00:00:01 John Daub: Hey everybody, greetings. Welcome to Tokyo. In this episode, I'll be talking about why Japan is banning tourists in Kyoto. What's going on in Gion? Save the geisha. What is all this about? There's a lot of discussion right now. It's actually an old story. They decided this about two, two and a half weeks ago. But actually, I think it was in 2019, before the pandemic, the tourism situation in Japan—there were just so many tourists in Kyoto, foreign tourists in particular.

00:00:19 John Daub: They put these signs in place, so it made a lot of news back then. And over those three, four years, we sort of forgot about it. But now tourism has come back with a vengeance. And they're going to be breaking all sorts of numbers in 2024 with tourism. And the signs have come back. They had a few years of really good peace and quiet, and that's the way Kyoto likes it. And now it's back. And I want to show you, because this is very relevant to a lot of tourists here.

00:00:57 John Daub: I mean, this is on NHK. I saw the Twitter just recently. You can see what the signs look like. They have them putting them in place. Reporters are going over there. The Japanese are kind of surprised by this as well, trying to wrap their head around it. This is a decision not by the national government, but it's definitely from Kyoto, the local. And you know, they're called shidō (private roads). These are private roads, and they have a complete right to do this.

00:01:23 John Daub: They're closing it down. I believe it's not just banned. I don't think you can go in there. And if you do, I think they fine you—10,000 yen, which is approximately $65. But still, you don't want the hassle of it, because you'll probably waste a day at the police station or being fined. I don't know exactly what is going on with that, but what happens if you do get fined? I haven't heard anybody who does, but if you do, that means you're probably not a really good person. And I'm going to show you why.

00:01:51 John Daub: So the Japanese news has been all over this. Oh, look, vending machines. You know, the last time I came to Ginza, I was looking for this. Let's sneak in here. And I want to show it to you after I give you a little bit more information on this. Again, this is warranted. There's a lot of them! I was looking for this before, you know, a walk around Ginza.

00:02:12 John Daub: Alright, so while I'm looking at the vending machines, I want to talk about this. This is... I'm going to play it window-in-window here. This is a news report from TV Asahi, I believe. And just look at all the foreign tourists. These aren't tourists—these are foreign tourists posing for photos. This is the alley in Gion. There's a map they're going to be showing you in a minute. It's really narrow. This is where the geisha prepare.

00:02:36 John Daub: These are the houses where the maiko get ready for jobs, and they prepare and train and live down in this alley inside. The house is there, and there's all these tourists in here. It depends on the time of the day. Now with the sign, you can see it's quite cleared out. There's a sign, the very famous one, right at the start of it. And here's some foreign tourists eating and walking, which is sort of a no-no. A lot of tourists. Tour groups are going through there. A lot of them were Japanese-run tour groups.

00:03:10 John Daub: You can see tourists, tourists, tourists. Nothing wrong with that. But the images at the TV network... Here are the streets that are closed down now. They're basically the alleys around Gion. Here in particular, the road right there, the small alley—this is where there's been a massive amount of problems. And everybody wants to get a photo for Instagram. I get that.

00:03:26 John Daub: Now here comes some of the images. And they're kind of disturbing me. You don't realize how bad the problem is until you see the tourists react when they see a maiko. All right? When the maiko comes out, it is worse than paparazzi. And then the tourists give this coy little smile, or these smiles, like, oh, thank you for allowing me to take your picture. But you didn't really ask permission. You kind of just went ahead and put the person who's hard at work in a weird, awkward position. And they don't feel very comfortable about it, too.

00:03:59 John Daub: Look at the cones that they have there. Or here it is, there's a maiko going to work, a real maiko at sunset. You can see the lights are on. Here's the tourist taking the picture here. It looks innocent enough, but when hundreds and hundreds of thousands of people start to do it, it's really annoying. It shows the design of the sign is really classy, of course, because it's Kyoto, and the fine that you're going to get of 10,000 yen.

00:04:25 John Daub: The news report goes over and shows some of the reaction of the locals. A lot of them are in favor of it. Some of them don't quite understand. And there's a maiko that's going to work through going down the alley. Once they enter into the public streets, maybe it's okay, but blocking their path is very rude. Saya, you're absolutely right. I wanted you to see those images to give you an idea of what the problem is really like.

00:04:54 John Daub: How bad do you think that is? How would you feel if you're going to work and you're just different, right? And everyone's snapping your pictures. Yeah. I'm not going to say that you're going to be a bad person, but they're doing it because you're too beautiful, right? And in that case, it's sort of, I don't know.

00:05:11 John Daub: I think maybe the city, and this is where we're going to throw out some ideas, maybe the city should hire some fake maiko, like people from the tourism office, and walk around as fake maiko to give the city an image maybe. You know? That's what the tourists want. They just want to get a picture of somebody with a white maiko face walking around Kyoto. You know how I know that?

00:05:36 John Daub: Because I met some tourists from Taiwan, beautiful, dressed up as geisha walking around Kyoto, in particular near Kiyomizudera (Kiyomizu Temple) where all the tourists are. They spent a lot of money to prepare like this to get their photos, and they decided to walk around the town. This is, oh God, me and Kevin were—this was like years ago, and when I talked to them, you'd see all the Western tourists. They just don't know that they're not Japanese. You could tell because the way that their kimonos were too short, and weren't expensive kimonos. You could tell they weren't real maiko.

00:06:12 John Daub: But the Taiwanese tourists were very polite and allowed everybody to take pictures of them, not realizing that, no, they're not even Japanese. They just look like maiko, I guess. But maybe that's how good the makeup was. So me and Kevin were kind of laughing at, ah, tourists. You know, the tourists are walking around cosplaying as geisha, and the tourists are taking pictures of them thinking that they're geisha. There's nothing wrong with that, and maybe that's what the city should recognize. That's what the tourists want. So give them what they want.

00:06:40 John Daub: Go down, you know, the Higashiyama with, hire two or three geisha, pay them a lot of money—I hope you pay them well—and just let them be, their pictures taken, walking around like they're going to work and faking it. And you're going to make a lot of tourists really happy, and it'll probably boost the image of Kyoto. I don't know. But this is not, this is a reaction. We wouldn't have this ban now, why? We wouldn't have this ban if it wasn't for tourists being, I don't know, another level unruly.

00:07:17 John Daub: And I think it's gotten worse with smartphones. Tourists have always been coming to Japan. In 2013, 2014, yeah, people had smartphones, but it wasn't as bad. It started to get bad around 2017 and 2018. They tolerated it, and then they just had to ban it. But it's not just that. Back to 2022, we all know what happened with some of the Kick streamers and the other vloggers, IRL people. It really was something that disturbed Japanese society and made a lot of people feel very uncomfortable.

00:07:50 John Daub: And now when you go into places, in particular where they've encountered people streaming where they didn't have permission—for example, like I'm off of the road, I'm being very polite, I'm not trying to bother anybody. Maybe if somebody asks me, I might, I'll probably stop the live stream. It's something that, you know, you want to be very respectful about it. The streets of Japan are different. It's not public everywhere.

00:08:14 John Daub: Let's just say the way that the law, I believe, is that if anybody does, nobody wants their picture published, you have to take it down. And you can't, in particular, you can't focus in. Now, you can take shots of the public. Like, panning and stuff. But if someone ever asks you to take it down, it's polite to do so. All right? That's not illegal to show like a wide and you have a picture of and somebody is in the background. It's when you zoom in on somebody's face and you make them the focus of it and then you publish that. That is very much against the law. And that is very much what is happening with the geisha.

00:08:55 John Daub: They're being published on social media. They're being published in magazines. They're not getting credit for it. And I know how they feel because I've had my content taken and put up on the internet. And if you go on Instagram, you'll see reels of the 420-kilogram fireworks show or how, I don't know, I got a ton of videos that went super. The highway through a building. There's tons of super viral scenes that I've done that ended up being taken and cut into reels and shorts and other videos that became monetized. And there's not much I can do about it.

00:09:33 John Daub: Just like I hear a lot of people about the last video I uploaded, this one, I got a lot of response from artists and I completely understood them. They were quite upset that I used any AI images, although I'm pretty sure I didn't steal anything. And most of the images I fixed in Photoshop because AI really stinks. But I can understand how artists felt when they saw AI images because they feel threatened, some of them, with their jobs. And, you know, my responses were very polite in response, and I said, I don't think that really applies here. It's a historical video.

00:10:10 John Daub: Go check it out, by the way. It's a really good video. If you're watching the Shogun drama right now, which is quite popular, this is the end of the era of feudalism. It started in the 1600s, 1603, with Tokugawa Ieyasu, and then that's where Shogun starts. That's when William Adams. And then this is Meiji era at the end of it, when they end the Shogunate and they start with the Meiji Restoration. This is this episode.

00:10:40 John Daub: So I think you're going to want to see this because it kind of connects between the sides and the way that Japan opens. When William Adams came, Japan was closing. And when Manjiro came back to Japan, Japan was opening. And it's a really interesting contrast I think you're going to find between the two episodes. I have to do a better job of publicizing this episode and doing it just before Perry's Black Ships.

00:11:07 John Daub: That's right. Manjiro had to sneak into Japan through Ryukyu, which was Okinawa. Okinawa was aligned with the Satsuma clan in Kagoshima, but it wasn't actually a part of Japan until closer to the end of the 19th century, the 20th century. Then Okinawa joined Japan, and Japan was a united country under the Meiji government. But that was... It was an interesting history. The Edo Museum, I believe, is still closed. I'm not sure when it's going to open, but I'm really excited to go back in there. Thanks for asking about that, by the way. And UFO Bob, thank you for watching that. I appreciate it. I do. Thank you.

00:11:51 John Daub: There's not a lot I want to talk about with this Kyoto banning, but we're going to see a reaction when tourism... I want you, when you do come here to Japan, to come to Japan. And this isn't a problem with people who watch streams about Japan. And nobody on this series... This isn't a problem if you're watching this series, because we have probably the most polite... And I can tell because people who come up and say hi to me are usually the most polite, kind, wanting to do the right thing souls. They're great. So I know it's not an issue with the people who are watching right now.

00:12:24 John Daub: But when you do see people that are being a little bit unruly, doing something maybe that's... Yeah. Wrong, maybe you can say comment. It's not so much about minding your own business. The reason why you should do that is because it impacts all of us. Right? When you see somebody doing something that's bad, it impacts all of us because Japan will react by taking away privileges.

00:12:47 John Daub: My biggest fear is that tourists are... They're going to ban alcohol on the streets because tourists take advantage of it. In particular, Americans, because they're not allowed to drink outside. You know, it's a privacy thing. It's a public space. You can't drink alcohol in a public space. And the reason why is because... Just look at the laws. Like in the early 20th century before prohibition, people wouldn't drink water. They would drink alcohol. So Americans were drunk all the time. This is from history. This is Ken Burns. Go check it out.

00:13:20 John Daub: They would drink alcohol more than water. So men in particular were drunk. Domestic violence was sky high. People were drinking. You'd go into places and they wouldn't have water. They would have casks of whiskey out there. So that was why the prohibition was put into place because there's just so much crime and so many other problems. Health problems with alcohol. Now we have the same thing. We're seeing tourists congregating in front of convenience stores in central Tokyo and Kyoto drinking.

00:13:48 John Daub: It's good. You could save some money. But also there's going to be a reaction to this because you're leaving it a disaster zone. You're getting drunk. You're smoking. You're drinking right in front when you're not supposed to. You're not supposed to be doing that. And this is probably the next thing to go. You heard it here first. Sadly. I love to be able to picnic underneath a cherry blossom tree and have one. I don't drink very much at all. I have maybe one drink a week now. I don't know. Just because I'm getting older.

00:14:18 John Daub: But, you know, back 10 years ago, 20 years ago, I would have, you know, a few beers with friends underneath the sakura trees. And I could see if people are going to abuse it in particular. In Tokyo, they're going to just ban alcohol in public spaces next if we don't wise up. And I say we because I'm locked. All the other YouTubers that don't look Japanese, they don't watch our shows. They don't know that we're residents of Japan. We get locked in with everybody else here. So we lose. You guys. But you guys, I'm saying the bad international tourists and you're not watching here. So I shouldn't say that.

00:15:00 John Daub: Those guys that come here and make trouble are the ones that are creating problems for us guys. The residents of Japan who've been living here for a long time. And it's up to us to kind of notify you and maybe even stop it. And stars here, hope you're having a good day. It's cold. It's chilly. It's raining a little bit. But I'm doing pretty good. My cold is gone. I was sick for about a week after the stream at the, when was it? In Toyosu. I wasn't feeling that hot that day. But I'm a lot better now. Thank you.

00:15:32 John Daub: Thanks for being a big reason for going to Japan. I'm going in October. Awesome. And I love that time of year. You're going to have a lot of fun. You'll be able to see some of the leaves changing up in Tohoku. But you're going to be a little bit too early for Tokyo. Unless you're coming at the very end and then there's some leaves changing. But it's maybe the most beautiful time of the year besides the cherry blossoms. And WRX Turbo is in the house. I love saying that. It's been a long time. Welcome back.

00:16:00 John Daub: Yeah, I know it might be a little bit still stuffed up. But feel like very lively. I have to do a narration for the Shinjuku video. I have to wait maybe until tomorrow or Monday morning to do it. Because you can tell when I narrate and I have a cold. It doesn't sound, it sounds like I have a cold. Especially if it's a video that people are going to be watching for the next 20 years or something. You want to put your best foot forward if that's even possible.

00:16:27 John Daub: Andy's Texas right in here. I jilted my cocktail hour. You're right. Act like you're... I'm trying to read that. I went by too fast. Yes, I... You know, the next video is going to be in Shinjuku. And this is the place where you can take pictures all day long. All right. I love that place. It's mostly focused in Kabukicho. And I have to be honest. I'm a little bit worried at night about walking around Kabukicho. It might be the most suspect place in Tokyo.

00:16:56 John Daub: If you ask where's the most dangerous place in Tokyo, I would probably say Kabukicho. Even though over the last few years, they've really cleaned it up. There's so many new buildings there. It's a beautiful... The renovations have been beautiful. It still feels a little seedy. In particular, like Gochome and a little bit out there. But the area around Higashi Shinjuku Station and Shinjuku Station are pretty nice now.

00:17:22 John Daub: So I went around with the Magical Trips. And I worked with them before on the Hiroshima video. And a Kyoto night video. So we did one more. This is going to be on a Shinjuku night video. It was so much fun. I got to meet with a guide. It's a sponsored video and it'll be marked as such. All right. It's a promotional video. But I talk about the history of Shinjuku and what makes it such a foodie place. And why the eclectic mix of foods. And how it became so popular. There's so many things mixed in there. As well as some advice for traveling there.

00:18:04 John Daub: But I think that I don't have to take the tours because I live here in Japan. But when I got a chance to do that with them, it was just fun. Because first of all, I used to have a lot of Japanese friends. But then I got married and then they got married. And then a lot of them moved away. And then it's hard to make new friends after you get married. You have your wife's friends but I don't see them that often. So it was kind of cool because Sho was a really... He spoke English. He was a really good guy. He was my guide.

00:18:26 John Daub: He was young so he kind of looked like... I don't know. He kind of looked like he could have worked at one of those hostess clubs for women. And he knew the area really well. Handsome guy. Smart. Knew a lot. He was young. Knew more than me about Shinjuku. But I could still teach him a few things. Which is pretty fun. I don't know if I want to show that in the video yet. But we drink sake. We go to a yakiniku place and eat some wagyu. And then we go out to a sushi place and then we have some food there.

00:19:03 John Daub: So it's a really interesting edited episode that will be coming next week for sure. Maybe on like around Thursday, Friday or Saturday. It depends on when they want to release it because I'm making this for them. And I love the Magical Trip people. They're so much fun to work with. I can never not get lost in Shinjuku. I know! Tottoropoko is the biggest... It's the busiest station in the world with three points. It has 1.5 million passengers per day. It's just crazy.

00:19:37 John Daub: It dwarfs all the other stations in Tokyo. Because of all the connections that it has. It has Odakyu. It has Keio. It has JR. It has Metro. It has Oedo Line. It has the Toei subway line. It's just a mess of exits. There's A exits, B exits, C exits, X exits I think. And it goes on forever. I'm just going to walk. Let me show you the main street in Ginza then. Ginza is another place with a lot of really cool alleys. Why don't we walk and see if we can find some?

00:20:12 John Daub: I'm actually here for a reason. Tomorrow I'll be in... Hey guys, if you want to come, I guess you could. Tomorrow I'll be at Allbirds in Marunouchi. And I have to dye... Japanese indigo dye my shoes. Which is going to be really cool. I tried to dirty them up which is really hard to do. Because white shoes are hard to... You don't want to get them dirty. So you try to avoid it. But tomorrow I get to dye them blue with an indigo master. And we're going to talk a little bit about the art of dyeing. And the importance of indigo.

00:20:51 John Daub: And I have some videos that I took in Tokushima when I was there. Dyeing indigo. That's one of the reasons why there's a samurai blue. And why Japan has blue uniforms for the soccer team. I guess you all know Japan's colors are red and white. But that's also blue. And I think it's the indigo blue. Because of Japan's history of indigo dyeing. And it also has a very strong history of... And there's another vending machine bank over there. Oh, I see Katayama's in the house. Katayama, thank you.

00:21:19 John Daub: I have to say, personally, for a lot of the feedback on the last video. There's a lot of things I didn't know about. That you always guide me with. And I'm so appreciative of that. So I can make better episodes next time. Each one gets better and better. I think the last episode might have been... The best storytelling, maybe. Even though it's historical in nature. I think it'll be... It'll grow over time. I did listen to some of the feedback. And I changed the thumbnail from color to black and white.

00:21:50 John Daub: That is not an AI generated image of Manjiro, by the way. It is a... A... Cleaned up version of a photo that is old. That I also colorized. That took a long time to do. Kind of bringing history to life. But sometimes... Doing that makes it seem... A little inauthentic. And... I want to thank the feedback that I got from so many viewers. That's what's great about YouTube. I said this yesterday. But... If you... YouTube is a social media. And there's some YouTubers that get angry.

00:22:29 John Daub: I think I want to go down this way. Oh no, here it is. I can go in this way. There's some YouTubers that get angry at the comments. They call them, like, the trolling. I actually love the feedback. I love the criticism. I love the honesty. I love the direct honesty. I think the older you get, the more you appreciate people that are... You know... Speaking truth to you. And you listen to that feedback. You collect it all. And then you do better. Because nobody is perfect. I'm far from perfect. But every time I do something... I learn from it. And I get better at it. And that's really helpful.

00:23:11 John Daub: Alright, everybody who said this... There's no convenience stores in Ginza. There's one right in this alley. And this is one of the most unique ones. I guess if there's a signal, I can take you in here. Just for a second. This is a Yamazaki Daily store. And they sell cheap bentos. And it's like a hideaway. Because Ginza is a very expensive neighborhood. You can get, like, a 500 yen bento from here. The entrance of this convenience store is hidden in the alley. Look. That's the entrance. There's only local... Locals would know to check back here. That's crazy, right? That's the entrance to the convenience... That's crazy.

00:23:55 John Daub: And hello, Hi821. You're right. Criticism isn't always true. You have to read between the lines sometimes. But for long-time viewers... You're gonna like the AI art or you're not gonna like it. There's not a lot of it. Somebody said heavy use. I disagree with heavy use. A lot of them were just photos. Alright? Like, they were real photos. I'm going in to Muji, actually.

00:24:27 John Daub: But when you're making content for YouTube... You have to... You know, you have an audience. And when your audience doesn't watch the episodes that you put up there... They're not gonna be suggested to new people. And with this episode, I didn't... I didn't listen to the audience enough... That they wanted to click on the story or I didn't sell it enough. So, it's not gonna be suggested on YouTube. I think it has a hundred thousand impressions, which is ridiculously low. You want about three million to get, you know, like 200,000 views or something. Depending if you've got a 5% click-through rate, which is ideal. I don't know.

00:25:09 John Daub: I know a lot about how to make videos do well. But this one is very niche, maybe. I think it's a good story, though. Definitely check it out. And let me know what your feedback is. Because a lot of people certainly did. Check it out. Yeah, to get back to... Thanks, Michael, for bringing that up again. To get back to the focus of this. Kyoto banning tourists. It isn't true. I think that some of the headlines are a little bit deceptive here. Just a couple of alleys are banning it. You know.

00:25:43 John Daub: I can bring up this story again. I'll put it in the side here. While I'm talking about it. It's... There's some areas where the geisha are just harassed too much. And they can't do what they want to do. Well, you can see that... Wow, there's going to be a new building. I wonder if they dig in the ground here. If they find stuff from World War II or something like that. I'm sure it could be a little... Seem a little bit dangerous. Dig in the grounds in Tokyo. I don't know. We're going back to like the reconstruction of the 1950s.

00:26:16 John Daub: If you... Further down you dig, I think. But you can see here the tourists sometimes go a little bit gung-ho. They go a little bit too crazy about wanting to take pictures of the geisha when they see them. And they're just doing their job. They're just trying to go to work. And it's just too much. They're the alleys that are closed down to tourists. And if you go in there... I think it's best just not to go in there. They're private roads anyways. And Kyoto still has these old private roads where you can't... You can't... If they close them, you can't go down them.

00:27:04 John Daub: There's certain private roads like that in Japan. Old ones in particular in Kyoto have these old grandfathered-in laws that allow them to do that. So I think it's good for them, you know. I don't think you can stop the tourists from wanting to take a picture like this. Unless you did what I just said that... Said that they should probably do. Which is hire a couple of people to walk up and down. In particular at sunset and sunrise. Maybe not sunset. At sunrise. At sunset when tourists want to take these pictures of the geisha coming out.

00:27:31 John Daub: Mislead them and put a sign like we have Michael walking up and down in Higashiyama. Or places where the tourists can get scenic pictures together with them. Everybody wants to get a picture with him. But that's not the right way to do it. There's a picture of the sign. 10,000 yen. Fine. If you do. Get caught. Yeah.

00:28:01 John Daub: I appreciate the feedback, everybody. It's been a lot of fun. It is chilly today. I'm still shocked the cherry blossoms are not out at all in Tokyo. I don't see any of them. In fact, you can see the trees here in Ginza don't have any blossoms, flowers or buds on them. It's bizarre. But it's because it feels like winter. My fingers hurt from the cold actually.

00:28:24 John Daub: So, I'm going to see what's going on Sunday. Tomorrow, Dean Newcomb and I will be doing a live stream in Yurakucho. Allbirds. I'll be dyeing my white shoes indigo. And then talking a little bit about Japan's history of indigo, which should be pretty interesting. I believe there's an indigo dye master coming from Shikoku or Okayama. Yeah. So, we'll talk with him about this as well.

00:28:51 John Daub: And then on Monday and next week, I'll be doing as much as I can with cherry blossoms and talking about all sorts of things. In particular, with springtime, where are the best places to go in Japan. Some of the things that you definitely should be considering with springtime. Spring travel in Japan. When is the ski season? There's a bunch of questions. And if you're on Patreon, there's a phone number, a US phone number that you can call to leave me a message.

00:29:20 John Daub: We've gotten about three or four messages, not too many. But you can leave me a message and I get it on the Discord server, the notification. And I can download your message and then play it in the live stream. So, it's going to be a cool way to be able to... interact with all of you. Big shout out to Peso for setting this up. I haven't promoted it very well. But after we test it with our Patreon supporters, I'll eventually give it to the public. But, you know, things can go wrong. So we better beta test this with the public. Right? With our group on Patreon.

00:30:00 John Daub: Visit a knife store. That's a great, great idea, Ronald. I haven't done a knife episode in a while. I think one of the YouTubers... Oh! One of the YouTubers came here. So, I get contacted by a lot of YouTubers that are coming to Japan. Big ones that are doing episodes documentary style because they see the work that I've done in the past. They contact me almost always through Instagram. Awesome people. Yes Theory has responded... has written me. And... Drew Binsky also, who's come here. And I never get a chance to catch up with him. Him and his wife were here.

00:30:38 John Daub: There's a bunch of YouTubers in... I love meeting people from outside of Japan and getting a chance to talk and meet with them. And hear their stories and their impressions of Japan. Because it gives me a new light... a light on the country that I live in. Which is awesome. So, there's recently a YouTuber who posted a video on making a sword from scratch. And I think I gave my two cents to help them out. And didn't get a chance to see them when they were here. Big productions. Big productions.

00:31:06 John Daub: You know, I've been to every part of this country. So I know a lot to help people out when they do come here. And I love doing that. I think Mike Chen was here recently again. And it always makes me happy to hear he's around eating and having fun. Also a really good guy. Alright everybody. Stay warm. Because I'm a little chilly right now. That's Ginza on a rainy day.

00:31:31 John Daub: But it was good to talk about Kyoto. And not to worry. This ban is not really going to impact you at all. Again, I've told you over and over again. Kyoto is not the everything Japan. It is a cultural heart of Japan. You know what? I would say it's... Japan has several cultural hearts. Kyoto is just maybe the biggest. That doesn't make it the best. It's not the all of Japan. That's not where Japan culture is all in there. But it's a really nice place to go.

00:32:02 John Daub: But I would not plan for more than... I would just do like day trips. You know, I would go there. Spend one night. And then go to Kanazawa. Or go someplace else. Where you feel a little bit more free space. And it's just... It's a city. Kyoto is just a city. You want to feel something like Takayama. It's more like the countryside. Where you can feel the... If you want to feel the core of Japan. You want to feel Japanese culture.

00:32:25 John Daub: You don't go... You go to a ryokan (traditional inn) in the countryside. And you feel that family spirit. And you see the service. That's something that you never forget. And you eat the food of the local industry. And you soak in an onsen bath (hot spring). And to me that is... And dress up in a yukata (light kimono). Which is what you're supposed to do. And that's when you really feel like you are in Japan. And that's what the Japanese do as well. When they want to stay in a tatami room for example.

00:32:50 John Daub: Anyways, I'll see you all in the next livestream tomorrow. From Yurakucho. Just across the street. With Dean Newcomb, my buddy. Matane (see you later). Don Quixote is not the soul of Japan. That's a place for... It's like a death trap. Death trap. Death trap. Should an earthquake ever hit. It's the last place you want to be. Don Quixote. Crazy. I like that comment though.