00:04 John Daub: Hello everybody, welcome. This is Murakami, Niigata Prefecture, and we're standing in front of a Murakami Gyu, a butcher shop. This is a place where they sell the meat, and in this episode I'm going to be taking you from here, as we try some of the delicious Wagyu beef of the area, to the old town in Murakami, called Komachi. Good morning everybody, welcome to Niigata Prefecture. I'm pretty excited about this, because whenever you get the opportunity to go on kind of a tour outside of Tokyo, for me, as someone who lives in Tokyo, it's pretty darn exciting.

00:37 John Daub: Inside here they have some of the best looking Wagyu beef in Japan. Of course, I think there was over 200 different Wagyu brands in the country of Japan. Kobe beef, for example, is just one of the 200 amazing brands here. Each one sort of has its own characteristics and flavors. I'm going to try some of that today, because they actually have a street food here that you can try. The Murakami Gyu straight from, and let me just tell you, the ranch is just down the street. So this is probably the freshest that you can get.

01:10 John Daub: Now if you look down the street here, it has snowed last night. You can see in the mountains in the distance some really beautiful snow-covered capped hills, and that's the kind of weather that we're in right now. It is cold. I'm pretty darn cold, so I'm going to do my best to try to stay warm. I think this lunch is going to be great. After I have the Wagyu beef on the road, I'm going to be taking you to Komachi, a really old section of Murakami, which is an old castle town. This is sort of one of those hidden places that's totally off of the beaten path. I think that maybe you'd really like. Not too far away is Ginzan Onsen, by the way, which is one of the most scenic Japanese hot spring towns in the entire country. It's pretty, it's a pretty good place, and this is like right down the street, I guess you would say. I guess if you're coming from the US, everything in Japan would be down the street. All right, let's go inside and try, and before we eat the food, I want to show you a little bit about the beef that they have inside here.

02:12 John Daub: Just quickly. Can I take a look inside for a minute? Yes. Okay. Welcome inside of the butcher shop here. So this is Murakami beef, one of the brands in Japan of Wagyu beef. And you can see here the cuts. I'm going to explain it to you a little bit. On the top here, you have the top shelf. I guess it would be like this. This is A4, but it's still darn impressive. This is tenderloin, or we would say hide steak. And you look at the marbling in there. It's much smaller because it's a rare part of the Wagyu beef, the cattle there. A4 quality is a rank below the one that's not available right now. But honestly, I almost prefer this because it has, to me, a better balance of the oils. This is the best slice in the house. Down here, you have different cuts of beef. This is momo. This is sirloin. I guess you all know what a sirloin steak is. Look at the marbling on that. A5. Beauty. Down here, you have different steaks. This is another cut that I love, the kataroshi, which is from the shoulder there. That's a really beautiful looking steak.

03:30 John Daub: The prices are pretty reasonable, I guess. This is the premium beef brand in Niigata prefecture, so it's going to be a little bit pricier. But I would say the taste is somewhat similar to Yonezawa, but the only way to find out is to try it yourself. You can also get cuts for grilling on the barbecue, if you're doing yakiniku or something like that. And you can get thinly sliced cuts, too. They also have burgers down here, which is very pricey, actually. This is 830 yen for one burger, but it's probably going to be a pretty darn good burger. And then there's slices here for, I think, shabu-shabu and things like that. Sukiyaki. So I wanted to show you inside of here. I think you could actually get the beef and eat it at the table here, which is pretty cool. All right, let's go outside and get some street food.

04:24 John Daub: Hello. Excuse me. So first, this... do you have steak? Yes, we do. Can you show us? I'll take the steak. Please. This is what the Murakami beef yakitori stick looks like. Look at this. Oh, sugoi. Wow. You don't have to grill it. I just wanted to show you. Can you see it? This is what I'm going to show you. Look at that. Marbling. That is a real Murakami beef. Thank you. I'll take the beef. Thank you. I'll take the steak. I bought it just now. I'm sorry. I've actually already paid for it. This is called the Murakami beef beiko stick. And it's kind of wrapped around. You can see the marbling on the beef that's been wrapped around. There's some seaweed in here, which is also famous. We're on the Sea of Japan side. Here's the steak. Wow, thank you. It's going to get a little cloudy. I'll grill it. All right. All right. He's going to burn this thing here. Grill, I should say. Look at the marbling on this.

06:11 John Daub: So that is mostly Murakami beef here. And there's some seaweed. Nori is also in here. Do you have any sauce? I don't have any sauce. Sauce. And the sauce we'll be using is sauce, which is a really great Japanese dipping sauce for beef. But I bet you even without the sauce, it's going to be pretty good. Now, the price for the steak you can see is 1400 yen. That's about, with the exchange rates, like $10. That's a really good price for A5 quality sirloin and rib roast beef. They're using the premium stuff here. And the beiko stick here that's wrapped around is about, I don't know, $7 at the exchange rate now. This is so much fun.

07:15 John Daub: So this shop is called Yamashin, isn't it? Yamashin. Yamashin has been here for over 50 years. But before that, they were just selling beef. They were Toyama Shoten. Toyama Shoten was the name of it before that. So the history of this shop goes way back. But for the last 50 years, they've been known as Yamashin here on the corner in Murakami City. The ranch where this is raised, the cattle is raised, is not far away from here. Murakami City is really a big city. Oh, they're putting on the tare. Tare yaki. Ah, suwarashi. Oh, you can smell it. You can smell the grilling beef right now. It is just incredible. And the tare is adding the salty sweetness smell into the air here. I've got you right over the grill. I hope the iPhone doesn't melt. A little bit more tare.

08:34 John Daub: One of the other things that's very famous here is the koroke. You have four different flavors of koroke. This one has cheese in it, which is a croquette. I guess you would say in English, a menchi katsu. This one is with curry flavoring in here. And this is just the original, which is... it has beef in it. And I'm going to try one of these as well. Um... yes, I'll try that one. Yes, please. I've already ordered it. Oh, really? You've already ordered it? Yes. Thank you very much. Wow. So this is a Murakami Gyu Kuroke. Itadakimasu. So as they're cooking that one here, let's try this because this is a lot of fun. Look at this. This is awesome. Ah!

09:31 John Daub: It's not a cinnamon roll. It's a... a kuroke is like potato and beef, um, meatball that's been breaded and then deep fried. And it's got a nice crunchiness to it. And inside it's so juicy. Oh my gosh, it's so good. Oh my gosh. It's so good. I'm going to save the half of it for the train back home. Hey! Wow. There you go. The final product. Oh my gosh, that looks so delicious. Look at this. Again, this is 1,000 yen, about $7, I'd say. All right.

10:34 John Daub: Let's give this a try here. This is really fun. Itadakimasu.

10:51 John Daub: Wow! Holy smokes. First of all, it's wrapped up so it's fun. When you take a bite into it, because it is bite-sized, it really opens up. Second, there's a seaweed wrapped around it and it adds this tanginess, this really unique tanginess to it. There's the salty. There's a little bit of sweet. There's that tanginess of the seaweed in there. And then that juicy, wow, that's so good. The ragu beef just explodes. All of it wrapped up on the stick so it has this amazing feeling or consistency to it. I love this. Check it out. That is so beautiful, that stick. I want to take some of this home.

12:06 John Daub: Very juicy. Holy smokes, you have no idea how tender this beef is. Yeah. It has some of the same characteristics of Yonezawa. Maybe just because it's a little bit close. It's kind of close to Yonezawa and the weather is the same. The feed might be kind of similar. So it's hard to differentiate between one wagyu brand and the other one. But Murakami, I'm certain that connoisseurs of the beef will be able to tell some of the characteristics, but the juiciness of the wagyu beef quite often is somewhat different. And there's a taste or like a subtle sweetness to the juiciness of different wagyu steaks. This company, Shacho, came up with this idea. That's genius. That is the best. This is the best wagyu beef street food stick I've ever had. And that's a huge statement because I've eaten a lot of them.

13:06 John Daub: All right. Put it in the gomibako or trash bag there. Next up, I'm going to take you now to the other side. I have a napkin here. I'm going to take you to the other side of the town. It's just about, which isn't, the center of the city of Murakami is not so massive, but the actual city. This town of Murakami, the area is pretty darn big. So I'm going to take you in this taxi here and we're going to travel to Koyama, which is the old town. And I think there's some more street food. Let's go get some dessert, shall we? Gochisousama deshita. Ah, ah, soka. Ah, hontou desu ka? Arigatou. Arigatou gozaimashita. So this is Yamashin. I'll put a link in the description if you're interested to come here. It's from Niigata Station. You can catch a train to get here. And it's about, I don't know, it was like a 45 minute, 40, 35 or 40 minute ride on a really nice train hugging the coast and going through the farm fields. It's really scenic. All right, let's go.

14:26 John Daub: Omiyage kuremashita. Sugoi. Yasashii. All right, so we're going to be driving over there. While we're driving, I want to show you the hotel room that I stayed in last night. I did a live stream there. And the view this morning when I woke up. I opened up the shoji paper doors that opened up to the gate there. Awesome, Adam. Thank you. And this is the view that I had. Check this out. Look at that. That's the Sea of Japan. And maybe you can see the steam from below the deck from the onsen that's right underneath there. But beautiful view from the window. Look at that. Looks like you can look to the end of time. Man.

15:24 John Daub: Boom. And we're back. Yeah. And the breakfast is pretty interesting, too. It's a buffet, all you can eat kind of a style. But I wasn't that hungry because I knew what I was having today. For the most part, the autumn foliage has changed and starting to fall off. And it's we're already in the winter now. We're getting close to it. You can see the old buildings. I started off by saying Murakami is an old castle town. So there are samurai residences and there's a lot of old wooden buildings that have been, I don't know, somewhat renovated. And you can see in the Koyama part of town, it's really a beautiful place to walk around. And I'm excited to take you with me on this. I wonder what else I'm going to eat.

16:25 John Daub: All right. I think we're here. It's about here. It's not too far away from Yamashin Butcher Shop.

16:45 John Daub: We are here. Welcome to the old town. As you can see, I'm going to pan around in a second. A lot of the buildings are old. A lot of the buildings are made of wood. They're old. They have a history here. But this town, Murakami, is famous for many things. But one of them in particular is salmon called sake. But here they call it ioboya. I believe it's called ioboya. And ioboya is salted salmon fish from the Miyomote River, which cuts through the town. Ioboya desu yone? Yeah, I didn't make a mistake. I kind of worried about that.

17:25 John Daub: All right. Let's take a look around this town. And then I want to show you some of the buildings. And perhaps we'll be able to go in and get some food. This is some renovation going in. Here's the first building. Check this out. I mean, this is the kind of town I think a lot of people are looking for to visit in Japan to stay in. But there's so many of them in Japan. And it's hard to know. Look at the snow on top of that truck. First time this year, I'm really starting to see it. Well, this season. I'm kind of looking for this kind of a... you know, old town, old village. And here we found it here.

18:15 John Daub: Haidaremasuka? Oh, so we can go in here actually. How cool is that?

18:29 John Daub: This is the shop that makes the salted salmon fish. Ioboya. I don't know how good the signal is, but I can take you into the back. Do you guys want to see that? Hit the like button if you want to go in and see the salted salmon hanging from the ceiling. But you can see here. Hopefully, we don't lose the signal. I'm going to go in and see. They're salting the fish to make ioboya, which is sake, I guess. But they have their own way to say it here in Murakami. And the salmon is incredible. This is the season where they're spawning right now. And they get them from the... Here, I'll take you into the back. I'm not going to hold you hostage based on likes. Although I would much appreciate it.

19:19 John Daub: This is something of a tourist attraction here. Do you see it hanging from the ceiling here? Yeah. And I'll take you underneath here. Check it out. So this is ioboya, which is salmon. And they're hanging from the fish after being salted. And when you look up at it, it's kind of a sight. You can certainly smell it. This is real, folks. This isn't... This is no joke. This is Murakami's famous fish hanging from the ceiling. Look at it, the way it's opened up. It's been salted. And they've been doing this process for a very long time. And they're very proud of it. In fact, it's not... The smell is not bad at all. It just... It does have a slightly strong smell, but it's not a bad smell because it's already been salted. But when you see their faces, that is kind of worrying. You tell me. You be the judge.

20:25 John Daub: But it's salmon, all right. And it's something that they're very proud of here in the city. And the cuisine, a lot of it, you'll have salmon in it. And I'll just tell you, the dinner was really good. Beautiful. Beautiful inside of here. Joy writes in here, yikes. When you see something like that and you see how fresh it is, it certainly makes you want to buy. And you can. Let's see how much you can get. You can get a pack of it. And it's a... Well, it is a little pricey. It's about 1,633 yen, which is, I don't know, about $12, I think. They also sell amazake. Actually, you know what? Buy some.

21:49 John Daub: Amazake. Amazake. I'll buy some. What should I do? Should I just take it? Just like that? Really? Take it. Oh, either way? Just like that? Really? Oh, wow. This is amazake. Check this out here. It's a tezukuri, meaning handmade, homemade amazake. And you can see the chunks of rice in there. And I thought that if it's heated and it's nice, it'd always feel so good in my hand. How much is it? It's not written, is it? Maybe, just? No. I don't know. It's not. All right, we're going to pay for it at the register here.

23:10 John Daub: You have no idea. This amazake. This is like, I guess it starts off with a similar process as Japanese sake with alcohol, but there's no alcohol in it. It's really healthy. It's got tons of enzymes that they say will make you live forever. It is not fish stew. All right? It's sweet. Obviously, we have some people that have never had Japanese amazake before. Oh my gosh, this is such a treat here. Oh gosh, this is, you can tell that this is homemade because it's got so many natural flavors in it and no, like, it's not, I'm not saying that other amazake has chemicals in it, but this one, you can tell that this one does not. It's like, wow. Oh, Kanai's gonna kill me. I'm having too much, I'm having way too much fun. You can see that they have ioboya, the salmon hanging there, like right outside the shop. And as we walk down the street for the next, I don't know, 30 minutes or so, you're going to see these ioboya salted salmon hanging like this all over the town. Because I mean, I even think every local must have some kind of connection to get the salmon fish. And if you're going to get the salmon fish, you're going to have to be careful. And do it themselves. And for the rest of the year, they'll be eating this delicious salted salmon, which is really awesome. What a start to this town walk here. Just down the street, there's another shop I want to show you.

25:01 John Daub: Amazake is the best. If you'll find amazake flavored ice cream, amazake flavored snacks sometimes, it's so good. Joshua Han, thank you. They do have manhole covers here. This one's a hard one to see. But if you look at it, you can see the salmon, the fish in it. We'll be able to see some other manhole covers as we go along. But walking through the old town, this is called Komachi. You can really see the texture of the town, I guess is a way to say it, through the old buildings. Bradshaw Studios in the house. Hello.

26:00 John Daub: Oh, here's the wagashi shop I saw on the internet. I walked by here yesterday. Okay. But I think it was kind of closed, so I think I'm going to go inside here. What do you think? Should I? Who's going to click the like button? Let's see if we get the 500 likes. There are some places to stay here in Koyama, but a lot of the places that I saw were at the onsen. There's an onsen town not too far away from here in Murakami, and that's where I stayed. That view from the Sea of Japan from the window of the room, the ryokan I was staying in, and I brought you with me in there.

27:00 John Daub: So let's go inside here, and we'll try some wagashi. I still have half of a bottle of amazake. Oh my gosh, this is so warm too. It's making my hands feel good. So I got some really delicious looking... This one looks really good, like kaki. I think I might try this one. That looks really good.

27:40 John Daub: So right here, I want to show you, they make the confections. They've been doing it for over a century. I'm not sure if you can see it. It's a family business. It's a family business. And these are like woodblock prints almost, like ukiyo-e, right? But they're in reverse, and you make the confections out of these. Look at that. The artwork is beautiful inside of them, and there's a lot of them. And even up here, you can see the smaller confections will have some sort of unique design. This one looks like it's almost a flower. I thought it was like a dog print. Like, I don't know. It's paw prints, I thought at first, but it's flower. So wagashi is a traditional Japanese confection, and they're really fun to eat, always colorful, and I don't know, when you look at it, you can see the culture inside of it, and it's something that I really like to try when I'm in a local area.

28:50 John Daub: Are you okay? I'm fine. Okay. Excuse me. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Excuse me. How many years ago did this shop start?

29:32 John Daub: Wow! It's been a long time. Wow! It's been a long time. Yes. Wow!

29:56 John Daub: So the owner's a little bit shy to be on camera. We're respectful. We actually had asked in advance, so. You gotta be respectful of the locals when you come. We'd asked in advance about filming, so everybody in the town knows that I'm here, which is kind of cool, because they see me coming, and a lot of them are waving. There aren't that many people on the street, though, so a lot of them means like two people. Wagashi is really something that you have to try when you're in any kind of a local town, especially if you see it like this. She said, I guess the history goes back all the way to the Edo period, but this shop, I guess, Meiji Owari no imi wa Taisho Mai desu yone. Yeah. So this goes back to like the beginning of the 20th century, which is crazy, and obviously it's a family-run business. Ah, arigatou.

30:32 John Daub: So we have here the wagashi reaching in here. Look how pretty this is. Ah, kore mo? Wow. Sugoi ne. All right, here. A present? Ah, honto? Wow. Usually you only get a present if you compliment the lady. Always, if you see a really cute owner, old lady, always tell her that she's beautiful, and you'll get free stuff. Well, not always, but. It happens more often than not. Throwing compliments around sometimes can get you free stuff, so.

31:00 John Daub: Wow, look at this. This is a little hut, this looks like. And look, it comes in like a little box, almost like jewelry. Look at that. And then this one I believe is a kaki, which is a persimmon. And they have these in the fall, and they've made a confection out of it. And I'm going to eat this one first. Oh. So let's try this here. This is too cute to eat. Yeah, you got that right. It's too cute. So cute. I'll put down the amazake and open up the jewelry.

31:51 John Daub: How many YouTubers will show you this angle? You want to see the wood ceiling. Oh my gosh, this is so delicate. Oh my gosh. This is so delicate. So soft. It's like a mochi, I guess. I'm not sure what it is. I don't want to make a mistake. It's okay, I'll find out. Let's see if I'll know now.

32:30 John Daub: Mmm. Sweet mochi baby. With white bean anko. You can see in the inside the guts. Some, oh it's so delicate. Just a very light, pleasant sweetness. Not overpowering. An amazing balance. There's some sesame. That black is a black sesame. Gives it a slight nutty taste. Just a little bit of bitterness which balances out that sweetness. And the consistency of the mochi is so perfect. Soft. You can see. Malatable with my finger there.

33:14 John Daub: Mmm. Yeah. You got to put that on your list. If you're in Murakami.

33:30 John Daub: Oh that's just, that hit the spot. That's too perfect.

33:51 John Daub: Mmm. This is Omachi. Oh. The sign up there says omachi. So we're near the omachi and komachi. They're the two districts within Murakami here. Mmm. This is like a sake seafood restaurant, seafood place. Nori kana. But I know that the ioboya is very famous here. And you can see it on the shop right across the street. Look at hanging from the front door. Check this out. Hanging from the front door is salted salmon. What? Like I'm telling you every single house here, well almost every single house, has like salted salmon in the window. My hotel had salted salmon. Like right in front of the hotel. Which is awesome. And this is like a three or four star hotel. It's like what? That's too cool.

34:37 John Daub: All right. There's the castle ruins which I believe is up there on the other side. Okay. I can't see it from this angle. But the castle ruins proves that this is an old castle town.

35:05 John Daub: Hey, Ellis is here. This stream looks amazing at 1080p on my TV. Oh, I'm so happy to hear that. I wish the contrast was a little bit boosted up. But everything looks pretty good. Yeah, the old castle town usually around it had a lot of shops and a lot of history. Japanese culture is here. Good morning. I just here sent some money for a drink. Thank you. I am enjoying some amazake. Hot amazake as I walk down the street on a really chilly day. The average temperature of Murakami in December is zero. So you can tell I'm kind of chilly. It's a little bit of a breeze which is why I have an external microphone on. So hopefully the audio is good. I appreciate that, guys. This is great.

35:43 John Daub: All right. I want to take you to the end of the street here. But it's got this old world vibe to it, doesn't it? Yeah, we're going to take you someplace here.

36:04 John Daub: After we go into another shop, I think, I'm going to take you to the end of the street and show you some of the old residences here. I like the flowers put in a little bamboo pot. I love this. It's the charms of the old neighborhoods like this. Like the little details make a lot to an experience when you're walking around. This is lasting a lot longer than I thought. Yeah, Ram, I'm going to save that for later. But I'm guessing that's also made with somewhat similar ingredients. The sweetness is always more subtle than in the West for Japanese sweets. Konomi-se? Akkouchi? Oh, wow. Yoboya. Okay. All right, let's go inside. I'll put the amazake in my pocket.

37:32 John Daub: Okay, so they do have some copyright music, I think, going on here. So we won't be in here too long. But it's kind of nice to have a quick look around here. And you can see just the art on the wall. You have hanging salted salmon fish. I love the way traditionally they'll open up the fish using the two pieces of bamboo, I believe. Oh, it smells. Okay. Yeah, it's probably copyright music, so I'll just introduce it a little.

38:12 John Daub: Good morning. Oh, wow. So another shop where you can actually buy some sake. And they have ice cream here, it looks like. Is this like salmon-flavored ice cream? And there's some arts and crafts here in the back. A little cafe so you can have a takeout beer. What? That's awesome. Takeout beer here. Now, if you look on the outside, the building looks quite old. But when you come inside, it's so nice and renovated. This shop is called Uoya. And there's sake and salmon here.

39:02 John Daub: Okay, let's just take a quick look here at some of this stuff. Oh, there's all sorts of foods here. It looks like a kobu maki wrapped in a seaweed. And then there's some passion fruit ice cream. So it's a shop that sells salmon and lots of other things. Murakami delicacies, I guess you could say. Very cool. And here's some of the green tea from the area. Murakami here in Niigata. I didn't expect that they would have green tea here. But yesterday, I went to a really delicious green tea cafe. And they served green tea like a coffee shop. And I thought that was a pretty cool concept because now everybody's going to the coffee shops.

39:52 John Daub: Yeah, they have a copyrighted music in there. So I'm running away from here. Jesse1128686. Good morning from Kurume. I've been seeing places you've already covered a lot on TV. Great to see we got the cool places first through your channel. This is one of those places. This is one of those places, Murakami.

40:24 John Daub: All right, let's check out another destination here. The Murakami station from this area, I think it's like five minutes away. So you could probably... You can walk to the station, right? Maybe. Maybe. Yeah, I think it's about five, ten minutes walk from the station to get to this area. So if you wanted to do it as a day trip. Are there any other places?

40:56 John Daub: The snow is melting pretty quickly. We had a lot of snow last night. It came down hard. You can see at the beginning, I did a live stream at Murakami's skate park, a skateboarding facility that they built. It just opened up during the pandemic. And the Olympic gold medalist for skateboarding in the last Olympics, of course, held in Tokyo, is from this area, trains here. And it was inspired by all of the young people who really wanted to have this kind of a facility. And with the towns that are shrinking with population, I think it's really important to have attractive places like that.

41:45 John Daub: This way. I know. I remember. Yes. So, yeah. I think it's really important to have places like that. So, population is decreasing in a lot of towns. The population of Murakami since 1970 has been decreasing. It peaked at around 90-some thousand people. And right now it's at 58,000 people, which is a significant drop from just 50 years ago. And a lot of towns are seeing this population decline. I think that opens up a lot of opportunities outside of cities that are increasing in population. Places like this, Murakami, are so off of the beaten path. There's such an amazing potential to grow something special. And since Murakami is an old samurai town, it's an old castle town, has that history behind it, I hope that some young people do return back home and start to invest their time in here and grow this place because it would just be so much more interesting to have that here.

43:05 John Daub: Mary Abigail, thank you. Thank you. The old town. No high-rise buildings here, although that is three stories high.

43:14 John Daub: Yeah. When I was at the skateboard park yesterday, you could see that the young people were out and a lot of them are taking up skateboarding just because it's in this town's DNA. So, yeah. There's this old samurai street that we're walking down. There's so many interesting sites here. It's an aging town. You see all the old buildings, but they have places like the skateboard park. Look at that. It's a bakery. It's closed, though. Like the skateboard park. So, I like the new direction that Murakami City is taking in promoting things that are interesting to young people. And perhaps we'll see some more cafes and bakeries and things like that that make people want to just come to this old town and sit and stay there for a while.

44:16 John Daub: Here's another really old-looking building here. And you'll find some sake breweries as well. Murakami's Japanese sake is very, very good in this area. It's part of the Echigo Province, historically, I believe. And, you know, everybody knows Echigo, Yuzawa, and Niigata. This area has some of the best rice. But on the map, Murakami is located very close to Yamagata. So, this is the very north of Niigata Province. And this is the prefecture. We're coming down to the corner here. This way. And there's more buildings with ioboya.

45:02 John Daub: This is a special word that I just learned. It's like a Murakami City word for the salmon that they have. The way that they salt it and do it is different. I know we're in the right direction because there are photographers here. You follow them.

45:37 John Daub: Okay, now you see there's another old building here. This could be a really stylish little cafe, right? If it's not already. Look at those windows. Those old glass windows from the Showa period. I love that. They rattle in the wind. Do you remember that? Grandma's windows with the thin sheets of glass that rattle when there's a little breeze. Drives you crazy. And then when you're no longer around it, it just brings nostalgic feelings.

46:17 John Daub: Alright, on the left side, we have an old building. And if you look up, you'll find... Oh, there's a little shop. You'll find that salted salmon ioboya hanging in the sun. Look at that. It's even tagged. I guess so you could... No, that's not their name but maybe the date and the time and everything. So they can identify which one was done when. But it'll hang there until it's dried. And then, you can eat it.

46:54 John Daub: I want to hear, what do you think of Murakami City? Let me know in the comments below or in the livestream. I'd like to hear from you. I'm gonna walk, take a couple of steps back and pan over. There's this really pretty old shrine. Look at this on the street. I'm gonna go wide here. There's salmon everywhere. You can see the Torii Gate and then this old shrine. Pretty right on the right on the street here. This is one of the things that I love about Japan and the old towns. You walk around it. Maybe it doesn't seem like such a big attraction to locals but to us to me in particular. I don't know about you guys. This is just super cool to have it like right here.

47:47 John Daub: Hey Biggles Papi. It is super peaceful here. That's the vibe that I really look for when I'm getting out of the cities. When you're in Tokyo, Kyoto, Osaka. Maybe not Kyoto but Osaka. That that urban buzz is so exciting you know. And then you come out here you're looking for that peaceful those kind of Zen moments and you get that. When someone comes to the shrine, you're like, oh, I'm gonna go to the shrine. I'm gonna go to the shrine. Someone's honking their horn. You can see on the roof here they have things to keep the snow from sliding on people who come to pray. I'm guessing that's what it's for. The snow stoppers. That wouldn't be so much fun if you came to pray and got buried. You can see yesterday that's that snow is not going to be here much. All right, let's go to the end of the street here.

49:06 John Daub: When you do walk down the street of Komachi and Omachi, just make sure you stick to the side of the roads because cars. Do come through here. It's not a big tourist attraction yet, but you're already getting. Are you guys understanding why I'm showing you this? Do you understand why I'm showing you this? There's no there's nobody here. All right. Look at the sidewalks. I want you to go to Kyoto and you're going to be like this and you're not going to really have any time to yourself or to think to yourself because you're surrounded by people taking pictures and selfies and all that. All this other stuff. I'm the only one here with a selfie stick. That's sort of what I want you want you to understand to get off the beaten path and get away from where everybody else is is essential to really understanding Japan.

50:05 John Daub: Boom. There's the Ioboya up there soaking in the sun. Freshly caught salmon from the Miyomote River that runs through the center of Murakami City. There are some convenience stores here, but you're not going to find them in the old town here. Instead, you'll find family businesses, which is, I think, really good. Not that I don't love the convenience stores. Actually, I really do. Let's go to the fun to go in there. Oh, I guess you can see here the manhole cover a little bit better now. There's a salmon fish in there and then you can see the castle walls, perhaps that is, to represent the old castle town. And there's even an old electronics shop here. I love to see that. This is definitely retro town, old Showa period type of stuff. Everybody gets their electronics on Amazon and stuff these days. But I'm really happy to see, to see, you know, because like an interesting shop at the end of the street there. Yeah, there's some more stuff to the old town here. Let's keep walking.

51:43 John Daub: There's a family house and you can see on the roof they have the Ioboya head, and they have a bunch of other stuff here. So I'm going to go ahead and head over to the main street and go check the town a little bit more. Yeah, there's some more stuff to the old town here. Let's keep walking. There's a family house and you can see on the roof they have the Ioboya head. Hanging off of the roof there look at that I thought it was a wind chime that's not a that's the that's not a wind that's fish it's the ones right up here too some more yoboya and look at down the street here look at down the street i'm just going to stand in the middle there's no traffic coming please be careful when you do this this is the this is the kind of japan that i'm always searching for this pleasant calm view of everyday life you have the electric the electric wires and telephone wires overhead connecting everything like a spider's web and these old two-story buildings through the center of town instead of falling there on the right that's awesome that's just a taste that's just a taste ah i love this that pretty much this this intersection of that now is pretty much the end of the road and that's the end of the road and that's the end of the road and that's the end of the komachi section of the town the rest of it is very scenic and you can actually go up to the castle ruins which is maybe a taxi ride the best way to get around here hold on i'm just guzzling now this amazake that we bought at the shop about 20 minutes ago it's not it's not hot anymore it tastes like it tastes like dessert it's so good um probably the best way to get around is by taxi and it's not as expensive as you would think it would be maybe because the exchange rate is in your favor but unless you rent a car outside it's it's particularly hard to get around sometimes there's not really good public transportation but one of the best things that you can do is to hire a driver for the day he'll do all the driving for you and sometimes they'll act as a guide although i'm not sure how good their english is going to be but if you get in touch with the tourism office i'm sure that they can help you out and sometimes they're going to be able to help you out and they're going to be able to help you out and sometimes those tourism offices we did find a vending machine there is one sometimes by contacting the tourist office in advance i'm telling you this as as a like an inside tip not of like the japanese national tourism office of a small town's tourism office and you ask them for help you might be welcomed with an amazing amount of of help that you would not expect i'm not sure if you're familiar with the japanese national tourism office but i'm sure you're familiar with the japanese national tourism office but i'm sure just gonna put that out there just it's worth a try even in english and a lot of the local sites of these towns have emails email addresses and if you if you send an email to them in english i bet you they scramble around to try to find somebody to respond to you and you have some really amazing hospitality this is this street murakami city in 19 uh in show up 54 i was born in show 49 so 1970s holy smoke i'm gonna be a little bit scared to be honest with you but i'm life years ago almost this is a 60 years ago look at that the show at 32 looks like samurai do you see that must be like a movie that's the kind of place i i would love to live here for a couple months i don't know forever it could grow on me in the distance there beyond the park you see some of the mountains it's a park for the community to play in and there's nobody there obviously we need more kids here it is a weekend though i don't know maybe people go into the city on the weekends for shopping sometimes that's the other way i used to live in iwaki fukushima and when i was there uh on the weekends i wouldn't stay in iwaki i would get on the get in the train and go to sendai or go down to tokyo to through weno on the jobon line in order to go shopping because the weekends were the the times i would want to get away which is perfect because then the town opens up for you and if we straight through the town that's the view we get so this is a gem of a town this is a gem of a city loads of attractions i've been to a lot of places in the past but i've never been to a lot of places in the past i think that the town is starting to discover itself and its potential and that's exciting and if you're an investor in time and you're a repeater to japan i'm i'm thinking that this is sort of the kind of a place that you would want to spend your holiday and your your time hold on i think car's coming it's a nice view yeah where do you want to spend your time when you're on vacation uh yesterday i introduced you to the onsen ryokan that i was staying at awesome place we price i thought and the bath is amazing the room here you want to see the picture of the room hold on there you go it's on the screen i believe that's the picture of the tatami room and you can see all inside on the live stream i did last night if you come to japan and you don't stay in a japanese ryokan in a tommy room you're not really experiencing japan you're sort of missing looks like uh coco face something going on in that alley yeah very quiet very peaceful loads of and the food here is incredible the murakami beef which we started this live stream with if you missed it i was eating a stick of a5 wagyu cooked yakitori style wrapped around seaweed oh my gosh must have been the juiciest stick of beef i've ever had brought a lot of pleasure in my morning and then we drove by taxi to get some amazake in an ioboya salted fish shack which is a famous famous activity here to salt the fish the salmon because this is the uh um spawning season and yeah the cuisine again amazing we got this famous for its rice it's produce but you've got the the premium beef of the prefecture here you've got the salmon i ate so good yeah tokyo's got a lot of good restaurants osaka and kyoto too the country cooking and japan it's so good all right everybody thanks so much for watching i hope you had fun and i i really wanted to take an hour while i was here to walk through this area and show you a slice of japan that is not on anyone's radar unfortunately a lot of the towns around japan are shrinking in size and uh it's getting harder and harder to find things to grow and I don't think that a lot of these towns know the beauty that they have within themselves and this is one of those places I think that will discover itself there's also a samurai where everything is black like this samurai street that's that was stunning I haven't been there yet but there's a lot of places that we're gonna go and then there's a Sugiwa doku ikudo Nagare Saga Saga Yama Sasayama Nagare that's a mouthful the Sasayama Nagare is this really scenic coastal route it's about 11 kilometers long and I'm really looking forward to this because we got this awesome blue sky and and sunny weather but you drive around the coast there and it's got a ton of restaurants and this seaside vibe that's only sea of Japan side kind of a feeling I'm looking forward to that I don't know if I'm gonna live stream it but I definitely wanted to bring you here so thanks everybody for the super chats of support joining me for this adventure this is Murakami in Niigata prefecture and I'll see you in another live stream a little bit later on enjoy the peaceful sounds of Murakami for the last few seconds.