. I got to eat two of them because there's nobody else around and they kept giving me melon. And then when I was leaving, they gave me one in the car here. So do you guys want to see a $200 melon? I guess it's $200. I don't know. But he told me that I had to eat it today. But I might eat it later today. This is the melon here. It just was cut today. Check this out. You can tell because it starts to turn yellow on the bottom here. And that's how you know it's ripe. And you can't smell this. It's a really big melon. But oh my word, just the entire car smells like a melon. It's giving off so much like a sweet melon odor.

01:56:00 John Daub: And in this episode, I'm going to be taking you down to a waterfall. This is one of the attractions of Yubari. I'm here on my own. This isn't a sponsored video or anything like that. Just out of the love of Hokkaido and good food. All right. You know what? I'm going to take the keys here and we're going to go down to the waterfall. Yeah, the fragrance of these Yubari melons is incredible. We're going to go down to the waterfall and I'm going to eat these, which are also famous in Yubari. These are cinnamon donuts. I had one. Now the cinnamon donuts inside of them is a surprise. And I'll show you that when we get down to the waterfall. It says Yubari famous cinnamon donuts. Don't ask me how these cinnamon donuts became famous here. But it's one of the things that you have to eat if you're hanging out in this area. I got them at 7-Eleven, believe it or not. They had a whole stack of them. And I have another surprise in this bag to show you. So it'll be worth waiting until we get to the waterfall.

03:01:00 John Daub: Here's the path that we're going to be walking. We're here at the parking lot and I'm just going to take you to the river. And then you can see the waterfall, which is right there. I'm hoping. And I'm hungry. I ate one of the donuts. I'm so craving it. I believe this is called the Yubari River. So much green. I'm blown away by how beautiful this area is. Can I go down this way? Should we go off road? Oh, look at these things. Where there's dandelions. We're allowed to pick these. Can I pick it? Is it breaking the law? I just plucked it. Look at it. Whoa. You know what I'm going to do with this? You're supposed to make a wish. Give it a little ride there. I don't know if I'm breaking the law by doing that. I guess I'm not supposed to disturb nature. Well, I just blew nature. There's lots of them. It'll be all right.

04:42:00 John Daub: I'm not sure what this building is, but it looks pretty old. Do you hear that? I think Japanese summer is starting. We're like right there. Oh my gosh. Okay. I can hear the waterfall a little bit. Whoa. We are not going down there. It says don't. There's even a sign there. It says don't stand here because you aren't coming back. Wow. Look how beautiful the water is. Another reason to come to Hokkaido if you needed one. Hey, Wendy's here. How you doing, everybody? We're live. We're live from Hokkaido.

05:50:00 John Daub: So after this, I'm going to a dam. In Japan, the dams are quite famous and there are attractions in themselves and around the dams, there are some things to see. So you definitely need a car in this area. Oh, there's a bridge. Okay. Check this out. All right. Nothing against that guy. But why are you wearing a mask when you're by yourself in the park? I'm sorry. It is a pandemic. I understand that. But I think you're social distancing, bro. Whoa. Oh, man. That should be the thumbnail. Not me in a stinking pack of donuts. What? That is stunning. And the color. It's like—what is that?—like an emerald green? Such a beautiful color of water. All the snows of Hokkaido are melting.

07:16:00 John Daub: Hey, air to the right. Don't tell me not to jump because you know I don't listen. Wow. I took drone shots from here. It was absolutely beautiful from the air as well. And you can see if you go up, you can see the melon farms, the vinyl houses that the melons grow in all over this area because it's big business. But my gosh, those melons smell so good in my car right now. One melon. I'm not cannonballing. Look how deep far down that is. I'm not coming back if I do that. Should I do it with the camera? I'm not going to do it. Anyways, you have to give a lot bigger Super Chat than five bucks. Come on. I'm just kidding. I'm kidding. Okay, don't do anything.

08:17:00 John Daub: Oh, look at this. Okay, hold on a second. There's a path that goes down all the way to the river, down to the platform here on the other side. No, hawk soon. I'm not doing it. You guys can try to. I'm not that dumb. All right. I did it with a drone. We are virtually alone. Not a lot of people come here. All right. First of all, it's a weekday. Not a lot of people around. People are working. The population of places like this have been decreasing for decades. So it's hard to also maintain the infrastructure. I've noticed that a lot of it could use a little bit more work. But then I see something like this, a really beautiful zigzagging path to get from one place to another. Let's go down there and we're going to eat some donuts or a donut. I don't know if I can eat donuts more than one. Wow. Just the sound of the nature around is worth it. Worth the trip. This is called Chidori Bashi.

10:00:00 John Daub: Saya, it is much cooler than Tokyo. You know, that's—I'm glad that you brought that up. So it is cooler than Tokyo in the sense like the temperature might be really hot. It's about 25 degrees. But there's almost no humidity. So I'm not getting all the moisture sucked out of me because Tokyo's summer is oppressive. So it says Takino Tsuribashi this way. Well, we're going to go this way. All right. You're very welcome, Craig. I'm glad that you're here. Personality of brick wall. John, YouTube keeps thinking I'm going to watch Cobra Kai because Daniel looks like John. Is YouTube recommending Cobra Kai because you watch Only in Japan, because I look like Daniel LaRusso, not Ralph Macchio, Daniel LaRusso. Interesting. But I've outgrown Karate Kid until he started doing Cobra Kai. You know, gosh, this thing followed me all through elementary school. Nineteen eighty-four. It's not fair. At least give me some sort of cameo where I can be a stunt double. I'll be the guy who gets the groin kicks. Whatever. Give me a part. I had to suffer. Give me a part. The algorithm at its best.

11:36:00 John Daub: I have a friend named Rudy who was an extra in Pirates of the Caribbean. But he—oh, wait, I can't go down there. Touchy chewy. That says to be careful. It's supposed to stay on the path. Well, there's—doesn't say not to go this way. This is kind of an established path. There's where we were earlier. The waterfall coming down. I got to go back the way I came. Hey, WXRT was in the house. And let's have a donut right here in the corner. Wow. How's the signal, guys? Is Hokkaido better than Tokyo? Mr. Daz is here. You should get the Hokkaido melon ale later before you hit Tokyo. If they have it, I will have it.

12:52:00 John Daub: So tomorrow, I've got a media pass to go to the Yubari melon auction and I'll be filming from the floor. It's funny because I called it. My buddy knows that I'm making a documentary. I'm going to be filming a documentary about this. I got access to go down to the floor level because of COVID. Media still has to stay on the second floor. But I had a PCR test yesterday and was negative so I can get access to go to the floor level and make this episode. This is going to be a really amazing episode because I've been really wanting to show what makes these melons $50,000. Like, what is it about them that makes them so special? I've been able to get the access to do this episode. So totally psyched for tomorrow morning. I got to wake up at 4:30 and I have to meet them at the Yubari Melon Dome, which is the michi no eki (roadside station), at 4:45 in the morning and we're driving to Sapporo to the auction to the Ichiba market. I got some green tea here. It's going to be an early day tomorrow. Wow. Let's try these donuts here. Hey, Jennifer, how you doing? I'm glad this signal's holding out here. Such a nice view.

14:16:00 John Daub: I also got this. This is the melon kuma gummy bears, which would be—because he's a bear—melon bears, I guess you could call them. Maybe I'll put these in the Dimanche package for this month. Very nice. Come on, baby. Really uncalled for. And let's try the cinnamon donut here before the ants go marching one by one to get a piece of donut. So I guess they're in the form of munchkins, the donut holes. Oh, I could smell the cinnamon. It is so strong. All right. The surprise is there's really delicious anko (red bean paste) in there. It's not overly sweet because you don't need to. There's a lot of sugar around it. The donut crust is crunchy, golden, brown sugar and cinnamon. Some cake and that anko creamy red bean paste. It's perfect. Doesn't taste like red bean paste. It tastes like—oh, well, it's not custard. Almost like a potato. But it's red bean paste. I think there's just so much sugar that it's hard to tell that it's anko because it's so sweet. You got to get up. If you're in this area, you got to get them.

16:32:00 John Daub: Mr. Daz, I'm going to look for that ale now. That is pretty big. I think the most I could eat is two. I ate one before I started the live stream and I just had one now. I don't think I can eat anymore. But if you take a look at the live stream that I did yesterday from the youth hostel—this place is not a youth hostel. I told him I said, look, I'm well past well into my 40s. Can I stay here? And she said, yeah, it's your problem. So why do you call it a youth hostel? I don't get why they just call it a hostel. Maybe it's because of the movie series. Very dark, scary thing. Let's go back over to the bridge. That's so good. We'll go to the bridge and I'll try one of these melon kuma gummies.

17:25:00 John Daub: Mikla 325 to 235. You can use not melon kuma, but you can use the melon kuma. Not the Kumamon. Kumamon is Kumamoto Prefecture. Hokkaido's Yubari is—yeah. If you remember, you have that emoji. Just a programming note. I'll be riding the very expensive and luxury train from Sapporo to Kushiro from around 12:30 Japan time. So you're not going to want to miss that. I'll take you live onto the train as it comes in. And I'll sit down and kind of show you out the window. It is beautiful. This is one of the best trains in Hokkaido. Maybe in all of northern Japan. I see you guys found the melon kuma emoji. We'll have a melon emoji coming soon, too. And then the non-members can just go melon and bear. Well done.

18:54:00 John Daub: Peter's in the studio today. I tried to give him a call. We are planning out this Hokkaido motorcycle trip. We've got an idea. It's not going to be completely motorcycle. We're going to do half motorcycle half camper van because the distances are just too much to cover. Peter warned me and he said my butt's going to be sore. So we're going to do camper van for the last part and the first part we'll do by motorcycle. So that's going to be pretty cool. Sayo welcome. Thanks for joining as a member. Wow. So the river comes across these striated rocks, I guess. There's a bunch of rocks that go in a straight line on the top there and the river runs across it. So from the drone, it was really stunning to see that. The air is fresh.

20:05:00 John Daub: I am not going back. He could get sidecar. I don't think so. No one has that little pride in themselves to ride in the sidecar. Peter don't want to ride in it. I don't want to ride in it. This is going to have to go. We're both getting our own bikes. I start motorcycle school as soon as I get back from Hokkaido. I have a melon. I have a bear. Melon bear. A melon kuma. I know what you did there. Interesting. This would be great for rafting, right? Maybe not that part with the waterfall, but it was funny that PPAP was there at the Olympics. He's such a big, big deal internationally. Peco Taro. He's had some pretty good hits over the last couple of years. It's just nothing is going to be possible to outdo Pineapple Pen. That's a classic for the ages.

21:52:00 John Daub: There's some Japanese that can't speak English. Oh, there's a restroom down there. That's a nice looking log cabin restroom. There's some Japanese who can't speak any English when they get in trouble and they want to communicate. They just say Pineapple Pen. Pineapple Pen. What are you trying to say? I'm trying to prove something. I'm trying to prove that they can speak English. Smart. Hey, hello from Alberta, Canada. Welcome aboard. Yeah. PPAP. Pineapple Pen. Apple Pen. Is that how it goes? Must be something special about that flower. Look at that flower. It's nice. I'd like that job. I think it's because it's Japan. They're smaller. It looks pretty big, though. Isn't it? It's apple pen or pineapple pen. I don't—I never got into it. Like. Oh, you did. Those donuts are good.

23:36:00 John Daub: How do you sleep at the hostel? Why are you putting them in quotes? Yeah, I didn't. I slept really good, except I had to wake up early because everybody else woke up early because they kept talking at 5 a.m. So note to self. Go to bed before 10 p.m. Because people are going to wake you up at 5 a.m. Because the sun comes up at 4:30 a.m. here. And it was bright by—I woke up because of the talking and because it was just so bright. It was bright outside. It was coming in through the blinds. These weren't blackout blinds. And that's something that you need to consider when you make a reservation in Tokyo or Japan. Make sure that the hotel has blackout drapes or blinds because it's so bright in the summer that you will wake up at 4 or 5 in the morning because that's when the sun comes out and the crows start going.

24:38:00 John Daub: We've got a lot of Canadians here. A lot of Canadians in the house. All right. So today on my agenda is next I'm going to be filming at the dam trying to get a look at that area that's on the Yubari city side. And then I'm going back to the hostel to edit the episode Melody Road, which is pretty much done. But I need to polish it. But the polishing sometimes takes as long as everything else to do. I won't release it until it's perfect or as perfect as it can be. But I'm going to do it. You want to see it now? Wait, I can't. I got to—I got to—I left the door open. Oh, my gosh. It smells like melon in here. Better turn the air conditioning. I bet you that the melon is going to go bad if it gets warm in here. Oh, oh, my gosh. It's not hot outside. It's just—it is the perfect temperature. It is the perfect temperature that you want to be traveling in. I don't even need this vest here, but you could go to T-shirts and short sleeves if you're Canadian. And if you're from Florida, you're probably going to dress like this. Yeah, it's a little bit breezy. That's why I have the external mic on instead of the mic on the iPhone.

26:20:00 John Daub: Yeah, this is the Toyota Yaris. So I'm going to go for a little bit of a drive. Show you this area because I want to share with you a little bit of this adventure. When you are coming to Hokkaido, I'm telling you right now. I didn't get the RAV4 because I'm actually getting the RAV4 in Kushiro when I go to the east side of Hokkaido after this shoot because the RAV4 is twice as much as this car. So it's kind of a waste of money if I'm going to be driving around flat terrain. I don't really need a RAV4, but it's a nice car. But I want to kind of save money a little bit. Don't take more than you need. So I don't need a car. Okay, here is where I am, which is Takino Ue. Takino Ue. Taki means waterfall in Japanese. It's a lot of—there goes the train. It's a cargo train. Yeah, there's Hokkaido. Why is it all flipped around? That's Hakodate. There's Sapporo. It's upside down. Different upside down. It doesn't matter. I'll still get to where I want to go.

28:03:00 John Daub: So the stream is changing into a road trip because that's the way we roll. All right. I'm just going to show you a little bit. I can't read the chat, but I'm going to drive. I'm going to focus on the road, of course, but I'm going to drive about three, four kilometers. I want to give you an idea of what this area looks like. You see here. Can you guys see? Okay, there you go. So then you get an idea of what this area is like. Here we go. Your car is pointed south. That's probably why. I'm going to take a right and I'm going back into Yubari city. You don't even need traffic lights out here because there's almost no traffic. Speed limit is I believe it was 50 kilometers per hour, so I'm going to stay exactly 50. There's no reason to go faster. I'm not in a hurry.

29:38:00 John Daub: But this area of Japan, you know, the infrastructure is getting a little bit old. The houses are a little bit older here. Lot of them—there's a lot of abandoned buildings in this area of Hokkaido. A lot of akiya (empty houses). So you could probably find a place cheap to live in this area if you're considering it. On the right side, we're going to start to see those vinyl greenhouses. That's where the cash crop is here. That's the Yubari melons. King melons, I believe, and they are harvested starting today. So if you're living in Japan, look on the news or look on the Internet. Yubari melon. You're going to see. Maybe you'll see me in the background. Because I kept popping in the background of the NHK camera doing a little dance. We call it a jig. I think a jig background. Someone will recognize me. One of my exes will find me and then say, that's why we didn't work out. There is Hokkaido is so beautiful. Look at all the open road, open sky here. All right. There are the vinyl houses on the right side. Most likely melons. Yeah, they're melons.

31:20:00 John Daub: There are a lot of roadside stands selling the Yubari melons, too. I wonder how much they're going to be selling them on the roadside. And then I'm going to go in this episode to Isetan in Shinjuku. That is maybe where you're going to get the most expensive fruit. And I wonder how much the Yubari melons are going to sell in Shinjuku for. So in a couple—as soon as they get back to Tokyo, I'm going to Shinjuku to film the prices of the melons that were harvested here. I don't know how much they're going to jack it up. But these Yubari melons can go for as much as $200 each, if not more. But at auction, the best of the best, meaning if the size—they go by size because the taste is the same, whether it's a triple X size or a small, medium or large. The taste is the same. It's more about the size, I believe, with the melons. So something that's rare, a massive melon is going to go for $50,000 for a pair of them. They usually sell in pairs. Oh, we're following the river on the right side. Beautiful.

33:17:00 John Daub: So I think there's a place to pull in here and we can wrap this up. But I thought it's always nice when I'm doing a live stream to bring you with me. So you get an idea when you watch the episode. You were here when I filmed it. And that's kind of neat. There's a sign here. You see that? It's a deer sign. There are lots of deer that cross the road. Yesterday, one crossed not far away from the hostel I was staying in. It's like, whoa, they can just jump out at any moment here. Some more vinyl houses on the right side. I don't think it rained a lot this year. Usually it'll rain a little bit more. One of the questions the media asked was, what were the challenges of this year? And I think it didn't rain quite as much as in years past. So the melons might have been impacted by that. I'm not sure. We're going to find out tomorrow morning at auction, which is over in like 15 minutes. All right. These auctions aren't—they don't last very long. There's a selected few that are really big that probably are going to get a lot of money at the auction. Those are the ones that are going to be highlighted. Oh, there's a melon farm on the right side there too. Ono farm. The highway is above us now. This is the one that will take me back to Sapporo.

35:11:00 John Daub: And there's the parking area. Wow. It smells so good in this car. Everybody likes the scent of their own perfume, but I'm going to say that this doesn't smell like me. It's all melon. Oh my gosh. It's so good. How am I going to eat this thing? I don't have a knife to cut it open. How's the signal? Wow. It smells so good in this car. All right. I'm pointing north now so we can—I want to show you the map of where we are. Boom. Parking done. All right. Now Hokkaido is pointed more north. It's more normal. All right. There's Yubari. The goal, I believe. I think I marked off the guesthouse. The hostel was the goal. There's not a lot around here, right? That's what makes it so nice. Yeah. Yubari interchange. Yeah. So I hope you guys enjoyed that. Just hanging out for a little bit.

36:45:00 John Daub: I think I might do another live stream tomorrow at the Michi no Eki, which is the roadside station for Yubari. They're going to start to sell the melons tomorrow. It's, I think it's the—it's going to be the first place that they actually go on sale in Japan. So I'll be there for when they open that up. And I think I'll be able to live stream there and bring you that information. It's been closed for—I don't know—a year. I don't know for—through the winter. So this is the first time that it's opened up by the way, just a note. Melon Kuma's house is closed. I was very upset. It looks taped up. So I'm not sure what's going on. Nobody knows what's really going on with Melon Kuma and his house, but hopefully it's just renovations. And he didn't leave Hokkaido. I go back to the forest maybe. But the farmer told me this morning that a lot of bears at this time of year do come out from the hills. And they're attracted by the smell of the melon. So they come down from the mountains to the melon vinyl houses. And that's kind of a dangerous time of the year. That's what they told me. But it's interesting.

38:04:00 John Daub: Hey, David Kimura is here. David, thank you. All right, let's see. I can show you. Here we go. So this is a Yubari melon. Oh, my gosh, you have no idea. You can smell it through the shell of this part here. It's all pretty good. This is why these melons go for so much money. They smell so good. And the ones that I ate, I think I could show you. Do you guys want to see? I'm supposed to end this live stream. It's not working out that way. All right, here we go. I'm not going to take a bite. Someone said take a bite. Yeah, you're going to have to cut it. Hold on a second. Yubari melon. Let's see here. So these are the greenhouses. Drone shots of the greenhouses. There's a lot of them. Oh, this is the harvest. I separate all my footage by camera here. Wow. So I wanted to see the different stages. Why they harvest the colors. It's here. She's cutting it. Now you can see the color of Yubari melon. Oh my gosh. This is right harvested like 10 minutes before. They cut it. Oh, wow. That's a lot of...

40:39:00 John Daub: Oh, my gosh. This episode is going to be amazing. A lot of editing, though. And here they are. They're putting them in the boxes now. So I hope this episode is good. The idea is I want to show you that it's more—we all see how Japanese melons are so expensive and they get more press because of how expensive they are. But I wanted to show you how they grow them and the history behind them and take you inside the auction and not just look at the price of it, but what's the purpose of the auction at all? Why do they do an auction for 12 minutes? What's the whole purpose of this? And what makes the value of these auction melons more than the ones that I just ate? It's not—I'll break it all down in this episode. That's what you guys watch for, right? For the story. It's inside the story. It's good. It's a good one. It's Squeegy, but for melons. That's right.

41:50:00 John Daub: All right, everybody. Thanks for watching. Hope you enjoyed this live stream and taking you around Yubari for a little bit of time. I'm glad that you joined me. And I'll bring you back maybe tomorrow afternoon around the same time, a little bit later. And if I can, in the morning. And I'm going off to Kushiro. So mark down the 27th, Japan time, on your calendar, 12:30. I'm taking a luxury train from around Sapporo. Or Chitose Airport to Kushiro, which is on the east side of Hokkaido. I decided to take the train instead of driving. You're not going to want to miss that one because I'm going to live stream out the window and take you on the train from the station. It's going to be a lot of fun. See everybody. Melon smells so good. How am I going to eat it? I need a knife. I got to get a knife somewhere.