00:00:08 John Daub: Hello everybody, welcome to Kushiro Airport. There you can see the three geese flying, just like the airplane I'm about to fly away in, going back to Tokyo today. How you doing everybody? I just returned the rented car, the Toyota rented car is right there. I think all of the rented cars have their offices about 100 meters or less to the airport.

00:00:32 John Daub: And I'm pretty excited to fly. I've never flown from Kushiro Airport before. This is the East Hokkaido Airport, one of the big ones. The Nakashibetsu one caters to Nemuro, which is another big city on the more eastern side, but it's about an hour away. Kushiro is a little bit more convenient and bigger than the one in Nakashibetsu. The other one in this sort of area in the north is the airport near Abashiri and Kitami.

00:01:03 John Daub: I'm gonna cross the street here. Already you can see the symbol of Kushiro, those really beautiful white geese. I also noticed another symbol of this area. This is the departures, we're gonna go inside in a second. But this tour, I hope, gives you a good overview of Kushiro Airport, this live stream. And I'll take some of your questions as I walk through here and see if they have lots of gifts that I can take back home to Tokyo. And what kind of gifts? Only time will tell.

00:01:38 John Daub: Oh this bag is heavy. Look they got a little cow pasture in here right in front of the airport. This is epic, this is so Hokkaido. It would be better if you could just milk it and there was an ice cream dispenser right in the back there. No seriously, it's all asphalt and they put grass here at the airport to represent the cows that I passed driving here. And then there's an owl, didn't see any of those, but that would have been pretty cool. This is a pretty neat airport.

00:02:16 John Daub: Alright, inside we go. Maybe there's an Owl Cafe. That's more like Tokyo. Alright, I've already checked into my flight. I have about 35 minutes, which is plenty of time to get in trouble.

00:02:37 John Daub: Alright, let's go to the end here. And I think we can go up the escalator. I'm flying ANA. This is the JAL check-in. And maybe there's an observation deck. Let's go see.

00:02:59 John Daub: Alright, on the first floor, what do we got here? This is the arrivals, I'm guessing. There's an ATM. And on the back here, a little bit of a museum. Here are the rent-a-car counters on the right. This is sort of an international airport. They have flights from South Korea, Taiwan, and Hong Kong as charters. But nothing with the major airline carriers, I don't believe.

00:03:27 John Daub: Look at the baby. I hope that's not real and stuffed. That would be kind of stupid. Sad. Alright, there's a bus that goes into the city. And most of the buses go with the flow of the flights that come in. So don't miss the bus. After you arrive, if you are taking the bus, either to Akan-ko (Lake Akan), which is the onsen up in the north, go straight to the bus. Don't go shopping here. Get straight onto the bus. If you miss it, there's not another one. Kushiro Bus Shuttle. You can screenshot this and zoom. The flight times probably change over the year.

00:04:25 John Daub: Alright, upstairs we go. This is the arrival zone and it's completely dark and closed here. So let's go upstairs. I think there's a gift shop.

00:04:45 John Daub: Today I drove from Nemuro, which is on the very east side. This is the easternmost point in Japan. And then there's the Russian occupied territories here. This is Cape Nosappu. And I drove Route 44 all the way past here. Some good drone shots here to the airport. That was a nice drive. If I had another day, I would go up here to the Akan Mashu National Park, which is so beautiful. You can spend the night there. There's some nature reserves, I believe, but they're a little pricey.

00:05:32 John Daub: Is that the Concorde? I'm like looking, is that a paper airplane or the Concorde? It's very confusing because if they bring back the Concorde, that would be the pretty good airline to do it. Second floor. This is where the shopping and the good stuff is probably hidden. Look at that artwork. Nice. Oh, it's really open here. It looks like this airport was redone in the 90s. 1998. This is the security to check in, take out your stuff. You got to go through the x-rays and whatnot. You know the drill. And to the right, there's some gift shops here. Any cafes or restaurants.

00:06:19 John Daub: Let's take a look here. Restrooms there. And there's an ANA Festa. I get miles if I buy from there. Oh, there is a cafe here. There's another gift shop. There's the ubiquitous Royce cookies of Hokkaido. I'm taking you now up to the observation deck so you can see. Maybe the flight is here. There's mine, the 840 flight. There are restaurants up here on the third floor. Oh, this is Mizukaya serving ramen. Check this out. And over here, this is a yoshoku. They're serving western food, mostly hamburg. That's nice.

00:07:35 John Daub: Those are the cows from outside in the grass patch. And this is the cow on a plate and as a meat sauce. Oh, this is the supakatsu. So there's a special food that I had, very famous in Nemuro that looks just like that. It was like a breaded pork cutlet on rice with like a tomato sauce. It was really good. That's where we came in. All right. Welcome, Ryan. Let's go out to the observation deck here. See if we could see the flight and then we'll mosey into a gift shop and try to get something for Kanae back home. She said just get something delicious. I can get behind that.

00:08:44 John Daub: Chan, I'm guessing you won't need directions. Um, I can put you in touch with the pilot. Open! These aren't the droids you're looking for! It works every time. Most of the time, it works every time. Name that movie. I hope that's not my flight. That's not my flight. I know because it's JAL. Look at the props on there. That'd be bumpy.

00:09:25 John Daub: Um, so for the longest time, the last four days, I was blessed in Yubari and cursed in Nemuro. And now the sun has come out and we have blue skies. This is craziness. So I figured I wanted to get a shot because I was hoping that I would have blue skies. The wind was so bad the drone shots really were nervous every time I took the drone out. But I got what I needed to get shot for this episode on the Hanasaki Line. Even the last station.

00:10:08 John Daub: I think there's an ANA flight that's coming in from Tokyo that's going back to Tokyo. Whoa sometimes you wonder if there's a higher power in the universe and then you see something like that and you say yes there is. Look at the light streaming through a break in the clouds over there that's just beautiful. No that wasn't my plane honking its horn I don't think. It's rain but look at the angle that the sun is coming at that's so cool. They call that Jacob's ladder.

00:10:57 John Daub: I saw the movie it was pretty freaky but I was only 12 or something back in the 1980s when that came out. Yeah it's been a pretty good adventure in Hokkaido for a week and now it's time to go home. I got some leads on more episodes. One of the reasons why you take your time with filming and meet people and talk to people and I like to add interviews into the episodes is because you meet new people and come with new ideas. Oh up here check it out this is hard to see but it says Kushiro Airport in English you see that. I guess you can see that from the plane.

00:11:48 John Daub: I'll have to put that on Instagram there's some people waving at me did you ever see a guy holding a stick with a camera on it before it is Kushiro we are really out there. I mean I don't think there's a lot of international tourists that get on a plane and go to Kushiro but I hope that maybe people will because everybody seems to do the same thing and I get that right. Maybe you want to see Tokyo Kyoto Osaka Himeji Castle go down to Hiroshima spend a night on Miyajima or just do a day trip there everybody does the same path. I'm hoping for those of you that have been watching this series for a long time you know there's another path there's another way to go and I've had so much fun.

00:12:41 John Daub: That's a Jetstar those props up that's Revan caller S rates in here thanks for the contact John looking forward to getting back to Tokyo from Australia I'll let you know thank you yeah that'd be great I think we're not that far away from it.

00:13:14 John Daub: Well it looks like they're hostages going single file like they're being taken aboard a prison flight or something I don't it's funny to see people that small on the tarmac this could be Con Air you see Nicolas Cage anyone digital zoom you see it's weird to see people like that walking on the tarmac. Alright let's go over here because small they are that little flame makes that much noise. Bag strapped on them okay he's holding something under his arm. Alright you know what that's really loud I'm gonna escape just take a look one more time that's an unidentified Jacob's ladder thank you.

00:14:53 John Daub: Alright let's go back in the way we came I think that's that idea that's crazy that sound now they do a lot of chartered flights here a lot of international charter flights not that many domestic flights coming into Kushiro not that many going out usually I forget how many flights ANA had here but in the morning people will arrive here and then in the evening people will depart here so then they just shut down the arrivals in the evening that way they can allocate the staff better so that makes a lot of sense. I mean you could possibly do a day trip to Kushiro you come in the morning you leave in the evening.

00:15:38 John Daub: Alright I'm just kind of sad because after three days and it's really cold can I said that it was about 30 degrees Celsius or like mid 80s in Tokyo well it was 10 degrees Celsius or 50s up here I had the heat on last night just the temperature difference between Hokkaido and Tokyo at the end of May in June is it's striking. The tree blossoms just ended in Nemuro about two weeks ago by the way just throw that out there so if you do come in May you want to see cherry blossoms you can go to Nemuro and see them there it's true they have a place called Meiji Park in Nemuro that's one of the last places where you can see the cherry blossoms there's a beautiful tree and it's around right after Golden Week to around May 10th it starts to bloom. I want you to put, that's two months after Tokyo almost. It's crazy, right? And there were still some cherry blossoms in Nemuro when I was there. Just different varieties that were blooming late. It's crazy. But that's how cold it was. And I kind of feel refreshed because Tokyo is going to be oppressively hot starting soon. With the rainy season coming in.

00:17:01 John Daub: All right, mask back on for the flight. One thing that you should never do is fly drones here. Actually, here's the law. You can't fly in your airports. You can't exceed 150 meters. So if the police catch you, they'll check your flight log on your drone. And then you can't fly in cities. So the drone rules are pretty clear. You have to stay 30 meters from people, buildings, and vehicles. And you have to keep your drone within eyesight. I have very sharp eyes. And you can only fly during daylight hours. So these rules here. You can't fly drunk. It's kind of a joke.

00:17:54 John Daub: All right, let's go shopping. Anybody bring their credit card? This airport is just surrounded by it. That might be the nature reserve over in that direction. Pan to the right here. Let's see what they got in the ANA. That's the store. This looks like a Kushiro confection kind of a cake with cheese cream inside. I'm not a big fan. Rice is always good. Oh my gosh. That's pretty cool. They have smaller versions too. Hokkaido butter. And there's the Hokkaido Pringles scallop flavor.

00:20:09 John Daub: Let's go see what's on the other side here. Oh, hey, they have a Yubari melon haichu. Well, gotta send that to the daimyo. Let's cut across to the other side. See if they got anything good in the gift shops over there. And then I'll go to the other side. I'm going to go in because I got so many batteries. It's going to take me an extra couple of minutes to go through. Flight's in 40 minutes. So we got time. So what do you think of Kushiro Airport? Leave me a comment below. It's a regional airport. This is a lot nicer than some of the other regional airports, but a little bit smaller. It gives me just a little bit smaller than the Tottori, the Yonago Airport. Kind of got the same feel.

00:21:04 John Daub: Blue Sky is the JAL shop, so I wouldn't get points if I use my ANA credit card there. But this one has a lot more choices. All these. Great butter sandwiches. All sorts of cheese. Royce beer. That's the company that makes those cookies. Yes, please. I got to get one of those.

00:22:36 John Daub: Oh, the Air Do flight just landed. Air Do is A-I-R-D-O-O. You can see that flight, the colors of that means Air Do, Hokkaido. Air Do, Hokkaido. So, let's clue you in. It's now part of the ANA group. So you get some miles if you fly Air Do. I think my flight is Air Do, actually. Not Air Do. Yeah, Air Do. I say Air Do. I don't know. They didn't explain it very well, did they? Air Do, Air Do. So there you go. I'm not going to take you inside because it's just a gate. If you want to see what the gate looks like, there you go. Inside this. I don't see anything. I don't see any shops. So I'm guessing you probably want to buy your stuff. Oh yeah, the flight just arrived. People are disembarking. So that's what I'll probably do. Air Do.

00:24:00 John Daub: All right. So there you go. Soon there'll be some international tourists flying in through Kushiro. I do think that the domestic flights do help a lot. Meaning I know a lot of you want to get JR rail passes, but it actually makes a lot of sense if you fly to one end and then you take the rail pass up instead of just rail passing all over the place. You can save yourself a lot of time. And when you're here in Japan, if it costs you thousands of dollars to get here, time is actually very valuable. So flying might be a good idea. I flew in through Chitose and I'm departing from Kushiro so I don't have to drive the whole way. And I think that's pretty good. Gosh, it was a tough drive last time. I drove all the way from Nemuro to Chitose. That was six hours. The gas and the tolls cost more than this flight. So just put that into perspective. Just makes more sense.

00:24:58 John Daub: All right, everybody. Thanks for watching. I hope that this tour of Kushiro Airport was useful. If you're thinking about flying in and out of here, it's a pretty nice airport. And it's a good gateway to Nemuro, to the central area, to Lake Akan or Akan-ko. And I hope you enjoyed it. And if you're here for nature, this is the best place in Japan, I think. See you later, everybody. See you back in Tokyo. Bye-bye. See you again. Bye. See you. Bye. See you.