00:00:02 John Daub: Hello! How you doing everybody? So in this episode, because it is raining like cats and dogs here in Tokyo, I did promise you that I would bring you a live stream today. And we're going to do a Q&A instead, which is always on people's minds because I know that this summer a lot of people are going to be traveling here to Japan. So I hope that we can utilize the 25 years of experience living and traveling around Japan for your benefit because I know I can help. You just have to shoot me the question and then from there we will go into a lot of discussions. You can ask me just about anything that you want. I might not answer it, but you can go ahead and try. I want to say thanks to everybody who is tuning in from Patreon. I appreciate the support guys.

00:00:52 John Daub: So the first question that I get quite a bit while I'm waiting here for the chat to populate is, like you said, I'm a little bit of a nerd. Like when is the best time to travel to Japan? I just got one on Patreon that asked, is it better to travel in August or in September? Because of the heat, it's really hot in Japan in the summer. Is it worth it to come at this time? That's a tough answer. I think you have to travel to Japan whenever you get time. You come to Japan whenever you get the time. But I'll tell you this, everybody who's traveled in July, especially the last half of July and all of the rest of the year, has said the same things. It is repressively hot. It's like being in a sauna.

00:01:33 John Daub: Literally, you go outside of your air-conditioned hotel and you hit this wave of hot air that makes you feel uncomfortable. You just start sweating right away. Even if you're in a tank top with holes all through it, you're going to feel hot and start sweating like crazy. I wear black t-shirts because you just see sweat marks in me in the summer. But the problem with the black t-shirt is that it won't hide the salt that it leaves behind. You start to see salt marks after about an hour. You have these zones that turn white or gray, which is kind of funny. But it's the reality. Black shirts will hide the sweat.

00:02:17 John Daub: I would say September is the better option between August and September. The reason why September might not be ideal is because beaches close from September 1st. It's not just because the summer holiday is over. It's because jellyfish start to come in because the water is so warm. They get closer to shore and then people start getting stung by jellyfish. So Japan closes its beaches like September 1st. You could probably still go in, but it's not quite the same. Maybe you'll just see hardcore surfers in wetsuits and stuff. There's also typhoons.

00:02:55 John Daub: I'm going to comment on the last two weeks of July, August, and September, and maybe the first week in October or two. Please keep in mind that typhoons hit Japan all the time at this time. This is typhoon alley these months. So if you have a date that you have to get back to for an event or something important like work, go one day earlier than you would have in case your flight is cancelled. And use that other day as a way to decompress from your trip if you get it. If not, then still make it back. Flights are canceled if a typhoon rolls through Tokyo. Quite frankly, a lot of people end up somewhat panicked. It's not canceled for the entire day, but there'll be a 12- to 16-hour window as a typhoon rolls through where flights could be canceled.

00:03:58 John Daub: So if you've got to get somewhere, you cannot rely on the flight taking off on time if a typhoon is rolling through, and we just don't know. The probability of a typhoon coming in August and September is quite high. Let's put it like that. Higher, maybe. Not every day, but there's a chance. Typhoons roll right through. The next day, you have the clearest skies, so the flying the day after a typhoon is incredible because you can definitely see Mount Fuji in the summertime, which you can't see if you're coming at this time of year. Mount Fuji is almost never visible in the summer from Tokyo because of the humidity. There's so much humidity between you and Mount Fuji, you just can't see it. It's like it's disappeared, even though the skies are blue.

00:04:46 John Daub: All right, guys, so no political discussions in here. Other than that, visiting Japan, I actually want to live in Japan, Ralph writes in here. If you have a specific question, I might be able to help you with that. Is April significantly more expensive than May because of the cherry blossoms? That's a great question. The answer is April is not significantly more expensive because of the cherry blossoms. It's significantly more expensive because of Golden Week, which is happening next week.

00:05:11 John Daub: Everybody in Japan seems to travel on this day a lot less than there were 10 years ago with the invention of Silver Week, which is another holiday in September where people will take off as an alternative to the other holiday periods, relieving some of the stress of traveling at this time. It's a very high peak time. But between April 27th and May 5th, it is super crowded on Shinkansen platforms. You pretty much need a reservation on the Tokaido Shinkansen going down to Kyoto and Osaka and back and forth. Make sure you get that if you're traveling at this time. You can still get juseki (unreserved seats). But just keep in mind, you might be standing if you're getting on in Shinagawa. So you always want to go to Tokyo Station to get on at the origin of the train, especially during the holiday peak seasons, because your chances of getting a seat are way higher.

00:06:10 John Daub: Other than that, cherry blossom times, it also depends because you cannot predict when the blossoms will bloom. This year was a week earlier than last year. So how would you be able to predict the hotel dates for this? My advice is, if you're coming for the cherry blossoms in Tokyo, they start blooming in March. So it's over by April 5th, typically. I'm just saying like in the city. So April is not a cherry blossom time for Tokyo, but it is as it blooms up going up Japan, it'll bloom at different times. It's just that you cannot predict when the full blossoms will be here and you can't predict how long they stick around. The first wind and rain after a hundred percent, that's all gone.

00:07:03 John Daub: How do you return an IC card when you finish, right then Malcolm? Uh do you get the deposit back? You do. Do I have an IC card? I used to have a bunch of them in oh here. So you do get your IC cards back. I'm glad that you asked this here so this is a Welcome Suica card. You do not have to pay a deposit on this so if you're coming to Japan you can get a hold on this. This is an IC card that you can touch and I think you can hold on this card's expiration date is 28 days from the date of the first use. Remaining balances cannot be refunded. Keep the reference paper with you at all times. This card cannot be reissued. There's a you can charge it during the 28 days but just keep in mind that if you put 20,000 yen on it you can't get it back after 28 days so be careful. Spend all your money on these Welcome Suica cards they expire 28 days it's done.

00:08:03 John Daub: The other IC cards in the machine you can get your money back and it's a 500 yen deposit. Um I don't think you can get the remaining balance of your IC card back but I've only done it once before to get the money back and it gave me back a 500 yen coin and it kept the card so I know you can do it at the vending machines and you can do it at the windows as well if you find a metro JR window um they will take the card they used to anyways take the card give you 500 yen back. Carrie is sitting and watching this with my you fweensider just got back from Japan this morning welcome home Carrie uh is it recommended to get both the Suica card and IC card Jimmy great question answer a Suica card is an IC card there are 10 different IC cards they're all regional.

00:09:06 John Daub: So if you get a Suica card that means you got it in Tokyo if you get a Kitaca card you get Suica Kitaca um Nimoca what are some of the other cards like they all seem to end in ka uh if you get a card in Tokyo you got a the Suica and you have the Pasmo card those are the two if you get it in Sapporo you get a Kitaca if you get it down in um Kagoshima you get a SUGOCA if you get it in Kansai regions you get an ICOCA so you know it just depends on the region there's a regionality to the IC card so they're all the same yeah I like Kitaca because there's something cool about a flying squirrel on your card but I lose them every six months I don't know why. Actually Scotty my friend Scotty from uh Strange Parts he has my my uh um SUGOCA card I bought him a vending machine drink and we were filming it and he just put the card in his pocket and he still had it so there's like 7,000 yen on it Scotty send it back what are these days or just bring it back uh Pasmo also right it's in here Nimoca ICOCA Pitaca yeah Pitapa there's a lot of IC cards out there and then there's this one the Kumamon IC card which you can only use he's got Kumamon on it you can only use this in Kumamoto I didn't know that after I bought it just deposit on it.

00:10:28 John Daub: Uh Amy lmao writes in here uh is Yokohama a place to buy Kumamon? Hotter than Tokyo in August it's like the same it's like is New York City hotter than Philadelphia and in Yokohama and Tokyo are even closer so it's about the same but Yokohama is right on the sea more more on the Pacific than Tokyo is because Tokyo is on Tokyo Bay so I'd say Yokohama might get a better breeze but they're both pretty hot and the further you get away from Tokyo Bay the hotter it is because you get a little bit of a breeze off of the sea but you don't get the heat at all like in Shinjuku is going to be a little bit hotter than um like Odaiba where you're going to have the sea breeze. We live closer to the Tokyo Bay side so we get a little bit more air I like to think um but yeah it's it's you can hardly tell everybody's got these pocket fans you'll see Japanese carry a fan with them to go like this everybody also carries a towel.

00:11:31 John Daub: I don't have any with me here I'm gonna go ahead and show you guys what's in the bag here there's these little pocket towels that you can put in and I highly recommend that you all get this at Narita Airport or bring a little towel with you you're going to sweat so much that you're going to want to wipe it off you don't want to use your sleeve because your sleeve is going to get drenched everybody in Japan Japanese carries a little towel and a fan with them in the summer to cool themselves off when they sit down a little bit it does help and also to wipe the sweat away.

00:12:24 John Daub: Of course we have a lot of other things that you can do and if you're out of town and you're feeling a little bit tired or feeling a little bit tired you can go to the airport you can go up to um I think I'm going to go ahead and show you guys the inside of the bag so it's a little bit different from what you're going to see in the middle of July from the middle of July uh through Shizuoka is an amazing place. Like if you go to Fujinomiya, you get to try the yakisoba. There are regions in Shizuoka that are famous for certain foods. The unagi (freshwater eel) is quite good there. Unagi is freshwater eel because the rivers going through Shizuoka have that Mount Fuji water in it. The unagi of this region is quite famous and quite good. The anago (saltwater eel) is quite good too. The most famous anago comes from Tokyo, believe it or not. Actually the best anago comes from right off of the coast, right off of Haneda Airport, where the Tamagawa River lets into Tokyo Bay.

00:13:25 John Daub: Because the waters are really warm there and there's just something that the anago there, they just thrive in that area. So they're bigger and tastier right off of the coast. So if you're on the airplane and you look down, you'll see a bunch of boats and there's anago traps and they're all catching these saltwater eel right at the mouth of the Tamagawa River there, which is kind of inside information. But a lot of the top eel restaurants in Tokyo get their anago from Tokyo Bay. It's also a little pricier. Why is my hotel I stayed in March double the price in October? Is October so special? Dimmy, supply, demand. That's it.

00:14:06 John Daub: Right now there's so many tourists booking October. And I can't say that they're going to follow through. There might be cancellations. I don't know. But supply and demand has created the hotel prices are three times more than they were during the pandemic. The reason why is because of demand. Because of the hotels went out of business. A lot of them, especially the mom and pop places, which is heartbreaking, went out of business in 2021, 2022 in particular. They just couldn't hold on. The hotels that remained, which are mostly chains, have a supply and demand thing. And they're trying, I guess maybe a little bit is making back the money that they lost, but also they're booked. They're taking bookings and they're booking them.

00:15:00 John Daub: Ginza and Onsen is stocked for the next six months. You have to wait until six months and one day to call when they open up the books to make a reservation, which is a tip. You can't do it through booking sites so well. Some of them only take phone calls and they don't even take a deposit. They just want you to reserve, which is crazy. But if you break that reservation, you're screwing it up for everybody. I want them to keep doing phone reservations without having to put down a deposit. Every time I've stayed at Ginza and Onsen, I didn't have to put down a deposit if you book by calling them. You call, make a reservation, because why would you not go? It's Ginza and Onsen. It's like the most in demand place. You don't cancel ever for Ginza and Onsen. And if you do, you're pretty lucky because you got a cancellation, canceled reservation if somebody does do that.

00:15:51 John Daub: Jimmy writes in here, thank you for all the info. Thank you, Jimmy. Hopefully you can use this to buy a snack or drink. Well, Jimmy, thank you for mentioning that. I just, I went to, took the trash out and there's a FamilyMart not too far away and I got this. I thought this was like a Hot Pocket and it is, but has to do with these potato chips that I sent. It's, Japan has these pizza potato chips. I was like, wait, so they have potato chips in here? So I thought I would eat this as a snack. I probably won't eat the whole thing, but this was supported by Jimmy. Thank you.

00:16:38 John Daub: This is basically a Hot Pocket. It almost looks like a burrito. In fact, it opens up. So it's almost like a pita bread, right? It's not an authentic Hot Pocket. Pepperoni. We don't get pepperoni a lot in anything at the convenience store. So that's kind of good for me. All right. Thank you. Thank you, Jimmy. You can get a lot of really unique stuff at convenience stores, which is why convenience stores are just so cool. It's like a museum. Every time I go to the convenience store, there's something new, seasonal, even weekly. They'll have different desserts, different bread at the bakery, different drinks. And that trend, these gimmicks, Japanese people like, it shows that the brand is strong by innovating. And it's an important thing that they do. That's why Pepsi has to innovate. Coca-Cola has to innovate to stay competitive. Calbee brand makes good stuff. Calbee's potato chips are some of the best in the world. And they're so innovative. They have the thick cut ones now. They do different shapes and things, different flavors that you've never seen anywhere else in the world.

00:18:12 John Daub: Daniel writes in here, thank you for answering my question. I'm working graveyard shift as a nurse. So I'll catch the stream later. Hey, Daniel, keep going, buddy. My second trip to Japan will be after the summer from New York. Thank you, Daniel. After the summer, it would be highly recommended. It just seems though after summer, even though the high season is over, I am shocked. Hotels that I talk to, especially the Japanese ryokan, because Kanae and I like to go out and spend a day as a vacation, family time. They said that they're booked. They said that they're like, okay, we have rooms, but we're at 80% capacity because I ask about this stuff. And I'm shocked. Like, September, October, November are starting to book this early because people are asking for the booking and they want to make sure that they have accommodations. So if there is something in particular that you want to book, you better book it six months in advance. Now, it just seems like there's not as many options as there were in 2019. And there's a lot of people that are coming here. And there are also package tours that are booking a lot of these popular places for their package tours groups. And they're taking out like floors of hotels. So something to keep in mind.

00:19:29 John Daub: Fenrir, thank you. Kanae is spelled K-A-N-A-E, not K-A-N-A-I. Just as a note, I know it doesn't, we don't get upset or anything like that. But just to point it out, K-A-N-A-I has no meaning because the kanji is different. So it's K-A-N-A-E for Kanae Daub. So when you say it fast, you can't hear it. Kanae, Kanae, Kanae, Kanae. It's hard. I even make a mistake every now and then. I'll say Kanae. But it's Kanae, not Kanae. I don't think she cares. She had a nickname in New York because nobody could pronounce it right. Next time you see her on the live stream, ask her. She'd tell her name and they'd write it wrong on the Starbucks cup or something or in the reservations and she couldn't recognize it. So they just said, just call me this name. And it worked out better, like American name.

00:20:25 John Daub: Christian writes in here, what advice do you have for visitors traveling between cities with luggage? I'm going to do a live stream on this in May for sure. Like 100%, this is going to be done. I plan on going in September and visiting Tokyo, Kyoto and Osaka. Yeah. If you're traveling with big suitcases, I would recommend that you pack and then take it all out and then pack a smaller suitcase. I'm telling you, I'm seeing people wheeling around big suitcases and it looks like, if you just get a smaller suitcase, you're more, I mean, you're more portable. You can get around. It just looks like they're not having fun with those big suitcases. They're wheeling around Japan, which is a small, which is a very narrow, small, it's built for smaller stuff. The cities in particular. It's not easy to get around with wheeled suitcases.

00:21:21 John Daub: It just looks like it's not a lot of fun. There's a lot of steps. You have to carry that up. The elevators are slow and often right now, because everyone has wheeled suitcases, the lines for elevators is too long and it makes me a little bit upset because people who need them, like those with disabilities, sometimes have to wait for tourists that don't see that there's somebody with a wheelchair who probably has priority or a pregnant lady with a family probably has priority over your wheeled suitcases, which you could probably take up on an escalator or you could work hard and get it up the steps. But I'm telling you, pack a backpack or don't. You know. I don't use those elevators so much for the people with disabilities. I think it's or carriages with babies, right? Strollers.

00:22:10 John Daub: But I would say just to go back on this a little bit more. It's a good question. You can go pack your bag the night before, like 4pm. You know you're going to be leaving the next day. Have a day pack. Keep your stuff there in the afternoon, early afternoon. Tell your hotel you want to send this to the next hotel. You'll have a takuhaibin (luggage delivery service) form. You fill out. They might even help you with the kanji and stuff if you want to write it in Japanese. But English is fine for takuhaibin. You need the postal code. You need the phone number and you need the address. And then you need your phone number. It helps if you have a phone number to call and you can have the hotel like the last address can be your hotel here, you know where you're sending it from. It'll go there overnight. And if it's not too far away, it'll be there when you arrive.

00:23:02 John Daub: That is crazy. You can specify the date that you want the time you want it to arrive as well. So if you want it to arrive at check in at 2pm, they will wait until 2pm and then deliver it at that time. It costs about 2000 yen. I don't want to say the price exactly. I think it depends on weight and size, but I would say roughly like 2000 yen and you can travel with so much more relaxed. You don't understand if you're paying like thousands of dollars for the plane ticket to come over here to send your suitcase in advance. And be able to just travel with a little backpack. And then when you get to the place, you don't have to find a locker to travel around in the morning. You have no idea how much more it makes your vacation enjoyable when you don't have to go searching out for a locker. All right, or putting your stuff in or you could just let the delivery service get it to them. Even if the suitcase takes two days to get there. If you're going from Osaka to Sapporo, hey, you don't have to worry about that suitcase for two days. That's probably a good thing and you save money in lockers. So you can do that. The service is wonderful. It's called Takuhaibin Kuroneko. There's a bunch of other services they might have, but the hotel should be, you should be able to have it sent from the hotel lobby. They all have those forms.

00:24:15 John Daub: N Star writes in here, thinking about using the, oh, it just disappeared. All right. Thinking about using the Hokuriku Arch Pass, what places other than Kanazawa do you recommend? That's hard. Do you mean like for the pass? I would recommend it in this area everywhere. Yeah. I don't have a place I don't recommend. Every place has so many attractions. Kanazawa in particular is wonderful. And the pass, the Hokuriku Arch Pass covers all the way to Kanazawa and that pass is incredible. It hits so many wonderful places. I would say you don't need to go to Kyoto. You could go to Kanazawa, pick one or the other. It's really, really amazing place.

00:25:00 John Daub: I want to get into Alicia's question here, Martin the channel. Are capsule hotels still a thing? I really want to have an experience at least once. So let me see if I can answer both of these here. Other places to go, like if you're going to Hokkaido, you should invest at least like three or four days, unless you just, you typically, you specifically want to see Hakodate. All right. If you go to Sapporo, you might as well also go see some other places around there. So you need two or three days. If you're going to Hakodate, you can do that for a night or two. But if you're going to Sapporo, you might as well, you know, spend a whole week up in Sapporo and Hokkaido and spend a holiday there. If you're going down to Kyushu, you might want to spend a couple of days in that area. So. Getting those regional passes are pretty interesting and it's good to look into there. If it's your first time to Japan, Takayama is highly recommended because they're used to working with foreign tourists.

00:25:56 John Daub: Takayama is in Gifu prefecture and it is the best off of the city route stop because it's not that far away. It's really interesting. Old town, the beautiful ryokans that have a lot of English menus and English explanations for everything. They've been doing this for years and years and years. So. I took my mother there in like 2000, 1999 and she loved it. So you know, for 25 years they've had a really good experience dealing with foreign tourists, which is why it's so popular.

00:26:17 John Daub: Capsule hotels are still a thing. I got a comment from somebody on Patreon that they had spent three, four days in a capsule hotel in Shinjuku and my mouth dropped. Oh, I think this is just a comment on yesterday's video. I couldn't, I was shocked that somebody spent more than a night in a capsule hotel. Capsule hotels are typically meant for business, Japanese business travelers that are traveling like Osaka and Tokyo, companies that don't have big budgets. They don't have a lot of money or actually these business people are just stayed late because they had to go drinking with the clients in Tokyo and they just needed a place to crash from like 1am to 7am. So maybe like six, seven hours. They take a bath. They sleep in their capsule. They wake up, they get out. That's it. That's what the purpose of a capsule hotel is and why they kick you out like a youth hostel.

00:27:14 John Daub: Capsule hotels are not meant to be, um, like tourist. You don't want to spend a vacation in a capsule hotel, but because this experience is so uniquely Japanese, it's become a tourist attraction in itself. The staying at the capsule hotel, whether you want to base your trip out of it or not, I don't know. But again, if you're spending like thousands of dollars or a thousand dollars to come here, I just can't, as someone who lives in Japan, wrap my head around somebody who spends a week in a capsule hotel to save a little bit of money. Cause an APA hotel can be, you know, 2000 yen more a night. And the comfort level is so different. You can sleep well in a capsule hotel, but like, I don't know. On top of this capsule hotels have evolved a little bit where they're not capsule hotels anymore. Right? It's a capsule concept it's not a capsule if you can walk into it it's not a capsule if it's not stacked on top of each other it's not a capsule just to put that in perspective capsules have become more comfortable too.

00:28:25 John Daub: I don't know when I did my video in 2015 about the capsule hotel it wasn't there wasn't anything really like this on YouTube at the time which is why I went really viral really quickly and the challenge that I kept in touch with the manager the challenge that he had after it was like his the Shinjuku Kyakusho Mai capsule hotel was really popular with tourists after that and they had a hard time with luggage because capsule hotels are typically a place for people you would just have a briefcase you didn't have a lot of luggage like a suitcase or backpack but because of the tourist boom that happened like around 2015 2016 and actually after the video that I did a lot of the capsules realized the market as Japan's population is declining they decided to make more space for that make women only capsules as well which is really important because capsule hotels it's not a great thing to have it like a bohemian style it's sort of good that they separate the women from the men you know because you're in your pajamas stuff could happen I don't know it's a lot of capsule hotels don't have security because it's like self-contained.

00:29:42 John Daub: So if you stay a night in a capsule hotel I think it's awesome don't take your family and stay in a capsule if you have like a you know like a teenage son maybe but don't take like your your wife and and and you guys get cat that's so like it it's not good I think if you're a solo traveler okay get a room you know go stay at the Sheraton at Tokyo Disneyland that's one of my favorite places because the rooms are so big if you're a tourist you have jet lag stay at the Disney hotels they have a pool you know it's easy to get around the rooms are spacious the breakfast is great there the Hilton is also quite good I thought the old could I was a little bit old it wasn't a bad experience so I got a book all right thanks peso all right let's see what I might have missed some questions as I was talking a little bit too much about that.

00:30:39 John Daub: Um caskets rooms for Count Dracula pretty much pretty much do the barbers hold conversations in Japan writes in gi um yes I would say that they do I do I've had the same barber for 14 years more or less um he passed away a couple of years ago so I started to go with the other barber who I talked to when I went there and if he quits there's another barber who I talked to in my family um barbers typically even if they're working for a company will stay there for a very long time and they really care about the work that they do um which is incredible but you know if they get to know you we talk about it all the time I'm I'm on Japanese TV more than you guys know not a lot but they see me when I'm on TV they a lot of them record the show so they talk about like you know what about this person that I met what's the host like what did what was it like going in again what did you eat at the studio because it's a huge show that I do that's kind of cool.

00:31:45 John Daub: But um when my friend Joe got a haircut at the place the guy could speak a little bit of English and he did have conversations but not all of them are the same it just depends if they don't know you there's risk involved with having small talk with tourists and they don't want to get you upset or offend you or stuff like this so sometimes they might be shy to talk to you but if you try to talk to them then they might open up to you but the the it's important for Japanese uh in service is not to say something offensive so it's hard to do small talk because you don't know the boundaries of strangers especially today I you know it's like it's very politically divisive they won't be talking about that I'm sure but I think it's always a risk to talk in a second language with somebody that you don't know and for men at barber shops you know I know my barber pretty good and uh they do an amazing job for a ridiculously small price.

00:32:38 John Daub: I bring omiyage (souvenir gifts) to them if I go traveling sometimes I know I'm gonna be getting a haircut which I will be soon I'll bring them uh some oranges from from a certain area of Japan be cons or I'll bring them like cakes from Sendai or something and they appreciate that um but I do it because you know they're kind of like my family 14 years I've known I've known them longer than I've known my wife so kind of like family. Michael writes in here hey Michael always love your travel tips is there an onsen in Tokyo that allows people with tattoos to use their services thank you Michael great question answer 99% of the sento (public baths) which are the the um public baths are tattoo friendly there's like one or two that were not I don't know why but I bet you that they changed their tune just because it doesn't matter that as much anymore.

00:33:41 John Daub: Usually right now it's changing quickly Keiunkan the oldest hotel in the world that I went to Nishiyama Onsen Keiunkan the CEO told me we don't care if you have tattoos you got tattoos stay a Keiunkan what smart business that is I think um in terms of tattoo friendly I really don't know because I don't stay at onsen in Tokyo there aren't that many um I think Monogatarionsen the onsen is out of business no I think they closed I'm not sure maybe they reopened again I'm pretty sure that they're if they're not tattoo friendly now I'm pretty sure that they will be this year always call ahead I know you can book on booking.com and you can book online it makes a lot of sense to get on Skype you can Skype out or line or whatever app you're using call out and just call them and say if you have tattoos and this is something you're worried about and saying like I have a tattoo it's it's a small or I you know I I have a tattoo I'm not a dangerous person uh can I reserve this if they say yes make sure you get their name it says thank you can I have your name again like oh Suzuki-san okay Suzuki-san just it's always good to say I talked to Suzuki-san Suzuki-san said it's okay if there's ever a problem um and then the hotel feels more obligated to help you.

00:35:25 John Daub: I I don't think it's ever going to be an issue but always it just makes when you travel it always makes sense to take people's names down when you're making the itinerary I always write down the address the phone number and who I talk to if I talk to them on the phone for sensitive information and something like a tattoo is a sensitive information a lot of the onsens have private rooms with private baths and especially if it's your first time coming to Japan and you're a little bit shy I would recommend getting one of those they're a little bit more expensive but you cannot not soak in an onsen if you come to Japan it's too many and they're shy about getting naked in a public setting. And I can understand that because I was too. But that's the wrong way to think about it. Nobody really cares. You don't have to show everything. I have the towel hanging right in the front to be modest. I don't want to show off. Peter von Gomm is the same. Nobody does, no matter what you're packing. It's just like modest. Everybody holds it a little bit down there, fold it up, put it on your head. Nobody cares. They're strangers. No one's going to remember. You're not going to scar anybody for life. If you're worried about it, you can get public baths in your room. Always call ahead if you're worried about that. And check the reviews. Google Reviews does a good job of people leaving reviews, especially if they're not tattoo-friendly. You'll see a lot of negative comments, like they're not tattoo-friendly. Google Reviews is a good place to start.

00:36:44 John Daub: Some great questions here, guys. I'm coming in the summer, and I sort of assumed that it would be too hot to go into an onsen. That's a great comment. I think it is. Going to an onsen is not the most popular thing in the summer, but people still do it. You still feel really good after you get out of an onsen because the temperature feels cooler because the onsen was so much warmer, right? But let me put it to you like this, okay? Let's get real. A lot of the onsen are in mountain regions. They're in the countryside. They're in valleys that are cooler. So the nighttime temperature could drop to a very comfortable degree. So if you're going to the onsen at like 8 or 9 p.m. or in the morning at like 6 to 8 a.m., the temperature can be cool enough where it is pretty comfortable to be in the onsen. So think about it like that.

00:37:43 John Daub: Remember, Karuizawa in Nagano is an hour, and she's an hour away by Shinkansen from Tokyo. And the temperature difference could be like 10 degrees compared to Tokyo. And the humidity level could be half of what is in Tokyo, right? So you think about it like this. Going to an onsen there is not too bad in the summer. So keep that in mind. And if you're going to the ocean side, there's always a breeze coming off of the sea, so it doesn't feel as humid, quite the same, as walking around the center of an urban city. So you're not going to be in the ocean side with roads that are just pushing heat out like crazy. That's a great observation.

00:38:24 John Daub: GTA writes in here, we'll be in Tokyo on May 20th to 31st. What's the weather in Tokyo like during that time? It's good. I think May is my favorite weather time. It's not rainy season. You get longer days because you're farther away from the short nights of winter. You're getting more and more of that. It's getting closer to the middle of the summer solstice, so the days are longer, which is great. The humidity isn't here yet. You can wear shorts, which is good. Right now, the rainy season is weird. Around the middle of June, the rain starts to come down, and then the weather changes to chillier. So I think May can be warmer than June because it's sunnier and June is wetter, so it feels colder in June. So I actually wear a jacket in June quite often. Especially on the Sea of Japan side. I found myself wearing a jacket in June. So it's good to have a raincoat during the rainy season. I hope that helps. Pack light. If you need extra clothes, go to Uniqlo. It's like fast fashion. It's kind of unique to get your stuff from there because you have something like a gift for yourself that you brought back to Japan. Pack light and buy your clothes here.

00:39:49 John Daub: There's, you know, H&M is here. There's other, I think, it used to be American Eagle was here. You can order online and have it sent to your hotel. You can get a lot of stuff sent. There's an LL Bean here, which is kind of cool. So I mean, you know, if you need to get clothes here, you can do that. But I would say pack light and don't bring something for every occasion if you need it. Although you see the weather's going to change, you can go and buy a jacket, buy a raincoat, buy, you know, an extra pair of pants. Buy socks if you, you know, need socks. You can get that. Unless you're a bigger person. But pack light, if you go to the Ginza Uniqlo store, they have sizes up to 5XL. So there's some peace of mind. And there are big and tall stores all around Tokyo too. Bakurocho. It's not far from Akihabara. They're famous for being the garment district of Tokyo. There's a lot of big and tall shops there. There's some in Shinjuku and, you know, in Tokyo as well. So you can find sizes that make a lot of sense. And if you are a super big person, there's a shop in Ryogoku that accommodates sumo wrestlers. So it would actually be pretty cool to get sumo wrestler fashion, right? So there's an advantage to being, you know, a big guy or a big woman. Because then you can get clothes. I'm wearing sumo clothes, baby. Like, how cool is that? So there's shops that sell that stuff. So, I mean, you'll be covered, literally. No problem.

00:41:30 John Daub: You can also order Uniqlo online in Tokyo and have it delivered to your hotel. It usually comes the next day. So just keep that in mind. You can order stuff online. The logistics are so good in Tokyo in particular. In fact, the whole country. I order from Amazon in the morning. Often it will arrive at my house by evening. So you can do this with your hotel. Just let them know in advance that a package is coming. And almost any reputable hotel will be like, sure. We'll pick it up and leave it for you at the desk. And Uniqlo online has large sizes. So you can have that delivered anywhere in the country.

00:42:19 John Daub: Best supermarket chain. It's hard to say. The only national supermarket chain I think would be Aeon. A lot of them are regional. I go into Tokyo. I go to Koshigaya. And I don't have, there's not the same supermarket chains as there are in Tokyo. Ito-Yokado probably. Because they're part of the 7 group, which is 7-Eleven. So that might be a top brand. The Ito-Yokado brand. Aeon Mall also has supermarkets. It's hard to say. Great questions here. I ordered a shaved ice maker. What? Okay. A kakigori (shaved ice) we would call that in Japanese.

00:43:10 John Daub: I'll take a couple more questions here. Let's see if we can get to in 45 minutes. Where did it go? Oh, here it is. All right. New comments. What do we got? What do we got? Weather in November. It's warm enough to wear shorts. If you're one of those people like me. Shorts and a sweater or something. You don't need a down jacket depending, unless you're going up to Hokkaido. Yeah. It's a, you know, jeans, t-shirt, button down, maybe a sweater or a jacket, light jacket. It should be good. If you need to buy a down jacket, Uniqlo has them for like $50 or something. And they usually will stuff into itself. So it's about this size. Just crazy.

00:44:15 John Daub: Best way to book a restaurant. Call them. I think that's what I do. I don't know about apps. If there's a restaurant in particular, you can just go there and book. I don't know if I'm allowed to say their names. You know, Scotty Strange Parts was here. But there was another YouTuber who has an amazing new series traveling around the world. And they came to Japan. And we had a meeting. Me, this group of three, and Scotty were there. And I booked Gompachi, which is the Kill Bill restaurant. Kill Bill, you know, this Tarantino movie was based on this restaurant. The one where they're coming down in the fight scene, you know. The two-story one with Charlie Brown. Remember that movie? Well, it's based on this restaurant, Gompachi in Nishiazabu. So I booked it, which is pretty cool. They have English speakers, so the menu is very easy to figure it out. I called them. They also take the reservations online. But I wanted to book it. I wanted to book like two days in advance. So they didn't. It said it was full. So I called them, and they had a booking. And then when I got there, we said, oh, we had one more person joining us. Can we just all slide together? And she said, no, there was a cancellation, so we'll just give you the bigger table. So it worked out pretty good. But typically, if it's a popular place, I go there in advance. And I'll just go there and have them write it down. But websites typically for each place. And some places have the service to book. But I cook mostly. We cook mostly. So it's not something we do a lot, go out and eat.

00:46:15 John Daub: We booked at T.Y. Harbor by calling them and just saying, we're coming on Tuesday at 5 p.m. Do you have a balcony seat or something, a seat on the deck? Hey, John, what are the best days to go to Kamakura? Weekdays? Weekends are always busier. Weekdays? Maybe Monday, Tuesday? I don't know. Get there early. Wake up early and try to take the first train at the Kamakura, especially in the summer because it can get hot during the day in the summer. But it can take a little bit of time to walk around the area. So I would say get an early day out of it and then come back. If you're staying in Tokyo, you can come back early and then kind of refresh before dinner or something like that. Best I can do with that one. I haven't been to Kamakura in a long time.

00:47:00 John Daub: I'm visiting Japan during Golden Week. Is there anything we need to be prepared for? I don't think you can prepare for this. If you've decided to come to Japan at this time, then you are prepared because you know what you're going to be in store for, right? So book, if you're traveling, you know, if you don't have hotel reservations, it's going to be harder. Make sure you get a place to stay and you have seat reservations if you don't want to stand. Meaning if you're going to Aomori or you're going to like a long distance on the Shinkansen, make sure you have seat reservations. If you haven't booked a hotel, be prepared that you might not be able to leave where you're going. Don't give up a good thing because you have a place to stay. It's harder. That doesn't mean it's impossible. Not everybody goes to the countryside. Not everybody returns to their hometown. Not everybody is traveling to the same places. So there are possibilities that you can find a hotel that didn't inflate the prices because of Golden Week. And they're available. So you might find that. So, yeah.

00:48:16 John Daub: What is the best day trip from Tokyo during the week and that's not busy? That's a good one. I like, you know, Hitachi Seaside Park. It's a park with the blue flowers. It's a really good day trip and it's not too crowded. Even during the blue flowers up there. That's, yeah, it's a good day trip. It's in Hitachi. You take the Joban line up there and you can walk or take a bus to the park and you can see those flowers. It's a really nice day trip. You can stop off in Mito, which is the prefectural capital of Ibaraki on the way back and have some natto. But Mito has one of the three top gardens of Japan. It's a strolling garden. It's a beautiful garden. And you can walk there from the station. I think it takes about 20, 15 minutes or so. Walk there from the station and go and see that as well. So it'd be like that. It's more of a walking, be outside type of a thing out of the city.

00:49:28 John Daub: Nikko is a pretty easy day trip. That's good. And if you leave from Asakusa Station, you could take the Tobu line and it's pretty cheap to do that. I don't think it's that crowded during the weekend to go out there, to be honest with you. Other day trips. I don't know. Hakone isn't, I don't see Hakone as a day trip for Japanese. They go there and spend the night to make sure. They don't do that typically. But you can do it as a day trip. Take the Romancecar. I don't think it's going to be too, too crowded. I'll tell you this. All right. Some advice for the weekend. Leave early. Leave early at the crack of dawn if you can. Just wake your butt up and leave early. Get your breakfast on the go. Eat on the train. Don't wait around. And then this will take a lot of stress off. I noticed that people don't start getting, shops don't open until like 10 or 11 a.m. All right. That's when the traffic starts to get stronger around 9 a.m. to travel. So I've noticed that places don't get full on the weekend until like 1 p.m. So morning is a great time to take advantage of the fact that people are a little bit slower. You know, and if you're not, you are the early bird. You get the worm.

00:51:05 John Daub: Do you do personal touring? No. You can, if you join my Patreon and you DM me, you can give me an offer. But I, Kevin Riley, my friend down there, he does tours of Osaka. He's been busy every day. And I think this has become like his main thing now, which is awesome. He also does teaching and he does YouTube. I don't know how he does it. And he's older than me too, like 10 years old. So he's got more energy than me, which is I'm trying to stay in shape and not eat Hot Pockets. It's not working as well. Will blue flowers and Hitachi still be around in May 7th? They're blooming right around now. Yeah. Maybe. I think they're earlier this year. They typically stick around during Golden Week. So yeah. But if you are going this week up to Hitachi Seaside Park, you're going to be blessed with this amazing view, I think. So it's kind of worth it to go there. But if you go there, go there early. Be one of the first people in the park because it will get crowded in the afternoon. All right. Hitachi Seaside Park is awesome. It's got some history to it as well. There was the bombing range for Japanese fighter planes back in the day. I'm totally not a morning person, but jet lag helps. It does. It does. If you got jet lag, you got a foot up. Right. It's easy to get. You're like, 5 a.m. Let's go.

00:52:49 John Daub: Hotel prices for what I'm seeing have gone up 30 to 40% since pre-COVID days. It seems more to me. It seems more to me. Because we were getting... I could go to the Intercontinental for like 12,000 yen, right? And now it's like 30,000 yen. So that's more than double. So yeah, it's a pretty significant increase. What will it be like in mid to late June? Am I looking forward to our school getting back? It's the start of... It's the rainy season. So you're going to have some sunny days in the Kanto area, but I would bring a rain jacket and a sweater. And I always get... Can I even... Can I do it? I have like these pants. I can't even see it. I have these pants that allow me to zip it off and make shorts. I wear these all through like March, April, May, June, July, August, September. I'm not sure. November. The zip off pants are kind of cool. I don't know if they're cool anymore. I don't care. I don't care about fashion so much. What I care about is that I can make pants anytime I want. And it's really convenient. Be ready for that. The Gion festival is awesome, but it's quite crowded. So be prepared for that.

00:54:10 John Daub: Any tips for Nagano? I want to go to Seki City Blade Festival, the Hamono Festival. That's in Gifu. So wait. Tips for Nagano. but you're talking about Seki and Gifu. I'm not sure if I can put those two together. No tips for Nagano. It's great in summer because it's cooler. It's great in winter because of snow. Nagano City itself doesn't have a lot of attractions but the prefecture is loaded so making a base in Nagano is kind of good for hotels because the transport is really convenient. A lot of trains leaving from there and it's on the Shinkansen line but Nagano is also has a lot of ryokan and onsen and it doesn't make a lot of sense to stay in Nagano City. It makes a lot of sense to stay in the countryside where the ryokans are. So that's my only tip for that.

00:55:01 John Daub: In terms of the Hamono Festival in Seki, I've been there. I filmed there. It was awesome. You can bargain a little bit for the knives. That's kind of a cool thing but don't bargain too much because you you're not gonna this isn't a market in you know the silk market in Beijing where you can... I remember you know the silk market in Beijing where you can... I remember in Beijing in the year 1990s 1999 I bargained for a North Face jacket over the course of three days. I was so stupid because I was young. They wanted $100 and I wanted to pay like $5 and I knew in the silk market you could do that and you'd maybe meet in the middle and I wanted to pay $35 because I knew it was fake right. I think I wanted to pay like less than $35 or something. So he started at a hundred and I didn't insult him right. I was nice about it. I went in the next day and this his starting price was better and in the end he goes you know what I'm pretty curious. I'll be here tomorrow and then on the third day I said it's my last day. I'll give you and I had a like a fair starting price and I had the money out. I kind of had an idea of what it was gonna be. I can't remember it was a it was a steal. It was like a triple. It was fake or like a bootleg or from the factory and it was not a perfect one. I don't know but it looked really good and it was a good deal. It was warm and I was going to Tibet. Was that when I was going to Tibet? Oh this was before I went to Tibet. Okay so I had the cash out and I was like look my last day what do you think and he said okay. I bargained him down from a really high starting price.

00:56:41 John Daub: You can't do that. I don't think you can do that anymore. I don't even know if the silk market in Beijing exists. It was behind the like the international store and the embassies there but in Japan you can't really bargain but at festivals you can bargain. You can kind of bargain a little bit but just say like you could just be polite and ask for a price down and maybe you can get like 10% off but you're not gonna get a lot because they're not ripping you off. The prices are typically pretty darn good right. You can bargain a little bit in Osaka but you can't. Don't try it in Tokyo. It's not a thing here.

00:57:12 John Daub: An honest question. I'm about six foot three in my 20s and not not a big fan of the Let's just let's maybe 25 years ago would have been a little bit different but I had I was a teacher at a school and the teacher behind me was an African was a black American. I don't even think she considered herself African-American because her roots were from Jamaica or something. So I think there was you know I'm not the most politically correct person anyways but the point is that she was treated like a freaking rock star here. All right. The fact that you're you're different here. I've always seen that as an advantage. All right. There's gonna be instances where you might feel a little bit of discrimination like but it's not because that you're black. It's because you're foreign. All right. I have what I have friends that are white that'll sit down on the subway and no one wants to sit next to them. It's not because of anyone's color. It's because you're foreign.

00:58:45 John Daub: So I want to put it like this and because this girl who is replacing me her father was in the like the Olympics or something. She was a real athlete. She was seen as a rock star. She was way more popular based on her looks than I was. She looked like Whitney Houston or something okay. To Japanese. She's just gorgeous and I think she ended up quitting the job after a couple of months and taking a singing gig down in Nagoya for a while. I don't remember but don't don't think that any of the discrimination you might get here in Japan is because of the color of your skin. You're just foreign and somebody's not used to people that doesn't look like you. To the Japanese mind and eyes this is coming from me living here for a very long time because I'm not Japanese but I see like there are Japanese that are not used to seeing foreigners. I've had kids that saw the foreigner for the first time in the supermarket aisle. Stop. They look this they'll be they'll be running and playing and then they see me in the alley. They look up and go the smile melts away and they pee themselves in their pants right there in the aisle. I've had that happen more than once in the supermarket. Same different supermarkets different towns. They just would never seen a foreigner before.

01:00:04 John Daub: Alright so I hope that that answers your questions. Oh it does okay. The fact that you're tall as well it's just awesome. I think you're gonna have a lot of kids that are probably gonna look up to you literally and and you know figuratively as as you know like wow are you like a basketball player? Are you a celebrity? It's like we're gonna be really cool to people. So I always have a I know it's hard to do because of the politics and the situation in the US but I always think that it has nothing to do with with color and has everything to do with there's just not used to foreigners. I've had that and then I start to speak Japanese and I can set people at ease a little bit but I get it you know. That happened to me in South Korea in the 1980s yeah. Being a foreign you'll be a rock star to more people than you'll be feel discriminated against especially in the countryside. If you are in the countryside and you're so unique walking around people are gonna look at you because they're fascinated by you, alright? It's kind of a good thing. It's a good feeling and you either like it or you don't and that's just something that comes with the territory.

01:01:18 John Daub: I've been backpacking through China, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, twenty years ago I was backpacking through all these countries, Southeast Asia. The countryside of China was fascinating because any foreigner, they would just stare and stare and stare. People would just sit down. They had nothing better to do than just stare at you. It was like a contest. We would stare back. We would have fun. They're just curious. They'd never seen a foreigner before in some of these old Chinese towns when we were backpacking. It was cool. Now they're probably more used to it. You go to these parts in the world, it's just a fascinating thing. There are places in Japan where people don't leave very often and they're fascinated when they see a foreign tourist. They're not used to it. When you see something different, people will typically close up. That's a normal reaction. It's not a discriminatory thing. It might make you feel uncomfortable. Think about other people's feelings. I think that's something we don't do enough about. I think that they will open up. How are they thinking? You're the visitor, right? In a way, they didn't expect you coming. You didn't call ahead. I didn't call the supermarket in advance. I take that point of view.

01:02:44 John Daub: Let me see here. I'll take one last question here. Do they react to mixed children? A little bit. Leo has got really long eyelashes. He gets a lot of compliments. People think he's a girl because he's got longer hair and he's got softer features. Maybe that comes from me. I don't know. But I have not had anybody that said he was shocked by Leo. And he's both. So just the opposite. People are a lot more complimentary. People are very especially in Japan, right? I don't know. I haven't had any issues. Jennifer French is here. Jennifer, any advice on how to get Ghibli Museum tickets in Mitaka? Wow. I think you can only get them through Lawson's. And I'm not running a service to pick them up for people. I've had people. Maybe it's too bright. The color looks a little much. I've had people who have asked me to go to pick up the tickets at Lawson's for them. And I stopped doing that. So if you're asking me, you have to ask me really nice on Patreon. And maybe I'll do it if you've been a supporter for a long time. But I typically... Yeah, it's hard. You can only get those through the convenience... There are resellers. But there's a lot of... I've heard of a lot of scams as well. So it's a really tough thing.

01:04:15 John Daub: My advice is that if you're staying here for a long time, I think you might be able to get tickets. I really don't know. I haven't tried to do it for a very long time. I went there once. And I didn't have... I didn't... I'm a fan of Ghibli. But I wasn't blown away by the Ghibli Museum. I love the park. I love Ghibli movies. I didn't really get a lot out of going to the Ghibli Museum, to be honest with you. So if you're going to a lot of effort to try to get the tickets, I would question whether or not it was worth it. But it is one of the great attractions. I don't know how you get the tickets. Except go to the Lawson's or find somebody to get you the tickets in advance. If you can. It's been a while. Write me. Jennifer, just write me, okay? What I'm trying to say is just write to me, Jennifer. I know. We're on Patreon. I'll see if I can help you out.

01:05:12 John Daub: I spent a month in Japan and I only encountered one xenophobic person. Simon writes in here. I think that's exactly the case. This is the country... The younger people are much more used to foreigners, I would say. Like teenagers now because of the JET program. They've had foreigners in the school. There's been more interactions. So they might be better used to it. I don't know. I don't know. I think... Alright. It's... It's hard for Japan being an island. And this is not an excuse. This is a fact from my 25 years of experience of talking to people. Alright. Hear me out. There's... Japan is an island. The people here don't see English people as different than Singaporean people and Chinese people and Mexican people. They see you as non-Japanese people. Because the Japanese culture is strong. The language. Everything. And then there's everybody else. Alright. That's a fact. Because of this. This creates issues where if one foreigner gives a bad experience to a restaurant or a location or a place or a station or something. That will have a big impact on all foreigners. They don't care where you're from. All foreigners will be... Looked down upon because of this one person. It's the same thing if Japanese go to the United States. But when we walked through New York City, everyone was going nihao to Kanae, who's Japanese. So we... Kanae sort of took offense to that. I don't know. But it was uncomfortable. It's sort of uncomfortable for poor Kanae. Like, nihao! And she's like, are they doing that to make fun of me? Are they doing that because they think I'm Chinese? Are they doing that... Why don't they just say hello? It's weird. So, like, she had, like, this sort of weird racism in New York City as we're walking around. People saying nihao to her. It's like, what? I couldn't understand. And imagine for Asian Americans living in New York with people going nihao. Like, I'd be... Like, you're saying, hey, nihao, mofo! Like, I'd be, like, in that person's face a little bit. But actually, I probably wouldn't because I'm non-confrontational and aggressive. What is it? Non-aggressive confrontational or something? I don't know.

01:07:55 John Daub: Leo's at, like, kind of a school. So we can get work done. Yeah. All right. Last travel advice here. I see the comment from Taiyaki4me. That's a great comment. Let me put something behind it. When you get on your airplane, make flashcards before you get on the airplane for katakana. And hiragana, for that matter. And study it. When you come to Japan, you're going to find that you use... And you're going to unlock... It's going to make Japan so much more fun. Like reading hieroglyphics. All right? Imagine going to Egypt and you can read freaking hieroglyphics. If you study katakana, you can see the symbols all over the city. And you can read it and go, Kofi. Kofi. Whoa! I just read a Japanese sign that I couldn't do before I even got on the airplane. That's how easy it is to learn Japanese katakana, which is the foreign letters. The reason why I say katakana is because... Because you can work out the sound of the words because it is the symbols for the phonetics for English words. Well, all foreign words, I should say, not just English. So you see pizza. It's like pizza. You've figured it out. You can read a menu in Japanese. It says pizza. It's really encouraging when you can start to understand the symbols around you. And Japan doesn't seem so foreign anymore. So it took me... It took me about three hours before I could recognize and remember the symbols. That's it. Just a few hours, right? I quizzed myself. I did the flashcards on the subway in Nagoya when I was living there. After a day and a half, I didn't need the flashcards anymore. And I could read... I could order off of menus. Like, I could see things and be able to order from reading Japanese menus after just a day and a half of studying katakana. Utilize your time. I'm on the airplane to study a little bit. And it'll pay off huge. All right? Just put that out there. You can make flashcards. You might even find something on the internet where you can print it out. So it'll change your experiences here for the better.

01:10:08 John Daub: Yeah. I'm a big fan of you, John Daub. Thank you very much. Yeah. All right. This episode was brought to you by Patreon. There's the postcard for this month. It's still available. It's a 1,000-year-old sakura tree. This is the sakura tree that a lot of samurai would go to after battle to see the beauty. And it hasn't really changed much in size. So when you go to see this tree in Fukushima, it's the same view that samurai saw. It's a natural living thing. So I thought it's amazing. That's this month's postcard. Other months, like Torii Gate of Miyajima. Shinkansen passing Mount Fuji. The snow walls of Tateyama, which opened up recently up to 20 meters high, dwarfing the buses there. There's a postcard with Kanae in a bathing suit on the back. I put little pictures on the back here. Any of my hot sons in the chat? I see Tokyo Sam is checking in. How are you doing, Sam? I would hope not. What's wrong with you? Oh, and one note. I did get my A1 to work again. So. I took it apart, unscrewed it, opened it up. And then I said, I don't understand anything. And I put it back together. But I found that I had like six screws and I don't know where they go. Like, wait, I thought I put all the screws in. So I have all these screws. But then I turned on the camera and it works again. So I guess one of those screws was screwing up the camera.

01:11:46 John Daub: That's all I got. An hour and 10 minutes. Thank you so much for keeping me company here and asking questions. I see Sam. Sam has nothing to do with you checking in, OK? That's everything to do with me. I've been here for an hour and 10 minutes. Oliver White. Thanks for the super chat, buddy. I'll try to go. I'll try to go out and about the town tomorrow. The weather is supposed to be a little bit better. I think it might be. It might be better then. But Peso. Yeah, that's the 8K camera. I can only use it with an exterior monitor because the I broke the back of it and Sony won't fix it. Oh, this is the that's the A7S3. This one is the A1. So I don't have a monitor in the back of it, but I can put an external monitor up here and I can actually HDMI it and the sensor was not broken. So it worked just fine, right? So watch it turns on now when there's a battery in there, it does. So yeah. It works. It works OK now. I don't know if it'll work in a week from now, but yeah. So thank you everybody. If you have any questions, leave in the comments below. Thank you to the Patreon supporters. For making this possible. And I'll talk to you again tomorrow.