00:00 John Daub: Tenmonkan, this is Kagoshima City in the very southwest of Kyushu. I've been here more than a month. You don't see bozu zuku [?] a lot lately. How you doing everybody? We got one more day of the Wagyu Olympics, called Zenkyu (All-Japan Wagyu Competition) in Japanese, and the closing ceremony is tomorrow. I'm staying here in the city tonight, and I thought I would take you around Tenmonkan, which is the shopping arcade (shotengai), shopping street, and also the entertainment district right in the center of the city. Not too far away is the crepe vending machine, and I'm going to take you there for breakfast tomorrow morning. I hope you like crepe. There's caramel, banana, chocolate, plain whipped cream. Tomorrow's livestream will be pretty sweet. Literally.

00:49 John Daub: Let's get moving. I got a lot of information about this street for you as we walk along here. Kagoshima is the size of Hiroshima, except Hiroshima doesn't have an active volcano just a few kilometers away. Kagoshima also has a streetcar, which is pretty sweet. We'll take a look at it rolling by from the other side. There's a McDonald's down the street as well. Lots of young people come and hang out at Tenmonkan, and we're going to do that too. I haven't been here in five years since the last time I hitchhiked from Kagoshima to the north of Hokkaido, Wakkanai. A lot of things have probably changed, especially with the pandemic. Let's see that streetcar roll by and then we'll make our way to the other side. Oh, there we go. That does give me a feeling of Hiroshima.

02:42 John Daub: All day and this one is so cool because it's massive—check out the little city on the other side there. I gotta build that roundabout for Leo; that's gonna take some time. That's weird seeing it right here on the street. I follow these young people. Interesting. So right here at the entrance is a tourist information center—probably not used too much. I don't think a lot of people from out of town have been coming to Kagoshima. I think there used to be a hotel right there. Things have changed so much. I did see some foreigners, but I'm guessing the foreigners that were here were actually residents. I did not say hi. Some people have the foreigner nod—you see another foreigner in Japan, you gotta give them a nod. I've been here so long I'm immune. If Ford gives me the nod, I will nod back, but I will not initiate the nod. I've been here too long. I've got you guys; I don't need random strangers. We have our community here.

04:19 John Daub: Whoa. Oh my god, that guy's rocking it. He needs a little practice though; he might have been drinking, which is normal around here. What is this vending machine? Eric's your six—where are you buddy? No way. Check it out—this is a Satsuma imo (sweet potato) yaki imo (grilled sweet potato) vending machine. Are you kidding me? And then this one—oh, does it come out hot out of this can? All right, who's sponsoring this? Get those super chats out. Yaki imo is like a sweet potato, usually ishi yaki (stone grilled) grilled on hot rocks, but this one just comes out of a vending machine. There's hot and then there's cold. Of course I'm going to get hot. I've never seen a vending machine like this. Maybe breakfast now has become... don't be greedy. No, it's for fun. Wow.

05:40 John Daub: All right, I got a little problem here—I only have a 10,000 yen note. I guess I'd have to stop in a convenience store. Hold on. Oh no, we're good. Boom. Zam zam. Actually, can I eat up? Because I don't think that this is a drink. Hey, Chan from the trunk. All right, it looks like this. Let's push a button. I'm going to push this one here. Three, two, one. Oh my gosh. This is so cool. It's hot. This is the name of the company here. Wow. I've never tried anything like this. Somebody call Eric's six—he's going to want to see this. Typically the newspaper will be wrapped around the sweet potato. This is plastic, but it looks like a newspaper. How cool is that? Holy smokes.

07:28 John Daub: So you recycle the cans here—nobody takes the cans home with them. This is freaking awesome. I got to open this. Oh my gosh, it's kind of mushy. Hold on. Look, check this out. It's kind of watery. Let's just open it up. Of course, in Japan, they have these easy-open tabs on here. So you know which end is up. This is super impressive, Kagoshima. I might get the crepe vending machine. Let's go for sweet potato for breakfast. It's supposed to be easy open. All right, try it again. Three, two, one. I got it. Whoa. It doesn't look that appetizing. Looks like a Buckeye. This is so cool—I didn't expect this. Just walking around, minding your own business, boom—vending machine that blows your mind. Here we go. Look at this thing. Holy macaroni. This is a mushy sweet potato. It smells so good. Oh my gosh. Itadakimasu (phrase before eating). That's good. Shan. Thanks buddy. Wow. It's perfect. It's almost like a sweet potato pie without the crust. This is wonderful. This is the best vending machine ever. I'll be back here tomorrow morning then. I gotta get this with the crepe before I go to the Wagyu Olympics.

10:50 John Daub: Kagoshima is famous for the Satsuma imo, and they're doing the harvest—it already started but it's really underway in the beginning of November. They start harvesting the potatoes which they turn into shochu (distilled spirit). Yeah, and I am doing my job. Alright, let's walk down the street here. What else we got? The shotengai ends. The bad thing about it ending here is that it's raining. So let's go around the entertainment district and see if we can get in a little bit of trouble. Oh! This is super famous. Does anybody know what this is here? This lady is taking a picture in front of it. Does anybody? First person to guess wins two points. This, ladies and gentlemen, is Shirokuma, which is a very famous kakigori (shaved ice) shop. This is where it all started—the Shirokuma. It's like a kakigori with white milk on it.

12:30 John Daub: Hokusan's got Meronkuma—that's a different kuma. Whoa! I actually filmed this but never used it when I was hitchhiking. The manager gave me a free one, and I filmed it but I don't think I added it to the video. This is a mega one, but you can see what they normally look like. You can also get a Shirokuma cake. Not shio—shiro. Shiro means white. Across the street is this really funky looking character. Kiritsu? Is that what he's called? It's a standing bar. But I like this character. Who does this remind you of? Copyright infringement. Anybody? This reminds me of a Sesame Street character. Doesn't it? Oh my god, this is crazy. That's Bert. It's like Bert got stretched. Or Elmo or something. Bert and Ernie combined. Oh my gosh, it's bizarre. Man, I'm on board. That's so awesome. Somebody call Sesame Street. Or don't. It's Bernie. Bert and Ernie together.

14:44 John Daub: This is the Ginza Dori (Ginza Street). It's a different kind of Ginza. You can see the rain coming down. I'll walk down here a little bit with you guys. I don't think it's dangerous, is it? Can't be tougher than Kabukicho. We'll go down here just a little bit because it is raining and I don't want to get drenched. Wow. Loads of izakaya (Japanese pub) down this street. You can smell it just wafting into the street—grilled food. Oh man. Kagoshima is famous for its wagyu, for its kurobuta (black Berkshire pork). It's so good. The tonkatsu (breaded pork cutlet) is out of sight. Also, Kagoshima is famous for the daikon (radish)—very big. Mikan (mandarin oranges). They're famous for so many different things. But at the Wagyu Olympics, they were ranked either number one or number two in every category. So meat. And this is a nikuhorumon (meat offal) izakaya. It's hard to know what's local and what's a chain shop.

16:13 John Daub: Typically, that's what Google Maps is really good for—finding it, clicking through, and checking out the website. This looks like a seafood restaurant. I'm guessing that the seafood is pretty good here too because Kagoshima's right off the sea. This morning, I was in a fishing village scouting another episode that I'm going to go back and film in a couple of months. I talked with the owner in another city. So I'm really looking forward to going back there and filming that area. It's a wonderful place and it's totally off the beaten path. It does make the street look more like noir. It's the kind of evening that a murder would take place. There are some lights at the end of the street. Let's go that far and then we'll swing around. I am getting a little wet out here.

17:37 John Daub: Kagoshima is such an awesome city. Again, it feels like a cross between Sendai and Hiroshima. It's got the streetcars and the shopping street like Hondori—that's the Tenmonkan. But it feels bigger than Hiroshima, like Sendai. Sendai is a much bigger city than Hiroshima, but it's small too. That's really cool. One reason I like Sendai is that it's a big city that feels like you can manage it. It's not too big. Hiroshima is my favorite—it's got everything in it. It's so small. It's just like Shinjuku. That's it. Shinjuku with a little bit of Ikebukuro or something. This is Daioh, which is a supermarket chain down here in Kyushu. Soak that in. There are alcohol pumps on the street. Of course, no one's gonna steal that. But if you've touched a vending machine or something, you can just squirt your hand. You don't even have to touch it.

19:29 John Daub: Alright, let's go back to the covered street again. Wow, this is so cool. I'm gonna swing around to the crepe vending machine—you can take a look at that. I wanna get some real food. I don't wanna eat vending or convenience store food for lunch—it's not ideal. Is it good if you're traveling and you wanna stop at 7-Eleven for a meal? That's cool. But you can't eat that every day. I live here, so I kind of stay off the convenience store food unless I really don't have time. So what do you guys think of Tenmonkan? What do you think of Kagoshima City? This is on the Shinkansen (bullet train) line. If you were to come here by Shinkansen from Tokyo, I think it's like 8 hours or more. Yeah, it's gonna be like 8 hours to get to Kagoshima. So I don't think it would be the ideal day trip, but if you have a JR Rail Pass, it's pretty affordable since it's included. If you come down here for the day, eat 2 or 3 eki-ben (station bento). The weather here is warmer than Tokyo—it's typically warmer because it's more south, closer to Okinawa. And definitely one of my favorite prefectures—Sakurajima is a ferry ride over. That is an active volcano, and you can get on that ferry and feel that energy. Because Sakurajima, when I was driving around it, it's still smoking. And it wasn't too long ago that it erupted with lava bursting out of the top.

21:35 John Daub: Hold on—we're going in. Hey, Colin from Foods here! Welcome! Kajo! I'm going to see what I can find. Check it out—this izakaya looks really cool. It's calming. Jump in there. That's another kurobuta. Oh yeah, it's got the Berkshire pork. It's so good! Deep-fried, crunchy, with a little bit of mustard. You got that sauce, that tonkatsu sauce. Tonkotsu is the pork bone broth that the ramen is in. I haven't seen many tourists here. Even at the Wagyu Olympics, I haven't seen tourists because maybe the weather hasn't been ideal or Kagoshima is just too far away. Most of the tourists are coming here from the west. There's Bert—there's Bernie, Bert and Ernie combined. What? And he drinks too. So if Ernie were to drink, that's what would happen. There's kurobuta rosukatsu—plastic model, deep-fried breaded pork cutlet. That Ulmer Ice looks pretty nice. And of course, they've got Shirokuma right there. That's one of the most famous dishes here in Kagoshima. It's like one of those things you have to try when you come to the city. Mark down the Shirokuma—go in there for some dessert. I think you can eat lunch in there too.

23:57 John Daub: This is a karaoke place. Oh, this is a game center. Are you allowed to film in there? Sometimes they don't allow filming. Let's check out this gachapon (capsule toy machine). I'm always looking for new gachapon. The signal might go out—that's the bad thing about going inside. Wow, it's pretty good in here on machines downstairs. Wow! Let's just take a quick look. I haven't played that game in ages. The taiko drum game is so much fun. I feel like a shut-in because of the coronavirus. There on the right side is the yaki imo vending machine. Eric, you get down here quick, man—I don't think anybody's covered that. The crepe vending machine I already did on the old channel, I think, in a livestream. They've actually branched off that. We've already gone down—that's the end there. Let's take a right. I think this takes you to Bunka Street. The crepe vending machine, I saw it in Kobayashi and a couple other cities around south Minami Kyushu, which is so cool to see. Miyazaki might even have one as well, and I'll be there tomorrow night in Miyazaki City. The streets are just so cool with the rain, isn't it?

26:36 John Daub: It says here kaki (oysters). Yakitori (grilled chicken skewers)—that could be interesting. Taxi stand. They don't have... oh, they have a couple of them, but not all the taxi companies have these really cool English taxi-looking things. They're so spacious with luggage and stuff. These older ones, I guess it doesn't make a lot of sense to revamp your entire taxi fleet. But there's some times when we have Leo and a stroller—we'll pass up this taxi and wait for the next one. And then one of these comes by—we just prefer that taxi. Wow, look at that standing bar. Just soak this in for a second. Put a pan to it. And everybody's having a birthday. Happy birthday from Kagoshima. Boom. Oden (stewed dishes). Anybody in the chat explain what oden is in 20 words or less. It's a winter food, but it's so good. This looks like another really nice izakaya here on the corner. I'm digging this place. Man, if we were in better times, I would totally get sloshed here with some friends. We could do a meet up here. There's a Tenmonkan bar from 1923 apparently. Everybody has their favorite oden item. Whoa, check it out—it's a booze shop that has kegs. Oh my gosh. I feel like I'm back at Ohio State. Kegs are bigger.

30:38 John Daub: That's the other end. There's one of those things you can get damn free milk and ales with. They got that really cozy ramen bar. That is a big pitcher of beer. Alright, let's go back to the main street here, and then we'll wrap around back to the front of Tenmonkan. I'll take you to the crepe vending machine to end this. I just didn't expect to find a yaki imo vending machine—this is awesome.

32:00 John Daub: Yeah, this is Kyushu Island—maybe the most delicious island. I think if you're a foodie, if you travel for food, you've got to get to Kyushu—probably the best. It's so hard to say 'cause Hokkaido is really good too. Every region is just delicious. But I think if you put it all together, I think Kyushu wins—from rice to potatoes to seafood; the beef and chicken is award-winning. It's got sake (rice wine) in Oita, which is really famous in the northern part of Kyushu, and then it's got imo shochu in the south, which is another alcohol that's distilled. Sake is more like brewed like beer—of course it's not beer, but the process. Sake has an expiration date; it doesn't age. You buy it—you probably should drink the sake within six months, maybe a year. But once you open it, you got to drink it within a week or so if you refrigerate it—maybe a couple few weeks, a month at max, then it starts to turn like a vinegary nastiness. That's another reason why you don't buy those 1.8 liter bottles unless you can drink it all within a couple of days.

33:32 John Daub: And here we are back at the front of Tenmonkan. Wow. I'm staying at a hotel which is just right next to all this too—8,000 yen a night, which is like 60 dollars now; that's reasonable for this area. The wind is picked up a lot. Oden is actually called oden in Sweden—okay, there you go. Sorry about the wind—I should have got the external mics on; I'm just trying to keep it simple. Alright, the vending machine I believe is on the other side. Yeah, it's right here. Gosh, it just brings back memories of when I was hitchhiking—I was here 2017, way too long. This might be my tenth or eleventh time in Kyushu or Kagoshima—I've lost count. I try to get here as often as I can, but the best way is to fly. They do have budget airlines from Narita—you can catch Jetstar, sometimes as low as 50 bucks, like 6,000 yen one way; just can't take a lot of luggage. We got a JR Pass—about time; the flight was about 75 minutes. Remember, I think we flew right over Fujisan so we couldn't see it.

35:32 John Daub: This ramen place—all right, that's on my list. I gotta think of a place to eat after this because it's a ramen place and I'm not sure if I can get there in time. Tokyo is a little bit less concerned about COVID than Kagoshima is. I just thought that when I was at the Wagyu Olympics—they were very strict about it, making me fill out a form that I had to update every day with my body temperature and all these other little things. I guess it just adds more security, but they don't do that in Tokyo although all the places have thermometers or heat checks. But not a lot of people actually do that before they enter a building—you're supposed to take your temperature before you enter a crowded building, but not everybody does that. Alright, here to the right you can see it. Whoa, ladies and gentlemen—it's been here for years. I first saw it in 2017 or before that, and then now again today. And this is supposed to be my breakfast. So yeah, I might be able to get one, but this one is chocolate banana, this one is Italian mascarpone, this is custard. Wow, custard banana—this one is pistachio cream. Whoa. I go shema's first—the pistachio cream. And then I got a little bit of a taste of the banana. That looks really good actually. Hold on a second—checks out. Hi, I can't try all of them tomorrow. Rare cheese, nama creme a la mode, or I guess it's like raw caramel, maybe the runny kind. And then there's chocolate cream cake, which looks good.

37:29 John Daub: So what they do is they put the crepe into a bottle and it comes out like—because the vending machine is shaped for cans, like 12 ounce cans, 100 milliliter or whatever. But everyone recycles the bottle—nobody takes it with them, so it's good for the environment. Tomorrow's livestream will be crepe vending machine with the yaki imo vending machine—I'll try to do them both. Maybe I'll just keep on going with that livestream. This is the airport bus—or one of them. This is such a convenient place. There's a link map in the description of this video—the airport bus will drop you off at Tenmonkan, and if your hotel is here, this is exactly where you get let off. So if you want to get a crepe, get it as soon as you get off the bus—it's right there. I think there's another one in Kagoshima somewhere. Last time I stayed here it was at another kind of crummy hotel down here that was just a couple thousand yen cheaper. I guess I upgraded this year—maybe that's a nice hotel, the Daiwa Roynet Hotel. I don't look like I can't afford that one that has stars. Cool, it's fun, right? I think we had some fun here—definitely click the like button. I'll bring you here tomorrow morning.

39:25 John Daub: I gotta actually—it's one hour and 10 minutes to drive back up to the Wagyu Olympics event area. I have to film the closing ceremony, maybe get a couple more interviews from the wagyu ranchers, maybe give some business cards and try to get some more wagyu episodes coming. But the Wagyu Olympics—man, that's an amazing experience for me. I'm gonna be cutting up some meat videos, eating the wagyu, and then using this because the top brand today—Miyazaki won the last category, but Kagoshima won the two categories before that. So it's always between Kagoshima and Miyazaki. Hyogo Prefecture, which is what Kobe beef is, came in third. So all you people—Kobe beef, yeah okay. Maybe Kobe beef is the premium brand of Hyogo Prefecture—they came in third after Miyazaki and Kagoshima. Crazy, right? Who knew? All you people don't even realize—well, you do, but all the other people don't—that Kobe beef isn't always the best. One of the things I'll talk about in the video is that they don't actually judge the taste at the Olympics—they just judge the quality of the meat. So the taste is by your own preference—you don't need to pay an extraordinary amount of money to have a steak. Kobe beef is super overpriced—if you settle for Kagoshima beef, you're actually getting a better steak according to the Wagyu Olympics. So if you go to Kobe to eat the beef, you're just doing it because of the marketing. Every beef brand is pretty darn good—although Kobe is a very good beef, don't get me wrong. That's one of dozens of brands, and there are brands that are even better. Personally, I prefer Miyazaki beef, and I loved Yonezawa beef actually. Wherever I am locally, that's the beef I eat—you eat what's fresh. If I'm in New Zealand, I'll eat the New Zealand beef. And when I'm in China, there's no choice—you have to eat the Chinese beef.

42:20 John Daub: Alright, this is for tomorrow although the pistachio cream has got my name all over it. Can I just... can I just leave that here? These are sold out—two dollars and fifty, 250 yen; it's worth it. Alberta beef—if I'm in Alberta, I'll eat that. Or forego the Kobe beef and go for Kagoshima or Miyazaki because they're the winners this year. Bye everybody from Tenmonkan. Thanks for joining me on this adventure and keeping me company traveling alone and making these episodes—sometimes it's a little lonely, and it's nice to have this channel and share the experience with you. See everybody—stay dry.