00:00:00 John Daub: Hey everybody, welcome to Miyazaki Station. Look at those tropical trees. When you see that, you know you're down in the south of Kyushu in Japan. I haven't been here in a long time, at least the station area. Last time I always come by, I rent a car at the airport and drive around. This is all new, the Amu Plaza. I'm not sure when it came, but that red stair escalator going to the top is a game center. Pretty neat little touch to the station.

00:00:29 John Daub: That is new, and in this episode I'm going to take you from here, the station, that's where I'm staying at the JR Kyushu Hotel, to Tachibana Street, which is straight ahead about 10 minutes, and then see what we can find, which is probably not a lot because it looks like the entire population of Miyazaki decided to go home since it is 10 p.m. Nichiran is the south part of Miyazaki, and we're going to this part, which is straight ahead.

00:01:12 John Daub: Miyazaki is not on any Shinkansen line. It's not a very accessible place, I have to be honest with you, but for those that do make the trip to come here, it is amazing. The food, the food, the food! The people are so friendly. Everything is so much more laid back compared to other regions. Miyazaki is even more laid back than Kagoshima, which is why I think they win the Wagyu, they have the best Wagyu in the world, in Japan. It's because it's so relaxing, there's no stress for the Wagyu cows because nobody has any stress here, very little stress, and the meat is just more tasteful as a result of it. I guess.

00:02:07 John Daub: But the station, look at it. Compare this, this is the capital of Miyazaki, compare this to Shinjuku Station or Shibuya. You can't. It's perfect. It's warm. You could wear shorts, sometimes. You even got the Shibuya TVs on buildings look. Pretty cool, huh?

00:02:46 John Daub: I don't think there's going to be a lot of food here. I've noticed a couple of things. One, in this area of Japan, Family Mart is king. I can't find many 7-Elevens. When you drive around the country, Family Mart outnumbers 7-Eleven like 3 to 1. And Lawson's, maybe 2 to 1. There's more Lawson's than 7-Eleven. 7-Eleven is national, but just not as much right here. Lawson's is all over Shikoku, where Lawson's is king. And 7-Eleven is maybe second, and then Family Mart is third. So it's very interesting to see the regionality of the convenience stores. You'll still find them, but just not a lot, especially when you're driving around.

00:03:40 John Daub: Last time I was here in Miyazaki, I think it was the mango episode. And I came here for the mango auction. It was a very expensive $5,000 mango. And I came here a couple of months before that in January for the Naked Man Festival. You can see me on this channel running around in a thong in winter. We jumped in the water, and I was cold.

00:04:23 John Daub: Tomorrow I head back to Tokyo, but I do because Leo is like growing up without his father. So I gotta get home. It is a pretty big street. Now, when I was here last time, I had to rent a car. And we stayed near Aoshima, which is a beautiful location. Mark that on your map if you come to Miyazaki. Aoshima is this amazing island that's like all a shrine. It's a very holy place. And it's a beach area. There's a really nice hotel, the ANA Crowne Plaza Hotel. It's a little bit older, but it's got some nice rooms looking over the beach. And I had a car, so I could drive out there. But now that I have to kind of focus on the station area for a restaurant for an episode I'm doing on chicken—because Miyazaki doesn't have just good Wagyu, it has good chicken—I decided to stay at the JR Hotel. And it's been nice because I'm reliving old memories from 20 years ago. A side of Miyazaki I haven't seen since 2003.

00:05:54 John Daub: If you get up to that street, I guess you can see it, there's a couple of lights up there. That is just lined with beautiful palm trees. It looks like Southern California or something. And maybe it's got the same kind of weather, comparably. But because we're here on the seaside, Miyazaki is close to the Pacific Ocean, it never really gets too hot. It doesn't get too cold. It stays pretty warm in the winter, comparatively. Now if you go up into the mountains in the summer, you can see the snow and stuff. It could snow every now and then. But it's a little bit rare. And I think that temperate climate also is another reason why the vegetables and the food is so good. The weather is just perfect here. A lot of sunshine.

00:06:48 John Daub: You can see different kinds of trees here. But in about three minutes, we're going to have a completely different experience. Now, another thing I love about Miyazaki is that it has changed for the better in terms of little stylish shops that are owned by small business owners. This is kind of a funky water fountain. Check that out. You get the water. It goes down here. It goes in this bowl that dogs can drink from or something. It's kind of weird. There's loads of little teeny not-chained shops in this region, off of this street, Tachibana Street. I love it. I've been walking around there after I filmed at a restaurant. Just kept walking around and looking at the little cafes. I enjoyed waving to the people. I guess they thought I was a foreign tourist. Hey, foreign tourists are back. Yeah, I'm from Tokyo. But that makes them happy. I'll play along. Yeah, I don't speak any Japanese. I'm a foreign tourist.

00:08:16 John Daub: Public water fountain in Japan. They have a lot of public stuff here. Public benches. Public transportation. A very wide avenue. There's a lane for bicycles and a lane for walking. And then there's the road for the cars. And the pedestrians can't get in. And the pedestrians have just about as much space as the cars do, which is rare in Japan to have this much space. But this is the main street leading from the station. And we're going to the next main street, which is the shopping and I guess sort of entertainment district.

00:09:08 John Daub: Now, I did live streams there. And you should check it out on this channel. We went hopping. One episode I think is really interesting, although the signal wasn't always great. I started off at a Miyazaki Wagyu restaurant. And we got to grill some of that A5 Wagyu. And then we jumped out of the restaurant after a couple of minutes to another restaurant with chicken. Then we jumped to another restaurant for dessert. Then we jumped to another place. It was this really fun food tour in like an hour. Walking around and showing you how close the things were here in Miyazaki. But more than that, just to show you the vibe. It's exciting. Maybe not on Monday night. Maybe. I don't know. We're almost there. This is the street.

00:10:08 John Daub: I got a couple of interesting maybe for you stories. Certainly to me. There was a... I had a Sony VAIO computer in 2003, 2004. It was a compact computer. It was nice. It had a little physical switch to turn the Wi-Fi on and off. Wi-Fi was something that was kind of new too back then. Usually we had dial-up. You had to put a phone line and you'd have to dial up something and you'd have this weird modem sounds and get your mail. But my computer had Wi-Fi. And there weren't a lot of places to get it. Except I would walk down the street with my computer looking for Wi-Fi signals that I could piggyback in 2003. And on the corner here coming up, there was a bank. And I found that the bank's main Wi-Fi had no password protection at all. This is 2003, of course. I'm sure they didn't think about it. So I would sit there for hours getting emails, responding and searching the internet to find things to do here. And just keeping in touch. There weren't a lot of things on the internet to look at back then either. I did have a website and it was a GeoCities website. And I was updating that too with pictures.

00:12:29 John Daub: Alright, here we go. This is Tachibana Street. Wow. Starbucks. That wasn't here 20 years ago. This is the bank that I was piggybacking. Yeah. Tomorrow I go to Kobayashi City in Miyazaki. I'm going to be eating at another chicken restaurant. The restaurant owner is bringing the chicken with him. I'm working on an episode about chicken. So when I drove here, I called ahead and my assistant had called ahead. And we booked Miyazaki City's restaurant. And they recommended this chicken farmer. And we called him up and he was super friendly and he allowed me to film in the chicken coop. And he showed me from the little chicks. Oh my god, they're so cute. And he goes like this. And I said, okay, okay. I didn't say any word. And I had the camera. And I walked right up there. I didn't make any sound. They must have like super hearing these chicks. As soon as I came close, they all booked like hundreds of them into the other side of the chicken coop. It was hilarious. And super cute. And they're making little chick sounds. Of course, they're going to be chicken eventually.

00:14:02 John Daub: So I was here on that corner. I think the 7-Eleven is where the bank is. Or maybe it's that building. I'm not sure exactly. But 20 years ago, there was a bank here. I'd piggyback their Wi-Fi. Which is crazy. Talk about bad security. But I didn't tell them. I was here for five days. I was like, I'm going to pay for this. And I had to wait five days at the end of the hitchhiking trip because the only plane ticket I could get back to Tokyo, I had to wait five days to get it. You didn't book online. I actually had to walk into a travel agent to book that ticket, which is funny.

00:14:39 John Daub: Tachibana Street is brighter. It's bigger. It's vibrant. And let me show you the palm trees here. Look at that. And it just goes now from here all the way down the street. It's really cool. It's got that tropical vibe. That's what's so cool about Miyazaki City. Sam is here. That's right, I'm jetting around. I was just in Hokkaido, now I'm down here. Got a couple more trips coming up. That sign says corona. I hope I don't think they have a problem with it here, but I know that they're being really more cautious here than they are in Tokyo, to be honest with you. It's interesting to see the differences. It's like Tokyo from four months ago. It just takes a little bit of time before things get from one place to another. And I'm a little bit shocked at how strict the measures are here.

00:16:29 John Daub: Palm trees are nice. This street is typically a lot busier even at this time of night, but it's just Monday. Wi-Fi piggybacking can't really do that anymore. There's an Appa and a Komeda's Coffee. That's crazy. Komeda's, I think it's a Nagoya chain that's really expanded fast, competing against Starbucks. They might have better food. That might be one of the draws. Just to share with you guys, the thing with Mister Donut is you know everybody knows about the donuts and the coffee, but do you know about the ramen? You know about the nikuman, the steamed pork buns? They're usually pretty good. But they did have a scandal where they found that the pork meat was not good. Some people stopped buying them for a couple of years. I don't even know if they still sell them actually. Mister Donuts used to have really good nikuman. Look at that shotengai (covered shopping arcade). That's bright. That looks vibrant.

00:18:09 John Daub: Alright, let's walk down this Tachibana Street and then we'll just go down there a little bit. I do have to get some sleep. I'm up at 6:00 a.m. to get back to work. Yeah, you know what? Let's cross the street because the rest of the street looks pretty depressing. It's like quiet. That's the hitchhiking trip I'm talking about. I don't think there's any video from Miyazaki in the 2004 that took the 2017 hitchhiking trip. Tachibana is such an awesome street here. Now the main street's really interesting, but if you go down... is that a fortune teller? I'll sit there on the side of the street with a candle or something and they look into your eyes, steal your thoughts and stuff. I'll never go to a fortune teller. I don't want to know. There's a lot of things I want to know like the next lottery number, who's going to win the World Series and Super Bowl. I don't want to know anything about my future. But they look at you and they steal your thoughts, right? Staring right in your eyes. Most people in Japan will look away, but those ladies they look right at you with their beady eyes.

00:20:11 John Daub: Internet vote: are these boys attractive or not? This idol group, yes or no? Would you want to hang out with them? So this street is a lot more vibrant. We actually found the one center even on a Monday night. Most people are saying no. The only thing separating me from a lot of beef is a small pane of glass. Wow, look at that man. If I had a flamethrower, I would so melt this window and cook this meat by flamethrower. There's a sirloin steak. Does someone have a flamethrower? Can somebody send it to me? Alright, let's go down the alley. Only good things happen to those who wander down dark alleys in Japan. Asterisk: in Japan.

00:21:44 John Daub: So here I got some information for you. So the Wagyu Olympics just concluded. And I went. I had to drive an hour and a half to another part of Kagoshima Prefecture for the auction because I was curious to see how they would auction off prize meat. It's different than normal meat. Now I had to leave early to get back to the main event, but during that day they auction off the winners of the beef. The cows that win become meat the next day. It was kind of sad. The truck came, picked up the winners. And the media is all in the tent because the prime minister was there today. I didn't really care about meeting the prime minister or anything like that, so I left. I was outside the event and I was filming as the cattle were going into the trucks and going off. And I was waving to them and trying to give them one last... because I know where they're going. Actually for me, I don't know where I'm going.

00:23:40 John Daub: Look at this street. Like flashing lights. Is this like a hostess bar street? Nothing good comes to those who wander down bright alleys. Back away. I don't have that kind of money. I did not run. I walked. Stay cool. Sometimes the darker alleys are less sinful. That's kind of bright for the sins of flesh on Monday night. The only flesh I'm looking for is Wagyu beef. Oh! This is the stream. This is where I live streamed three years ago down this street. I remember now. There were tons of restaurants down here. Yes! I recall now very vividly. This is where I should have come. Yes! I had a very delicious fruit parfait from this shop from Miyazaki Mango. It's closed now. And I think down the street on the right is where the chicken nanban place is that I wanted to go tonight, but I just didn't have the energy. I was charging the batteries, fixing the drone for some reason. The drone wouldn't connect.

00:25:36 John Daub: Look at that weird... Whoa! What is that? It's kind of a weird hostess bar club with Pikachu and strange characters. We're just gonna pass that up. See, I'm kind of missing the good parts maybe. I've heard some of you going, "Come on! Go in there! That's what you're here watching for." There's a lot of clubs there. Check that out. Wow! That's a lot of clubs there. Who's your favorite from Club Jungle Miyazaki? Do any of you have a favorite here? None of them look like Kanae. I think three or four of them are the same girl. They just copy-pasted them with Photoshop with different clothes. Some of them are the same girl. It's like false advertising maybe.

00:27:35 John Daub: So this street looks pretty quiet here. Alright, I think it's time for me to start heading back. Okay, so let's not channel Abdul. Abdul Salazar was his name and he was a character I played. He was up to no good. He was a little bit of a barfly. So Miyazaki City's got a really... Oh it smells like nightlife. Like cigarettes, old cigarettes. It smells like nightlife. Did you smell that? I'm gonna put my mask on. My mask smells better than the nightlife. Woah! Gold Harlem. Or Gold Harem. Dirty sign. Couldn't tell. That's why I had to zoom in. I couldn't tell from a distance. Sorry. That wasn't what I thought it was. I thought it was something else.

00:29:25 John Daub: Look at that neon light. That's really pretty with the roses on there. Look at that neon light up there. Wow. You don't see neon lights like this very often. They used to have a lot of lights like these but they're all gone. They should bring them back because they're so cool. Very retro feeling. But I think the clientele might be retro so. Takamatsu Street? Alright, let's go down the shotengai and head back to the hotel. I want to get back at 11.

00:30:48 John Daub: Golden Harlem. That's not exactly what I'm looking for here. I didn't quite find what I'm looking for. I'm not sure exactly what I was looking for. Just something interesting in Miyazaki. I guess we did. There's another Mister Donuts. A lot of people like to practice dancing in the countryside. There's a couple of TV shows on Japanese TV. They get groups or dance groups. They practice outside at night because they can't practice anywhere else. In front of the big windows. You can see them doing moves. They got some crazy dance moves too. I used to live in regional cities before I moved to Tokyo. You don't really see that in the center of Tokyo where I live. But out here I was walking around after like 8pm, 9pm. After the business people go home and everything and it's quiet, the kids come out and they practice their dance moves. You hear like hip hop and rap and other stuff. They are going at it. They got some moves that defy gravity.

00:32:28 John Daub: Miyazaki girls. Next to Miyazaki beef. Where's the beef? Right there. They got the best beef in the world. Miyazaki now. It's almost like uncontested. They've won the Wagyu Olympics. Either both prizes or one of the two at every Wagyu Olympics for the last four I believe now. Which is incredible. So I gotta explore Miyazaki beef a little bit more. They served Miyazaki beef at the White House last year. Or was it this year? And they had Miyazaki beef at the Academy Awards at the last one on the menu. That's pretty crazy.

00:33:19 John Daub: And here we are back at Tachibana Street. It's nearly 11pm. And there are some kids out. So it's sort of bright. So what do you think? Miyazaki is pretty rockin', huh? Which one is better? Miyazaki or Kagoshima? When it comes to Wagyu they're both kind of tied. They both kind of have taken the prize. I kind of like Miyazaki a little bit better than Kagoshima City. But maybe I know Miyazaki City better than Kagoshima City. So it's hard for me to really give an honest feedback unless I give Kagoshima City a little bit more time. But this place also has some pretty dank areas. I think we found them. Golden Harlem is one of them. It smelled funny. And I haven't smelled that smell since college. It felt like a frat house. Or Thailand. It smelled like a frat house or Thailand. Maybe a mix of both.

00:34:54 John Daub: Yeah, so I'll see tomorrow. I'm sure there's a couple of livestreams tomorrow coming as I make my way back to Tokyo. But the big one is in less than 24 hours. In fact in an hour—this is important—in an hour tourism to Japan has officially restarted. That's right. It's October 11th in one hour. About a little bit over an hour from now. So there's probably tourists at the airport camping and waiting for the border to open. That's pretty cool. And I'll be back in the Tokyo Haneda Airport around 5 or 6pm. And I'm gonna go live probably around 6:30, 7pm Japan time. Estimate when the flight comes in. Probably closer to 6:30. And we're gonna see at the International Terminal what is it like now. Because the International Terminal was a totally different place before. Now, are there arrivals? Are people coming? I don't know. The only way to know for sure is to go and check it out and see. So we're gonna be at Haneda Airport's International Terminal in less than 24 hours. And I arrive in the domestic. I'll just stop over there and go live. And then we'll see if we can see anything. And if you're gonna be flying into Tokyo and you're arriving around 6:30pm tomorrow, you're probably on a plane already. Just let me know. Come say hi.

00:36:38 John Daub: Alright everybody. This has been fun. I'm glad that we got to hang out a little bit here in Miyazaki. My goal with this channel is to show you a little bit of the places that I go when I go there. So you can kind of get a feel of Japan through this. Get a chance to ask me some questions. But also when I do upload these main channel videos soon, you'll be able to say you were here with me. And that's sort of cool. This chicken episode and the Wagyu Olympic episode. This is all coming pretty soon. Probably coming at the end of November. After the matcha episode and the Hanasaki Line episode. And the Skytree episode. A lot of episodes. And thank goodness Peter von Gomm's helping me with the motorcycle episode. And the Leo woke up daddy after three hours of sleep episode. That's every day.

00:37:47 John Daub: Alright everybody. The pork episode. Probably not gonna happen. Japanese. You know, that's not true. So I have a chicken episode. I'm making friends here in Kagoshima and Miyazaki. And the Berkshire Pork is also an episode I'd like to do. A lot of the places won't let me film, but you just have to find the right people. And I've been able to do that with the chicken industry, which is awesome. Hey Tess Churran! Long time no see! That could be something that's on the horizon. I might come back here in November as well because they have the Satsuma Potato Harvest. I was just a little bit too early for that. And then the Golden Harlem episode. That's gonna be... Yeah, I don't know. Maybe next spring. We'll see. Once Leo turns 18 maybe. Or is it 20? I don't know.

00:38:48 John Daub: Alright everybody. Have a good day. Have a good night. It's already Monday night here. Whoa! That's pretty cool down there. I think there's so many more places for me to explore. I gotta come here on a weekend and hopefully that this whole corona thing is done next time I come back. Yeah, the chicken guy was really friendly at the chicken farm. So maybe we'll see if I can take him out for dinner or something. Alright everybody. See you in the next livestream tomorrow. Bye from Miyazaki Station area. A lot quieter. I should have started the livestream there. It's exciting. This is not so much. Ciao.