00:00:01 John Daub: Hello everybody, welcome to Kushiro Station, a city in southeast Hokkaido that's the only big city on the Pacific side here. That's the sign that says Kushiro, which has to do with geese. It's famous for the Kushiro Marsh. There's loads of deer, animals, wildlife, foxes, bears roaming around—not in the city, but not that far away either. I've never been to Kushiro before except the train station. This is my first time. Thank you for the welcome, Kushiro. I'm happy to be in the city of geese.

00:00:42 John Daub: How you doing, everybody? I just came here on the train from Sapporo to Kushiro called the Ozora, a limited express train. It was really nice. The bento I had was good—you can see that in the live stream just before this one. I thought I would do this episode before the rain starts to come down. It's actually raining right now. The weather turned from really sunny to almost like early spring, and this is the end of May. Very special to be in Hokkaido. It gets dark a little later in the summer and the sun starts to come up in northern Hokkaido around 3:45, which is crazy—sooner than in Tokyo. So the summers, the days are longer here.

00:01:26 John Daub: In this episode, I'm going to take you from the station, have a quick look inside—the signal might not be too good, I was getting only four megabits per second, which is awful, but maybe it'll get a little bit better. And take you down the main street. There's some interesting things to see here, especially just the ambience of the city. And tomorrow, there's going to be major rain. And I got to drive to Nemuro, so I'll probably find something interesting in the area to show you then. So let's go inside the station just for a minute. I want to show you what it looks like inside Kushiro Station.

00:02:07 John Daub: Wow. So this is Kushiro Station. I just came through here about 30 minutes ago, went to the hotel, checked in, and then came back. It's pretty big—I would expect it. It's on par with a lot of the prefectural capitals. And Kushiro is like a sub-prefecture of Hokkaido. It's also got Kushiro ramen. There's a lot of things I just don't know about. Oh, there's the other Ozora train coming in in a couple of hours. Things here are a little bit older, but I don't mind that at all. We can get a quick look at the omiyage (souvenir shops), just one minute, because I got to go before the rain comes in.

00:03:01 John Daub: Hello. I don't know what a lot of this stuff is. There's sake. Huh, I'm not sure. Didn't see anything interesting to me. Hello. Some kids are saying hello. That looks nice. Couple of dudes in the bath. So here's where we're going to be going. Here's Kushiro Station, and we're going to walk up this main street. It's got some really nice manhole covers. This is what you get with the Only in Japan live stream. This bridge is really pretty and has a very beautiful glass kind of dome. So let's get going before the rain comes down.

00:04:24 John Daub: This is the eastern end of Hokkaido, and you can see Kushiro right here. Tomorrow I'm going to actually drive because my goal was to film the Hanasaki Line by drone, but I'm not going to be able to do it. This is the Hanasaki Line, and it goes all the way to Nemuro, where I'm staying tomorrow night. I'm going to spend the night here. So that's actually my car right there. It's kind of a long way—about 180 kilometers. But I get a chance to stop and see things along the way in a live stream. It's very famous for cows, and you can smell it.

00:05:00 John Daub: Oh this is so cool. This touch screen—what? Things move if you touch it. It's going. Oh, what else can I touch? Can I touch this lady? Oh yeah, she gets happy if you touch her. God that's awesome. I'm starting to like this city more and more. Okay let's get out of here. I could touch that all day. This is the Pacific Ocean. It's one of the most natural, beautiful. That's the marsh right there, and I'm at the right time. Did you see the deer jumping? I'm at the right time of year too. That's another reason why I came back here, because I wanted to make sure I get the marsh here. Alright let's get moving.

00:06:21 John Daub: The wind is very strong. I've got an external mic on. We are ready to go. Next stop on this tour of Kushiro—magical tour—is a covered painted manhole cover. I hope it's covered. It's a painted manhole cover, and it's about 20 meters that way. That's right, manhole. It's a long traffic light. Got to fight it out. It's a long 15-minute walk—probably at my pace 30 minutes. I think we have a lot of our Hawaiian community here because of the time difference. Aloha. We got this like 5 p.m.—everybody in the US is asleep.

00:07:12 John Daub: Oh before we get to the manhole cover, we do have Atari, which is the name of this pachinko place. That's pretty cool. They should light up those lights. But it looks like a lot of places are out of business. I walked down the main street, and it doesn't look like it's been doing too well. This is right in front of the station—that's kind of sad to see. So I'm hoping. Hey Desdi from LA. If you'd like to, you can write in where you're watching from. The entire globe is watching this, and that makes me so happy. Alright we're going to make a right here down the main street.

00:08:07 John Daub: Alright this is not the best manhole cover. Let me show you one a little bit down the street that's cleaner. Every time. The thing with painted manhole covers and cities that have a lot of snow like here—they get messed up pretty fast. There's one right there. A very wide avenue. Look at that Hokkaido bus. What? It's got a bear on it. If you touch the bus will it move too? Onsen. That's that glass dome, and then there's a bear on the front. I love it.

00:08:53 John Daub: Alright check this out here. This is one of the most colorful. I love the cool blue color of the geese there and then the warm sunshine. That is a manhole cover. If you touch it you just get your hands wet, hand dirty. Who wrote that? I like that. It's right next to the station here, right in front of it. Point of interest. Alright off we go before the rain. The rain is coming down. The wind has picked up quite a bit. So we're gonna walk across. I love the lights. I'm digging this style.

00:09:54 John Daub: Street view adventure. Not a lot of places open. I saw a couple of ramen shops walking by. Maybe I'll discover something new. That's another reason to walk around. Oh the rain is coming down now. You can see it on my jacket right? One of the reasons to always walk around the town is you get the lay of the land. You start to see a lot of businesses, a lot of places that you would miss if you weren't walking. That's why I don't like the subway—it's last resort.

00:11:00 John Daub: There's a lot of mom and pop shops, and they don't look like they're doing too well. And a part of me wants to just go in there and buy flowers, but I don't know what I would do with it. There's some chain shops. There's an izakaya (pub) across the street over there. There's a lot of hotels. I'll be honest with you—there's a Prince Hotel, a Super Hotel, I saw Root Inn Hotel which is right next to the station. And I'm staying at an IHG Hotel because they have so many points—the ANA Crowne Plaza Hotel, I think it's called. The Crown Palace. It's a nice hotel, a little bit old, but the staff speaks fluent English. I was shocked. So I checked in Japanese, and they upgraded me. It was just nice. And then as soon as we got to the door, he started to talk to me in English. And I thought that was so cool. He said, "Do you speak Japanese or English usually?" And I go, "Both." And he said, "If you'd ever need anything, just let me know." But I'm leaving 7 in the morning tomorrow. That's a really friendly thing to have people say hi and speak your language in a foreign place. It's really nice.

00:12:18 John Daub: Check out the traffic lights here. Do you have this in other countries? I haven't seen this in Tokyo. Look how thin the traffic lights are. The new LED lights—they're very bright. And they play some sort of classical Russian music in this town. Tchaikovsky I think. Those lights are super thin, aren't they? The manhole covers like this—it's just so much better when it's painted.

00:13:02 John Daub: This does look like lost in time. Maybe that's why the signal is so weak here. The funny thing is, I'm right underneath what looks like a cell phone tower. So why is the signal bad? Please do tell me if the signal is bad. I don't know what I can do to boost it. I can shout, but I would do that anyways. Everything is great. That's good. All right. You trolls, you know. Sometimes. Look, there's a cell phone tower right there.

00:14:32 John Daub: So I'm not going to get anything because I'm not hungry. But I was looking inside there, and the Lawson's just looks different. They got like different stuff at the convenience stores here. But I really want to get back to the hotel because it's starting to come down more. The rain and the wind has picked up quite a bit, and I know I'm going to get drenched. We're not that far away. There's a couple of more things to see. Now the back of these road signs here—when we get about five minutes further down the road. And again, everything is in English. My bridge is really pretty, and that whole area—it's about 500 meters away, half a klick. We can make this light.

00:15:18 John Daub: Look at how wide and open the streets are. This is a city of 174,000 people I believe, so it's a pretty big city. You see on the bottom right, the Fisherman's Wharf is very nice here too. They have a lot of restaurants there. I was reading, and I got to try to make a trip there. So you have these metal pegs—you see these. My experience was that these pop out of the street. Underneath them are hot water lines, and they keep the roads from being icy. Because a lot of the cities in Hokkaido experience winter for five months out of the year—from the end of November or middle of November till the end of April. A chance that it could snow. The cherry blossoms don't come out until May.

00:16:19 John Daub: Hey Michael Sassano is here. Hi John. Totally loving Hokkaido. This is my late mother's hometown. So I'm planning to make a visit here upon my return to Japan. Thank you for taking us on a walking tour. I hope the signal is good so you can see your late mom's town, Kushiro. I love the connection with nature that they have. It's just like, yeah, we don't need new stuff—we have nature.

00:16:48 John Daub: Last time I drove through this town. And this is one of the ramen places I saw. Is this the Jiro Ramen? Look at that—it's got the huge mound of negi (green onions). Oh man, I'm getting cold. I love it. Geese. Winter is one of the best times to come here. I mean it's sort of counterintuitive. You'd think summer would be better because it's warm, but actually for wildlife in the winter you really—especially the deer—they stick out with the white snow. And the birds that flock here, migrate here, are incredible. They were showing me pictures of it when I visited the Nemuro City office of the wildlife. And they said, well if you want to feature for bird watchers, east Hokkaido is paradise. This is one of the best destinations for bird watching—is east Hokkaido.

00:18:00 John Daub: Oh my gosh, it's really coming down. Across the street is a Discover Kushiro—that might be the tourism office or something. Yeah that looks like the tourism office. That's a pretty nice wide open 7-Eleven there. On the back of the road signs, I noticed this. Do you see that? They put nature on the road signs. Going in this direction—that's really cool. I'd never seen that before. In this direction, Obihiro (Obihiro?) is 120 kilometers. And then there's more nature on the signs. Do you see that? I'd never seen that before. They're kind of highlighting the fact that the city is very much connected with the natural world in the signs. So the road signs—they don't have places to go, they have pictures of nature. Nemuro is 124 kilometers that direction. I stand corrected. Isn't that nice? Look at the deer. Oh my, that is really unique. On the other side of course is the highway signs pointing in the right direction to go. But it's the back sides. I like this. I mean when you're driving through here, just a reminder that you live in a beautiful place. You have a lot of pride in your hometown when you see images on the signs above that everybody can see every day. I wonder if they change that up.

00:20:01 John Daub: Kushiro Station. Nemuro. All right, that's where I'm staying tonight. That yellow building. And they upgraded me into a room with an amazing view on the 15th floor. Felt pretty special. The rooms are a little bit older. Good to go. That's a shopping mall—Kutte (Kutte?). It looks like an old drinking street on the side there. Look at the lights that have come on. That looks really nice. I'm not sure what it costs—I paid for it with points I believe. Hotels vary widely out here. So I've been staying in a lot of guest houses and youth hostels because I like to talk with people that have been traveling around. Japan is starting to open up more domestically, so we get more people. I stayed at a youth hostel in Yubari before I came here. This is the first proper hotel. And I'm staying at another guest house in Nemuro because there aren't a lot of hotels there. The guest houses are the best places because they're all brand new. The guest house is called Nemuroman—like Nemuro man. Pretty cool. The place is incredibly clean, extraordinarily clean.

00:21:33 John Daub: The youth hostel that I stayed in in Yubari has the best food that I've ever eaten at a hotel. It was cooked by two ladies that work there. The story was that they work at the farm that's right next to the youth hostel. And the two ladies, they cook breakfast and dinner. And you have to get the meals. And it was incredible. It's all fresh stuff from the gardens of their farm. It's massive portions of the best food that I've eaten. Sorry, Kanae. It's maybe just slightly above. If you're watching, then it's not. If you are watching, if you're not watching, it was really good. Really good. I ate so well. I was able to go running a few times. I brought my running shoes with me so I could get out there. Look how thin those traffic lights are. Maybe it's to keep the snow off of it. It gets quite windy here so they're angled. As you can see, they're having trouble with their umbrellas. I think despite the wind, you can't use an umbrella here—it's not possible.

00:22:48 John Daub: Here's the end of the line and the bridge. Wow, the wind is strong. This is the Nusamai Bridge. We'll cross over and take a quick look at the bridge before we zoom over to the right. I'm close to the hotel. Here's the glass dome that I was talking about at the end of the bridge. It looks pretty nice. This also looks like a shopping mall. My hotel is about two minutes from here. If it were to downpour, I could book it—I could make it there in a couple of minutes. I don't think it really matters—I'm already drenched. Down the street, that looks like a botanical garden or something. You know what? I'm getting a vibe with the street lights like this of Budapest. Crossing over the Nusamai Bridge. I've been to Budapest maybe half a dozen times. It just feels like Budapest in a way.

00:24:38 John Daub: Hotel and Spa La Vista. Hasta la vista. Hasta la vista, baby. If this was a hill, this would be Budapest. This looks like the Chain Bridge sort of in a weird way. It's a nice bridge. This is a very important architectural aspect of the city of Kushiro. And as I said in the title, this, and you can see it best from this. Oh wow, this is incredible. You can see it best. This is the only major city on the Pacific Ocean from Hokkaido. And I pan around here and what do you see? It's just ocean. That's the mighty Pacific. Hello California, aloha my friends in Hawaii. So this bridge that crosses over is kind of like a gateway to the Pacific. That's so cool. Wow. I wanna get on a boat and just keep going. And then regret my decision three days later. That's what I wanna do. Pacific. Actually, I think in that direction, that might be the Philippines. I think Kushiro is pointing a little bit to the southeast. Maybe it goes down to Mexico.

00:26:42 John Daub: Alright, I'm not gonna go across the bridge, but it does look pretty cool. It does remind me of Budapest. Hey, Angeloids waving from Manila. How you doing? Can you see that? That's how Leo waves like this. You have to do it too. My cap is getting wet. But I'll be honest with you, it needs a good wash. I'm not gonna go beyond that. Alright, this looks like the first Mission Impossible where Tom Cruise was in Prague. And yeah, John Voight got shot and fell off the bridge. This looks so much like Eastern Europe. It's got like Tchaikovsky Russian music. Alright, I gotta go to the other side. I'm just out of curiosity. The signal might die, I'm not sure. But this looks like Tom Cruise running through here because his mission got busted. This is so beautiful. It has vibes of Eastern Europe like Prague and Budapest. I am digging this. What? Look at this. This is so nice. A lot of wind. I don't know what you guys can hear. This is pretty. Looks like there's a yakiniku (grilled meat) restaurant back there. Oh, you guys see from the front. And there's a Kushiro sign. Nice! Oh, I see what they did! Cool. Kushiro. And the O is the sun. Cool. The O is the sun. I like it.

00:29:01 John Daub: You know, gosh, I wish I had another day to just wander around here. This is all the time I got. Tomorrow morning I get in a rental car, drive to Nemuro. But if the weather is really garbage, I might just stick around for a while. Gonna have to play it out. There's not a lot I can do. The Nusamai Bridge is said to be one of the three most famous bridges in Hokkaido. Bronze statues symbolizing the four seasons are placed on the railings of the bridge. This bridge that stands out in the setting sun of autumn and winter and the fog of summer attracts many tourists from all over the nation. Nusamai Square by the bridge has a monument from which Kushiro no Yoru, Night of Kushiro, a hit song sung by Kenichi Mikawa and written by Kushiro native Hideo Usa can be heard. And the fisherman's wharf. There it is! Oh, so that building on the other side of here—that's the fisherman's wharf. They also illuminate the bridge at night.

00:30:12 John Daub: This is the fisherman's wharf. It's really pretty. We need some seagulls here, but even the gulls don't want to hang around. Look at that ship coming in. Whoa! What? They get sea lions that come into port here? This is Kuchon. So Kuchon is a seal that lives here? Is that a seal? I don't know what that is, but it says here—what? I don't know. Otter. Thanks for the correction. The Canadians know. Otter, you're doing. Oh, look out on the other side. That looks like a pretty cool club. You can hear the music. Light streaming, laser show. Everybody wants to be—that's the place to be. You can come by ship from afar. That's on the otter side.

00:32:06 John Daub: So this fisherman's wharf is called Moo, or at least it has Moo written on the side of it. It looks like an English river dock. Interesting. It is nice. It's cold enough where I can't smell the sea, but it's there. Oh my gosh. I got to find a place to eat dinner too. I might just get takeout and have to finish this video I'm editing. So I might just do that. But if you find a place nearby, it might be something that you go in and you eat. And it looks like this has some kind of outdoor fisherman's restaurant. Let's check it out.

00:33:18 John Daub: So for those joining us, we're in Kushiro, which is the only big city on the Pacific Ocean. Hakodate is on the straits. So this is like Kushiro Fisherman's Wharf. Interesting. Maybe they have a museum. Maybe they have a menu here. I don't know. I can ask what time it closes. There's nobody in there. I don't know if it's open or what, but it looks like they have some small stands that serve local seafood and beer and stuff. You know, somebody who likes to support local businesses. So I might go in there and have a bite. So I'll see if I can get permission and then, oh, they do got ramen in there. I'll see if I can get permission to film here. And then I'll see if it's—the rain's coming down. All right, that's better. Let's see if I can get permission to film in here and then I'll do a live stream. This smells really good. And there's my hotel. No customers, only employees. There's my beautiful yellow hotel. Very nice. Nice people in there. I like this. I'm digging this. What do you guys think of Kushiro? Is this the city you'd like to come and stay in?

00:34:45 John Daub: So I'm making an episode that's celebrating the Hanasaki Line. This is something that I just wanted to do. They were going to close it. The locals of Nemuro crowdfunded the Hanasaki Line to keep it going. And it's one of these lines I think that if you come to Hokkaido, I want people to ride it so it never goes out of business. Because I don't want to lose any train lines, especially one as scenic as this one. Imagine, the only way to get to Nemuro is by bus. That's not right. So I'll do everything in my power, which is make a main channel episode to protect the Nemuro. So I'll be doing that. And hope you guys will see that. And I'll make sure that if you want to visit the Hanasaki Line, I think that you guys would support that too. Oh my gosh, the wind. Ah! It's right on my back. Ah, it's so cold. It's supposed to be summer. Look at how fast those clouds are moving. Reminds me of Fukui City down in the south. Yeah. To me, a Budapest and Hakodate feel to it. Hakodate is a very European-influenced-looking city that has a lot of history. But I really like Kushiro. I want to learn more about this town. It looks a little aged around the station, but when you come out here to the bridge, they really have done a great job of making it feel.

00:36:32 John Daub: I'm going to check that out for dinner. I don't think I'm going to do another live stream because I got a lot of stuff to do. It does look like there's some people in there. It has more European touches. Yeah, it does. I love this. They should have some bars along the side here, more places to hang out. I think I'm going to have my dinner in there. Even if it's just a bowl of ramen, it looks like it'll be supporting the local businesses here. Why don't we take a quick look inside the fisherman's wharf? I mean, they could yell at me because I don't have a permit. I hate doing this, going in and filming without a permit. But let's just take a quick look-see. Let's walk through here.

00:37:38 John Daub: Oh, wow. Look at these alien creatures from the deep. The crab season in Hokkaido is coming really soon—I'd say in June sometime. But the people in Nemuro told me that there's not a lot of crabs yet. And the conflict in Russia, the war, has really made things super difficult because Japan has to deal with Russia for a lot of things. I'm glad I came in here. Look at this booth. You can see me. Whoa. Very cool. Oh, this looks like the Baltimore Harbor a little bit. Kind of a Baltimore Harbor feel. One of my favorite shopping malls—used to go there when I was a kid in the late 80s. Must be a little bit older now, but was super cool back then. Oh, they got the Shiroi Koibito—the Royce chocolates. A lot of stuff seems closed, which is a shame.

00:39:45 John Daub: All right, so there you go. That's the fisherman's wharf. I'm glad I stopped in for a look-see. There's a post office in here as well. There's a candy shop. Get a gift for Kanae and Leo. Before I go home, I will do that. I can't carry it around with me for 500 kilometers. I actually bought her some cinnamon donuts from Yubari, and it's already smashed, and it got into my camera gear, and I'm really upset. I think I can clean it off, but it's sticky. It's not the best situation. So I don't have the space—I'm traveling light. I don't have bags to put stuff in. But you buy the gifts the day before you leave at the airport. That's what I intend to do. I flew in. You already ate those donuts. I didn't eat the donuts, I promise. They're kind of smushed. They're so good. They expire on June 1st, so Kanae has two days to eat them. I'm good. I'm on a diet now. As far as you know.

00:41:24 John Daub: At the end of the street, I want to end right here on the corner. That looks like an interesting restaurant too. I wonder what that is. You can see probably seafood, because they got a lot of that. This is a pretty interesting city. There's a lot more to see, but I thought I would just give you a quick orientation, because I also myself wanted to be oriented with what's going on here. I'm going to grab a bowl of ramen, I think, and then settle in by editing for a while. A lot of work to do. It's a neat-looking restaurant there. Yeah, I'm loving Hokkaido too. That restaurant looks like that's an annex, and the old part of it is this brick building on the left side. Do you see that? Interesting. A seafood diet—that seems to be what I'll be having for dinner.

00:42:30 John Daub: This is the end of the line. All right. Tomorrow, for those Patreon supporters, I'm doing a Q&A at 10 p.m., which is in about four hours from now. So if you have a question, you can leave it on Patreon. I do appreciate the support. I still have a lot of postcards—it's the Green Tea Harvest. So if you'd like one, I will be happy to send it the day I arrive back in Tokyo. It's going out in the mail. So thanks for the support there. And then tomorrow, it's going to be weather like this, but worse. So I don't know. Maybe I'll get a live stream from a car. I'll take drive-through sushi or something. I don't know what they got, but I got to drive to Nemuro. The car rentals are from 8 a.m., but I might just stick around Kushiro if the weather is bad and explore this a little bit more. And then I could live stream maybe more in the Fisherman's Wharf or something because there's some interesting sides to the city. I think we haven't even scratched the surface. So we'll have to be back here. Get your waterproofs on. All right everybody, I'm going to go inside, warm up, and then come out and eat. I'll give you a report on what it is like on Instagram and thewill.net tonight on the Patreon Q&A. Have a good day everybody. Bye. The extreme east of Hokkaido. This orange jacket has seen better days. Not that many, but some better days.