00:00:01 John Daub: Yes! Here they all come, Leo! Look at that! They found us! How you doing everybody? Welcome to Okunoshima. Everybody knows it as Rabbit Island, and we're staying tonight at the ryokan. Leo's first time here, and when we got off the ferry, he was going crazy because there were rabbits all over him. Like literally, just look at the thumbnail. And Kanae is here too, and there's almost nobody here.

00:00:33 John Daub: Alright, be careful, don't touch them Leo, because they are ferocious. Leo, don't touch them. Look at, they love him! Hey Leo, you're about the same size. Hello, hopefully the microphone is on. Can you hear me okay? Should be fine.

00:01:05 John Daub: In this episode I'm going to be taking you around the island and showing you a little bit of it anyways. And Leo's first time. Kyo tsukete (be careful), because they kind of will nip your fingers. Kyo tsukete, Kanae. Look at them, they're so cute, and yet they're vicious!

00:01:31 John Daub: You can bring food onto the island, but don't feed them in certain areas. And definitely don't dump all your food out and think that they're all going to just eat it when you leave. Take the food that you don't use with you, because leaving it and dumping it in places is a big no-no on this island. This isn't a theme park, this is literally a national park. This is a park with rules. You're not supposed to feed the wildlife.

00:02:13 John Daub: You can buy food just about everywhere. At the ferry terminal, there's a really nice store—sorry about the wind, it's a little bit windy. It's also quite crazy today. You can buy these bags of eisai (rabbit food, pet food). This was 200 yen, or about a dollar fifty. When they do that, the rabbits can hear you. Oh rabbit, okay, rabbit! You think you could find a better meal than what Leo's given you? There's nobody here. Leo's a little bit freaked out. Kanae's not. Leo brought his own rabbit, I don't know why. Rabbits are his favorite animal.

00:05:52 Kanae Daub: I really love it here.

00:05:58 John Daub: You're kind of shocked, aren't you?

00:05:59 Kanae Daub: Yeah, I'm shocked. Yeah, it's a nice experience. I love it.

00:06:09 John Daub: But you saw the videos that I made here in the summer. It's different when you see it with your own eyes and you're surrounded by rabbits. This is not a rabbit cafe. When you're surrounded by rabbits, it's a completely different feeling because they're like there, you know? Leo, please don't feed your rabbit to the rabbits. And Kanae, watch your fingers because they will nip at you. Don't give them all the cabbage. I won't have any for tomorrow morning's rabbit hunt for shooting. Not with the camera. You know what I mean? You're either going to trip on a rabbit hole or the rabbits themselves. Yeah, you got to be really careful.

00:07:29 John Daub: P.O.V. Sam's here. Today I received your Hokkaido box here in Oregon. Awesome. Really? Oh, that's right. Okay. I think we sent yours by EMS. So the rest of them we sent by sea mail, so that's going to take a while. I see Bradani is here. P.O.V. Sam, I'm glad you got it, buddy. We're waiting for you to come and visit here in Japan. PVG's waiting as well. Shall we do a little sanpo (stroll) here? We're using the Prism app. I hope that this looks okay for you on the other side. The rabbits are pretty quick, so it's hard to step on them, but you do have to kind of look down.

00:08:14 John Daub: On the weekends, there's a lady who comes. I think she might even come on the weekdays in the morning. She changes the water for them and cleans it out. She does it as a volunteer, which is incredible. And I'm coming back here to interview her, as well as the staff who work at the community center. I actually was going to do that today, but I forgot that the community center is closed on Wednesdays and Thursdays. Duh. They live down here. They love the hotel because the guests come out here with bags of cabbage. Yeah, this is Okunoshima. Everybody is watching. Leo and Kanae's first trip here.

00:09:15 John Daub: We're going to bust open this pack of rabbit food in a second. Just to try for them, not me. And the wind is really strong in particular. Before you come here, realize that it might be a nice warm day on the mainland. The wind is quite stiff here. In fact, it took me two hours to set up my tent. I was pretty dumb about it. So it kept blowing away. I had to find two logs out in the woods to bring and drag and kind of pin it down. Eventually I got my tent going. And then it started to downpour in the summer when I was camping here. I got maybe three hours of sleep before I had to get moving next day. If you are camping in the summer, it costs like 2,000 or 3,000 yen or something. But you have access to the bath. You're not left here going dirty. You have a barbecue area as well. It's a really nice place to come in the summer. You can see it looks quite tropical looking.

00:10:44 John Daub: I've got an external mic, the Rode Wireless Mic 2 with a wind buffer on here. But I know it's not going to be completely perfect. And we're using the Prism app in 1080p. I believe the signal is enough to get a decent high definition live stream. Camping with the onsen is really fun. But more than that, in the morning when the rain stopped, all these rabbits came out. And when I opened up my tent, it was surrounded by rabbits.

00:12:09 John Daub: Let's see if the rabbit food works here. I'm opening up the rabbit food. This is what it looks like. This is from the ferry terminal store. One bag is probably enough. You don't need to get too many. Just don't dump a lot of them to the rabbits here. Here you go, little wabbit guy. Oh, it's working! Give one to that little guy here. She does have big eyes. These are wild wabbits. Baba-san, who is the ranger—again, this is a national park. She's one of the rangers here. We've been in contact over the last several months. And she told me that next time I come, she'll show me some of the newborns. There were some babies that were just born recently, which is so beautiful.

00:14:04 John Daub: Everybody knows the story of Rabbit Island, right? During World War II, they used the rabbits to experiment with poison gas. And then after World War II, there was no need for the island. They kind of just left. And the rabbits got out. They let the rabbits free. And then the island was overrun by rabbits. Over that time, other animals have come here. I believe that they're inoshishi (wild boars). And so other animals that have swam across to the island. All right, Leo, just throw the food. Don't try to be a hero. Just throw it. Don't try to hand it to you, Leo, because they might nip your finger. They nipped mine a little bit and didn't break the skin. Usually they won't bite hard. But I'm not going to take that chance with Leo's finger. So if you do have kids here, be really careful with that. These are wild rabbits and they're really hungry.

00:16:00 John Daub: I think it's lettuce. I bought it from an old lady near the dock. From the pier, there's this really beautiful ferry terminal now that's new. Came in, I guess it was during the pandemic, 2021 maybe. Inside of there, you can get some ice cream. There's a 7-Eleven and a FamilyMart straddling the Tadanoumi Station. So you can get convenience stores. But there's also a supermarket two or three minutes walk from the ferry pier. If you go there, they sell cabbage, like day-old cabbage for 100 yen. So I got it from the old lady who was working at the supermarket. And we also bought a little bento from her. She's very happy. I don't think she gets a lot of people. And a lot of the foreign tourists don't realize that there's a supermarket around the bend.

00:17:22 John Daub: Let's go just a little bit around the bend, and then we'll call it. Our check-in at the ryokan is at the end of the ferry. And it's not until 3 PM. So what you can do is fill out the paperwork and then wait. But again, this is the only place to stay on the island. Inside there, they have a cafe. So you can get a bowl of udon. You can get a burger. You can get some pretty good coffee in there. But you can also have a meal at the hotel restaurant for lunch. We had a bento before we left. And then we had some udon because Leo has to take some medicine. He's got like a runny nose problem. Like all the kids have runny noses in Japan.

00:18:24 John Daub: Beautiful here. How many of you see yourself coming here when you visit Japan? Is this something that you're interested in? Is this like a special magical place or what? Never mind the history. I just think they're doing a really good job of maintaining it. Again, a lot of tourists coming here, they don't understand that this is not a theme park. They don't have the budget of a theme park. It's free to come here. They don't have staff to clean up after you. So whatever you bring in, you should take out with you. Like all islands, if you're bringing in trash, you should probably take the trash with you if you're a day tripper or something. You got to think like that. And again, they keep it really clean.

00:19:16 John Daub: Leo, let me take you to the secret rabbit lair. You're going to love this. It's secret. Look, rabbit. These rabbits are even more wild because they're not used to people who are at the hotel. So, the secret rabbit lair. Again, this is a course. You can go around it. You can rent a bicycle. Look at that hawk. That is pretty awesome. I wonder if they eat the rabbits. Yeah, these are wild rabbits. Look at that crow. Yeah, you know what to do. Get out of here. Toby (crow)! There's more than one variety of rabbits. They live out there. They dig their own holes, and they live in the holes. And nobody cares for these rabbits. But they actually eat like the vegetation, which is what they should be eating.

00:22:46 John Daub: There's one last thing I want to show everybody. Up here, you see there's like a playground. So, back in the 1980s, during the bubble era, Hiroshima Prefecture invested some money for facilities like tennis courts. And they had a lot of sports and stuff. And obviously, nobody plays here, but it was very expensive to play tennis and do sports. People would come across just to do sports, which is crazy. Of course, that has not happened in a long time. Nobody comes here for sports. We get a lot of professional photographers who will come to the island to get rabbit pictures, of course. Rabbits are very friendly here, as you can tell. But this is what is very unique to see these.

00:25:13 John Daub: Koine, koine (come on)! Don't step on them! Leo, don't step on the... Oh, my gosh. He tried to step on them. So, they made these tennis courts and baseball fields and stuff for Hiroshima. Okay, Leo is getting sleepy. That's my cue. Leo is getting sleepy, and that means that's kind of like our cue. It's a little bit cold with the wind. Yeah, we can check in. We'll go back into the hotel, recover a little bit, and then come back out. Tomorrow morning is the big day.

00:26:51 John Daub: The chat froze. Can you guys not see? I can't see the chat anymore, so I'm not sure even if this chat is working. This is just... I think we only saw about maybe 10% of the island. It's not a very big island. The total length around is two kilometers, about that. So it doesn't take a lot to walk around it. Maybe about 30 to 45 minutes, you can walk around it once. You probably need two hours minimum, though, to really enjoy it. You can take a look at the gas museum, which is very interesting on the history of it. I've been told by some people that there are ghosts on this island, which I don't believe, but maybe I should. You should give the ghosts respect so they don't get you.

00:29:01 John Daub: Kanai! He dropped his rabbit! He's feeding his rabbit to the rabbits again. He did it again! We're gonna have to wash that rabbit. I'm just not sure if the chat's working. I can't tell if you can hear me or not. In the summertime, there's a beach here around the corner over on that side. So if you bring your bathing suit, you can go in there. And there's also a swimming pool straight ahead. In the summertime, it is. It's a really great place to spend a day. The ryokan is reasonably priced, actually. It's not that expensive. Because we've been vaccinated, they give us a 10,000 yen discount, which is almost like 100 bucks off the price of the hotel, which is pretty good. The hotel includes two meals, which you're gonna take because there's no other restaurant on the island.

00:30:26 John Daub: It's a really peaceful place. The Seto Islands, the islands off of Hiroshima's coast are absolutely stunning. You feel a little bit of it as I pan around. It's just absolutely beautiful. And the fact that they have ferry service really regular coming here is a testament to all of you who come to visit here. Just keep in mind and remember that this is a national park, and they will not really be happy if you buy a lot of food and you just dump it on the ground when you leave. That's the one thing you do not wanna do. If you see somebody doing it, tell them, take the food with you. They have a lot of vegetation. That's what they eat. They don't need you to dump the food out here. They need to eat the normal food because they get sick from the chemicals and processed foods. And they get used to people feeding them, so they don't have the will to go and eat themselves.

00:31:53 John Daub: Here's the ryokan. We'll be staying here tonight. If you have any questions, please leave it in the comments below and I will absolutely try my best to answer it. They got the rent-a-cycles right there in the center of your screen, which is pretty awesome. You can join us on the Discord server where I'll share some more photos and news and information. And I'm working on a video for the main channel on this as well, so you'll see that coming pretty soon. It's pretty comprehensive because I got permission from the National Park Service here and we'll be interviewing the staff to get a really in-depth and special look at this island. All right, everybody. Have a good day. Have a good night wherever you are in the world. I'm gonna be out here tomorrow morning early and might do a very quick livestream, so if you missed it live, join us. I'll try to give you a heads up probably around between 7 and 9 a.m. Japan Standard Time. I'll see you guys then. Until then, have a good day. Have a good night. Bye from Rabbit Island. Or as we say here, wabbits. Actually, they say usagi (rabbits), but we get to call them wabbits. See you in the camera? Awesome.