00:01:00 John Daub: Hello everybody, welcome to Shodoshima. This is Tonosho (port city) on the island of Shodoshima. We're going to be taking this ferry from here to Takamatsu. It's going to be departing at the ripe time of 8:35, which is very soon from now. How you doing everybody? So it's November and we have some really nice sunny weather. I'm really happy about this. I don't know how this signal is going to be out at sea, but we're going to be crossing the Seto Inland Sea (sea between Honshu, Shikoku, and Kyushu), which is between Honshu Island and Shikoku.

00:37:00 John Daub: Takamatsu is the capital city of Kagawa Prefecture. I think so, yeah, Kagawa Prefecture. It's been a while. And I got a lot of stuff to shoot over there today, but the last couple of days here at Shodoshima has been magical. I had a little convertible car. You could see that episode yesterday. I took you to the far side of this island on this channel. Again, all live streams here. Let's get boarding.

01:00:00 John Daub: So this is the Shodoshima ferry. There's a line here. Let me see. So this is the ticket. My bag was open in the back. It's only 700 yen to go between Takamatsu and Tonosho. This is an adult ticket. Now, there's also across the way, here's some people disembarking. Over there is the high-speed ferry, so they're very close together. And on that, that ferry will take 30 minutes. This ferry will take about an hour to get there. The difference is about 450 yen. So you have to kind of decide, it depends on the schedule, but which one is more important to you, the time or the money? And sometimes it could be just the ride.

02:07:00 John Daub: Good morning. Good morning, Kerry. Oh, there's a RAV4. Some people say it's a RAV4. Somebody said they pronounce it race, but I pronounce it RAV4. It's a Toyota. It's one of those boxy cars. Now, these ferries are very frequent, at least one an hour going on until about 9 or 10 p.m. was the last ferry. And they start around 6:30 in the morning. And a lot of the commerce for the island of Shodoshima comes off of these ferries. Of course, probably all of them. There are other ships, but the ferries bring a lot of things, including the 7-Eleven truck, which will help to replenish the sandwiches and onigiri (rice balls) and everything at the convenience stores on the island.

02:50:00 John Daub: It looks like we're really close to boarding the ferry here. On the other side over there, you can catch a ferry from Tonosho to Okayama. And they have this really neat ticket where you can get the bus ticket and the ferry ticket that will take you to Okayama Station directly. And I think that was about 2,000 yen. It was pretty reasonable considering that it's about an hour. It's a 40-minute ferry ride to get to the other side. Ferries in Japan usually are very inexpensive. And maybe it's to help shuttle locals back and forth. But it does keep the economy going. And I'm sure that the people who have these trucks here are paying a lot more than we are for the commerce that they run back and forth between the island and the mainland.

03:36:00 John Daub: There's no train travel, of course, onto the island. The receipt is on the bottom. So I think they're going to take the top and let me keep the bottom part. Tonosho is really nice. The thing to point out with this island is that this city closes out around lunchtime. Like around 2 o'clock, all the restaurants close and there's very little open for dinner here. So, yeah, it does help to have a car. But there are other areas of the island that I guess this is mostly a port of call and people just work here. Not a lot of people living. No supermarkets that I could find. The rental car offices are on this side. Oh, that's where I got the rental car. Mishima is what it's called. The little car over there and Orix.

04:33:00 John Daub: We're almost there again. I don't know how good the signal is going to be, but my fingers are crossed that we have a clear signal all the way to Takamatsu, which would be really awesome. There's not a lot for me to do on the ferry anyways. So it's nice to bring you along with me. Boy, that sun is hot. Hey, Bradshaw Studios here. How you doing? Wow, this ferry could take a lot of trucks. Wow, there's an RV camper. That's awesome way to get around.

05:28:00 John Daub: Well, they lowered it a little bit. I don't know where we're going to be able to sit. I guess up on deck somewhere. I'm not sitting in the bottom here. Yeah, Japan has so many islands and there are so many ferry services. You can't count them all. So I'm sure somebody did somewhere. The longest ferry ride that I believe is the 24 hours to Ogasawara. And there's also like a 48 hour one that leaves from Odaiba that will take you to Kyushu with a stop in Shikoku.

06:16:00 John Daub: Into the belly of the ship into the great beast. Wow. I see what we got here. This looks very familiar. Look, there's even like a snack bar. Hey, I can get a morning coffee. But being me, I like to sit outside. Oh, hey, how you guys doing? You know what? I think it might be smart to leave my stuff inside instead of on the deck. But I'm not a smart man. So we're on the top. This is where it's at the top. All right. I'm guessing we're going to be leaving from this side.

07:47:00 John Daub: Yeah, I definitely should have left my stuff inside. I think we're on top of a ferry. How cool is this? All right. I know how ferries work. Everything's going to blow away and move around, I think. First. Second. WRX. Turbo is in the house. Olives. That's what I'm talking about. I get to harvest the olives yesterday. That was kind of fun.

08:31:00 John Daub: So these ferries here, they're all going to different places. This one is going, I think it's going to Toyoshima and Utakoshima. I can't see the kanji on the other side, but there's a small island. They're like really artistic islands. And the islands have found a way to make themselves relevant to tourism. Some of them will add in art installations, which is really cool. And that certainly makes us want to go and visit. But I think the challenge for the islands in Japan is not for day trippers. But how do you get people to stay there if you want them to stay there? Because accommodations and going out to eat, you want people to spend more than a day. But most people do day trips. Miyajima is a prime example. I think everybody should stay for a full day for at least one night in Miyajima. This is the most popular of the islands, I think, for tourism. There's so many ferries leaving every 15 minutes between the mainland Hiroshima prefecture and Miyajima Island.

09:46:00 John Daub: Do you think they're going to do the horn? Doot doot. Inevitably. Eventually, I'm going to have to do a couple of things. One, I'm going to have to put the wireless mic in so that keeps the audio wind noise down if I stay up here. Or two, I go inside and have a comfortable ride indoors hitting that snack shack. That's up to you. What do you think I should do? Should I shout down to those guys down there and ask them, what would you do?

10:29:00 John Daub: Takamatsu. That's a great question. Takamatsu is on the island of Shikoku. Do you know what Shikoku is? Japan has four main islands. Hokkaido, Honshu, Shikoku, and Kyushu. Kyushu is the southwesternmost island. That's closest to Okinawa. Shikoku is this mini Australia because it has the shape of Australia on it. It's kind of neat. So if it was Australia, where would Takamatsu be? It would be like where Darwin is maybe. But it would be on that side of mini Australia. I've ridden my bicycle around Shikoku and it was a really challenging trip. Not Tasmania. I think this would be considered maybe Tasmania. Shikoku does look like a mini Australia.

11:26:00 John Daub: There we got some mini trucks going into the ferry. I've never driven a car onto the ferry. That would be something I might want to try. I guess you just drive and park. But I'm always reminded of like the action movies or horror movies where things go wrong on ferries. And yeah, I don't want to lose my car. I think the last ones to board are these trucks. That's why they're waiting on the side here. They're empty. Maybe they made a delivery here and they got to return back to get another delivery.

12:05:00 John Daub: But we will probably be going inside. What do you think? I'm more than anything just curious to see if we can actually have a signal out to sea. So you might want to go get some popcorn. It's the evening. You could get yourself a drink and just enjoy. Oh, we're moving. Just enjoy the nice relaxing ferry ride to the mainland. I could smell some delicious fuel. Exhaust in my mouth right now. So worth it though. If it's so worth it, I should breathe deeper. The smell of exhaust. Haiki gas (exhaust gas) in Japanese. As we pull away just a little bit from Tonosho.

12:52:00 John Daub: I've been calling it Tono. I guess some locals call it Tono. But it's Tonosho, the name of the city, the port city. It's the biggest port city. And that's mostly, most ferries will enter in through here. There is a bus service and some accommodations in Tonosho. And I stayed here the last two nights because it was close to the rent-a-car place. Maybe I can see the car I rented. Oh, there's a gasoline station that I got the last tank of gas at. Bye bye Shell. Bye bye hotel. Bye bye Yoko's guest house over there. It was very nice. Thank you Yoko. I think that's your name.

13:46:00 John Daub: The ferry ride is about a little bit under an hour I believe. Alright, the wind is starting to pick up here. Let me know if the wind noise gets too overbearing. I shall get the wireless mic to do something to compensate. I guess I can get that out now. That's my wireless mic set. Oh, look at that exhaust. It's nasty. Oh, jingle. They have some music. It's a goodbye jingle. Alright, again, I hope the signal stays strong.

15:11:00 John Daub: I had signal for the internet. It was surfing the internet all the way here for 30 minutes last time when I was coming. So I wonder. I'm just really curious how it's going to be. Oh, so the ferry flipped around. I didn't expect that. I thought it would just go back the way it came. Oh, it's sad to say goodbye. Look at the mountains of Shodoshima. Stunning. This is my maybe third time on the island and I'm sure I'll be back again. Hey, there's a fine feathered friend here. Hey, buddy. See you next time. Stay away from the crows and the seagulls. They're a gang as well. This feels great.

16:59:00 John Daub: There's so much more to see and do here. In Takamatsu, I'll be spending the day there. And if I can, I'll take the last train back to Tokyo tonight. I just got a lot of editing to do. And every time I go in a location shoot, I'm just so wiped out when I come back. It's hard to get back into editing. But I've been struggling with the last episode. I want to get back and finish it. I tried to edit in the hotel. It just wasn't good. I didn't have all my hard drives with me. So, yeah, it's time to get back home. Film the sucker tonight. It's going to be a good episode.

17:44:00 John Daub: The olive liner. Alright, let's go inside a little bit. I'm doing exercises. Loosen up the joint. Our guy. The sunshine. It's about, yesterday it was about 22 degrees Celsius. I think that's like upper 60s maybe. It's good enough to wear shorts, but not enough to pretend like it's summer. Shorts are good until December here, really. Some people, until around December 10th, it starts to, the chill starts to come in. The winter chill. But until then, you're good with shorts. Shorts can come back in April. But I still, I might sneak them out if the weather's warming up. Depends where I am. I think it might be better to go inside.

19:13:00 John Daub: Alright, let's get inside and then I'll fix the mics and stuff and come back up maybe. The belly of the beast. Ahoy mateys. Oh, it's better down here maybe. See if we can find a sofa. Everybody gets their own row. I have an idea. There you go. I'm just going to leave my bags right there. How you doing? Wow, just like magic. Wow, this is awesome.

21:11:00 John Daub: Look, there's three other ferries following us. How dare you? We're just getting away from Tonosho. If you're looking at a map of Shodoshima, you can find Tonosho and you can actually follow the route. Google Maps has it all set out. In fact, they might even have a line showing the route of the ferry going to Takamatsu. There's so many ferries, they follow a line. You can see the one in front of us is just up there. So it doesn't look like they're moving at warp speed here. This isn't the Star Trek Enterprise. This is more like a ferry.

22:03:00 John Daub: Right. Google does show the route. Awesome. Dude, I totally want to Keanu Reeves speedo this truck here, jump on top and get a free ride. But I have somebody waiting for me on the other side. That would be an entrance. If I jumped on here and I came out on top of a truck surfing, it would be pretty sweet. And highly illegal. Let's go to the other side here. I'm starting to think that this is the direction to Honshu Island and Okayama is very far in the distance here. So I get that feeling that Okayama is in this direction.

23:12:00 John Daub: I would say that I think that the ferry is busy. It's busier than it was in the past, but this is a morning ferry. So people are doing a commute from one place to another. The vending machine. But first I want to go to the front of the ferry and check. So they even have free Wi-Fi on the ferry. That's pretty cool. Here's the layout of the ship. Some ferries have like movie theaters on board. So you'll find some really amazing things on Japanese ferries, including like vending machine restaurants. I've seen a couple of times.

24:02:00 John Daub: Going to the front of the ship. Here's the observation. Look at that. Here comes another ferry. We're passing on the port side. I forget my starboard and port. There are a lot of olive liners going back and forth. Pretty crazy. Oh, look at that. I think they're harvesting seaweed. Do you see those buoys over there? I think that's where they're harvesting seaweed. That's when you see all of those buoys. They're nets underneath there. They're doing something. The Seto Inland Sea has some amazing seaweed. This might be one of the best places for it.

25:39:00 John Daub: Right. Thanks for reminding us. If you learned anything, it's live streaming. It'll be port and starboard. Port and left. Both have four letters. That's how I sort of remember, too. Yeah, this is going to be about an hour ride. So I probably cut out in a minute. But let's go take a look at that snack bar. How much does the coffee set us back?

27:29:00 John Daub: Wow, you can get udon (thick wheat noodles) here. Oh, wow. They took all the coffee. They got to brew a new pot, which is a good thing. This is a coffee set. Hey, Alan on the Bee. Welcome. I guess I'm going to have to wait for a new pot of coffee now. Let's explore those characters. I want to learn a little bit about these animated characters as well. They actually have udon on the menu as well. Wow.

30:15:00 John Daub: Coffee set. Is this the set? What's different? Just the color? Matcha (green tea powder) and kitsune udon (udon with fried tofu). Oh, yes. And new pot again.

32:16:00 John Daub: We're going to explore the coffee set. Let's explore those characters over there. I don't know who they are. We'll figure it out. Boy, the poor guy. He's running the whole restaurant himself. Oh, there's the udon burners over there behind this plastic shield. We're waiting for the coffee to come while he's making some udon as well right now for this customer. Hurry up, coffee. I'm thirsty. They don't have a katsu sando here. They have udon, niku udon (meat udon), various confections. I just don't want the udon right now. It's kind of early in the morning for me. It's 8:30 in the morning, although there's no bad time for udon.

34:42:00 John Daub: All right. Follow this coffee. It's hot. Wow. It's hot. Hey, that dude took my chair. The coffee's so hot. Ah, ah, ah! The coffee's hot. I burnt my hand. All right. Let's try this snack here. It's like a manju (steamed bun). Oh, manju. Maybe. There's only one way to find out. Open. This came as a set. I think it's a good idea. Put a little confection. Upsell, upsell. Nice. Yeah. It's a little manju. So it's a white bean paste anko (sweet bean paste). The other one had a matcha flavor to it. I bypassed the matcha one for the normal golden one. I like it. Sometimes, matcha doesn't have to be in everything. It just gets in the way.

36:56:00 John Daub: Yeah. I usually have my coffee with milk in the morning, and then the second cup is black. But at Starbucks, I just get it black now, or any of the cafes, because it's just stronger. Hot coffee. It reminds me of my time on the Indian trains. Every station, you'd stop off, a guy, a chaiwala would come on, and he'd go, chai, chai, coffee, coffee, chai, chai. You would get a cup of chai or a cup of coffee. Both of them super sweet, filled with milk and lots of sugar. Chai, chai, coffee, coffee. Omelette, omelette. There's an omelette guy, usually. He's got pieces of bread with an omelette in the middle. Omelette, omelette. Chai, chai. Coffee. And when they see you, they stop. They look at you. Coffee? Chai? You say, no. And then he just continues. Coffee? Chai, chai, coffee. I miss India. I wish I could come back there.

38:20:00 John Daub: The train culture has definitely changed over the last 10 years. A lot of people just take buses now because it's faster because the highway system was seriously improved. The intercity highways, so much better than it was 20 years ago. And now people just drive or take the bus. So train travel has really fallen apart in India, which is a shame because that culture, I love it. I think it was the biggest rail network in the world in one country. And then, it seems like it's been in disrepair. That was a good snack.

39:05:00 John Daub: All right, let's go find out. The last thing we're going to do is find out about this manga or anime. And if you know, let me know if you know, because I'm a beginner at anime, manga culture. Karakai. I think that's the anime. There's a whole map for Tonosho. Oh, so I guess you can see right here. From the map here. So this is Shodoshima. There's Tonosho, right? Here's Tonosho. And we're taking the ferry like here to Takamatsu. Takamatsu here. So this is the biggest city in Kagawa Prefecture, Takamatsu. And the ferry just cuts across here to Tonosho into the center, right there into that nook. So it's a really good ride.

40:24:00 John Daub: I don't know what this manga is. So Karakai Jozu. I can't, I don't know. The trip is approximately one hour, right? The author is from Shodoshima, right? So Johnny Deep. Thank you, Johnny. Sorry for the wind noise. The author is from Shodoshima. And yeah, I love the fact that they'll connect the location where the author of famous manga and anime. Toktori takes really advantage of that too. Toktori City is a Conan, the anime of the Detective Conan. The airport is named after the anime and manga. And Yonago is the Gegege no Kitaro, Mizuki-san's creation there. And you can see the monsters. The airport is named after that anime, I guess it was a manga series as well, which is so cool. And more and more places are starting to do that. They're wrapping the trains in anime and manga and taking pride in it. And it draws people to come and visit when you have something that kind of an attraction that has a mass appeal for the domestic tourism.

41:57:00 John Daub: It says Aisan as well in Sakura, Sakura Machi in Tokyo. You can see this. It says Aisan Museum and she's all over the place there. Wow, we're coming up, entering into Shikoku. So bright. So we don't have a lot of film in Takamatsu today. It's gonna be a very busy day. I'm looking forward to it. Get to see some Olive Wagyu, the auction. And then we're gonna go to the processing plant and then we're going to go inside to a restaurant and eat it. And I love these Wagyu episodes. I wanna get a chance to do that.

42:59:00 John Daub: So it's going to be a pretty good day. I'm taking the train back to Okayama by 7pm so I'll be back in Tokyo tonight. Yeah, it's going to be a shame. I wish I had a little bit more time but I've got so much editing to do. This month I have to get out. My goal is 3 videos on the main channel and I think I can hit that. I've just got to get home from this location shoot and start to work on it. I filmed that olive ice cream in 8K yesterday too. I got some really great shots. That was so good. That was a livestream 2 days ago in the Olive Garden Park.

43:41:00 John Daub: Every time I go to Shodoshima I'm reminded of the first time I went to Olive Garden restaurant. Probably not the best of memories but when you're at Olive Garden you're with family. Give you some breadsticks, uncle. In Japanese I'll say, this olive oil is famous from this island in particular and it's really good. They have everything hand-picked, everything pressed in local factories. And they actually make the olive wagyu food fresh the same day that the olives are picked. I thought that was really interesting. So I think the world is going to see for the first time some really interesting information about this olive wagyu. That's such a big brand outside of Japan. But the food is amazing. How they make that fresh from the byproducts of the olives. And it gives the olive meat some special characteristics that you don't find with other wagyu brands so they say. We're going to find out because I'm asking a master chef in an interview tonight. As he cooks I want to ask him, like, what's the deal? Look at that mountain in the background. That's cool.

45:18:00 John Daub: How do you climb that? I guess you need like ropes and stuff for that one. Eddie, I'm sure that there's an olive oil festival. And thank you, Katayama is in the house. Welcome, buddy. Yeah, I'm pretty sure there's an olive oil festival. This year's harvest is ending early. It seems like they didn't have a great harvest this year. So I told them I'll come back and film next year maybe for the harvest. And then this year I just filmed what I needed for the wagyu beef episode. So we'll see. But I start editing this by the end of the week. Peter von Gomm and I have been editing behind the scenes the motorcycle video. And I have three edits in the timeline as well. So it's going to be a busy week this week. So this weekend and next week. So I just want to get home.

46:21:00 John Daub: Yeah, I highly recommend if you are at the Olive Park in Shodoshima that you get that olive oil ice cream. It is just so good. And they use that local fresh pressed olive oil in the season. And it has a little bit of a bite to it. It's really good. And I guess it has like antiseptic properties. Almost like cleaning your palate with each bite of the olive oil. I thought that was really good. So I'm bringing back two bottles of it for Kanae Daub. That's what she wanted as a gift. And I brought back a little bottle of olive paste for my bread maker. So I did get some souvenirs. Yeah, Caroline, I'm so hungry right now too. That little cookie didn't do much. Tonight I'll be eating olive wagyu in many different forms. Steak, shabu-shabu (hot pot dish), yakiniku (Japanese BBQ). We'll see which one is the best way to eat it.

47:25:00 John Daub: I've been eating olive wagyu. You can get this furusato nozei (hometown tax program) is this thing where you can use your tax money and offset your taxes by buying local products. So Kanae Daub and I will buy olive wagyu or olive oil. And it would deduct from our taxes. Which is cool. Everybody wins. And I've already eaten a lot of olive wagyu at home as shabu-shabu. And thought that that was the best way to eat it. Because then you can really taste a true taste of the olives. If it even exists. It's very light. And then of course there's yakiniku. Which I think is also a good way. With a little bit of salt. That's all you need to really get the flavor of the wagyu beef.

48:36:00 John Daub: This isn't where they do naked pearl diving. That's in Mie Prefecture. I think National Geographic was the first on the spot. Let's see who could find the Peter von Gomm emojis for the Only in Japan Go live chat. If you're a member. Thanks for signing up. Show your love for PBG by sharing his emoji. I think Jason's got two of them. Now you have to combine the PBG emoji with food. Hardy's got melon kuma in there. Jason's going olive on us. Nothing more flattering. Make them feel special. I didn't see any dolphins. But I know that they exist in the ocean. Which is a good thing.

50:20:00 John Daub: I'm tired everybody. This is getting old. I'm just really impressed that there's a signal out here. But I will be in Takamatsu. And I'll try to do another live stream. Although my main purpose is to film for the main channel episode. I'll try to live stream in Takamatsu. And I'll be on the Shinkansen tonight. I'm not sure I'll live stream that. But it'll be an eventful day. And if I can I'll show you around one more time. Thanks everybody. Enjoy the cool relaxing sound of ferry motors. It's really loud. Shane writes in here. Peter von Gomm. It's your special day. Really? Aw shucks. That's nice you guys made him feel special.