00:00:08 John Daub: All right, here we are. This is the room. Welcome to a Japanese ryokan. This is a tatami room. I'm going to be showing you in a second. They gave me the key on a big wooden stick so you don't lose it. This is a coin for a welcome drink at a vending machine in the front. This is the breakfast coupon. It tells me it's on the first floor and usually we'll pick a time for breakfast. This is for dinner. The breakfast time is 7:30 to 8:30 a.m. It lets them know when you're going to be coming. And I had to get a yukata, a Japanese cotton kimono, because I'm 180 centimeters, 5 foot 11, I need a special size. So I got it from the front.

00:00:52 John Daub: How you doing everybody? This is the end of the day and I thought before I finished I would just take you on a very quick tour of the ryokan, a traditional Japanese inn. It's kind of unique because they have a special way of presenting the rooms in Japan and in this episode hopefully I'll be able to give you some insight that might be unique into this special kind of room. This is a really big one for one person. It's probably made for more than one person but I have a reservation for one and that was okay. Let's open the door. Wow. The bed is already laid out because it's after dinner time. We arrived here at 8 p.m. So typically if you check in in the afternoon the bed is not already set up for you. When you go to dinner at the ryokan the staff will come and set up the futon for you. So if there's three people there'll be three futons here but there's only one. It's just me, kind of sad isn't it? Just a little bit.

00:02:07 John Daub: Wow look at this. This is a really beautiful room. Certainly more space than you would get in Tokyo. Right now I'm in a town called Murakami in Niigata prefecture and they got a lot more space out here on the Sea of Japan side. Wow. I can just read a book and hang out there. I wish I had more time but I don't. I just got a day. One night I'm out of here in the morning. We check out at like seven in the morning after breakfast. So 9 a.m. I'm out of here for a live stream. I'm going to take you through the town tomorrow morning. So you might want to make sure you subscribe because there's more to this tour here. Let's look at this from different points of view. I'm going to sit this down and take some of your questions about it and explain what some of this stuff all means. Because if you're coming to Japan I always tell people you definitely want to experience staying in one of these kinds of rooms. You definitely want to stay in a ryokan, a traditional Japanese inn. Because this is where you really start to feel the culture of Japan.

00:03:29 John Daub: Sorry about that. Let's look at the view if there is one. You're never really kind of sure. When you do have window blinds like this make sure you use the handles here to open them and not this because it might break. They're kind of fragile. All right it's nighttime so you really can't see much of anything. You see anything? The beach is supposed to be out there. This is the Sea of Japan. So we'll get to see that tomorrow morning maybe. Oh wow it is so cold. It's amazing how this thin piece of paper actually keeps the cool air out of the room pretty well. Because you can feel just a pocket of cold air here. It is below freezing in Niigata right now. Anything below is well below to me because I like the warm weather. Yeah usually you could sit here. This would make a good play area. It's a special place where you can just hang out. Four chairs meaning this room is probably for four people. I'm not sure. I'm the only one here. This is where in this room you'll have extra futons and extra blankets here.

00:04:44 John Daub: Typically I don't just pull it out of the closet but being a guest it's not too much to do that. But if you get cold you can call the front desk and they'll bring an extra futon. Or if it's in the middle of the night and you can't be helped you can go out and take one out. But I don't think they have the sheets on them. What you see on my bed here is you see there's a cover to it and the staff will put that cover onto it. In the middle of it there's a reason why there's a hole. It's to let the futon breathe because that's I believe 100% down because it is quite cold. The futon certainly keeps you warm. In this closet here I'm guessing this is going to be where the yukata is. I got a special size that usually fits in there. And you can see they even have a chart here to guide you on what the proper size is. Small is for 150 to 160 centimeters. I'm an LL because I'm 180 or a little bit more centimeters. You definitely want to get a slightly larger size I think for yukata because they're always typically quite small. So there you go. It's good to know what your size is in centimeters if you're coming from the US because nobody knows what 5 foot 11 means.

00:05:59 John Daub: The amenities here usually the amenities are here in the closet at a ryokan. You'll have a towel which is the washcloth which you'll use in the bath. Not inside the bath but in the shower to scrub off all the grime from the rest of the day. Use that with soap and really clean yourself. That yukata I'm not going to be using. This is a kind of jacket to the yukata and you'd put that on to keep you a little bit warm. The amenities here usually the amenities are here in the winter. Most people use it. You get a toothbrush here with some toothpaste. A bag which means that you would take this with you to the onsen, the hot spring bath, or the bath. Most people do not bathe in their room. Oh this is the obi, the sash for the robe and they even gave you a pair of disposable socks and these socks are tabi socks. So you have one for the big toe and then the rest of the toes are all together. It's kind of sad to have separate your toes like that but it does make a little bit more grip. I've noticed it's kind of cool.

00:07:07 John Daub: There's some coat hangers to hang up your stuff in here. So typically as I said this would be a hotel room but most people do not take showers or bathe in their room. They'll go to the public bath which is an onsen and ryokan are quite famous for having even if it's not onsen water like hot spring water the public baths are usually beautiful. And it's so much more relaxing to do it. I'm guessing this is the toilet. Let's see. All right here's the toilet. Very nice. It's clean. Of course it's got a control panel that makes it very easy. Does it have one of those sometimes if you step close to it it will open. These are toilet slippers. These are toilet slippers and when you walk in here you're going to want to put those on because the floor is typically dirty in toilets in restrooms and they want to separate. You don't want your bare feet or socks going into the toilet room and then walking all over the tatami where people are sitting on the floor. So they kind of separate that. I think it's a good thing but a lot of westerners including myself are like yeah you know what I can't be bothered to wear toilet slippers. In any ways toilet slippers are pretty nasty and they're usually too small for me.

00:08:43 John Daub: Joy good call on that. So I still would use them. And they do have a shower. Here's the sink here. You have some shampoo and soap and stuff but again the toothbrush and stuff is going to be in the closet. And I bet nobody has used this shower in months. It's just there's no reason to use this. Look how dinky the bath is. When you go into the public bath you'll know yeah it smells like it hasn't been used in months either. Yeah nobody uses the bath the showers at the Japanese ryokan unless you're just so tired like I can't be bothered to go out. All right this is usually almost always here a pitcher of cold water or ice. There's a hot water boiler so you can have instant noodles or more importantly make tea which there's a box on the table. I'm going to show you that in a second. The glasses are inside of here. It's kind of cool that they put it in this box to clean. And you can carry all six glasses in there if you throw in some kind of a family party.

00:09:54 John Daub: In here they've left me a welcome dessert. How nice is that? This is like a kind of a jello. Oh that's really nice of them. So I hope that's for me but they left that in here. It's nice and cool in this refrigerator. Sometimes they'll have beers and stuff but you'll probably get charged for that if you do take something out of a refrigerator unless otherwise instructed at check-in. Okay let's take a look now at the table here. Yeah peso there's the doors the vending machine out in the lobby. Oh so this is the tea. Trying to find it here it is underneath here you can see they have the tea set and the table here. That's kind of an interesting place. I've never seen it like this. So they had just a towel over it. Usually it's a lacquerware box of lacquerware. It's really nice. You can pull it out and you can bring this up onto the table. Inside here is going to be like a powder tea yeah you have tea bags here. That's easier. Sometimes you have loose tea. Sometimes you have matcha. Everyone's different. Go get that hot water. You put the tea bag in here get the hot water and then you can pour tea for everybody. That's a really nice tea set here. When you're done this you can put the tea bag on top of there. The dirty used tea bags that's what that's for. And to make sure everything is kept clean there's usually a wet towel right here for service. Very nice.

00:11:38 John Daub: On top of the table do not call the yurei. If you say yurei three times they will usually show up. And yeah I realize I said it twice. Don't write that. Who wrote that? Musgrave 68. How dare you. Do you know what they look like? Because if you do that's when they eat your face. Let's relax. Calm down. They're not really here. It's been a really long day everybody. I'm kind of glad that I'm here. I've never been to Murakami in the town before. I've gone through Murakami but never actually stopped here. So when the chance arose for me to come I was pretty excited. I showed you I just did a live stream at the skateboard park. This is one of the few towns in Japan cities that created for its citizens a massive 15 million dollar skateboard park. They put that towards something that young people wanted to do and I think it's a smart thing because attracting more young people to come into the town and families is very important because every single town outside of like Tokyo the population is decreasing. So I was really impressed with their skateboard park here in Murakami and because the gold medalist in skateboarding is Japanese from this town. Apparently I was impressed with that and there's a lot of people who are practicing to be professional skateboarders in this town.

00:13:56 John Daub: Mike De Silva what did I tell you? I'm gonna have to time you out Mike. Should I time him out? I have the power Mike. Don't come knocking on my door looking for trouble. I might be the yurei as far as you know okay. This is on the table. It's not a bar of soap. This is a snack. In the center of the table will be like a welcome snack or something to munch on. I think it's a good thing. It's probably a name for it in Japanese. I can't recall what it is but it's sort of a feeling that you're the guest in a house. If somebody you are invited into somebody's house they'll offer you a drink. That's the tea box here and they offer you a snack. Thus this nice little amenity and I'm gonna open this up and see what it is. This is interesting. Usually it's something that's local from this area. Usually like a yokan (sweet jellied confection) or a manju (steamed bun) or something. It's like a sunset. This area is also famous for its beautiful sunsets which we couldn't see today because of the snow. This is my favorite one of all, kimono. Some of the things in here are like getting a kind of a soft waffle. It's definitely red bean paste. It's soft. Oh it's got mochi inside. Very good. It tastes like I don't know like an ice cream a soft ice cream cone like that kind of a texture. A swaffle. That's well said. Two points to Stephen.

00:16:20 John Daub: If you're watching TV, then you're not enjoying yourself. Bring a book. I forgot to bring a book, so I'll be watching TV. But at places like this, when you go to a ryokan, I don't like to turn on the TV. I don't like to do stuff that I could do at home. I want to do the opposite, right? It's the summer of George, basically. Just do the opposite of what you typically would do, and things will be more relaxing. I also try to put my smartphone away unless I'm live streaming and responding to your comments. Typically, you won't get the biggest TVs in a ryokan. I don't think I've ever seen a large TV in a ryokan. I think it's because they make a certain spot in there, and it's not a lot of space. I think these, especially older ones, they were made for box TV sets. So you'll probably get something like this. Like this size, if you're lucky. The best ryokan have radios only. That would be pretty cool. Just a radio. Family surrounding a radio, listening. There's always going to be a telephone in a ryokan. Or tissues in the box over there.

00:17:43 John Daub: Whoa! That's the sunset that you could see here out the window. I was just too late. There's some hotel information. Oh, wow. Maybe there's a picture of the onsen bath here. It's quite a big hotel. The name of the hotel and everything is in the description of this video. There's a link that you can click to and see exactly where I am. Don't try to find me. No, I'm not going to give you a you found me card at midnight, okay? So don't come here. I don't have to even tell you that, right? Maybe I do. What is the white glob? So probably made just as decoration here. I don't know. It gives the room a balance, perhaps, with all the other stuff here. It could balance it out pretty good. Hey, Linda. Thank you. I will do that. One of the great traditions when you travel in Japan, and Linda knows, don't come home empty-handed. Always bring an omiyage (souvenir gift).

00:19:29 John Daub: Omiyage is a gift from the local area that you would bring home. Usually it's like cookies or some kind of snack. Or sometimes it could be like from an onsen. The special chemicals or powders. They'll make like bath salts or something like this that you can make your bath at home. Like the onsen that you're visiting. So you can make your house smell like rotten eggs. Basically. Usually it's a little bit better than that. But, you know, those are things that you could take as omiyage. And Linda, I'm going to bring home a really nice one. So thank you so much. All right. Check this out. So, wow. I guess you could do kashikiri (private reservation), which is like rental, a private rental of the onsen for 1,000 yen for 50 minutes. If you have a kashikiri or like a rental. And this is something I think you could ask. If they have a kashikiri onsen or private onsen that you can rent that's separated from the public, 9.5 times out of 10, if you have tattoos, you can use that bath. Sometimes it's free depending on the ryokan that you're staying at. But you can ask about that. Do you have a private onsen bath for people who stay there? And if they say yes, then you don't have to worry about having a tattoo. You don't need a bath in the room. You just need a private bath, which often they have. And usually that's for families because, you know, husband, wife, they don't want to really be separated from their kids. It's part of the vacation. You want to be together. So they'll have private baths, most likely for families. Sometimes for couples. You don't want to be separated, you know. So that's why it's a nice idea to ask for a kashikiri bath. You know, it's a good idea. And then tattooed, the tattooed will be able to enjoy the onsen, which I really wish that we would move on from this. And then everybody who's been inked can enjoy some really great traditional Japanese culture.

00:21:49 John Daub: Map of the city. That's a given. Usually they're quite cute, the maps in Japan. And yes, there's the Wi-Fi router. Oh, wow. This is interesting. It tells you the directions for breakfast because they're still in pandemic protocol here. You have to wear plastic gloves. So there's a place where you can put your hands in and get these gloves out without touching anything. Usually it's quite innovative. They use like a puff of air to open up the gloves. You just put your hands in, get them. And then you have to wear masks when you go get the food and then you can take the masks off when you get back to your table. That's nice. I don't want anyone coughing or hacking on my omelet. So I can't complain. I don't even want myself hacking on my own omelet. So that's okay. And just use alcohol when you enter. Probably they're doing their very best to make it safe for everybody, no matter who you are. There's also a no smoking and there's a dedicated smoking area that you can go to to get your fix. That's usually a nice idea. You know, recently in Japanese hotels, one of the things that you have to ask about is for smoking and non-smoking rooms. Make sure if you're a non-smoker that you are getting a non-smoking room when you make a reservation. Because nothing's worse than going into a smoking room and everything smells like smoke. The walls, the pillows. Even you go to get your cup of tea and the cups of tea smell like smoke. You drink the tea and it tastes like smoke. It's crazy. So a lot of business travelers and especially business hotels have smoking rooms. A lot of them. And you have to make sure that you are not getting one of those. So it's good to just call. Even if it's booking.com, call the hotel if you're not sure and make sure it's not a smoking room. And just make sure you tell them, I don't want a smoking room. I'm serious. Because if you don't, if you're not clear, sometimes you end up with that and it creates a situation.

00:24:10 John Daub: Jay Holston writes in here. Holotan. I've never been in a smoking room. You don't want to be if you don't smoke. I've never smoked. I've never even tried. But if I was in a smoking room, I think that would be like you don't have to smoke anything because the smoke is all around you kind of a thing. No. It doesn't work like that. I don't know the attraction of smoking. I can't comment on it because I'm not a smoker. But certainly can't be the smell. Can it? Are people attracted by the smell? I'm not sure. I like this. A pack of wet alcohol tissues on the table of the ryokan. Well played. For people who are worried about that. That maybe they think it's not clean. They have that option to clean it themselves. That's about it. Just be careful of this. Don't put your hand through it. Use the handle to open it up. Right? And I'm guessing kids. If you have kids that are not used to the tatami rooms, just make sure that they understand and be really careful about it because it is easy to rip it. Leo has already done that at his grandpa's house. This is a little ninja door. You can see people entering and not entering. I guess you can get your luggage around. I don't know what these are for, why they're here. Ventilation perhaps? I'm not sure. Maybe a little ninja come in? I don't know. But it's a nice room. It's too much space for me. I'm not used to this kind of space. But there you go.

00:26:16 John Daub: If you ever want to get a beer. Almost every ryokan I've been in has a beer vending machine. The prices are typically 150 yen more than at the convenience store. But think about it. You know, I don't want to go to the convenience store and it's always cold from the vending machine. So sometimes it's okay to pay that extra a little bit more for the cold one. Sometimes they have chuhai and highball. But they don't have wine or anything like that in most situations. Some ryokan do have restaurants. Some do have room service. Not all. It just depends. You can check that out before you book a ryokan. But it's also not often that you can go to a ryokan by yourself for solo. One person. It just depends. Because you can see here. They have one cup ozeki. Not always. This is so much space. Typically there would be two people here. But they can make a room for one. And sometimes the price might be a little bit higher. I'm not sure. But for me, I've never had a problem too much. Only at popular resorts are they more frugal and they want to get, you know, two people in a room. Because if they give you the reservation for one, they're probably going to miss out on someone who's going to be paying for a room. Because you pay by the person, not by the room.

00:27:55 John Daub: You guys, this is the last thing. It has nothing to do with the cost of the room. Bigger rooms will cost more. But the price is based on the number of people. So if you have three people, you pay more. Each person pays more. The reasoning behind that is you're paying for the service and you're paying for the breakfast and the dinner. And you always want to get the breakfast and the dinner. If you stay at a good ryokan. Don't skimp and eat at a convenience store to save money. Because the most traditional thing you can do in Japan, well, like one of them, is to get a kaiseki (multi-course) cuisine. Which is this beautifully, very detailed, local ingredient cuisine presented to you in courses that is incredible and very reasonably priced if you think about it. Usually the chefs are very skilled and make it very presentable. Because the reputation of the ryokan, the traditional Japanese inn, is typically not just in the room and the service, but in the food and the presentation of it. So don't skimp on the dinner. Because sometimes it's an option. It's not an option for me. I always get it. But we were late today. So we didn't get it, which is a shame. I got breakfast. Don't skimp on breakfast. Because usually there's no other place around a ryokan. There could be a convenience store. Don't skimp on it. Just pay for it. It's worth it. Trust me on this. If you're a vegetarian or you have dietary needs, tell them in advance. They will make every effort. I've traveled with vegetarians. They've always made an effort to create something unique. And sometimes saying you're vegetarian creates better food. I don't know why. Maybe the chef is more creative. But I've seen what the vegans had. And I've been jealous of vegan food. I mean, the meat will come out. And like some weird fish. I'm like, gosh, I wish I had your pumpkin soup. You know?

00:30:01 John Daub: So there you go, everybody. That's a weird photo. You think of something maybe more traditional Japan. We've got like a European looking church. Eh, that's okay. And then they have the sunset here. Not too shabby. They do have an onsen here. That's where I'm going to be going right now before I just completely... So, yeah. I'm going to sprawl out on that bed and pass out. I got to be up at 6:37 in the morning to get some work done. So there you go. Final thoughts. This room is pretty good. The hotel staff was very friendly. The lobby is pretty... You guys want to see the lobby? Can I take you to the lobby? I have to wear my mask. Hold on. Okay, I got a mask right here. You want to see the lobby? All right. If you want to see the lobby, click the like button right now. This is your participation. If we get to 250 likes, I will take you to the lobby. It's up to you. Do it. We got to get 250 likes. It's up to you. The community decides. I think we did it. Oh, wow. I should have aimed higher. All right. Let's go get our welcome drink.

00:31:39 John Daub: Welcome drink. There's nothing I want to drink. Okay. I'll get it tomorrow. I thought this was cute. Santa Claus is here. Oh, can you do it? I thought it was really pretty. I want to take a picture. Thank you. Check this out. Oh, my God. Oh, it's beautiful. Thank you. Thank you. That's really nice. If you're dreaming of a white Christmas, we were having that here a couple of hours ago. Sorry, I was showing the shake, the dried fish outside. I guess the signal cut out. Sorry about that. I'm using the Wi-Fi here. I'm taking it back to the room. That's it.

00:35:20 John Daub: I hope this gives you some good insight into staying in a Japanese ryokan. It pretty much... The system or the style of the system is pretty much the same at the Japanese ryokan. You get a little bit of a feel of check-in and everything. Once you stay at one ryokan, you get kind of used to it. There's a certain system behind it all. It's not that hard to figure out. You're the guest of honor. And the service is second to none at any Japanese ryokan. And you get what you pay for. It seems a little bit expensive on the surface. But after you've stayed at a ryokan once or twice, you want to stay again. And I would recommend two nights if it's a really popular one and you can get a booking. Stay two nights. Because the second night, the chef has to create a new dinner for you. It has to be different. That can be quite a challenge for some places. It's interesting the creativity starts to come in after the third night. So, just a little bit of inside information there. Have a good night, everybody. Or a good day. I'll see you tomorrow on another livestream around 9:30 Japan time. I'll be walking around the town and show you that experience because it's a pretty little town. And I think there's a lot to see. Hopefully it's snowing to give you that feeling of Christmas. Because now that Thanksgiving is over, we've got another holiday to look forward to. See you, everybody. Yeah, head over to the Discord server if you want to talk about accommodations in Japan. We've got a lot of people. 16,000 in there. Some of them are here in Japan. And I'm sure there's going to be a discussion about this on there. So, see you later, everybody. Stay warm.