00:00 John Daub: Hello everybody, welcome to Melon Town, Yubari, Hokkaido. This is the michi no eki (roadside station) for Yubari, which is the most famous city maybe in the world for its melons. This is where you have the melon auction where they can go for as much as $50,000. Because I was there this morning at the melon auction, which takes place in Sapporo, and this year they only went for $30,000, but come on, that's still a significant amount of money for two melons, $30,000 US dollars, it's crazy.

00:45 John Daub: So in this episode, I'm going to take you inside of here where they just started today, because they can't sell the melons until after the auction. They just started, they're going to sell the melons inside of there, and guess what? I got one. I got a Hokkaido Yubari melon to eat. We're going to cut this up together in this live stream, it's pretty exciting for me. A lot of you can't eat it, but I will tell you every single gross detail about the melon, about the melons.

01:30 John Daub: Consume before we do that there's some customers they just reopened this michi no eki so i'm going to give it a couple of minutes to simmer down and then we're going to do a very quick walk around the center of Yubari city. I guess the center of the new Yubari city which is a little old but it's got a lot of personality. Unfortunately in front of us is Melon Kuma's house my mortal enemy who once tried to bite my head off his house is enveloped in spider webs uh so he's not going to be joining us today he's on vacation apparently out in the woods eating melon which is a shame.

02:15 John Daub: Like one of those guys might be Melon Kuma over there i don't know hey Brad Donnie is in the house exciting. Like most Hokkaido towns it's pretty quiet here not too bad but it's a little bit of a mess here in the middle of the city a lot going on but that's part of the attraction to me anyways. Central Yubari which is where the city hall is is straight ahead they don't have a train station here anymore um the Yubari station the line that JR runs here stopped running but they do have a new Yubari station which stops kind of close to the city center although this might be the new city center because that's where Melon Kuma's house is right there.

03:00 John Daub: I can't believe it's under spider webs i guess they're renovating it i guess it's going to be better than ever in a year i don't know but they closed it down right before melon season started which doesn't make sense i guess he's attacking all the melons. If you're a member of this channel there is actually a Melon Kuma emoji that you guys have available you might want to use it because i'm taking you to his bus apparently it's more than just his house he also has a bus but he's going to drive to the hotel actually Melon Kuma's doing pretty well.

03:45 John Daub: Here's the post office this area is called uh what is it Momijiyama Momijiyama this is a roadside melon stand that will be selling melons probably tomorrow i just started today so you can't blame people for wanting to take the day off including me i'm going to take an afternoon nap because i was up at four in the morning so that we could drive together to Sapporo auction which is over in like 20 minutes. Hey who wrote that boom shakalaka how dare you put Peter and a melon together he will not take kindly to that so i guess there's a Yubari melon right there yeah nice.

04:30 John Daub: All right i think they got some Yubari melon soft ice cream as well oh they got some in this shop too here's your first in this episode here's your first look at Melon Kuma boom the bear with the melon on his head it's one of my favorites. All right we're not going to eat here because michi no eki is open look at this lonely bulldozer i guess these stairs were made for us all right back to the michi no eki we go let's go take a look at Melon Kuma's bus.

05:15 John Daub: Now for anybody that saw this on instagram if you saw this yesterday on instagram i posted a picture of this bus on an insta story and i'm going to show you guys what it looks like and there's a picture of Melon Kuma doing something not becoming of him although to be perfectly honest bears do this in the woods sometimes they use rabbits to wash up after but it's actually on the bus an image of this. There's a big piece of melon on the side of this michi no eki which looks like a supermarket that went under and they repurposed it into something better and i'm going to take you inside about two or three minutes gosh i'm craving that melon right now oh my gosh.

06:00 John Daub: I actually got right here this is Yubari melon jelly and they found a way to package god the wind is strong they found a way to package the melon taste into a jelly capsule so i will eat that i've never had this before it's one of the confections that you can get at the airport here in Sapporo you can find these Yubari jelly shots that's got a kick to it i don't know is there booze in that i don't think there's booze in it but it feels like it feels like they could have a little bit of something in there.

06:45 John Daub: All right if we play our cards right we can end this live stream eating some Yubari melon ice cream but i'm saying play cards right because i'm so full all right there's Melon Kuma's bus right there let's go around i want to show this to you before we go inside. This is i can't believe his bus is here this is crazy this is like Ben and Jerry had a truck right when they first started well Melon Kuma's got a van a bus van this is what i'm talking about that is somewhat nasty sound off here if you like this click the like button see how many people actually liked it see little Melon Kuma and that looks like one of his kids laid a melon duty it's kind of and steaming that's how you can tell that's nasty right i know.

07:30 John Daub: And look Melon Kuma terrorized a melon patch and just destroyed it and left ruins like Godzilla in its path gosh i'm surprised there's not blood on his teeth this is he's got he does have a baby that's baby Melon Kuma i guess he's had a child uh slightly creepy looks like a repurposed Wolverine. Wow. And the teeth on the actual mascot has blood on it and scares the crap out of kids. Which is a good thing because kids, although bears are cute, Winnie the Pooh, thank you, bears are actually dangerous. You don't want to meet, we don't want kids walking up to bears and going, hey mama bear. And then the bear eats the kid. It's better if kids are scared of bears.

08:15 John Daub: That's not your average teddy bear. Melon Kuma is maybe the greatest mascot in history. Larry Fisherman has found the Melon Kuma emoji. All right, let's go inside. Welcome to Yubari Hokkaido. How much is a Yubari soft ice cream? Oh, they have mini sizes. Oh, perfect. I could go for a mini size. And they have other items too, but when in Yubari, you got to get Yubari melon ice cream and it's orange. Of course, some melons are green inside. Yubari melons are orange or red. I guess you'd say aka. All right, inside we go.

09:00 John Daub: There's my car. I've been driving around for the last couple of days. The youth hostel I'm staying at will blow you away if you get a chance to watch the live stream I did a few days ago. Okay, I got to get a picture here too. Look at that mega Yubari melon in the background. Now, they start off green, and then they turn like a yellow and that's when you know it's done. So we can learn a little bit more about the Yubari melon inside of here. Ah, I can't tell you what to say. They have a high level of sugar. Ah, I can't even say hi.

09:45 John Daub: So after we finish, I'm gonna actually cut up a melon live here. But you can come to this michi no eki and you can buy the melons and they're quite whole guy. Yes, they do. So today I say hi. Yeah, it's a little bit cheaper if you buy them, of course from the source and fresher because they were just harvested today. All right, let's go in the back here. Oh, behind the curtain. Hi, those are right. This has been in my car. Wow, this is a Yubari melon. This came right from the farm. It was a gift from one of the farmers Gotō-san, who was so nice enough to give this to me and I wanted to eat this right away, but it's been sitting in my car in my room.

10:30 John Daub: I slept with it last night because it was cooler in my room than it was outside. Hokkaido is known for being cooler, but right now it's actually quite hot, maybe even hotter than Tokyo. Hi. Nice. Oh, so that's it. I think I thought. Ah, spoon. Hi. That's been the time. I must. Ah, Jack. Oh, mama. Hi. So koko. I bet the whole guy and so told the demo. Oh, okay. I got company. Okay. I got the yes, I see. I could cut out from here and just and then just eat it safe.

11:15 John Daub: All right. This is a Yubari melon. They can go for a corner size M size. I know. Well, you know, you know, it's like an M L size, which is actually supposed to be about six to 7000 yen here in Yubari and a lot more in Tokyo. A coach got up. Okay. Yeah, I'm right handed. So koko. All right. Itadakimasu. All right. The first thing that you notice when you cut open a Yubari melon is the smell. It smells so good. It has a very sweet odor to it and it just will take over the room. It's almost like if you had a bowl of strawberries and you can smell it all in the room because it's so ripe. Even through the skin of the melon, you can smell Yubari melon goodness coming through there.

12:00 John Daub: It's so juicy and sweet. It's not overly sweet, though. There's still a very fresh greenness to it. But if I compare this to any other melon I've ever had, you can tell this is just better. The meat is so good. Are you okay? It's okay. You can press on it. Oh, really? I'm getting a little wet on the cardboard here, but I'll just take another bite to refresh my memory. It's sweet, but it's not too sweet, so you can eat a lot of it. Now, you can tell from the price, it is a little bit expensive. Actually, it's a premium item, of course. You don't eat this every day, but I think that's what makes it even more special, right?

12:45 John Daub: It's like if you're in Hokkaido, this is like something that you've got to do, right? You don't need to see meat. Look at the melon. I think if you're in Hokkaido, this is something that you have to eat in the summer. Now, the harvest starts in May and goes on until... 7th or 8th? Oh, man. Look at the juices coming out here. You can drink it. It's that good. You can buy them from now until about August, and it takes 100 days for them to start from just a seedling to a fully ready-to-be-harvested Yubari melon in each one.

13:30 John Daub: Now, there's a bunch of them on each plant, but they actually will trim some of the smaller ones so that all of the focus will go into just one to three melons on each plant, and that makes it even more tasty, which is great. Again, as soon as melon season starts, I'm all over this because melons in Japan, it's just such an amazing season. Peach season, melon season, cherry season, summer is awesome. Mmm. I want to eat. You want to eat? Yes, please. Everyone wants to eat. Of course, I want to eat. I said, Desi, do you want to eat it? I said, I can't put this through the camera to you. I really want to give this to you through the camera, but I can't do it. It's juicy. It's juicy.

14:15 John Daub: Now, you probably want it to be chilled, and put it in the fridge, and then you can eat it. Put it in the refrigerator just a little bit, not too chilled. Mmm. Part of the experience of the melon is that smell, the aromatic aspect of melons, and then when you get it in your mouth and you taste it, the consistency, the juiciness of it, the meat, the bite, that tension that goes in through it, and each time you bite it, it breaks apart, and I don't want to say melts, but it just all comes together. A light sweetness, and then a very sweet, light green bitterness to it that's pleasing, but not too bitter. You don't get very much of that bitterness. Just a very slight one. I'd say like 95% sweet, 5% that green, natural, vegetable, fruit bitterness that you get, which means it's good. It's not candy. That's a honeydew melon. It's not honeydew, right? Honeydew melon. Should we eat? It's not a honeydew melon. This is Yubari King melon.

15:00 John Daub: So the variety is Yubari King melon, and even if you have the seeds, I don't think because the weather has to be perfect, you can get the same melon if you had the seeds. Yubari melon is a hybrid melon. That's true. It was made, it's bred specifically, and the taste is, they make it in a way that, they always find a way to improve and take fruits to the next level in Japan. Even the white strawberry, which I focused on before, they found a way to change it, to make it sweeter, bigger, better. It's like always improving. Even fruits can be doing it, and that's nothing new because they've been cross-breeding fruits and vegetables for a very long time. It's not something that's new. Holy smokes.

15:45 John Daub: I'm telling you, I can, I get a whole, this is just a quarter of one of these, okay? And I'm full. Mainly because I ate this massive katsu curry. It was 800 yen. I thought it was going to be small, but I forgot this is Yubari, and it was like king size. Oh wow. Thank you. I'm going to eat konnyaku. This is my happy, happy point. I'm very, very happy. What should I do? I'll go to michi no eki station, and I'll go to Minami station. I'll show everyone. So the michi no eki just had a renewal, and it opened up again today. So if you're in Hokkaido, you'll be greeted with a brand new michi no eki. So let's go in there. Let me show you around the michi no eki and some of the things they have here that you can buy here in. I'll come back again.

16:30 John Daub: All right, let me take you out here. Brandon, you cannot eat the skin. So it looks like a supermarket in here. Oh my gosh. This is a michi no eki, or a roadhouse, and they sell goods. Of course, I think they do have supermarket items, but they sell goods that are raised and grown here in Yubari. And all over Japan, the michi no eki system is like a gateway into... See, this is Yubari melon chocolate. They make all sorts of things from the Yubari melon. There's a half shell of Yubari melon chocolate, Yubari melon caramel, and they sell all sorts of things. So they find a way to put that sweet Yubari taste into everything. Do they have a Yubari melon curry? What? That's pretty cool. They got the... Of course, they've got melon haichu. Oh man, I'm going to have a field day. I got to take back a bunch of stuff for Kanae. She's going to love this. Hey, Michael Sassano's here. Welcome.

17:15 John Daub: I took you into Melon Kuma's house a couple of months ago, but because this house is closed, they do sell ferocious tea shakers. I'm sure it's here inside the michi no eki. And I did take one of these to Leo. He actually likes Melon Kuma. Oh my gosh. What? See, he eats the fish and it goes through his head. It's pretty nasty. I love it. Oh, I got to get this for the airplane. An eye mask. I freak out everybody on the airplane when I fly back to New York next month. I can get this for Leo too. It's a hat. It's a Melon Kuma hat.

18:00 John Daub: All right. I'm going to take you in here. Let's take a look at some of those Yubari melon a little bit closer. So these melons here, you can tell based on the quality, also determines the price. So you really do get what you pay for. I've been learning a lot about the melons over the last couple of days, a lot of them. So this kind of points out here. It starts off, you see on the left side, that's what you might see in the supermarket. And then over time, the color of the melon will change. If you remember back in the live stream that about 10 minutes ago, it looked like this. So that's the point at which I ate it. So if you get a melon that looks like this, you don't want to eat it yet. You want it to wait until it gets to number four and then eat it. And the process to eat it is pretty soft. If you're going to pay like 50 bucks for a melon, you better eat it at the right time to get the maximum deliciousness out of it. So for example, this one is not done. This will take some time before. You might want to wait a week or so. What if you eat it at one though? Yeah, you know what? It tastes like you're eating, I don't know, like lettuce maybe. I don't know. You want to wait until the right time.

18:45 John Daub: So this is the smallest size here. It's about 30. This is the cheapest I've ever seen one. It's got the Yubari melon seal. You see that? So that means it's real. So they do have people who fake it abroad. So this one is about 3,800 yen, which is like $30, maybe $32. The exchange rate, that might be the cheapest you ever find a Yubari melon. This one here is M size, which is a step bigger. And you can see there's a price difference of 700 yen or about $5 more. These are ranked as good, meaning they're going to be tasty. But these over here are ranked as very good. So you're going to get a better experience with these. And very good starts up at 5 Gs, or about $45 maybe, $40. And this is M size, which is about, I don't know, like 20% bigger. And the price is reflected in the size.

19:30 John Daub: And then, of course, you can get boxes of two. I think melons are best when you get them in two because they're so good. You want to have, after you eat one, you want to have a second one for tomorrow. Or... You just buy a box like this. That's... So this is 20,000 yen or about $160 maybe, this price. And then this box of six with smaller ones is 15,000 yen or about $120. It's hard to judge the exchange rate because it's changing so much. Patio87 says that she would never spend that much on a melon. But let me point out to you that you do things in life sometimes that are special. You would do it on a special occasion. Or give a gift to somebody that is special to you and you want to show your appreciation. So you'd give something that you yourself wouldn't buy. So that's why melons work really well as gifts.

20:15 John Daub: These are the melons that were at the auction. And I think these are a few hundred dollars actually. Wow. These melons are not for sale, right? They're not for sale, right? They're not for sale? Yes. They're the best, right? They're the best. Oh my gosh. So this is around the same quality as the one that they paid about $30,000 for this morning. It was 3 million yen they paid for two melons at auction this morning I was at. Which is an incredible price. But in 2019 they paid $50,000 or 5 million yen for it. So it's not quite the same. But you can see there's a difference between... So... You can tell the difference that why these are better. They're just bigger. They are actually much bigger than the other melons that I just showed you. And that's reflected in the price. Wow. Gosh. I'm so full.

21:00 John Daub: All right. Have a good one, Sly Fox. Wow. Inside the michi no eki they also have cakes and stuff. Local bakery. Let's see if they have any melon. Oh, they have melon castella. And... Melon taiyaki. That looks really good. The melon taiyaki. Yeah. Hello. Hello. Yeah. So the melon taiyaki. So let's... Oh, hey, check this out. Oh, that's so cool. This is the road sign when I came off of the highway when I entered Yubari City. It's famous for the ski and the melon. That's pretty cool. That's the actual sign coming in the Yubari. I might have to get one. Here's the JR. JR, Yubari sign for the JR. They don't have this station anymore, but that's funny that you can buy it. It's a pin, I think. There's another michi no eki for Yubari. That's pretty neat. It's all about the melon here.

21:45 John Daub: So for those that are not sure, how many vegan options of food are there in Japan? Well, Kevin, you're looking at one. They only have melons here, so you'll do just fine. So this is Sapporo right here. That's Hakodate. And this is Hokkaido. So from Sapporo, which is the biggest city, Yubari is right here. So it's really close. From the airport, which is here, Chitose Airport, it's about a 40-minute drive to go here. And tomorrow, I'm taking the train to here. And I'm live streaming that, so you might want to tune in tomorrow at 12.30. I'll take you with me onto that train. Oh, very nice.

22:30 John Daub: Oh, these are the old, like, old gumball machines from the 1960s, right? That's pretty neat. Highway signs. Oh, my gosh. I am, I am, I'm melon-ed out. Every day I've been eating Yubari melon. All right. So a couple things here. Starting next month, I just found this out. They have this place at the Yubari Melon Dome. There's a dome. It's kind of cool. They have all-you-can-eat Yubari melon for 2,500 yen. That's $25. And I can eat, like, six melons if I put my mind to it. I can put them out of business, although I think that they'll grow some more. I don't think you can eat more than one melon, though. But you get your money's worth. So it's almost worth it to take the trip from Sapporo out to Yubari just to eat a melon. It pays for itself. Think about it if you do the math.

23:15 John Daub: So I might come here with Peter. We're going to be doing a motorcycle trip around Hokkaido. We're going to start this as a Kickstarter, and they're going to introduce this later on this month. We're going to show you Hokkaido in a new way from a motorcycle and maybe from a camping car because we might do some camping around the wide east side of Hokkaido. But we want to show you the entire island. So it should be a really fun project. We're working on a new postcard with Peter and me, riding motorcycles around Hokkaido being chased by a bear. Something. I don't know what Dakota's going to do. Oh my gosh, I'm so full. I think I'm going to explode. Hey, Sergei, welcome. Thanks for becoming an insider. I appreciate that very much.

24:00 John Daub: All right, so there you go. I'm not going to have that melon ice cream. I will actually probably put it all over the screen. It'll be a different color than when I ate it. You don't, nobody needs to see that. Hello. So that's the Yubari melon, a Melon Kuma truck. And this is Yubari. I kind of enjoyed it. I have one more day here. Tomorrow morning I'm going to be filming at another melon patch inside the vinyl dome and learning a little bit more about this for a main channel episode. I'm going to get that one out as soon as possible. I'm working on the Melody Road one, which I took last month here. There's a lot of really good episodes coming on Only in Japan. So it's going to be an exciting, exciting 30 days of a ton of content rolling out now.

24:45 John Daub: After this, I'm going to Nemuro, which is on the very east of Japan again to do another episode. I'm filming about a train there. The citizens found out that JR was going to stop the Nemuro line. So the citizens decided that they would take matters into their own hands, vigilanteism, in a good way. They started a crowdfunding campaign to pay for the train line so it wouldn't go out of business. So I'm going over there to ride the train line and see what is the attraction. Why do we need to keep this train line? So I'm going to be in Nemuro for the next 3-4 days interviewing the city staff, the people of Nemuro, kind of look around this outback city. I want to say outback because it's really back out there. And get this story because it's called the Hanasaki Line and it's a really beautiful local one-man train line. I think you're going to love this episode on the Only in Japan main channel.

25:30 John Daub: So there you go. I'm staying busy. This is my second channel. But really does help support me to do the main channel stuff as well as Patreon. I love you guys. Thanks so much. I got a burn off. I think I'm going to go burn off all the stuff I ate. Alright, have a good day everybody. See you in the next livestream. I'll probably do another livestream. I thought I might do a Q&A for Patreon tonight. But I might do that tomorrow. And I'll see you tomorrow on the train. I'll start the livestream around 12.15 tomorrow Japan Standard Time. And the train comes at 12.25. Maybe we'll get an ekiben and then get on this train. It cost me $90 for the ticket. So this better be a really nice train. See you everybody. No melon juice. See you.