00:09 John Daub: Hello everybody, welcome. This is a live view of Haneda Airport at 6:45 in the morning. I'm not joking, this is before 7am. There's the clock right there. In fact, I've got to get in and board my flight to Shikoku. Takamatsu is my destination today for a location shoot. But it wasn't too long ago, about a year ago, that during the Obon Holiday, there weren't many people at all traveling. And now look at it. It seems like domestic travel in Japan is back.

00:46 John Daub: This is the automatic baggage check-in, which is amazing. You can check in online for ANA. You go right up here, show your barcode on the screen, put your baggage in this Star Wars type of capsule, and your luggage goes on the rack to your airplane. You don't have to talk to anybody. It is amazingly quick. I always get to the gate in 10 minutes or less from here.

01:16 John Daub: How you doing everybody? I'm off to Shikoku for another location shoot. I think I just got back from Hokkaido. It's pretty crazy. But I thought I would just check in with you and show you how amazingly busy Japan is. The Shinkansen platforms have been busier. It's not the same as 2019. But certainly is a lot busier than the last two years. This is all really good news.

01:40 John Daub: For those of you that have been looking to come back to Japan to travel here for years, a lot of you, I read your comments. We had about 800 comments on the live stream where I was talking about only 8,000 foreign tourists came to Japan between June and July after Japan opened the doors. We're seeing domestically, travel is back. The pandemic or coronavirus isn't stopping the domestic people from flying, despite the worst infection rate in the world right now here in Japan. I'm guessing, again, my prediction is this is all over and people can visit again in October. Anything can happen though. It's a whirlwind. Who knows?

02:23 John Daub: But the problem is that for you as a tourist, it's just too difficult to plan your trip right now. I mean, I think nobody, apparently nobody wants to take a tour. Out of the 800 people who commented, I don't think there was one person who said I wanted to take a tour. Most Westerners, especially Westerners, are independent travelers. And they don't want to be chaperoned or quote unquote babysat.

02:49 John Daub: Here we are on the floor of Haneda Airport. I'm going to go in and start boarding my flight. I took the monorail here. I've been taking taxis over the last two years and I still had to fly. But this time I took the monorail and it was pretty safe. Everybody wears a mask. Nobody was coughing. I feel a lot safer because people are adhering to the protocols and doing their very best. And it is always a risk. But that should never stop you from following your dreams, which is for me only in Japan and covering amazing stories. And I got two good ones that I'm filming over the next four days. And then I'm taking a break from travel and I'm just going to edit the crap out of them.

03:41 John Daub: Before I go in, just wanted to show you these vending machines. They're still here. These are the prefectural local vending machines with goods from all across Japan. Gifts that you can get in the domestic terminal. But I'm guessing that they're in other terminals. These are the strawberries from a certain region of Fukuoka. Fukuoka is very famous for the strawberries. So they have their Fukuoka Kit Kat flavored strawberries. You can get a Kumamon doll right here. Look at them. Can you even breathe in that? 900 yen. In fact, you can get Kumamon ramen. Wow. Is it a ramen or a bag? I think it's a bag.

04:24 John Daub: I like this. Soja City has curry rice from different curry places in the town, I guess. This is Toyama, which is a beautiful prefecture. I'm looking forward to getting back there on the Sea of Japan side. And they have some really nice confections as well. But one of my favorites. Here's the Fukushima one with the masks in there. Look at that. It's like culture in a vending machine. I love this. Here's Yamagata. They've got melons in there. But one of my favorites is the Akita dog because you can get yourself an Akita dog for only 1500 yen right here with a tuxedo.

05:01 John Daub: That's awesome. All right. That man is doing an exact posture as the emoji. You see that? He's doing the exact same posture. It was meant to be. So whoever came up with the design was right on.

05:26 John Daub: All right. I'm gonna get to the gate here. It's starting to get really busy. My flight's at 7:25. It starts boarding in five minutes. But I'm pretty confident that I can get to the gate in five minutes. TSA, take that. Well, they're doing a good job. I guess they're doing the best job that you can do at TSA. But in Japan, you can bring liquids through domestically. In Japan, they move like a ninja. They check you and you don't even know it. How's that? That's pretty good. By stealth? An x-ray, which is not stealth.

06:13 John Daub: There's the board. There's my flight. Takamatsu. It's right in the center. It's Mamonaku. It's boarding soon. Gate 46.

06:23 John Daub: Alright, everybody. This has been pretty awesome. This is a short and sweet stream from Haneda Airport. Everything's coming back. It's hot. It's all good news, okay? I know it seems pretty depressing. It's all good news. If you look around me, there's a bustle. A hustle and a bustle. And that means that it's not long before... It's gonna be twice as crowded. Alright? Revenge travel is real. I've seen it. I'm seeing it right now. People are going home. They're no longer staying scared, which is good. People moved on. I hope that the politicians do too. Make the call, Prime Minister [Fukuda?]. It is time.

07:08 John Daub: See you, everybody. I'll see you on the other side. And be sure to be livestreaming from Shikoku and an island on the Seto Inland Sea. And then another island right after that. And I'm going to Okayama for a night. It's gonna be a lot of fun. See you soon, everybody. Oh, wait. I always want to say thanks for the Super Chats. Craig, thank you. And thank you for... We did smash that Kickstarter goal, didn't we? 705 backers. How crazy. And Brandania, we're doing great. See you, everybody. See you on the other side.