00:00:00 John Daub: Welcome to Tokyo Station. In this episode, we're going to go over all the tourism information that I could pull from the tourism office here in Tokyo Station in English. Look at this hall here. We're going to go through it all. It could be quite enlightening because you always learn something new when you pull stuff from the walls. And I'm doing it here because I'm going to return this. I obviously don't want to add it to the collection of information that's in my office. How you doing everybody? It's a beautiful day in Tokyo. I thought it would be a good day to do this.

00:00:31 John Daub: I thought I would go outside, enjoy myself. I actually sent the postcards for our Patreon supporters at that building right there. This is the Kitte building. I'm always sending the postcards from there. You can get one too. Oh, it's a little bit windy. So let's go through this. I'm really curious because more tourists are coming here to Japan and every time they come here they ask me questions about what more they could see. This is the best way to do it. Just go and pull it. Now this is the information office here. This is the north side of Tokyo's Marunouchi Station.

00:01:00 John Daub: Inside of there is a tourism office and this is beautiful inside, isn't it? This is where you will find like all of the passes and there's English speaking staff in here. If you have a JR Rail Pass you can also validate it in there. I don't know if they still do it like that but this is an important place. It was full of tourists and I went inside here and I found all the English information that I could possibly pull. Yeah, there's stuff about passes on the wall there. You can see it's quite crowded. The guy on the right side, he's Japanese, part of the staff there and he was speaking English to the tourists to help them with their trip planning which I think is great.

00:02:03 John Daub: When I came to Japan 20-25 years ago, it's blurry because everything was black and white back then, you didn't get a lot of English information. In fact, if you wanted to find someone even in a place like Tokyo Station, maybe somebody in line would help you. Who could speak English? So it made sense to learn Japanese in Japan. I don't think you could find in the United States people speaking other languages too often outside of perhaps New York City. So it is a unique thing and I'm really grateful for that too because for all of you visiting Japan, you want to be able to and you probably don't speak Japanese. All right, let's get to this. By the way, thanks everybody. Every time I get super chats, I try to put that to good use. So I wanted to also try this Sakura Frappuccino that they had down in the basement. They still give you paper straws here in Japan, but it could be good. It doesn't taste like sakura. It's all right. Let's just say it's nice to have a cool and refreshing drink. All right, let's get to it.

00:03:04 John Daub: Wow, this is a lot of stuff here. So first off, I found this. This is interesting. So I know that Tohoku is really working hard to try to promote it. This is a map for Morioka. And I think I got this exact same map when I was in Morioka not too long ago. And it tells you all of the cultural assets here, art galleries, museums, and then there's a map if you open it up. Morioka, everything is within like two kilometers. And this is why it was a number one city in Japan. I was curious, number one in Japan, I think number two overall after London. And I think it was just because everything within it was within a two kilometer range. So you could find just about everything that you want right there.

00:04:28 John Daub: Next up is this one here. Stop and visit beautiful Otsuki on your way to Mount Fuji. I think they could use different moji (text). They're working hard here. The moji is the text or the font. Enjoy good food, shopping and the sights in Otsuki and get an original postcard. You can get that with Only in Japan too but you gotta pay. Between February 20th and March 31st they have some things. There's a QR code if you want to scan that, just take a screenshot. I don't know too much about Otsuki. I know that it's probably near Ōtsuki Station in Yamanashi Prefecture but it's cool. You get everything in English and you get to get a free postcard and there's a shout out to Otsuki.

00:05:29 John Daub: Brand new, I can't wait for that to happen. Harci [Yamagata?], the heartland of onsen (hot springs). This sounds very compelling, isn't it? Really, I love onsen. They show you some of the things so I see cherries. I think of Yamagata. So I'm guessing it's Yamagata because cherries are so famous there. They tell you the name of the place but they don't actually tell you what prefecture. They need to put a map on there so that on the map of Japan where is it. I've been here before because I stayed here actually when I was on a trip to Tohoku for JNTO. I think it was. I remember in the station they had these shogi pieces in there. That's where that game originated from there. Everything is in shogi piece designs inside of there but they do have some really good onsen there. I remember because I stayed at one when I was there. Yeah, I'm pretty sure it's in Yamagata Prefecture but they don't even say it's in Yamagata. That's a little bit weird and there's not even a map to tell you where it is in Japan.

00:06:47 John Daub: You can see there's Tendo beef which is one of the 350 brands of wagyu beef in Japan. They also have wine, sake, wood crafts. So that's good information and they have a city map here but again it's really small on the back there. It's not the whole Japan so if you're not familiar with the shape of Japan it'd be really hard to find it but it is in Yamagata Prefecture not too far away from Akita Station so between Yonezawa and Akita. Interesting. All right so there you go, Tendo had a brochure in Tokyo Station. Let's keep going here. Oh Nasu-Shiobara. We were just there and they made their information both in Korean and Japanese and English so they didn't have to waste a lot of paper which is probably a good thing.

00:07:24 John Daub: Over 1,000 years of hot springs. They've got skiing, they've got festivals, they have horse-drawn buggies and art. Wow, everything's in Korean. I'm guessing I picked up the Korean one so yeah. I think when you see this in English here it makes you think it doesn't tell you everything is in Korean so something maybe they need to work on with their information like maybe a tab here that says Korean because you see this is the Japanese here and then you see Korean and then you see English so I don't know it's a little bit confusing. It's a beautiful area in Tochigi so highly worth it. I can't believe I found a map from Miyazaki here at Tokyo Station. This is like one of the furthest places that you could possibly go on the other side, the far end of Kyushu.

00:08:31 John Daub: And I love the fact that Miyazaki's putting a full map of Japan and the area that I'm in. Miyazaki, we know exactly where that is but again I think that all these places need to put a full map of Japan and then highlight the area of where it is so just people know where it is. Miyazaki may be the most relaxing prefecture in Japan. The resort life, activity, sightseeing. I think it's also one of the best places for food. I was just there a couple of days ago filming gyoza and beef. The wagyu beef is number one in this area. Then there's also a lot of other places in Miyazaki that won the wagyu Olympics. They even have moai statues. Look at that. This is down on the coast so there's so many things on the bottom of Miyazaki Prefecture that I think a lot of people don't know this area down in the south.

00:09:38 John Daub: And up here between Oita and Miyazaki not a lot of people know because Miyazaki City is right in the central south and most people will go back and forth between Kagoshima here through Kobayashi, another town there. But it's a beautiful prefecture if you do make it off of the beaten path. It's totally worth it to go to Miyazaki. Funny to see that information in Tokyo Station though. All right this was really interesting to me because I live in one of Tokyo's 23 cities. My town is called Chuo. So I've been telling you over the last week here that Tokyo is not a city. It's actually like a state. It's a prefecture. It's a to-do (metropolitan area), not a city. And within there is the city of Chuo and that's my city.

00:10:52 John Daub: And they have English information and they're promoting the guides here. This is a guide standing in front of Nihonbashi and you can book informative guides. I think I might do that one time. I might call them up and see. This is something that we can do together. Chuo City, my city, has the Kabukiza Theater, it's got Ginza, it's got Nihonbashi. There's a lot of stuff in my town, Tsukishima which is monjayaki town. And I think it's really cool to have guides here. On the back side they have everything in Japanese. It's just a walk around the center. And Chuo City also has a Pokemon stamp rally going on here until March 24th. That's super interesting and if you get all the stamps you can take it and claim presents. There's the QR code. I guess you can scan that. There you go if you're interested in that.

00:11:35 John Daub: There's a way to do it using this app called Furari. And there's a Pokemon Cafe. Oh so Pokemon Cafe is in Chuo City. That's my city. I didn't know that. All the stuff was in my town. Interesting so there you go. That's super interesting. You know, I don't often pick up tourist information from your own town, so you don't know what's going on. So there's some kind of jelly in this Sakura Frappuccino. I don't know. It doesn't taste... You know, cherry blossoms should taste a little bit salty. I think that's what's missing from it. Kind of disappointing. Not worth the $7. Look at that. It was like 732 yen, I think it was. I'm not sure it was worth that. I think I'm going to stick to regular coffee. Once every couple of months, I might go and splurge on something that's off menu, not coffee. And yeah, this is that one time. The only time I was really satisfied was when they had like melon Frappuccino. That was pretty good. All right, back to it.

00:13:05 John Daub: Yeah, cherry blossoms are typically marinated or preserved in the salt, so it does have that flavor. A floral, salty taste. All right, this is important. I think if you pick up this, this might be useful. This is the map of Suijou Bus (water bus), Space Boat, and the other... Well, I think there's two companies that are not doing it. They were like zombie buses, zombie boats for two, three years. They would go by, and they'd have to keep the schedule up. Nobody was on it. Now, tourists are returning to it. The Suijou Bus is a lot of fun. And here's the schedule. It's not only in Japanese, but another reason to learn the kanji here. And they tell you where the ferry piers are in Asakusa, near Hamamatsucho Station. And there's even one in Odaiba. So you get riverboat tours. That's cool.

00:13:59 John Daub: This is important for you. All right, so this is... Of course, it was JR, so they have JR East stuff here. This is the brochure for the Shinkansen. And they're JR East Pass. This JR East Pass, Tohoku area, is really cool. You got the snow monsters, which are still there right now. You have the Cherry Blossom Festival in Hirosaki by the castle. I'm going to try to go there this year, if you guys are into it. You have Aomori Prefecture's Oirase Gorge, which is so beautiful in the spring. There's the Nagano Snow Monkeys at Jigokudani. I covered that. You know, Tokyo. And then you see the beautiful autumn foliage of the Miyagi area.

00:14:40 John Daub: Yeah, there's two passes here. And you don't have to be a tourist. This is the pass that I can get, so I'm really happy about that. I don't know if I can get this one. If I can get this one. And maybe I think I can now. It's 20,000 yen, or about $165 now. You get five consecutive days of travel on the Shinkansen to Tohoku. And that's just the north part of Japan. That's so cheap. And I think it's a great value. Instead of getting a two-week JR Rail Pass, maybe you get one week and then this pass. Which you can get any time. You can buy it here at the office.

00:15:21 John Daub: There's also the Tokyo Wide Pass, which I've gotten that quite a bit. That's 10,000 yen for three consecutive days in the Tokyo area, which also includes a lot of Niigata and Nagano and like Karuizawa and Utsunomiya, for example. Just a round trip to Utsunomiya and back is about the price. And then you have two days to go and explore. You can also use that to ride everywhere in Tokyo on JR trains. There's the Narita Express, which I never have taken because it's just a rip-off because you have the bus that's like $10. It's more convenient. And then the other rail passes here are... Here, the Hokuriku Arch Pass looks pretty interesting. This is a pass that I can't get. You have to be an actual tourist to get these other passes here.

00:16:08 John Daub: But the South Hokkaido one, you probably want to get that if you're going to Hakodate because this includes the Shinkansen that goes through the tunnel. And this is another 4,000 yen. I can't get this, but you get that view, which is pretty awesome. And then if you want to go to Sapporo, you got to pay a little bit more. But again, like it's worth it. You get an extra day, six consecutive days. That's worth it actually. One extra day and you include Sapporo on there. That's a great deal because a flight on ANA costs for one way this ticket price. Unless you book like 45 days in advance or something. That's a really good deal. All right. JR is doing a pretty good job there. Keep it up.

00:16:52 John Daub: They actually have a Welcome Suica for short-term use. It's a handy IC card that allows one touch payment. I was curious about this because I did an episode on this just a couple of days ago. And so it can be used within 28 days of purchase of the card. Adults. This is one for kids available because kids are half price and everything. And I guess there's the QR code if you want to scan that, get all the information. Just take a screenshot of it. Where to purchase your Welcome Suica card. That's what I want to know. You can get them from the JR East Travel Center at Narita Airport, Haneda Airport and major stations, which includes this one. Maybe Shinjuku Station. I think you have to have a tourist visa. So you have to show that to them to get it. But you can get them from the vending machines. Really? I guess you have to have some sort of paper reference when you enter into Japan to show that you are.

00:18:00 John Daub: There's a lot of stuff going on with tourism that makes it easier for you and harder for me. Just let me have what you have and you can see your dream. That's great because you don't have to pay that 500 yen. And I guess people they don't want everyone taking home those IC cards. They're valuable. So these Suica, these Welcome ones are a little bit cheaper made. But yeah, you can take them home and they expire. You can charge them up at convenience stores and stuff. So there you go. I got a brochure on it inside of the station, which is pretty cool. All right. This is the one I saw. They always put the exhibitions that are going on at Ueno. Ueno Museum right now. They have dinosaurs going on until June 18. So that's pretty cool.

00:18:46 John Daub: This is the National Museum of Nature and Science in Ueno Park. And I believe the only days that they're closed on Mondays. All museums are closed on Mondays. That's pretty cool. The one in Fukui. If you like dinosaurs is world-class. The Fukui Dinosaur Museum is world-class. It's worth going. If you're interested in dinosaurs, if you have a son who's really into it, it's worth taking the train and going out there to see that museum. Kawagoe English. This is great. They put it in English. You don't pick up the wrong one. They made everything in English. I think they should put some Japanese. So you get accustomed to seeing Kawagoe in Japanese would be nice.

00:19:27 John Daub: And there's some discounts in this brochure. So you definitely want to pick it up. It tells you how to get there. It tells you the reference points. This is a great brochure. I didn't even think I was gonna be judging the brochures, but some of them you can tell are just way better than another one. And they have a discount pass. It's about $8 US, children half price for a train bus and then special offers. I like this. They really worked hard to put this together. Great map. Look at this, very colorful. Kimono rental. They put a lot of stuff that you might be interested in right from the station. So when you arrive, you can get started and they've given you some of the best routes for Kawagoe. This is a wonderful map. So pick this one up if you're interested in it.

00:20:17 John Daub: And then here's all the points not by number because there's so many numbers on the map. They did by letter and the shops are by number. That's smart. That's really smart. And then the bus is so confusing. They made it easy for you by showing you on the map where exactly it is. And then they show you the happy people at the Tobu Information Center. Yeah, and look at that. And there's a train line. So you don't take the wrong one, color-coded with all the stations in English. Very cool and a 5% off gift coupon from Tobu Department Store. And keep a coupon [kudo?], show your Kawagoe discount pass and you get a discount. That is really cool. Kawagoe is on the ball, man. This is in Saitama. It's a really great place. And totally worth visiting up there.

00:21:08 John Daub: Chichibu. I picked this up because it was interesting. They had another brochure. I think it was in Japanese though. Chichibu is this area. It's actually right on the Tokyo-Saitama border, but it's one of the most beautiful places especially in spring and you have these flower gardens. I think you can see up to Mount Fuji. But what makes this interesting, this information, is that they have a taxi service attached to it. And I tried something like this. I guess when I was hitchhiking in Tottori, they had a taxi service where you could pay a certain amount and for like two hours, the taxi driver would take you and you wouldn't have to worry about the meter.

00:21:47 John Daub: So what they have here are routes for the Chichibu area for people who don't want to rent a car. You have this option for two hours. You can get a taxi for 8,000 yen. Again, you don't have to tip or anything like that. Don't tip. Three hours. So it's 4,000 yen per hour. And I think that's pretty fair. Including the gas. And the car and everything. And you're getting taken directly to the tourist places that maybe you want to hit. And this makes a lot of sense in particular, if you have more than one person, right? So there's two or three of you that certainly makes sense. And if even by yourself, it's an economic decision just time wasted to take buses and stuff. Taxis is so much better. And this one includes an icicle period. Oh, you could go to see the icicles. That's cool. And the strawberry picking. Because the strawberries are inside of greenhouses. So the strawberry picking is in the winter.

00:22:45 John Daub: Yeah, it's interesting. I think this might be something that's worthwhile. Two hours for 8,000 yen if you have two or three people. That's absolutely a good deal. Recommend for groups. Up to six passengers per taxi? So you can have six people. And if you split this, it's three hours of a taxi tour for like 1,200 yen a person, which is 10 bucks. That's a really great deal. If you get a posse together. So that's the Chichibu Rakuten Taxi. Interesting. I love this. You never know what you're going to find.

00:23:16 John Daub: Time Out, which is the famous online info site, has 60 things to do in Tokyo. So let's see what the first 10 are. I'm always curious. What's number one? Number one, admire the resurrected icon. Explore the world of verdant brews. This looks like Kyoto. I guess they have a shop in Kyoto. This is all in central Tokyo things to do. These are things I didn't really think about doing. Marvel at the marble. Really? Okay. Wake up in the 60s. That's easy to do here. Raise your glass to a fancy bird. This is yakitori. Rethink stand-up sushi. That's interesting. So they have 60 things in here. And these are stuff I could make live streams about. Yeah. That's interesting. So you can pick this one up and kick off the evening in Saitama. That's a cool style. So you can just pick up this map and follow it. You'll probably get a pretty interesting experience out of it. It's a Time Out 60 things map here.

00:24:28 John Daub: You guys have any questions, you can write in the live chat. I'm looking here a little bit. It's a live stream. This is a Tohoku tourism map. And I've always been curious about these maps because Tohoku encompasses... Do you guys know the prefectures of Tohoku? It's Fukushima, Miyagi, Yamagata, Akita, Iwate, and Aomori. And this is the northern part of it. And again, this is the place most impacted by the tsunami and earthquake. 13 years ago today on this day, we're remembering the people that we lost and what happened on that day.

00:25:16 John Daub: So this Tohoku map breaks it down. They do have some English here. But they have to have one that's in English. But I couldn't find one. But the map is beautifully done. It breaks down the areas 1, 2, 3 based on what you guys want to do. Then it breaks it down into season. Spring, summer, fall, and winter. Look at that. And then, of course, if you open it up, there's a map. Which I think is something you can put in your office here. It's pretty big. It's really impressive in Japanese. All the details in it. But shows you even the topography of Tohoku. And all the train times. But this one's in Japanese and I couldn't find one in English. Maybe they're just out of it. But this is worth picking up just to look at. I think it's kind of cool. The paper's pretty good too.

00:26:20 John Daub: I'm putting it back because I don't need any more paper in my office. Hiroshima Peace Tourism. I was interested to see that they had a... You can scan that QR code. The city of Hiroshima has kind of a self-guiding tour that you can take. I don't know if it's in English. Oh, there it is. Yeah, there's an English one here. Peace Tourism guides you to various locations around Hiroshima where you can see traces of the atomic bombing, learn about the history and culture that existed before the atomic bombing, and experience the daily lives of local residents who are learning about the restoration of the city. Last time I was there, going around it, I know that the city wants to move on from what had happened. It's really hard to separate it from the tragedy. But I think 80 years is enough time, right?

00:27:08 John Daub: All right, 30-second break. Let me see if you have any questions. The next one looks like a really beautiful town that I've never been to before. This is Kiso, Japan. Once again, like when I look at the map, I pick it up because the image is compelling, but I don't know where it is. Does anybody know where Kiso is? There's not even a map in Japan where it is because you have to assume that nobody knows where Kiso is, right? So how to get there? It doesn't tell you the prefecture. You have to look here that it's in Nagano. And even then, like the only Nagano is like right there. Kisoji.com. It's a beautiful... I'm guessing you're going to see the kind of Japan that you want to see. I'm sure a lot of you might have seen these images on Instagram too. Beautiful.

00:29:03 John Daub: Nagano is one of the most beautiful prefectures in Japan. A lot of tradition, a lot of culture, a lot of snow, a lot of nature. Look at that. Wow. Probably only in the morning when there's nobody there. These streets though, they're beautiful like this, but sometimes they allow cars on them because it is a local place, and then cars start to park in front of it and ruins it. So you got to get there when there's no cars. But already I'm starting to see like I can see myself visiting here for a day or two and really enjoying myself. They've got onsen, they've got good food, they've got festivals. And there's a really nice map here. But once again, like I think every place should have and show you where in Japan is the location.

00:29:58 John Daub: Koyasan needs no introduction. This is a World Heritage Site. It's got so many old temples. It's famous for its Buddhist culture and a very long history for Buddhism here in Japan, Koyasan. It's in Wakayama, not far away from Osaka. It's funny to see this English brochure here in Tokyo Station. But tells you how to get there. I spent a few days there during the pandemic, actually 2020. And they'd asked me and Ruth and some others to go up there and experience it. We had a good time. There's some live streams from there on this channel. But it shows you here from the station, you can pretty much walk everywhere. And you should definitely spend a night here at an old temple. You have to book in advance. They're quite popular. But they almost always speak English. And it's just one of those really amazing cultural experiences because of all the temples. And you feel immersed in Japanese culture at Koyasan.

00:31:18 John Daub: Wakayama is maybe one of the most untraveled prefectures, which is such a shame. The inlands of Setouchi, famous for its lemons and its bridges. I was just here. It's got the bicycle path where you can ride for a couple of days. Setouchi is also where Rabbit Island is, Okunoshima. It's a really pretty place. Yeah, I could see myself spending two or three days on the islands that connect. There's Iwakuni, famous for its towels and cotton goods. And Onomichi. I think that's Hiroshima Prefecture. Right. And there's Ehime in Hiroshima. It's the islands on the Inland Sea. There's the wagyu. Everyone's got wagyu beef there. That's pretty good. There's the art. Naoshima. So there's a ton of stuff to do in this region. I like the brochure. It tells you the stuff that you can eat. Food is so important. So there's food on every page.

00:32:30 John Daub: This takes us to Kagawa, which is the prefecture right next to there. This is famous. Kagawa is famous for a lot of stuff, including this park in Takamatsu. I can't remember the name of the park. But I think once again, they should say that it is in Shikoku. But you know, the thing is like all these places have their tourism budget. This is the biggest issue with tourism in Japan here. And this is the stuff I've been working on this with some of the prefectures and towns that I talk to. They all get their budgets, and they don't want to promote anywhere around them. They just want to promote their town. But by doing that and using the budget, nobody really knows where your town is to start off with. And it's hard really to give you the value if you're not kind of in, I don't know, maybe it's greed. Or maybe it's like they don't want to be seen as wasting taxpayer dollars. But a lot of organizations don't want to work together.

00:33:31 John Daub: The biggest example is the Sanin area, which is Shimane and Tottori, two places I love dearly. Sanin area is stacked with places, but Tottori and Shimane don't like each other too well. This is the political thing. Maybe it goes back to centuries, warring clans. Maybe to the prime minister, there was a Shimane prime minister, and he helped to build up Shimane, but didn't give any money to Tottori. So it's kind of the corruption of anybody who becomes the prime minister of Japan. They kind of give back to their own prefecture, their hometowns with budgets and stuff. But yeah, that area is so stacked. Only recently are you starting to see brochures that promote the entire area. And without that, it's hard to see the attraction of just one little town. If they combine, it's about getting people from Tokyo, Kyoto to those areas. And if you don't combine your power, it's a really hard push to just do Yonago City, when you could do the entire Sanin area. So hopefully, you know, because I'm cheering for them.

00:34:40 John Daub: So Kagawa is a beautiful, beautiful place. If you're into noodles, I went here with my friend Cody from Ramen Guide Japan and Food Ranger Trevor and Ting, we drove across from Okayama. We did this trip. We drove across the bridge and I drove them to my friend's Sanuki udon place. I did a livestream there with Trevor. I think Ting was in it as well. And then the three of us drove all the way to Takamatsu. And we tried curry udon and Food Ranger made a video on it and it's on his channel. I think it got a couple million views. We ate a lot. So Kagawa is a beautiful place and I was really glad that Trevor and Ting got a chance to go down there when they were visiting Japan. Looking forward to seeing them again if they come back.

00:35:44 John Daub: Nagasaki in Tokyo Station. This was interesting to find. I didn't see it in English though. But Nagasaki, again, it's in Kyushu, the southernmost of the four main islands. On the west side. And the prefecture has this brochure. And I thought I would show it to you. Again, Nagasaki was highly influenced by the Dutch. So you see a lot of European-like buildings. In fact, Kirin beer originated in Nagasaki, I believe. There's Dejima, which is the trading post island. That's a big draw. There's some penguins there. I guess there's an aquarium nearby. The night view of Nagasaki is something that rivals Hakodate. So there's a lot to do there. Dejima, which has a lot of the history there. I love walking around Nagasaki. I can't wait to go back there. There's also Huis Ten Bosch, which is the Netherlands all put into a theme park, which is weird to the Dutch who come and visit. Like, what the heck, man? But pretty cool. I think they even hire people from Holland to go and work there.

00:37:04 John Daub: I thought this was interesting too. Kyushu was representing. Now, Oita, I guess they stole it from Thailand, but they're amazing too. They put on the map, I love this, right there, Oita. So you know where it is right away. And you see the steaming. I don't know if I would use this image, but I don't know. They should tell you why they picked this image on the front. Instead of amazing Oita, maybe like hot spring paradise. The steam I know is in Beppu. And it's the steam coming from the baths. And there's a lot of them because it's just a hot spring awesome town. Have a quick look. Okay, so it opens up into a map of Oita. It shows you some of the history. Oita's got connection again to European culture too. So you'll find some booze there. This is one of the only places in Kyushu that doesn't have a strong shochu culture. The sake culture is stronger than the shochu culture. From what I've been told. And then you have a pretty comprehensive map of Oita right there. And there, I like this. They show it in how big it is in Kyushu. So it's on the northeast side. That's a pretty good map.

00:38:29 John Daub: And last but not least, let's keep it simple Kumamoto. Boom. I like this because it looks like somebody had written the notes on there. And when something's handwritten, you sort of look at it a little bit more. It sticks out. They kept it simple. It's Kumamoto. And this is down in Kyushu. Again, I couldn't believe how much Kyushu information I found in Tokyo Station. There's the ramen, the castle, the gardens, the nature, the food. Aso-san, which is the volcano in the center, which is absolutely beautiful and active. You have some of the best hot springs. Some of the most incredible natural scenery. Look at that up there. The wide Amakusa Sea is wonderful. It's from a torii in the sky. Take a short boat ride to Cat Island. Is that in Kumamoto too? Really? So this is northern Kumamoto. They break it down by region. I like it. It looks like they've taken notes. I like that font that they used. It's a beautiful area. Map on the back. I like that. I just think that they need to have a map on the front. You need to show exactly where this place is. And I think that they should write Kumamoto in Japanese. I think Japanese, the location, a sign should always be in the brochures. But that's just me.

00:39:58 John Daub: All right. That's a lot of paper. I don't know if this is going to change in the next generation. I hate it when I go to a place, I'm at the place, and then they hand me a brochure. Because the last thing I want to do is to carry around another piece of paper when I could just scan a QR code and then download it into a file or something. Right? That's just me. So I'm going to go take all these brochures back and put them back on the shelf. But let somebody else get some value out of it. It's a... Almost no sakura taste. Kind of a disappointment. All right. I'll take some questions for the next couple of minutes. Because that's a lot of information for you to digest. I'm in front of the Marunouchi side of Tokyo Station. Where just in this tower right here, that's where you can get all of that information. If you have a JR Rail Pass, you can pick up inside of there. Everybody speaks English in there. And they can help make the reservations. They were helping out some tourists with oversized luggage to book the proper Shinkansen service. So that they will have a smooth ride to the destination. Brochures back on the shelf. That's the way we do it.

00:41:25 John Daub: All right. Looks like there's no questions. Really? It's paper straw. Hey, mods. Did I miss any good questions while I was doing the talking? Because I was looking at the... If there's any good questions, if you can ask me from the people who chimed in, that might be helpful. Shout out to you. Shout out to Joy, one of our moderators who was in Japan recently. Sent me some Philippine biscuits. Thank you so much for that. We're going to eat that tonight. And if you do want to get a postcard, this month's postcard. What is the most ideal time to visit Tokyo? That's a tough one. But a good question. I think there's four seasons. So each one of those... Each season has a special unique aspect to it. And that's the great thing about Japan. You really have to visit it four times. Or maybe more. Because within those seasons, there's certain seasons within them.

00:42:25 John Daub: But I would say now. Cherry blossoms are good. The weather's fair. Summer's really hot and humid. But the days are longer. And that's another reason why I like summer. It's a trade-off. It's so hot and humid, like a sauna outside. You sweat like crazy. It's really bad. But the days are longer. You know, the sun gets up really early, which is great if you have jet lag. It's like 3:45. It's bright. 4 o'clock in the morning. And then the sun goes down like 7:30, 7 o'clock. So you have much longer days. Winter, I don't like it. Not because it's cold, but because it's so dark. But the foods are different. And Japan is a place where seasonal foods are very important. So it's something you have to think about. Ooh, baby. That's a frappuccino coming up here. You know, I love summer. I don't care about the heat. I just like the longer days. But with food, I would say autumn. Because autumn, the food is better. Spring, you start to... There's some interesting foods in spring, but... My favorite month might be May. May and October when there's no typhoon. September and May on the fringes. They're the best. By far. You're welcome, Rodney. Thanks for asking, buddy.

00:44:01 John Daub: All right. For everybody who's inspired by this channel, thank you. Oh, hello. Hi. Only in Japan. Yes. Okay. I recognize you from afar. I didn't expect to be on a live stream. Oh, it's okay. Hi. Where are you from? I'm from Osaka. I actually watch your videos. Oh, okay. You can say hi to everybody. Hi. We're actually heading to Osaka. Oh, cool. Yeah. So you're leaving from here? Yeah. So I watched one of your videos whereby you walked us through this area. That's why I wanted to come out from the station. And actually take a look. Because usually I'm always underground. Oh, right. Yeah. So it's a very busy place. Hi. Hey. So how long have you been here? We've been here for about three days. Three days? Okay. Yeah. We're going to be here for about seven days. So we're heading to Osaka and then heading... Okay. Yeah. Yeah. I have a card for you if you want. Oh, okay. So... Let's see. I don't know. It's not that good. I was surprised. This is kind of sweet. Here you go. Oh, thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. You're welcome. Yeah. Have a good trip. See you soon. Bye bye. Thank you. That was nice.

00:45:29 John Daub: It's easy to find me today because I'm just here. Yeah. So that's about it. That's all I wanted to say. If you do come to Japan, I think it's worth stopping in at the tourism place and taking a look at all of the different brochures that they have. Every time I go in there, I find information from a place that I have not visited before. Okay. And that's kind of neat. And I learned about my own town, about some of the stuff that they're going on, because they don't promote it very good. It's hard for the cities within Tokyo to promote what they're doing. Unless you go to the city office, you just don't know. Unless you talk to your neighbors and they don't know. My neighbors don't talk to me much at all.

00:46:14 John Daub: Oh, there's a thump. Usually that's when the battery is going down. It's a Rode thing. All right, everybody, with that, hold on a second. Thanks for letting me know about the thumping. It's something with the Rode mics. I noticed that when I'm filming, these thumpings come up when the battery is low, but I wouldn't know because the battery shouldn't be low. I charge them up. I got to tell the Rode about them. Oh, you like my shirt, LL Bean. I don't think they make it anymore. So I bought four of them and I should have enough, a good supply until 2025. Yeah. That's what men do. When we find a shirt that we like, we buy like six of them and then we use them over the years. We put them away and then we use them when we need it. We pull them out of the archives. Some men do that. If I find a shirt that I like, I don't care about fashion. I just want to have the same shirt then. I'm from the age of Beavis and Butthead and they wear Metallica and AC/DC t-shirts every single day. There's nothing wrong with that. As long as you wash it or you have like seven or eight of them. Yeah. If you see this shirt at LL Bean, let me know because I want to buy more. They're light and comfortable and made of real cotton.

00:47:46 John Daub: All right, everybody. Thanks so much for watching. I hope that this is informational. Today is the anniversary or the remembrance of what happened 13 years ago now. And I was going to go up to Iwate, but I have jobs to do here that I can't. I have commitments here so I couldn't go up to Tohoku, but I'm looking forward maybe next year to going up to Tohoku for the anniversary to remember what happened on that day because it's just one that's like, I'll never forget it for the rest of my life. John Michael writes in here, have you been to Atami? I have. That's also, I think if you're looking for an onsen town that's close to Tokyo, you can't go wrong with Atami. Everybody's going to Kusatsu. Atami is pretty impressive. Okay. Yeah. So you might want to consider going to Atami and you have views of Mount Fuji in the area. Kusatsu is nice, but they had a bigger PR budget and a lot of tourists are going there. There's nothing wrong with Kusatsu, but Atami, I might prefer it because it's not as touristy. It's domestic touristy. Yeah. All right, everybody. Thanks for the questions. See you tomorrow.