00:00:11 John Daub: Hey everybody, welcome to Tokyo. This is an interesting place I found riding my bicycle yesterday. That's the Kujira store—kujira (whale) means whale in Japanese. This is a store that sells whale meat. We'll have a quick look inside and see what they're selling, but for me it was interesting to see this because there's no market for whale meat in Japan. Since 1987 the school lunch program has not been using whale meat, which basically cut it off. We know the history behind it. I don't want to get too much into it, but there's been a push over the last few years to bring it back.

00:01:00 John Daub: I can't understand why, but I'm also somebody who's very curious, so I cannot completely dispel it. I've tried whale meat. It's not that great that it needs to be reintroduced in my opinion, and also this market needs to be subsidized by the Japanese government—quite a lot of money in order to even operate. So I'm not sure that I want my tax money—because I pay taxes here—to go into this, but I have an open mind and I'll let you all make the call on this as we take a quick look inside. This is in Tsukishima. There's a map in the link in the description as well as an article that I want to show you.

00:01:47 John Daub: They've been pretty open to influencers actually, so this is why it's a little bit odd. Let's go inside. Just take a quick look. Oh, first of all, it's really well air-conditioned and you have here—wow—all different kinds of whale meat. Here's some sashimi. This comes out as a platter. I will not be buying any. This is I guess you could roast—for a thousand yen, ninety grams for two cuts of steak. This is kujira deep-fried whale. Here's blocks of—there's some more stuff here as well as canned whale, so there's kujira curry, which I've actually had before. It's well, curry tastes good. It's not that bad actually. And there's some other whale products and cans here.

00:02:50 John Daub: Everything's pretty expensive here and that's another reason why there's no market for it because things are expensive. They even show you like the parts of the whale that's being used as well as the blocks of steak. Wow, trying to figure this out. These are a new type of vending machines that we've seen. We've seen this kind of vending machines all over the city of Tokyo and Japan. They can be customized to sell just about anything, which is interesting. These are refrigerated or frozen whale meat inside of here. So am I going to get anything? No, and we're gonna talk a little bit about it on the outside because I just wanted to introduce it to you.

00:03:36 John Daub: It's a brand new store. And as I said, I'm gonna try to stay impartial although I'm not really happy that tax money is going to subsidize it, but you know, they've got a plan and let's talk about that because Japan does have a rich—oh, you know, this neighborhood is just really amazing. I don't know if this is the reason why you'd want to come to the neighborhood but I would come for this. Tsukishima is a place where—we call them nagaya (row houses)—these row houses are starting to disappear. So I highly recommend if you're in Tokyo, especially Ginza, the Yurakucho area, to come on over Tsukiji, come on over to Tsukishima and take a look at these row houses before they all disappear.

00:04:23 John Daub: Yeah. All right. I want to show you now an article from The Guardian newspaper just a couple of months ago, which is so curious. Okay, I know we're gonna have most people are foreigners so they're gonna be very critical, including Japanese are gonna be quite critical of this. But you know, I'm trying—I want to keep an open mind because I don't understand it. It doesn't make business sense, does it, because there's no market for it? Let's take a look at the article here. And then what we'll discuss is this is coming from The Guardian newspaper and you can—there's a link in the description if you want to check this out. Like I'm really curious. I just want to know more about why, right? Because you know, this is in my neighborhood here.

00:05:16 John Daub: So we'll meet on the menu for Japanese suppliers enlist influencers—people like me—to do this and the domestic meat market has been declined for a very long time. So there was six hand-picked social media influencers that were in on this and Kyodo Senpaku (Kyodo Senpaku) is the biggest whaling company in Japan and they're at the head of this. I'd love to talk with them and learn more. There's a picture of the influencers. That it went to a whale eating event in March to talk about this and try it. I'm not sure. I wonder how it went for them? But you can see here since 1966, since 1987, it's just been in a decline for a very long time.

00:06:12 John Daub: And we all know that. I will take a look at it again. Anyone who's asking, is it legal? I did pick this up here—within its 12-mile coastal waters, Japan can do whatever it wants. And beyond that it's 200-mile exclusive economic zone. They can do whatever it wants. So whaling is—it's not completely illegal. There's a lot and I want to be completely fair too. There's a lot of things that we all disagree with like treatment of livestock for food that we have in a supermarket, all this other stuff. Well, I don't judge people based on what they eat. Someone who eats whale, I'm not gonna judge them because it's not illegal in Japan. You know that's I think would be wrong to do.

00:07:10 John Daub: Tortora Poco draws the line at pandas. I kind of do, I don't know. I've eaten it so you know where I stand. I don't like it because it doesn't taste—I'll tell you where I stand because I'm not impartial. Alright, I don't like that it's subsidized by the government and it would fail if the government didn't give it money from taxpayers. Number two, I've had the meat. It's not bad. It's there so I would eat it because it would be a waste not to eat it. But I could think of a thousand other foods that are better than whale. So I don't see the attraction in terms of taste. It's just a cultural thing or old-timers who miss seeing it on the menu.

00:07:51 John Daub: But there are traditionalists in Japan who get really upset being told to do something by the international community. It's like this in every country—if somebody says you can't do this, they're going to want to do this. It's maybe childish to think in that way, but I get that feeling that maybe this is one reason. But it was Prime Minister Abe, the former Prime Minister Abe—the late Prime Minister Abe—that came back and subsidized this industry. Will it succeed? I don't know. It's just really curious to me that they actually are enlisting influencers to do this. Here's the shop again. They're enlisting influencers to do this. I think that's so curious, right? So check out this Guardian article. Let me know what you think.

00:08:39 John Daub: I would say the majority of the whale in there is the minke whale. It's usually from the Arctic or down in the South where Australia is or up in the North, I guess. I'm not sure too much about it. But the more I see this, the more I don't understand the business plan. So I'd like to learn more about that, the business plan. Let me show you a chart here. I want you guys to get an understanding of the domestic consumption because the greatest thing—the thing I don't want you to make a mistake of here—is to think that Japanese eat whale. They don't actually do. And that's what is so perplexing with this.

00:09:25 John Daub: You can see 1985, 1986. There was an increase in this. And then in 1987 when they stopped it from the school lunch program and the international laws came down on this because, well, there weren't that many whales left back then, the numbers dropped incredibly. And you can see from 1988 onwards, the domestic whaling was really, really low and rightfully so. And it started to creep up a little bit through this program of scientific research, which I couldn't quite understand. But like from an impartial point of view, it's really hard to do that, isn't it? It's really hard.

00:10:13 John Daub: The argument is—and you should say both sides of it—if you come to Japan, I'm not going to judge whether or not you try it because I think it's part of the culture here in Japan historically, not currently. But you'll see it on the menu at some places now. Their point of view is I think that it's good for the ecosystem because if there's too many whales then that destroys the ecosystem. I don't know whether or not that's true. I'm just saying that's the other side. Iceland and Norway are the two other countries—or Iceland used to, I believe. I don't think they do anymore. But Norway also hunts whales as does Japan and they can do it legally in their own territory. That's fine. I live here. I just don't want my tax dollars going to it. Or anybody's actually. They should be able to sustain themselves as a business.

00:11:04 John Daub: But the issue—you know, is if you're going to eat it, I'd love to know in the comments. This is a live stream—is whale meat something that you would eat? I'm looking at the store right now. This is a vending machine store and you're seeing more and more of them popping up all over Japan. Not whale meat but these kinds of vending machines and these vending machine corners. There's whale meat inside of a store. They call it the whale store. It's making waves, literally.

00:11:48 John Daub: Yeah, everybody—dolphin documentary in Japan destroying the ecosystem. In what way? I wonder. Yeah, exactly. I'm not. I wish they would. I would love to make an episode on this and try to stay impartial because I really don't understand it. You know, there's two sides to every story. I don't understand this story because it's not in the diet anymore and it's just one company that's backing it. It has political backing. So I don't get it. I don't think there's enthusiasm. I've been around here for about 30 minutes. I haven't—I've been the only one that just went in there. Nobody else has gone in there to buy anything.

00:12:33 John Daub: So I think they want to generate attention from this, which is interesting, isn't it? I've eaten seal meat. It tasted like fishy pork. See, I know there's better meats to try. There's a human curiosity. And I think that I don't think that activists need to do anything here. You know why? Because I don't think it's going to succeed. But legally, they have every right to try to make it succeed here. But I don't think that you need to push this. I think it's just going to fail on its own because there's not a market for it and the government subsidies. Well, I don't know. I think it will eventually stop because Japan doesn't have an unlimited budget of money. You can't give subsidies to everybody for everything. You just can't do it.

00:13:20 John Daub: So I like—I don't see this going on for a long time. So I think this is the end for what I see. This is almost a desperation. Frank, hey, how you doing? This interesting live stream? I think so. I think it's sometimes you have to go head on into ideas and topics. Let's go down here. I wanted to show a little bit of this neighborhood to balance out this live stream. But I think that you have to really understand this to make an informed judgment. And I really don't understand a lot of it, which is why I would be interested in making an episode on this to kind of understand what the market is, what their plan is.

00:14:08 John Daub: But for me, I think that this is probably the desperation shot when you have to go to tourists and openly promote it, which I think they should have been doing from the start. You can't hide it. Just promote it and see if there's a market for it. And you know, you can't have a secretive business. If it succeeds, it succeeds because there's a market for it. And that's the marketplace, right? So it's walking through this neighborhood. It's so cool. You're like going back in time. And it's sad because they're removing all of these buildings at record pace.

00:14:54 John Daub: I so you know, I want to know what you guys say. The Eskimos are allowed to eat whale. I believe Icelanders eat it as well too. It's cultural. Whaling didn't really become a business here until 1890s. And then, you know, people use it for the blubber, the oil, as well as the meat. Some whalers would just use the blubber. They would melt it, put it in the barrels and then bring it back to—the US is the biggest whaler. Japan as well. But Japan does something interesting. They didn't throw the meat away. They used pretty much everything. So in that sense, I think something can be said of that. They use every part of the whale. Everything gets used in one way or another.

00:15:48 John Daub: But it just comes down to two things. Taxpayer money for it. And there's no market. And they're trying to build a market with tourists. Now, in the news, the country of Palau—you guys know Palau? Palau is this beautiful country in the Pacific Ocean. It's between Australia and Japan, sort of near the Philippines. And if you're a scuba diver and I am—I'm a dive master—it is one of the most beautiful places in the world to go scuba diving. The sea is so clear and the marine life is amazing. But Palau is also a whale meat friendly country, according to the media. And they are working now with this company in a positive way to allow Palau. Palau is working with Japan in a positive way. They're working with the Japanese in a positive discourse to get whaling over there.

00:17:05 John Daub: So then if the Japanese whalers have access to Palau's waters, they'll be able to get more whales. I think it's interesting because, again, I don't see the market for it, but there you go. Palau scuba diving country with a lot of tourists whaling. I don't get it. I know Australia is very anti against this. And for Australians that are watching, I'm not. I think you can be happy to know that the ship that all of those protesters would attack all the time has been retired. I think it was retired this year. But here's the weird news in Shimonoseki, the port down in the very south of Honshu Island, the main island of Japan, they're building a new mothership. It's literally in the news articles. They called it a new mothership. Sounds kind of cool. And that's going to be launched next year.

00:18:02 John Daub: And so they're hoping with this new mothership that whaling is going to become a thing. And they're doing the marketing push now. And I think that the marketing push is very interesting. It got me to do a live stream on it. And now I'm implicated. Yeah. Unfortunately, whales are also killed in our shipping channels. Look again, like folks, I don't know. Sit down for a second. I don't know what—like all of the different—I don't know. There are many, many cogs that are moving in this. I don't see how this is a viable business wise. But I think your voices are really important for me to understand so that if I do make an episode on this industry that I have both sides of it because, you know, I really love Japan. This is the place where I live. I don't understand something. I ask questions.

00:19:01 John Daub: Christian, I am guilty as charged. With regards to dolphins, this is a fact. So everyone who's saying dolphins and this, it happens in certain places. Indigenous people are also hunting whales and dolphins and other things in other countries. And I'm not defending it. I'm just trying to understand it too. It's not something that the Japanese people support. I don't think they even know about the subsidies to the whaling industry because most people don't vote in the elections here. I wonder if they did, how they would feel of their politicians subsidizing this money for whaling. I don't know. But look, I'm for better treatment of livestock. I like the way that—I will eat meat a lot, but I try to eat meat from sources that have good livestock management, you know, it's inevitable.

00:20:05 John Daub: There you go. All right. Now I'm a little bit lost about how I feel that in my neighborhood—I live in Showa Ward, which is just the Showa Ward—has a whale store. Is this what do you think? Is this a last ditch effort by the industry? Is it something that's going to be growing? Again, without government subsidies, they would cease to exist at all. I don't think Kishida has the response to that. I don't think that Prime Minister Kishida has the money to spend for this, especially with self-defense more of a priority with all of geopolitics going around. I don't think they got money for whaling. So I think the whaling industry is making a last ditch attempt to try to increase exposure within tourism because they—again, they hired—there's a link to this article in this live stream. They hired six influencers to try to bring more attention.

00:21:22 John Daub: There's a high rate of mercury in whale meat as well. So from Thailand, France, Russia, and a couple other countries they came from. And the ship—okay hold on a second, I can pause here. Times have changed, we want to be absolutely transparent. This is coming from their PR department. That includes talking openly with the international media. I like that. You can't—when I see this, I think that this is the smartest thing that they can do for their own survival, right? If they're openly talking to us, then we can make informed decisions and then we can also—you know, whenever you have to hide something, you know that it's not good. So why wouldn't they be talking about this openly?

00:22:09 John Daub: He said that Kyodo Senpaku above that paragraph is trying to change the negative narrative surrounding whale meat, including engaging with those ones viewed with suspicion. I think it was viewed with more than just suspicion. I don't think you can win with the activists, but I think you could win with some of the tourists. And I believe that there's so many tourists coming in with Japan's decreasing population, in particular those from the Showa era, where this meat hasn't been eaten for over 40 years—for like 40 years, 35-40 years. There's not a market for it. So tourists coming here, there might be. Why they want to keep the industry alive, I'm not sure. But if there's money involved in it, they're going to have that option, that opportunity, right?

00:22:53 John Daub: There's the picture. This is a good—this is an important one. The whaling industry has failed to persuade domestic customers, consumers to make whale meat a regular part of their diet. This is so—this is the key to this video. Oh, not me. Japanese don't eat whale. They literally—you can't find it in the supermarkets, you need to have it at a vending machine like this. So anyone who says that blaming Japanese people, it's—don't do that. We don't eat whale meat. Kanae has never prepared it, it's never even come up. As far as I know it's not. Although it was a staple of protein after World War II, it was. Consumption declined from the seventies as pork, chicken, beef and others became more affordable. Wagyu is more affordable than whale. So it's not become a premium food and people eat just about anything if it's rare, right? Maybe that's the market.

00:23:56 John Daub: Oh, hold on. There's some other stuff here. According to the agriculture, forestry and fisheries ministry, Japanese consumers ate two hundred and thirty-three thousand tons of whale meat in 1962. That's a lot. More than beef and chicken. All right. That was then. That generation, this is their last hurrah. You know we have the president and his main competition in the US. That older generation, in particular in Japan and corporations, is starting to give way to the younger generation now. So this is probably the last push. Maybe the family of the older bosses. Most of the events—MC asked the participants, some of whom were eating the dish for the first time, to keep an open mind. The staff brought up—and I think that we need to do that though, right? Whenever we try something new, we need to have an open mind.

00:24:44 John Daub: The staff brought up plates of deep-fried kushiage with a dipping sauce. It's lower in calories, higher in protein than chicken. So there's the push there. I don't know. It's like if it's so great, you don't need taxpayer money and I think they should be free to try, but I think it's going to fail on its own. Is the choice a Wagyu steak or whale? I would take Wagyu. Yeah, that's sort of the point. You have chicken, you have beef, you've got pork. You have, in Japan, the livestock is raised in a much better way than in most countries in the G7. I mean, I've been to so many Wagyu farms. They do such a great job. It's their livestock, so their end goal is to be meat. And I try in my videos to encourage you to understand that meat comes from a place. So I'm actually doing the bidding of the vegans who sometimes attack me.

00:25:52 John Daub: Hello. But I'm for meat. I love meat. I'm for better conditions for livestock. That's it. I'm not an activist. Just think that if you show it, it will be done. It will grow. Open-minded means being an omnivore. Yeah. I think that's pretty much well said there. What's the last least mercury dense piece of whale meat? Mike Chan, you're absolutely right. And this is another issue. This is number three and why I don't eat whale meat. They don't talk about it in the article. But it does have an extremely high rate of mercury. And I think that's quite worrying. In particular with other fish in the sea. Also because whales have much longer lifespan, and they're taking in a lot more of that pollution. And plastics as well in the Pacific.

00:26:49 John Daub: But I don't know. I love whales, though. Yeah. That doesn't mean I don't want to eat. I love the Wagyu beef cows too, the cattle, but I still eat them. I'll pet them, give them massages, and then eat them. And that's fine because I can face my food and I understand. I think people should do that. I've faced whales too and I think—I don't know, I don't think it's as tasty. It's as simple as that. John has eaten a lot of Wagyu. I've eaten more than you. I've eaten a lot less than most. When I get a Wagyu steak, it's usually 100 grams or less I'll eat of Wagyu. That's not a lot. 100 grams is less than a quarter pound of meat. It's really small. It's probably like a fifth of a pound of meat. And the reason why is that you don't need to eat a lot of it. It's really oily. I think it's more sustainable and it's really delicious. So I got no problem with eating it.

00:28:04 John Daub: Japanese call dolphins because they attack the tuna. That's one way to look at it. I think that place that was featured in that documentary, I just think that it's more like a cult and indigenous people, they kind of have a way. They do it, I think, in Norway as well. It's almost like a traditional thing. Dolphins, I love dolphins too. But again, I give massages to cattle and I love them, but I would eat them because that's their livestock. Thank you, Ramsey. You know, I'm not going to shy away from issues just because it might be controversial and I might lose subscribers or people get angry. I might get canceled. I don't mind that. I think that if you come into Japan, you should know what the latest trends are, what's happening, what's happening in the city.

00:29:09 John Daub: And right now, I can tell you a place where nothing is happening, the whale shop. So anyone who's really upset—oh, wait. Some people did go in there. All right. I'm not going to focus on them. I'm just going to tell you if they buy anything. I'll let you know if they buy something. But everybody, everyone should have the right to privacy. I believe that. Are they buying anything? No. He took a picture and he left. I don't know. All right. They didn't buy anything. They took a picture and left. That's what I did. They're walking away now. I don't think they're going to make a lot of sales and it's all frozen whale in there. I don't think they're going to—and you know what? It's right next to my favorite melon pan shop. So that's why I noticed this. I walked by there and I was looking at the direction at the melon pan shop. I'm like, wait, what?

00:30:39 John Daub: So it's all frozen, so it'll keep for a very long time and I don't think they're going to sell a lot of meat. I don't think that's the purpose. It's a marketing thing to get people to start to consider it. And that's smart. I think the rent is cheaper and people are going to talk about it. Thank you. Hey, Jeff Kennedy. Thank you. How's the weather in Philly? Hopefully cooler than here. It's not—we just had a rainstorm go through here, so it's a lot cooler today, but you can still feel the heat. It was oppressive last week. Let's go to a vending machine here. Let's wash this away.

00:31:22 John Daub: There have been so many amazing businesses that have come in this area as well. Buy some whale meat and send it out in the—no. Oh, yeah. You know what? Customs and immigration is going to love that one. Not only did this person send meat, fresh meat. They sent whale meat. Imagine the customs and immigration. I think you're going to need to send more than that. I'm not even considering it, but they did have it in cans and I believe that would be okay. But if you're looking for sashimi, I don't know if that would work out too well. The nearest station to the whale store is Tsukishima. Hey, you know, go have a look at it. I think that you all should make your own decisions.

00:32:31 John Daub: For me, I'm not going to be eating whale meat. If it is on the menu, and sometimes I've seen it at ryokan—if you stay at a traditional Japanese inn, I've seen it on the menu before. If it's in front of me, I want to make this very clear. I don't like to waste food. If there's whale meat in front of me and it's been prepared, I will eat it. It's not what I wanted, but I will eat it. I'm not going to protest and waste the meat. I'm not going to do it. All right? It's there. I might make a comment like, you know, I'd rather have wagyu than the whale meat. Can I get the wagyu instead? Yeah. But I'm not going to waste it. That's the point. They say Japanese say kujira—K-U-J-I-R-A or kujira.

00:33:21 John Daub: Let's see what they got in the vending machines today. Let's see. Whoa! They got ginger ale, but it's a spicy kind. That's good. Daito is really killing it lately. They got some jelly, grape jelly drink. I saw some weird ones too. I found another ramen pork broth drink recently. There's corn soup, almond breeze latte. I'm loving that. Cream soda. Nothing hits me. I do like Kumamon. That's nice. Frank writes in here, limiting plastic straws won't save the planet, but saves a lot of fish and turtles and other creatures they use to wash up on the beach. I agree with that. I think we should—doing little teeny things, it helps. Everything adds up.

00:34:27 John Daub: That's how we got into—you get into problems when things start to add up, like debt. I'll be honest though. I don't like the straws at Starbucks. Starbucks made out of cardboard. I think they can do a better job or at least recycle it, right? Have a way to make sure that it doesn't get into the sea and give us an assurance that it doesn't get into the sea. But every little bit helps. I wonder what the negative repercussions are making all these cardboard straws. Do they get recycled and turned back into cardboard? I wonder. Whenever you pull one place—you push one place. It gets pulled in another place, right? Yeah. Japan has done a really great job.

00:35:17 John Daub: I was looking to see if maybe they had drinks in here. They're selling Daiso and Loft stuff at the 7-Eleven? I thought that was interesting. So Family Mart has Muji stuff, like Muji, and 7-Eleven is going with Daiso and Loft, which is interesting. They're starting to remove the things from the festival, like shishito. It's like a sign that shows you a few days ago in this neighborhood. Cool. I love the shoes the construction workers wear. They have these tabi shoes so they can protect their feet but also feel the bamboo poles so they stay safe. I saw that when I visited Ritsurin Garden—the selection of Daiso was limited. But interesting regardless. 100 yen stuff.

00:36:37 John Daub: Sorry. I think the dust from them taking down the poles there is really hitting me. Woo! Buy some—Ramses, you were never here. There's a flower shop just down the street. Thank you, brother. I'm not gonna—I'm gonna get something twice the price so then we can share it. Alright? It's not from you. It's from us. I want in on this. I want in on this. It's nice, always great to see fellow Midwesterners. Alright, we're gonna walk down in this direction because I think I know where there's a vending machine with a weird drink and then we can end it.

00:37:37 John Daub: For those joining us in the livestream, look in the playback because I was here just a little bit ago. This is the Whale Store in Tsukishima and it was interesting. I'll let you make up—I told you my feelings on it and I'll let you make up your own decisions and your own thoughts. I'm really looking forward to that. And I bet you the whaling industry people are too. What does the marketing say? I think it's a good town square in the comment section on this one because I am a positive person and I think I'm being pretty fair to the whale meat people and to the others. I was looking for—this is milk soda. What? Does milk make soda? What? You think that's any good? Milk soda. I don't know. It sounds kind of nasty.

00:38:48 John Daub: Yeah, there's a signal problem. The streams are always glitchy because they're streams. I don't have a backpack unit or, you know, try to keep it simple. I think it's more of an issue that Japan has really bad upload speeds. The streams have gotten a lot better since—oh, we got two more people. Two more people signed up. Brandy and Diana, we got your signups. I just got a message from Ide-san. Whoa. All right. So you're confirmed in. Diana and Brandy, we got your signups. And you know, it's funny. I met Diana in this cafe a couple of months ago and now you're coming back to Japan and I'm really excited. How cool is that?

00:39:44 John Daub: Thanks, Nightbot. We've still got a couple of spots left. We've actually started to find a new spot. I think we're going to fill those seats pretty quick in the last few days because we're now at the end of the—here's the link. If you're going to be in Japan, you're going to want to join us on September 10th and 11th as we go to the countryside for VIP—I don't know. I think it's VIP seating. Like we have our own seating area at the Katakai Fireworks Festival where they do mega shell fireworks. Leo and Kanae, I'm pretty sure they're going. And I will definitely be there. We have our own bus and we have our hotels. We have our own hotel. So it's going to be pretty cool. Large mega shell fireworks. That's it. It's called the Yonshakudama. It's lowered in by a crane. Yeah, you get the idea.

00:41:01 John Daub: Yeah, so I think we're at 15 or 16 people. We can seat up to 30. That's the first time doing something like this. So if we don't hit the number, that's okay. But we do have enough where we don't lose money on the effort. And I'll be meeting everybody at Tokyo Station riding the Shinkansen with you too. So start from Tokyo. All right, here's one where I saw this weird drink. Hopefully it's not sold out. Oh, I think it's gone. Oh, they did get rid of it. They put in this milk soda. Oh man. I guess I'm going to have to try it. And they have Mikan Jelly. So these are drinks from Wakayama. And then there's milk soda. I know I'm going to waste it though if I buy it. All right, we have to do it for science.

00:42:18 John Daub: What do you think? Milk soda? What do you think? Is it worth it? My answer is probably not. It's Mikan Jelly or peach nectar, black bean tea, or milk soda. What's it going to be? That doesn't sound right. Milk soda. Heather writes in here—what are they thinking? Yuck. Matt writes in here, Mikan Jelly. Mr. Kanjikid writes in here, just do it. Do what? I'm asking, which one? All right, HelloHi821. Milk soda, better you than me. All right, that's decided now. I have to take one for the team. We've got a big team here. All right, milk soda. Let's wash this topic away so we never have to talk about this again. Unless it's a cute little bottle. You think it's going to be good? You think Kanae will drink the rest? Oh, dude, no. Ugh. Look at the colors. We get into the shade here. Look at the color of this milk soda. Ugh. OK. Carbonated. That can't be good.

00:44:03 John Daub: So this milk is going to make me burp just like a baby. This is like I'm going to have my milk and then burp it up. This isn't good. All right. As a thank you to everybody, I have to stay hydrated. Mike Chan writes in here, wanted to send well wishes from the people of Maui and the Big Island. The fires are terrible. I saw that on YouTube. And yeah, I know there's a bunch of people. If you don't know what's going on in Maui, check it on YouTube because it's one of the most beautiful places. I haven't been there. It's one of the most beautiful places that I've ever seen Hawaii. But Maui in particular. And I'm going to go check it out. And they have some really tough times going on here. And I hope they get a boat or something to get people out of the airport spending the night there. All right. Kanpai? It's confusing. It's not milk. But it is. I don't think it's milk. Is it milk? There's some milk powder in it.

00:45:35 John Daub: You know, do you remember? You guys remember those dipping sticks when we were kids? There's like grape, strawberry and like watermelon or something. And you take the candy stick and you dip it in and then you eat the candy stick. You remember those things? It tastes sort of that, but it's been put into a soda form. Not like yogurt. It tastes like candy. Like a sweet chalk in Fun Dip. Yeah, there you go. Fun Dip. It tastes like a sweet chalk in soda with sugar. Just be sweet chalk. Weird. Well, thank you. Thank you guys for buying me the drink. I appreciate it. Now I'm going to try to hit that flower shop for the missus and get something from me and Ramsay Silent who was never here. I know you're here. We all know you're here. And we're very, very glad that you are.

00:46:52 John Daub: All right. Let me cross over here. Heading back to—I believe this is Tsukishima Bridge that crosses over to the Tsukiji area. Yeah. Don't feed the pigeons. And you can hear some of Japanese summer in the background there. A couple more weeks and they'll start to die away because of the heat and be back next summer. I don't think John will get flowers. Who is he kidding? What? All right. Just for that comment, I will walk past the flower shop that I will be purchasing the flowers before I jump on the bicycle and take them back to the missus. How about them apples? Never doubt me. But I'm not going to go in there with the camera, though. Okay. I'm going to go in there with the camera because I don't want to live stream the flower shop lady. Photo line. Thank you.

00:48:03 John Daub: Actually, I should have gone straight over there. I know exactly the flower shop. Well, I can cut through here. I bet you the signal drops, though. It's cool. This is how they turn the car around that comes out of the parking garage so you can pick which direction that you want to leave from. It's just down the street. There's my bicycle over there. The problem is, though, when we buy flowers, they're not going to come out of the parking garage. They kind of—Kanae doesn't have a green thumb, and I certainly don't. Sometimes they don't make it very long in our house. We still have the one from Mother's Day. That was beautiful. There's the shop at the end of the street. I'll show you the shop.

00:49:09 John Daub: And actually, Ramsey's, if you want to help me pick one out, I will swing by and then do it after the stream. I'm going to get my bicycle and put it in the basket. How dare you question my love for flowers buying. Ikebana is a wonderful thing that you can do in Japan. I should probably make an episode on Ikebana. I don't think many people have. Right? It seems like one of those NHK episodes where you do Ikebana to promote culture, but there wouldn't be a lot of viewers in it. But I disagree. I bet you a lot of people are interested in it. I hope that they're open. See those trees right there? That's a flower shop. I passed it on bicycle many times. Although I might have to go to another one. It looks like they're closed. No, they're open. They're open.

00:50:16 John Daub: We have the air conditioning. You can see the flowers inside there. They just have the air conditioning on. They don't have too many outside. Kokia. I'm not sure what that is. And this is—oh, these are things we could plant. And they have some flowers inside there. There's plants I can buy, too. That's where I'm going to come back and get the flowers from inside of there. Small business. I know the lady because Ramsey's, this is not the first time I've been there. Ha ha. On Mother's Day, they have this shop. Usually, the shop is all open and they have flowers spilling out onto the streets. So you can see all this stuff. And then if you want to make bouquets and stuff, you can go inside there. And the flowers—the owner will put together something for you.

00:51:25 John Daub: If it's for a funeral or something like that. See, in Japan, people give flowers quite a bit more because of cultural things. But, sorry. Here's the reason why I get—Kanae gets a lot of flowers. Kanae is a dancer. I think all of you know that. You've seen her before. After we got married, she did a dance for us. It was pretty impressive. Like on the spot like that. Without any rehearsals. But she gives a lot of performances and she teaches. Now, she does performances for there. And when you go to those performances and you attend, you have to bring flowers with you. And you have to leave them behind. So at the end of it, she's got all these flowers from everybody. And of course, I better bring some flowers. So that's one of the shops that I will stop by. There's a few of them because I like to spread it around a little bit. So Ramsey Silent knows. And guess who's getting in on the action? Toro Toro Poco. You got it. Getting in on the action.

00:52:38 John Daub: I love how they put the potted plants outside around shops as well in Japan. And you think that people might steal it. But no. It's not the case. Alright. At the bicycle. I hope this is—I was hesitant to do this. I saw the shop a couple of weeks ago. But I thought today might be a good time to do this. I'm not going to share a whaling store. But again, I'm not—I am somewhat biased. But I have an open mind. And I would love to see their new tanker ship that they're building. And try to understand this industry and the market and how they're going to bring it back. Because I think that when you think about Japan and Japanese culture, this is something that's now a part of it. And the controversy would make it a more popular video. But the reason I picked the stories is out of a curiosity that I have for it. Because I want to understand more.

00:53:56 John Daub: That's why I started making Wagyu videos. Because I wanted to understand where my food came from and what makes it so special. You don't know that unless you go to the source. Right? That's what a journalist would do. That's what—you know. I used to write for—not write. I used to take pictures for my high school—sorry. My college—high school too, actually. I used to take pictures for my college newspaper which had one of the biggest circulations of newspapers in the country. So—it's not on my resume anymore because I don't put anything from college on it. In fact, I haven't done a resume in maybe 20 years. But it was on my resume. You can still see—if you search John Daub—what was—I can't remember the name of the newspaper. Wait a second. What's the name of the Ohio State University newspaper? Was it the Buckeye Nut? Or was it the Donut Shop on High Street? The Columbus Dispatch is the main newspaper. And I had some photos that I think were in the Dispatch that got picked up.

00:55:09 John Daub: But you can still—if you Google it, you can find some of the photos I took for the newspaper. I think at least a couple of them. That's like way back—way back in 1996. Yeah. I think it was 2005 or something. Yogi Mew. It's in here. It's an excuse for clickbait content. Referring to the whale store, I don't think this is going to get a lot of views. So, we'll see. But I don't think it's clickbait. I took you inside the store and I showed you the machine. And I showed you an article talking about it. I'm not sure how this is clickbait. UFO Bob, thank you. The Lantern. How could I forget that? I know how. Because it was half my life ago. But I was a photographer for the Lantern. And that was a pretty cool experience to do that. I got access to be behind the scenes and see stuff. I did it mostly in the summers. But I filled in for staff photographers when they couldn't make it.

00:56:24 John Daub: And I don't—was I a staff—I don't think I was a staff photographer. I was a freelancer. But it was like I was a staff photographer. So—I think freelance photographer maybe is better. But it was fun. Get like press permits and stuff. Alright everybody, thanks so much. It is hot. There's a little bit of a wind. A typhoon kind of rolled through here yesterday. A lot of rain. Just—it was weird. Bands of blue sky and the bands of the darkest clouds you could ever see. Bringing in high winds and rains for intermittent periods of time. It's really fascinating to see that storm come through here yesterday. Which is why I did a livestream yesterday talking about Kodo. And if you are coming to Japan on the 18th, 19th, 20th, they still got tickets for the Earth Celebration. And that's crazy. Because this thing is always sold out.

00:57:07 John Daub: Thank you everybody. I want to say thank you. Sean Lee is here from Singapore. Happy wife, happy life. Get them flowers. It's official. We have sponsored flowers. Alright, I'll see what I can find and take a picture and put it up on Instagram today or tomorrow. So you guys can see it. I don't know what the shop's got inside. But I will get something for my wife for absolutely and share with you. I think it's good. We're sharing some happiness in the world. And we can, I think the world can use a little bit more flowers. I think. Don't you think? Thank you. I'm glad this is informational. I'll see you in another livestream tomorrow as I take you to another area. The Koto Ward fireworks festival is being held on the Arakawa River tomorrow. We might go to that. It starts at 7 o'clock and goes on until 8 p.m.

00:57:56 John Daub: And the rest of this day I'll be on the Arakawa River. I'll be editing. I'm upsizing some World War II videos to 4K and it's taking forever. But I think it should be close to done by the time I get back. Another reason why this is a longer livestream than it needs to be. I'm going to go home and watch YouTube. Actually, probably. It's almost finished. I got two computers running it though. Lucas, this is for you, buddy. That's where we went. The whale store. So there you go. Happy life. Happy life. Run late. That's where we're going to end. Happy life. Happy wife. Happy life. See everybody, have a good day. Matane.