00:00:00 John Daub: Alright, so over the last couple of months, most through this year, the routine has pretty much been similar. I arrive, leave from Haneda or the Shinkansen, arrive out into the countryside. From there, I get to rent a car, which is what I have right here. Then I get my navigation, stop off at a convenience store to get some coffee. Usually, if you're out in the countryside, it's probably going to be near the station or the airport. Get in the car and drive to the location and film. And if I need to spend the night, I do that. If not, return the car, go back to the airport, and fly back to Tokyo. It's been this shampoo, rinse, repeat kind of a thing for the last couple of months.

00:00:49 John Daub: And it's funny because I stand right in front of Kagoshima Airport. There you go. It's not written in English, it's just written in kanji right there. It says Kagoshima Kūkō (airport). I'm across the street, and of course, I've gone to my Toyota Rent-A-Car, and I've gotten a C2 class car, which is good enough. They didn't have any Rises, which is like a micro SUV. And this is the 7-Eleven in front of the airport. You can actually walk across the street here. They used to say there's a convenience store inside the airport, but there wasn't, so here I am. There's a gas station where I can fill up when I return the car. That guy's got a convertible! And I've got to wrap all the way around to get out of here.

00:01:35 John Daub: But in this episode, I thought I would share with you how I travel. So, this is my bag. This is most of the stuff that I use for the filming. My laptop's right there. I have to make sure that it's fastened so it doesn't get out. I have some batteries for the GoPro, backup SD cards, some wires for the microphones and whatnot. I have a couple of lenses. Here's a prime. And an ultra-wide. This is another lens. This is the 135 f/1.8 prime lens, which is beautiful. Got some of my Rode wireless mics here. A light. The drone remote, because it has a battery. You cannot put it into your check-in luggage. And the monitor. This is the Sony Alpha 1 and the Sony A7S III. And a GoPro in here, which I usually will attach to my camera to have a wide angle and a backup camera, because stuff happens when you're out here. Inside there, you can put the drone in the top there. But I actually put it into the trunk. I usually bring a suitcase because I have a tripod. And they make you take it out at the security check. It's better just to put it in there. Here's the drone. This is the Mavic 3 with no batteries. You have to check this in. There she is. She's going to be fine. Change of clothes. There's a microphone. And some stuff that didn't have a battery, which I can take with me.

00:03:07 John Daub: There's the airport. The open road. And here's the car. It's a rental. We've got a navigation system. But I usually attach the iPhone here to do some Google Maps to get me there. And that's about it. It's sort of a set. I live in Chuo Ward, which everybody knows. That's where Tokyo Station is. It's pretty close to get to the Shinkansen. But Kagoshima is 6.5 or 7 hours on the Shinkansen. You have to go through Kyushu. It's 3.5 hours to get to Hiroshima, that's like halfway. So you can either sit for 6.5 hours on the Shinkansen, which some people do. Or you can fly. And it was less than 2 hours. Maybe 90 minutes or so.

00:03:59 John Daub: And it was so easy. My bags came out as soon as I got out of the gate. They're so fast here domestically. I picked it up. There's a shuttle that picked me up right outside the airport. Took me to the Toyota Rent-A-Car. They had the car waiting for me. I'm a Toyota Rent-A-Car business member. So I've rented from them 3 times this year. And the staff has always been different. So the first time they see a foreign face walk into the shop, and they feel like they have to speak English. I just speak in Japanese. And then everything is fine. But they still feel kind of uncomfortable, I think. It's always like they might get something wrong. I think the boss is there at the Rent-A-Car. So if the staff is acting a little strange, look around and kind of read the room. Sometimes their boss is watching them. And nobody, including workers at a convenience store, at a Rent-A-Car or a gas station, likes to have their boss breathing down their neck. And the boss was breathing down their neck there today. And the guy showed me to this car. And he started to say how cool I was that I could speak Japanese. And he asked me, how long did it take for you before you could speak Japanese? And I said, just simply, I live here. It's what I do for work. And he's like, whoa, kakkoi (cool). Say okay great. And then we're going to change the menu to English here. Somewhat creepy when the boss is over you.

00:05:26 John Daub: I also have here, it's on the floor. I usually bring a power converter so I can charge my phone real quick here. Or I can plug in my MacBook Pro and start to edit in the car if I need to, which is really cool. This is my streaming bag here. So the computer back here. I can have some spare time, I'll whip it out and just start editing here in the car. Or I can take it into a cafe out here in the countryside. Help the local economy. Go in there, have some lunch, grab a coffee, and just edit for a couple of hours if I need to kill some time. That's the way it operates. And then I try to book the flight so I can get back as early as possible. Leo's bath time is at 7. I'm back in time for that. And then I'm in bed.

00:06:21 John Daub: Oh no, I gotta back up the footage as soon as I get home. The first thing I do at the end of the day, always, back up the footage before you go to bed. Every single SD card. I back up everything I took on the iPhone. I back up every SD card. The drone. The GoPro. The Alpha 1. The A7S III. The Rode mics. I back up all the audio I took off of that. And I put it into a project file, separated by the day that I filmed. And then inside of the camera and the device that I used. So it's all quite organized. And that's just a routine. And now I just do it. Oh before I go to bed, I start charging all the batteries too. Because I know that I'm going to need those batteries again, fully charged pretty soon. So I don't want to forget about it. Everything I need to, I try to do it right away. And that also includes unpacking. If I can, I start to put all my clothes into the wash before I go to bed. I unpack everything. And I'm set. And then the reason why is you don't want to forget anything. Because I've left things in the suitcase. And then I store it away. And it's like where's that wire? Oh it was in the suitcase.

00:07:33 John Daub: I have the prop plane going over. Whoa, the prop plane going over. I'm here to film. I'm now going to Ibusuki. This is where the sunamushi (sand baths) is. This is the sand baths where you would, it's like volcanic sand bathing, I think you would call it. I'm not filming that per se. I might stop in and do it. But that's not the main reason why I'm here. And I can't tell you exactly why I'm here yet. Not yet anyways. Hopefully I can get this episode out over December. If not it will come out in January. It can wait a little bit. But I've been working on this episode for like six months. So it's going to be a little bit longer. But it's a big one. But Kagoshima is very famous for it. In fact I can see the Sakurajima, which is the smoking volcano, in the distance when the flight was coming in. Which is really cool. And the drive from here to Ibusuki is going to be really cool.

00:08:33 John Daub: Let's see if we can program this to get to Ibusuki here. Menu. Destination. Let's go with, you can go with web? Ibusuki. I Ha Hi Fu. Where is it? Ha Hi Fu Ibu. I need to turn the. Ibusuki. There it is. Ibusuki. Kensaku (search) means search. Alright let's say we're going down to Ibusuki Station. Okay. Let's see how long it's going to take to get there. Alright set. It's at the JR Ibusuki Station. It gives you five routes. And I want to go the fastest, which is the one on the top. And it's going to take 85 kilometers and I get there at 1:22. Yeah. Oh I can change this to English here. Hold on. So that's kind of cool with the rental cars here. And then the voice changes. But also the input changes and sometimes you can't find the places in English so that's kind of a pain in the neck. Oh no it's still. Okay they changed it a little bit. Ibusuki. It doesn't even give you the option. Ibusuki. It's weird. That didn't work. What happened? Sometimes these Toyota cars are a little odd here. It's an EV. Okay my ETC card's there. Anyways you get the picture. I think I crashed the system. It said something about the battery. Maybe I should start to drive.

00:11:09 John Daub: But from the airport we're gonna turn left. We can go out here and you can see. Oh you can go to the entire country of Japan. So it'll tell you the navigation system here. So I get to just follow the highway. But the cool thing is while I'm driving on the left side. Hey now. Cool down. Sakurajima's gonna be on the left side as I drive. That is so cool. And if I had a little bit more time I might even be able to take the ferry over there or drive the other way and go around and take the ferry back. So you can do like these little teeny things that probably make it a little more interesting. But yeah this is pretty much what I do with my location shoots. And this is what the system has been like all year. So next week I'm also gonna be doing the exact same thing except I take the Shinkansen. I get off at Yamagata and I rent a car from Yamagata next week. And I'm filming an episode over in the countryside up there. Toyota Rent-A-Car. Same deal. It's really funny. And just feels like shampoo, rinse, repeat.

00:12:31 John Daub: That's what I'm actually looking forward to editing it and then getting the videos up. There's been a lot of filming over the last several months now. And I'm really glad to be at the end of it. So the last filming day of this year for me is November 30th. And I'm going to Hokkaido with my good friend Matt Ault who is a reporter for an NHK series called Jebinology. He's quite famous for that. But I think he's more famous for being an author of the book. I can't remember. No, no, no. I can remember this book. Oh my god I can't remember Matt's book. Matt I'm so sorry. What is it? It's like on the tip of my tongue. I just said it. It's sitting on my desk. Somebody who knows Matt Ault's book? And while we're waiting for that information, please go and check out the latest episode on the NHK channel. It was an uploaded video. It's the life of ninja in ancient Japan. That's an actual samurai inside of the ninja outfit there. Samurai were like undercover. They were like Batman. In the daytime they were farmers and at night they were ninja.

00:13:36 John Daub: And that's like a lot of new things that I learned about ninja and I made a video out there in one of the ninja towns called Kōka. And you might want to check this out. I go out there. You can actually go out and visit and train like a ninja. It's kind of more like a role playing thing. But what impressed me was the music. The museum and the knowledge that they have there to learn about this. And it's such a unique part of Japanese culture. It's crazy like that because I asked the guy, the expert who has a university degree in ninjutsu (ninja arts), which is the study of ninja, which is shinobi. It's like he's got a degree in ninjutsu. Pure invention, my Matt Ault. Thank you, Kerry. You're incredible. And he knew everything about ninja. I tried to stump him and I wish I could have posted the entire interview. It was like 30 minutes long. But he talked about, you know, were there female ninjas? No. But they hired women to do undercover stuff where only women could go. And women spoke sometimes with a better... I mean spies were spies. You had to get the information. So ninja would hire women to do work. But there were no female ninja because there were no female samurai because ninja were always samurai. So he said. It's weird. Not anybody could be a ninja. You had to... It ran in the family. So you had to have a family lineage of ninjutsu. And all this stuff is in the interview. I think it was fascinating. And you know, I'm glad that I did it.

00:15:05 John Daub: Although I don't think it's popular. The Kōka and Iga ninja villages, Kōka and Iga are both near Kyoto. Kōka is one of the two. And I went to Kōka in Shiga because everybody knows Iga. And Kōka I thought was really cool. And the people out there are friendly and they have good wagyu beef. So omiyage (souvenirs) sold it for me. Like okay I'm going to Kōka to get this story. And that guy Fukushima-san who is a university degree in ninja. I think maybe the anime angle ruins it a little bit. It becomes a little bit too much cosplay for me, the ninja stuff in Japan. But you know I think it's kind of a cool part of Japanese history. And it's definitely a part of it. So I have to cover it. Right?

00:15:52 John Daub: But here's the flight to get to Kagoshima. I flew Skymark. I've been flying ANA almost exclusively. And this year I'll be a bronze member. A bronze tier which means that I've traveled quite a bit by flight including back and forth to the US three times. So I'll get a chance to go to lounges and stuff. I'm like now you can't do it from credit cards anymore. You have to be like platinum or bronze level or something. So this one was Skymark though because ANA was all booked out. And I'm coming back on ANA. I try to fly only exclusively ANA because I got the miles and stuff. But this was cool. You know Skymark was okay. The only thing is that domestic flights, a couple of things. Alright. Come over here. Alright. Domestic flights are awesome in Japan. Number one, the TSA or the security check is so much easier. I've never, it's never taken me more than 10 minutes. And on average it takes 3 minutes to get through security at Japanese airports including Haneda for domestic flights. Number two, you can bring liquids on board. If you have a PET bottle that you bought outside they have some kind of scanner that will search it and then they'll give it back to you. It takes them like 5 seconds. So that's kind of cool. Number three, they don't ask you to take off your shoes unless you have boots. They don't even, they said they didn't even need to take out my laptop last time which is crazy. Like no, just keep it all in there and they scanned it through and they said okay it's cool. So I guess they found a way to scan laptops in here so saves time not having to take everything out of your bag which is good. Maybe it's AI that's doing it. I'm not sure. But the process is just so painless compared to the US. Um, and we haven't had any issues in Japan. So it's just easier. So flying domestically in Japan should be an option.

00:17:43 John Daub: Um, if you're conscious about the environment I completely understand that. But if you're doing it for work like I'm doing it you know, flying is cheaper and flying is faster. It doesn't make any sense for my life. My life is also valuable. To lose all that precious time doesn't make a lot of sense either. Do you have to check your sword in right? Yes. It has to be checked into your check-in baggage. The second thing is the airports are all put together really well. You get out, you know where you're going. Everything makes sense. You go to your, you get your bag, you go out, the rent-a-car place. There's either a booth right there at arrivals or you walk outside and there's a bus or a shuttle bus that will pick you up. Every single time. I know at JFK I remember American airports are pretty good too actually. But it's just so much easier in Japan despite not even knowing Japanese. There's just the consistency to everything and that's what makes it really easy. Once you've done it once or twice it's so easy to navigate the regional airports around Japan because the system doesn't change. A couple of times I was able to walk to the rent-a-car place. I think, yeah, there's a lot of people who are like, but last time I didn't rent a Toyota Rent-A-Car. I rented Times Rent-A-Car just over here. WRX Turbo is in the house. Times Rent-A-Car was, I didn't even have to get a shuttle bus. I walked there and picked it up and it was so simple. And returned the car and I walked right into the flight.

00:19:16 John Daub: Yeah. And get this. I arrived at the airport 50 minutes before the flight. Only 50. I checked in the luggage 30 minutes before the flight. I boarded the flight 15 minutes before the flight. It's clockwork. It's so fast compared to the way the US does things. But I guess with security, you have to do it that way. But I always think that if you can use tech and other things to make the procedure easier without people spending money, just make the process easier. I mean, Japan, we have Shinkansen so you gotta compete against the high speed rail network, right? It's not just about flying, it's also about that. But 15 minutes. I got from the monorail to the plane in 20 minutes. So that means I got my, I checked in, I checked in my baggage and Skymark took, that was the longest thing. Skymark is hard because Skymark takes they don't have like a self-baggage thing. You have to wait in line. So Skymark took about 15 minutes for the bags. Three minutes at security, three minutes to the gate. I was there in 20 minutes. And maybe 25 minutes. But with ANA, I'm at the gate in 15 minutes. Every time.

00:20:42 John Daub: I'm not getting a beard. Clean shaven. That's the way to go. Everybody's got a beard in the States. I'm not gonna follow that trend. It doesn't make you look tough. It makes you look like you drink craft beer and vape. You work at a hat shop. I've done 20 minutes at Detroit that's with TSA pre-check though. Yeah. There's no pre-check. Everybody's treated the same. It's pretty crazy. Although the pre-check is I think you need to pay for that. I'm not paying for that.

00:21:16 John Daub: Alright, so there you go. Thanks everybody. I just wanted to share a little bit about this. I'm gonna drive to Ibusuki. If I find something on the road while I'm here in Kagoshima, I will go live and share it with you. I've got an interview tonight. I'll be staying at a little guest house in the countryside. They just sent me a message through Booking.com when I was going to arrive in English. I was surprised with that. So I'm gonna let them know probably late tonight. Tomorrow I've got another interview. And then I drive right back to the airport and fly back to Tokyo by 5pm. I'll be back home tomorrow. That's work. That's work. And because I'm trying to cut down on carbs, I just got a piece of chicken. That's my lunch. And almonds and some yogurt with no sugar. And it says here, I mean it's not perfect. There's a little bit of chemicals in it. But it's just a piece of chicken breast. So it's fairly healthy. Chilled chicken breast that's been boiled. I'm eating healthy. Stay in shape a little bit. You know? It's easy to start to eat snacks when you're on a location shoot. Don't do it. Try to hold off. Only in emergencies. Try to eat healthy. Cut down on carbs and sugar. And that's what I'm doing. Bag of almonds.

00:22:38 John Daub: Alright everybody. I'm on the road here. Wish me luck. I'll see you maybe later today if something interesting pops up. Go! Check out the ninja video! Seriously. I need you guys to watch this thing. Because I edited like a main channel episode. You know? It wasn't enough information for a main channel episode. But I thought it was pretty good. The international airport from Tokyo. I could see that from the terminal. I was like wishing I was across the ways getting that. And by the way for everybody. Postcards are on the way. I had a stack of postcards this month. It is the world's oldest hotel in autumn. So I will send that to you. How do I get rid of all these things? I will send that to you if you would like it. I think I have one right here. Check it out. Autumn in Japan at the world's oldest hotel. This is a drone shot. So that's this month's postcard. And I really do appreciate the support to keep me traveling like this. And making episodes out in the countryside. This year has been really fun. All about the countryside. Isn't it beautiful? This is one of the most remote hotels as well in Japan. Just nestled in a valley. There is no train to get there. You have to take a shuttle bus. A bus or rent a car. But it is just beautiful up there. This is great to have on your refrigerator as well. And I even put the Only in Japan logo hidden in the woods. A little bit of Photoshop magic in there. So that is coming to your mailboxes soon. For the people on our Patreon. Thank you everybody for that. See you later. Bye from Kagoshima Airport. You can kind of see it there. Volcano is behind it. Sakurajima.