00:02 John Daub: Alright everybody, we are live! Haha, how you doing? So in this episode I wanted to talk to you about my experience with the chūgata (中型) motorcycle license, which is up to a 400cc motorcycle. If you have any questions you can leave them down in the comments below. I kind of did this a little bit before but now that I'm near the end of the course I think it's good to go over what I've learned in its entirety because the exam is just a couple of days away.

00:32 John Daub: Now, I'm surprised my wife is letting me ride the bike safely. That's an important part of it, right? I've been doing this now for—I started the classes on June 1st and I finish on June 20th. So that's quite quick, less than three weeks to get a motorcycle license. This school called Koyama has different options for you to schedule. There's one if you don't pay anything extra, which is if you already have a driver's license—which I recommend that you do before you take a motorcycle license so you know the traffic laws. It's a lot easier that way. It's a little bit cheaper to take, actually I think it might be a lot cheaper. It was about 120,000 yen roughly, which is right now at the exchange rates under $1,000. But Japanese driving school is always going to be pretty expensive comparably to the United States where we learned this in high school, which is crazy. When I tell Japanese friends that they kind of freak out about it. What? You get six hours behind the wheel in high school and that's it? In Japan you have like a two-month course.

01:39 John Daub: So let me go over the experience here. When I first started I actually was late to the first lesson. You have to be here for 15 minutes before. If you're one minute late you have to start over. That means you have to reschedule all the courses. Now after you buy your package or your course you have a scheduling option. One of them allows you to schedule all of your lessons in advance. I would pick that one because then it gets rid of the stress of knowing when you're going to be scheduling the next lesson. I think I paid an extra like $150 for this privilege. It's a good thing because I see the lines after it and it's quite crazy. So you might want to do it. They call it rats here. Other driving schools might have something else. If you don't get this package after you finish your lesson you can only book one next lesson. So it's hard for you to schedule your life around it. It's easier with the schedule already decided.

02:33 John Daub: Now the course material is interesting. Because of the COVID pandemic you need to get your own helmet, which I showed you. You also need your own gloves. So get a good pair of motorcycle gloves. There's a place called Rikul (リクール [?]) in Tokyo which has a really good selection. I don't know how good the deals are but the stuff on Amazon sometimes doesn't look that good. So it's nice to try it out and make sure it fits you. Especially the Japanese helmets because I noticed that Western head sizes and Japanese head sizes are different. So you're going to want to try that helmet on before you purchase it. I've got the Shoei helmets which are really comfortable and it started to break in to my head.

03:10 John Daub: So I missed the first lesson. It was my fault. So I had to go to the center. I didn't get angry. I didn't complain. I was like, oh I'm here before the lesson. I just said, hey, wakatta (分かった). I went to the office and they rescheduled the entire thing but were able to fit it all in so I would finish it before I go off to the US the day after tomorrow. Or on Tuesday. Alright, so make sure you're here like 30 minutes before your lessons for the first week because you have to be checked in by 15 minutes before the lesson time starts. And sometimes the lessons are at 12:30 and sometimes it starts at 12:40. I can't figure it out. But there's an app that this school has that allows you to see your schedule and they send you reminders on the day and that's really important I think.

03:56 John Daub: That was a really cool car. Can you see that behind me? That was a really cool 1950s car that went by. Alright. So make sure you get here on time and make sure you check the schedule out. That's kind of an important thing in Japan to protect the schedule. Be here super early. They gave me an idiot test to begin with. I failed the last part of it but it was all in Japanese and it was going super fast so they gave me an English one a couple of days later and I passed that one. So no, I'm not an idiot but I kind of felt like one. These questions are so dumb. I was thinking there's got to be a catch to it. Don't worry about it if you're doing it. I'm doing it in Japanese because it's about $200 or $300 cheaper but you can do it in English if you want at a couple of the schools but I think it's important to learn the Japanese and be proficient in it if you're going to be on the road in Japan. Why not?

05:00 John Daub: Rich Masters. Hey Rich, it's nice to see you. John is joining the Japanese Bikers Club. I hear some money for your monthly dues. That will go towards some green tea on the road. I get a lot to tell you because Peter von Gomm and I have planned a Hokkaido trip for the end of this month. I'm going to be announcing it in this live stream. So get ready for it. It's super exciting.

05:20 John Daub: This is the course behind me and right now I believe that these people are working. I believe that they might be taking the exam. They're waiting to take the final exam. Now the gear that they give you—you have to have your own helmet and you have to have your own gloves but you get that protector which is that vest, it's made out of plastic. You get shoulder guards, elbow pads and you can see they're also wearing knee guards. So you get all of that at the school. You can see the motorcycle going around. There's cars on the course. There's trailers on the course. There's sometimes tractors on the course. People taking all sorts of different lessons. On the right side you see this is the heikin (平板) which is a balancing beam. The motorcycles are stopped there and going over a very thin beam they can't fall off to the left or the right of it. And on the left side is the sudden stop, the emergency stop. Where you have to go 40 km an hour and stop on a dime after you get to the cones.

06:17 John Daub: You know what? After you take the course you have a lot more respect for the road rules and the things around you. Because motorcyclists, you might be right if a car doesn't see you you might be right to go straight on a green light but if a car making a right turn—again this is Japan so it's opposite to the United States—making a right turn which is like a left turn, you're going straight and that car hits you you're the one who goes to the hospital. So you have to always be in like a yellow warning mode sometimes when you're on a motorcycle in city traffic. Gosh, I have a lot more respect now as a motorist in a car of my surroundings now that I've started to ride a motorcycle and that's kind of a really good thing. I don't expect to be riding a motorcycle as often as a car like every now and then. But just to learn the rules and to feel what it's like on the road for a motorcyclist it's kind of a really good thing I think.

07:16 John Daub: So behind me you see a motorcycle going by, do you see that? I would never do that. They have like short sleeves on now. I got like this armored jacket. There's certain things that go through your mind that change your perception of a motorcycle after you take the course of course.

07:35 John Daub: Let me talk a little bit about the course. So when I first did this live stream I talked a little bit about the beginning of the course. The first couple of lessons is getting acquainted with it, learning the clutch and the accelerator. So getting used to that using the clutch and the brake. There's two brakes on a motorcycle, there's the front brake and the rear brake. The rear brake is in the back where your foot is and the front brake again is like on a bicycle and getting the idea and finding the balance using a little bit of the rear brake and the front brake maybe 80% of the time and the rear brake 20% of the time. Finding the balance so you don't topple over you don't fall over it takes time to do that. So the first couple of lessons really helped a lot to get accustomed to the course a little bit but just to learn the basics.

08:40 John Daub: Alright, come over here. Now the instructors each one is different and it's interesting because some of the instructors are a lot better than the other ones. I don't know why. I get along with some of them and I don't get along with others of them. Some of them are here because it's their job and some of them just love to teach and you can tell right away when you meet them. Some of them don't have the patience everybody has a bad day or a good day but some of them are extremely strict without a smile and that eats at me a little bit and then some of them have a smile in a way that makes you learn and you can learn from it faster so everybody has a different style and as a student I have a different style to learn. You'll find though that maybe you can pick the instructor but I haven't done that and I think it's interesting to get different voices because each instructor also they tell you the same advice and it's always really good advice but they tell it in a different way and each time they do it I kind of absorb it in different ways too so it's not a bad thing. But apparently in Japan you don't question a lot. I want to confirm I ask a lot of questions and I think that might annoy some people all they want to hear is hai, hai but I kind of want to give feedback and get a better understanding my western brain maybe but it's okay if you do that but be mindful of the time because they have to wrap these lessons up in 50 minutes I believe so there's that.

10:08 John Daub: Nah I don't think so but I'm going to talk to you about the final few lessons of the motorcycle course in a second. Peter von Gomm and I will be riding motorcycles around Hokkaido at the end of July. We've already booked the accommodations we've already rented the motorcycles we've already talked with some of the localities to get shooting permission we've already secured gear so we're ready to do this but we're going to be doing it as a Kickstarter and bring you along on the ride. Peter von Gomm and I are both going to be making a documentary about this to you and I'm going to be sharing this experience. I think this is going to be great we're going to launch this Kickstarter maybe next week sometime when I'm in the US. I'm editing the Kickstarter video for it right now but the idea of it is to bring you and show you a different side of Japan not just through the prism of motorcycles and we're also going to be camping a lot but to show you Hokkaido I guess in a longer version not by a theme but in its entirety.

11:10 John Daub: I know that we're going to get bluetooth mics for sure we've already got that we're working on that right now but there's a strong Ainu culture that's not strong anymore I don't know we're going to kind of we're stopping off at several places to learn about Ainu culture so I want to focus on the indigenous people of Japan and also show you some of the smaller towns the cities and that contrast what makes Hokkaido really special and why don't more people get off of the beaten path and go out to east side or the north side and see those places for you and I think by the time you see this documentary you're going to have a different opinion of Hokkaido maybe and Japan in general because the biking culture is different here than in the US the driving culture is different and we'll have Peter von Gomm with us so it'll be even more interesting because we might not survive one another but we'll be doing it through Kickstarter and I'll do some live streams if you're an insider on the channel you'll get some of the same content and Patreon supporters always Postcard Club members thank you new postcard is on the way we'll give you some information there too but we'll have to fund this because Peter von Gomm's taking off a lot of time from work too so hopefully we can make a little bit off of the Kickstarter.

12:30 John Daub: This will pay for your obligatory biker tattoo. What? Is that obligatory? Really? Can I get a small one? Do I have to? Alright thanks guys I just wanted to give you a heads up on that because you're going to launch that in a week and I'll be talking more about it.

12:45 John Daub: Alright the final week of the course has been super interesting because they hone in on the course. In Japan it's a lot about memorizing things and not so much about learning it like the practicalities of it but actually memorizing the course. With that said I think they've done an excellent job of teaching me some of those things that I need to stay safe swinging into the left side of the lane when to go to the center line when to go to the left side of the road in Japan so opposite to the US the feedback has been super helpful they follow me they record my mistakes and let me know and I go ahh ahh ahh it soaks in and they're going to make a meme out of that one right? Ahh ahh ahh it soaks in and then by the time the lesson ends you just have a lot more confidence I think and it has a lot to do with being confident with your ability to be on the motorcycle because if you don't have that you might not go in fast enough you might fall down there's a lot of things that can go wrong for a course like this.

14:02 John Daub: The course is super crowded on the weekends especially not right now I think they're doing the exams but in the mornings and in the afternoons it can get quite congested. This is not like real driving so your mindset's different you can't go faster than 40 kilometers per hour which is the fastest you have to do on the course so let me talk a little bit about the elements of the course test.

14:25 John Daub: Okay all right so I have the course memorized in my mind now you start off but every single movement that you do of course is being scrutinized so you have to grab the handles you have to you know look left and you have to make sure there's no oncoming traffic and when there are no cars coming you kick the stand you get onto the bike you know put it in the turn on the ignition turn the key turn on the ignition put it in first gear and then you do a safety check and then you pull out but if you memorize the course you kind of know where all the safety checks are you have to know exactly when to look down or to look at the blind spot and here I've been doing it all wrong until today and he gave me a good one I'm not going to do it again. It's the job to correct all of my bad habits so now in my mind tonight I have to before I go to sleep close my eyes and drive today's lesson again hopefully that this video will help jog my memories.

15:31 John Daub: So this chūgata is for up to 400cc's and then there's an ōgata (大型) license which will let you go above 400cc's there's also a shōgata (小型) license I believe and that's only for 125cc's and if you have a regular Japanese driver's license you can drive 50cc's which are like mopeds without needing a motorcycle license you just have to know the rules of the road but I think it is really valuable to have a motorcycle license if you're going to be even riding a moped because there's a lot of different things to think about when you're on two wheels compared to four in Japan and I'm really glad that I did this so this is up to 400cc which is enough power to go on highways and to get around but probably after a few months of this up I want to go for the next one. This course is I believe 17 hours or 17 courses to finish this so you have to take 17 lessons I spread that out over 20 days so it's quite a busy schedule. For the ōgata license the heavier motorcycles it's 12 hours so it's not quite as much time because they figure if you've taken the first license you probably have a pretty good handle of the basics.

16:50 John Daub: There's only one other exercise that's different on the course. Yeah Rayner's writing in here 650cc for konnichiwa oh that was nice I think she's watching live too so that's really cool. Yeah 650cc's for learners wow Japan's pretty conservative so the bike that I got in Hokkaido is the Honda 400X and I believe Peter von Gomm got a Yamaha 900 Tracer so he got an ōgata and I got a chūgata of course he had to go bigger I would too if I were him too.

17:27 John Daub: Just remember the course is important because if you don't know the course then you're not doing the because the course is so short things come up too quickly for you to rationalize it you have to have the course memorized in order to make those turns. Make sure you swing to the center line you do the right correction and you have to practice it you have to make sure you have the necessary conflicts with your eyes turn into the lanes stop before the line there's so many things that are going through your mind when you're practicing it on the day of the exam you don't want to have to think about the basics you want it to be a habit so for the next for the last three days I'm pretty much doing practicing of the course however tomorrow today's lesson was interesting you want to hear about it? If you're still listening, you probably do.

18:18 John Daub: There's a couple of lessons, the simulator one, and then there's the one today where they try to kill you, I think. Like try to do you harm. But not seriously, but they teach you some of the things that could kill you on a motorcycle. And it's so valuable to see it in person. We got in the car with the instructor, and there was another instructor on a motorcycle, and they did situations that we would be in normally. Like when we have a green light, and it's our right of way to go straight, and there's a driver in a car who doesn't see the motorcycle and starts to turn right, which is a left turn in the U.S. because it's opposite. And he would hit us, and we would go to the hospital. So we have to think about that, like maybe not accelerate through an intersection because then we can't get out of the way. That's probably one of the biggest accidents that we've had in our lives. And that's what's happening in Japan. We have the right of way, but the car doesn't see us and hits us because they're doing a turn. You can't assume that they're going to stop, especially with the oldest population in the world. It's a little bit worrisome.

19:29 John Daub: The course, how much is the course? I believe the exam itself is included in the course. The course was a little bit under $1,000 for the 17 hours of instruction. So I think I'm going to be okay with the exam. I might fail it. If you do, you just pick yourself up and do it again. So I think I'll be okay. There's two courses, an A and a B. The difference, you have to memorize both courses, and on the day of the exam they tell you which course. The good thing is that the B course is only slightly altered, just enough to irritate you, but enough also where you have to do some effort to study it. But it's not a big difference. After you've gotten it down, you start to think, that's not that bad. But can be tough to memorize the course. There's basically like three and a half laps around the course.

20:25 John Daub: And if you want to practice the course, take pictures of it inside of the school, and then go to Google Maps. I did this with my car license at Samisu when I had to go and take the driving exam there. You use Google Maps and take a screenshot of the course with no one on it, and use your finger and trace it, and then delete it all and do it again. And you keep doing this until you start to remember in your mind, right? And that's how I memorized the course and was able to pass it, because of the Google Maps, being able to use that to my advantage. You can do it with this school as well. This course seems to be more complicated than the one at Shinagawa, but I think I got it down. So on Monday, maybe you'll see a very happy John Daub or a very disappointed John Daub, but I don't think I'll be that disappointed. I'll understand. If I fail, I won't be disappointed. I would have deserved it. But since I got to get this license for the end of July, I got plenty of options, plenty of chances to pass this should I fail, which I won't.

21:30 John Daub: I'm going to walk to Futako Tamagawa and take you with me. I want to show you some of the course material here. So this is the rider's textbook. This is my other glove here. So you get a rider's textbook. You can do automatic motorcycles too, but I think that they're kind of boring. You want to do manual. Like 99% of them. I think 99% of the people do manual, I believe. The textbook is pretty good. Everything in my textbook, you can take a look at it here. It's all in Japanese. So I like this because I can study some of the bike parts in Japanese and get a better understanding of it. Because I'm not a biker or a motorcyclist, I don't know some of the parts myself, so I have to look them up. But it does a really good job of showing you with the images. There's a picture of the simulator right there. So it looks exactly like that too. How to walk the bike in a figure eight. All the stuff that we did. This is an automatic motorcycle in Japan. There's loads of them. And there's the manual. I'm doing the manual. And they show you all the techniques on how to do it. It's a really good textbook. It's so much information. But you get this with the course.

23:00 John Daub: This is also the lesson manual. So this is for the school. And it lays out what the courses mean. And you can see everything is in Japanese. Again, you can pay another few hundred dollars and you can get it in English. The English speaking instructors are really good. They speak fluent English. It's not a problem then. You just have to go with your comfort level. Here's the schedule. This is really important to take a look at here. In the afternoon, it starts on the 30s. You see here. And they put it in bold. Because again, if you're 15 minutes late, you'll miss your class. You have to reschedule it all again. 15 minutes. Sorry, if you're not 15 minutes early, you have to check in 15 minutes before these times. So it says here, like I started today at 11:40. So I was here at 11:10 actually. So I checked in. You have to be here by 11:25. But I was here at 11:10 and didn't have to worry about it. Just in case my train was late or something. Just make sure you're here 15 minutes before the start. 20 minutes before the start time. Maybe you should put that in your mind. So you can get your information. Show them your paperwork and your driver's license, which you have to do each time. Again, if you're 15 minutes late, it's over. I know because that happened to me. This is my course schedule. I don't want to show my numbers and stuff here. But this is my original schedule. You can see a lot of it was on the weekdays because the weekends are scheduled far in advance. And then my graduation date was here on the 20th. But I got to take it this weekend because I messed up and I missed the first. I was late. So that threw everything up.

24:56 John Daub: You guys getting this? The hardest thing about this was to just go to the school and take the first lesson. After that, it just falls into place. You get used to going in there 15 minutes early, putting on your gear, waiting, getting called in by the instructor. It's the same pattern. But the hardest thing was just getting used to this whole thing. Keep in mind that in the summer, it's really hot. When is the best time to take motorcycle lessons? The spring when it's cooler. Because you got to wear a long jacket, a long sleeve shirt. You got to wear pants. You got to wear long socks. And you have to have appropriate shoes. In the summertime, no shorts. It's going to be hot as Australia. It's hot in the Japanese summer. So you probably don't want to take it in August. But if that's the only time you can take it, then you got to do it in August, right?

25:57 John Daub: I'm putting the helmet away. I'm going to take you now to Futako Tamagawa Station and show you the walk here. Because it's kind of nerve-wracking. It's a nice helmet Peter von Gomm recommended. You can hear them with announcements very often. It's almost like military precision with the announcements. They play music. This is still Japan. So you cannot ride a motorcycle with shorts. Or at least you shouldn't. And you get the feeling that a lot of these instructors are ex-police officers. And they care about your safety. So they are pretty strict. But I wouldn't want it any other way. Teachers that weren't strict enough sometimes didn't care. Because I don't know. There are teachers that I liked when I was a kid and teachers that I didn't like. Now I'm getting older, I kind of respect the strictness.

27:27 John Daub: So this is the entrance to the school. They do have buses for certain places that will bring you here. This is where I go on every day. They take your temperature, give you alcohol. You go to the check-in desk and get your... They get your... He's riding a motorcycle to take a motorcycle class. That's pretty cool. Maybe he's going from chūgata to ōgata. Maybe I will. Start a biker club. I don't know. First, I got to get comfortable with this. But it's a completely different way to take a look at Japan. Once I started driving, I noticed that this is the path that I have to walk on. It's really narrow. Once I started driving, I started to see Japan in another way. Because in Tokyo, you don't really need a car. But Japan is very much a car culture.

28:35 John Daub: I don't think you're allowed to do that. Right? I don't think you're allowed to do what that motorcycle guy did. You have to wait in line like they're doing. I asked a lot of questions. I also said, look, I've seen motorcyclists at red lights. They just go right by me. And is that illegal? And they said no. So I guess the cops stop them a lot for that. But if you're in a hurry, sometimes you don't care about the law. But the police here are very strict. They don't let you off a lot. There's Futako Tamagawa. You can see there's a lot of stuff going on on the river on the weekends. Natalie, we leave here. We leave on Tuesday. Wow, look at that. That's a pretty sweet looking little van there. We're leaving on Tuesday morning for the US. So I've got a few more days. Did anybody see the video I just released yesterday on Melody Roads? This is a very relevant episode to driving. Another thing I picked up, thankfully, because once I got my driver's license, I could make videos like this. And I saw Japan in another way because of the cars. So that Melody Road is, I knew about them before, but I could cover it better when you have a car. This road is so narrow. So you see there's a lane for bicycles. That's the white arrow on the road there. But there's not a lot of space for cars. You're supposed to ride here. Not a lot of people do that. Sometimes they'll ride here because it's safer. But I guess you have to do what makes you feel comfortable. It's about a, I don't know, like, I'd say five minute walk to Futako Tamagawa Station. There's the station over there. Underneath the bridge, you can see the end of it there. But there's always a lot of traffic.

30:37 John Daub: I want to show you the politician that Peter von Gomm gets a giggle out of. I don't know why. But he has the nicest hair. Here's Yusa-san, and he just has the nicest hair. Now, in the poster that Peter von Gomm showed me from 2018, his hair was much higher. Look at that. That is nice. I'm kind of envious of that. He has a big plume. Kind of appreciating what I do have. To show his virility.

31:50 John Daub: So the walk to Koyama School from Futako Tamagawa is more stressful than actually riding the motorcycle. I'm serious. Because it's so narrow. There's other people going by. You can just scooch here. Then you have to make it across here. You can't go on the other side. Look. It's even worse. There's no place to walk at all. So, when I come, I always come from this direction. And when I go back to the station, I hang a left. The weather is really not bad today. It gets to like 35 degrees with high humidity in a couple of weeks, I think. But it's just okay enough. It's just okay enough where I can wear this jacket. It's got such good breathing. This is Peter von Gomm's jacket. Thank you, Peter von Gomm. He's loaning it to me. It gets really good air filtering in through here. So you could wear this in the summer and you'd be okay with it.

33:09 John Daub: Futako Tamagawa. It seemed like this neighborhood was always in Terrace House. That Netflix Fuji TV drama series. Because it's just so nice. And I live like right on the Sumida River in downtown Tokyo. But this place is just so much nicer. It's so stylish. Check out these back alleys and the restaurants here. Now you can see why Felix moved to Setagaya. This is the ward that PewDiePie lives in. At night, it just lights up. Futako Tamagawa is a beautiful place to live. I was here 20 years ago, as you all know, trying to find my old home. It took me ages. That's a nice selection of sake there. Where is the brick oven pizza place? I think maybe it was at the other street. Let's make a right here. They open up the restaurant and they have this brick oven pizza place. Cranking out the smells of Italy. Despite having, coming here like almost every day for the motorcycle lessons, I haven't eaten here or checked out any of the restaurants. Don't always look at the first floor. You can pan up and look at the second floor too. Yeah, it's a really nice cafe. But I think on Monday, if I pass the test, I might be deserving of a lunch here. It's just not the same because Kanae Daub is not here, right? Ryo and Kanae Daub have to come. The day before our trip, it's not going to be possible. Beautiful, clean, quiet streets in the center of Futako Tamagawa. A lot of money in this neighborhood though, on the Oimachi line, which is like the, I guess, sort of like the Beverly Hills of Tokyo.

35:57 John Daub: All right, there's the station up ahead. Hey, Scotty, Tyler's here. Wanted to say thanks, celebrating here in Columbus, including karaoke. Whoa, you're awesome. Thank you, buddy. This is where I saw Koyuki, who was in The Last Samurai. She lives in the neighborhood a couple of stations from here on the Oimachi line. She was just shopping at one of these stores. I was like, whoa. My apartment is just across the street, my old apartment. My old apartment, the toilet was so narrow. It was right next up to the bathtub. So I'd have to put my feet into the bathtub to use the toilet. So often I would just go outside, cross the street, and use the toilet here because it was nicer. Surviving Japan's narrow apartments for a year was really tough. One of the only places that I had a Murphy bed folded up into the wall.

37:21 John Daub: All right, we're back to the station. So this entire month has been really awesome. I haven't done as many live streams because I've been so busy. I have next week another video ready. I have a release on the melon auction on the main channel. So things are going pretty good. It'll be nice to get back to the United States, though, and take a little bit of a break. But I'll still be editing, and I'll still be setting up the live streams for later. Here we are, Futako Tamagawa Station. Thank you, everybody. I hope you enjoyed this. And if you have any questions about motorcycle school, or anything like that that I didn't talk about in the last couple of episodes, let me know. Write a comment below, and I'm happy to answer and help you out. I'm sure there's other motorcyclists that will lend a hand and answer some of those questions, too. Keep on rocking. And watch the new episode, Melody Road, just released yesterday. See you, everybody. That's where the Mr. Donuts used to be. Now it's this new building. Wow. And Kanae Daub, if you're watching, I'm coming home. See you, everybody.