00:00:01 John Daub: It is super hot out here. I'm in Zensuji in Kagawa Prefecture. This is Shikoku. I'm in front of Miyagawa Seimenjo, one of my favorite places to get udon. I've been here maybe a dozen times. They're so friendly, and of course I had lunch in here. I'm going to show you my experience eating lunch here. As we walk to the other side of the town, we're going from this spot, Miyagawa Seimenjo, where they make the udon. I always think this is like the center of the city to me. Then we're going to walk to Zensuji Temple, which has a history going back to the year 800. I think it's 1,250 years they've been celebrating it.

00:00:49 John Daub: So there's a lot of history in this town. This is also where there's a lot of akiya (abandoned houses). And I introduce you to Darryl who owns an akiya. Maybe we can even stop off there depending on how this live stream goes. So let's get moving here.

00:01:00 John Daub: As I'm walking, there's some places here that are not so interesting to see, like a hospital parking lot that just takes over the entire area. Get ready for about a 30-minute live stream. There's super hot weather right now. It says here it's 31 in Kagawa. There's an excessive heat warning. I already feel it. I know it says 31, but it's probably closer to 35 right now, just radiating heat off the asphalt, maybe even a little bit hotter. And there's very few clouds in the sky. So I'm gonna be careful. We'll do some convenience store stops here. Japanese summer is nothing to joke about. It is really hot here. Hey, Brett, just finished in the house. Nice to see you. There's a bunch of vending machines on the way, which is really good.

00:02:00 John Daub: Udon, if you don't know what it is, it's thick noodles—they're the best here in the Sanuki region of Japan, which is Kagawa, which is Zensuji, where I just ate. There are hundreds and hundreds of places. That trash truck's saying that they're making a left. Please be careful. Trucks in Japan talk, which is so cool. All right, we're just gonna keep going straight here. And as I walk and introduce you to this amazing little city, I'm gonna show you some clips that I've been taking as well. We'll start off with lunch, and I'll narrate it as we go along.

00:02:49 John Daub: So I went in and as I always do, I go in for lunch and a bite to eat. This is such a simple place to eat as well. You have to kind of know how to do it. You just enter, you go in, you pick a bowl. There's a big bowl that means you're gonna get a large, extra large noodles. And then I'm just gonna get a small noodles because this is my breakfast. You ask Miyagawa-san, who's one of the friendliest, kindest souls, and there's her husband in the back there who makes the noodles from like 5 a.m. It's all handmade right there in the shop. We're doing a little banter back and forth, of course, because I haven't seen her in a month. I came here at the end of July. It gives me a small size. She's shocked by that because I'm a growing boy and I probably could've used a little bit more.

00:03:33 John Daub: So you take this over here and eat it cold or you can heat it up. And I like to heat up my noodles here. You have to do that yourself. My friend Trevor, the Food Ranger, was here. They always ask about Trevor. So you go in here and you kind of have to heat up the noodles yourself. Nobody really tells you this kind of stuff. This is what makes it a really local, amazing restaurant to go in and eat. But the noodles are so fresh. It was just made a couple hours ago. It's so good. Now, you see the tempura spread there. The tempura is amazing. It's just on the right side, they're actually breading it and deep frying it. So these are all fresh. They're all gonna be gone in a couple of hours because the lunch rush comes and there's a line out the door. It's absolutely insane here.

00:04:25 John Daub: You can also grate your own ginger. You just do it and you can put as much as you want into there. But the soup that you also have to take that yourself. There's a big vat right there. I took a little bit of sauce there. And what do we get here? I got a chikuwa tempura, which is like a fish stick, so good. So like a mochi mochi kind of thing. It's hard to explain. And then the eggs are hanjuku tempura tamago. So they're like ajitama. So there's a little bit of runniness inside there, but it's been tempura-ized. And then I was recommended to get this one with some ginger and shrimp. Just coming out of the fryer. And boom, go in, take your seat. I picked this one here. And then they came and said, you know what? You look hot. Come over and sit underneath the air conditioner. Of course, they're gonna say something like that.

00:05:29 John Daub: So I moved over there and Miyagawa-san brought me a cold bowl of noodles as a gift because I'm always coming in there. I totally destroyed this bowl of udon. Oh my goodness, it was so good. The whole thing with the two tempura cost me 490 yen. That's like $3, probably less than $3, the exchange rate. Most people, the customers come in, they eat it in three minutes. And they're out the door. It's an incredibly fast turnover. So it's not a place you want to sit down with your friends and chat for a while. You go in there, you eat, you get out because they make their money on the turnover. So there's a line at the door. Someone's waiting for that seat. And you got to respect that because they're making some darn good food. You know, you want to keep them in business. They're gonna stay in business for sure.

00:06:19 John Daub: But that was the experience. And there's the hospital that's the center that's not so interesting to show you, which is part of the experience. It's part of Zentsuji. It's all part of it. Oh my goodness, I'm sweaty. I go back to Tokyo tonight. I'm kind of sad about it. I love this area, how quiet it is, how there are no other tourists around. It's just a really peaceful experience. This is Japan. This is to me. This is Japan. It's just that crow going by there—Toby (crow).

00:06:55 John Daub: I had to travel pretty far to get here though. From Tokyo, you got to take the Shinkansen down to Okayama. Take a local train across or you can drive if you like. Rent a car. There's about a dozen rental car places outside of Okayama Station. It's not far from Osaka and Kyoto to get here. Shikoku Island is the smallest of Japan's four main islands. There's four prefectures in Shikoku. Kagawa, which is in the top there, is the smallest prefecture in all of Japan. Tokushima, Kochi, and Ehime are the other three. Zentsuji is right on the top. It's pretty much after Marugame, which is also famous for udon noodles. Zentsuji is the next town. On the highway, it's easy to get here across the bridge. It's very famous for the temple. There's 88 temples that go around Shikoku. Zentsuji has five of them. And Zentsuji Temple, I think it's one of the biggest in Shikoku. It's pretty big.

00:07:51 John Daub: That's where I am at the Miyagawa Seimenjo. I'm going to walk down this. You see past that big parking lot. Now we're going into the town here. Wait for the traffic. And then we're going to be going to right there. That's Zentsuji Temple. I've learned a lot about this from the Buddhist priests inside there, the monks, the staff. They've been teaching us all about the history of this. So I have enough knowledge to kind of guide you around now. I'll tell you why there's no grass in there and why it's sand as well. I thought that was interesting. It's a beautiful little city. People are friendly. That's why a lot of non-Japanese are searching the word akiya, which means abandoned house or house that's empty or buying these, turning them over or going ahead and living in them.

00:08:42 John Daub: Darryl who you saw on a live stream about a month ago, he purchased a house. I think it was like under $20,000 or something. And he's got an amazing amount of space for life. He's set. He's got a place to raise chickens and grow some vegetables. It's amazing. And I'm very envious of him and his two boys and his wife Natsu. And they've been living there for just this year, but their life looks like really great. They drive to the supermarket. The prices are here a little bit, a lot cheaper than Tokyo. Actually, the produce is so fresh. The water is great. It's got everything you need.

00:09:48 John Daub: All right, let's get into it. Before we get to Zentsuji Temple, I'm going to get some dessert if you don't mind. You can see here there's a very old building with a Coca-Cola sign right here. You see a lot of these in the countryside, but many of them aren't going to survive because of the earthquake proofing that's necessary, but it's really nice to see these old buildings. This one is Yamashita Sake Shop. You can get a brewski. Cold one. 290 for 500 ml Asahi Super Dry. It's pretty good. It's best to show your ID, but I don't even know if it works anymore. I haven't tried a beer vending machine in a long time.

00:10:49 John Daub: Yesterday, there wasn't a beer vending machine inside the temple because you're not supposed to drink alcohol, but you could sell beer. They sell beer out of a refrigerator instead. You can get it from the front desk. This trip has been really cool, except for the heat. This morning, we went out with one of the monks here at the Buddhist temple where we're staying because we're doing a shukubo stay (temple lodging). And he took us around a hill. The hill is a mini 88 shrines and you can walk in. It takes about 35, 40 minutes to walk around the hill. But it has markers for the 88 shrines that you could go and see. I thought that was really interesting. This one is the Zentsuji marker. Zentsuji is marker number 75. But you know, I asked about that. Does the numbers actually matter? Do you have to start at number one? And he told me, no, there's 88 temples. People usually take number one. It takes like three months to walk the over 1000 kilometers around Shikoku Island. And you don't have to start at any particular number to do the 88 temple pilgrimage.

00:13:14 John Daub: There's the pagoda. It's the third highest pagoda in Japan, 43 meters high. It also makes it what seems like one of the tallest buildings in the town. After so many centuries, it's still standing despite the earthquakes. And I'll talk a little bit about that as well. Some fascinating details about the Zentsuji Temple. All right, let's get some katapan (hard bread). It's been a while. Hello. I'd like 100 grams of stone bread. It's hot. Daimaru bread. This is 100. This is the hardest bread in the world. It's a little hard. I don't know if there's any other katapan in the world. Here you go. 800 yen? Thank you for today. Take care. Thank you.

00:14:55 John Daub: So I asked if this is the world's hardest bread. Because it's called katapan and kata means katai, meaning really hard. So I got a bag of it. And we're going to try it right here in front of the shop, because if I break my teeth maybe they have a telephone they can call the emergency dentist because I want that tooth back. All right, this stuff also lasts in case of an earthquake so you can keep it around for like a year. I once asked them about five years ago if they would show me the process for a video and they said there's no way, we would ever do that, it's top secret. All right, this is katapan, I think it's the hardest bread in the world. It is really hard. How do they make it? Top secret. We've been doing it for over a century. Apparently there's a little bit sugar on there and some ginger, which is pleasant. A very pleasant tasting type of bread here. Yeah, you can see I can't without breaking a tooth. If I put more pressure on it's gonna bust up. So the way you do it is you gotta soften it up a little. No, Daniel, it's way harder than a crouton. Dentist's worst nightmare. We got it. I got a good set of choppers. 100 grams is 200 yen, that's what I got here.

00:17:08 John Daub: There's a vending machine over there so let's katapan. It's one of my favorite. Is this a bakery? Could you call it a bakery? I don't know. We're getting close to the temple. In fact I think we're basically here but you can feel the history. Again this town, Zentsuji, really goes back many centuries. I think some of you might know the story of Kobo Daishi, the Kukai. He's the founder of one of the sects of Buddhism here. Amazing story. Oh here we are so we are here at the temple. All right let's get a drink. Wonderful. So it's a really pleasant walk. This is an amazing day trip from Okayama or you just want to see something different.

00:18:05 John Daub: Oh there's a beer vending machine. So I got you gotta push the interphone and someone will confirm your age by looking at you. Wait what? I'm almost tempted to try this. So to buy the beer you have to be confirmed. So there's no ID, there's a camera and the camera checks you over to see if you're old enough to buy the beer with a visual check and then afterwards you put your money in and then you can push the button. Are you kidding me? Really? That's one way to do it. So there's a manual check. I'm not gonna buy it but there's no Apple Pay, that's so funny. Oh there's mugicha. See I don't like this the lemon one because I don't like that the real lemon is of course it's not real lemon, right? It's not real yuzu. I don't want any sugar so sometimes you can just go with nama cha. Nice cool drink. All right let's do this. I really love these 500 yen coins and the tourists that I talked to tell me that a lot of them are taking them back. They're dual color now, they're really pretty. This one doesn't take Suica either. Nice. Nama cha has been around for a long time. Coca-Cola seems to change their brand for green tea all the time. Not Kirin, they stick with nama cha. It's been like that for ages. Oh it's so good.

00:20:17 John Daub: Thanks guys for the super chats, I appreciate it very much, keeping me hydrated. Michael Sassano is always whenever Michael's in the house he's dropping super chats to make sure I stay hydrated, well fed. That one was from Bradshaw Studio, thank you. All right it's piping hot here in Zentsuji. You can see the Kobo Daishi up there. I know his name because I've been doing morning prayers every morning at 6:00 a.m. for the last two mornings and inside the prayer Kobo Daishi, I hear his name. And I've been trying to do some of the chants because they give you a sheet in English and that's been really helpful because when you chant along you really feel like a unity, a unison with the Buddhist monks that are chanting and it's one of the most relaxing experiences that I've had here in Japan. I'm gonna be quiet for about a minute or so so you can get a feel for the grounds of the temple here.

00:22:27 John Daub: Here we are. One of the things that I learned about Zentsuji Temple, why the ground is like the way it is, is because they haven't changed it since the time that Kobo Daishi was here. This is the way it was back then and they don't want to change a thing. So a lot of the things around here have not changed. In fact the morning prayer that I attended, they've been doing it 365 days a year non-stop for over 1250 years. So that's the kind of dedication people have. It's really hardcore stuff but it's also fun. And one of the monks said is like look, Buddhism is the best religion because it's the most fun. And I said really? Okay well when you put it like that. Oh there he is over there, one of the head monks. There's some debate whether or not it's a head priest or a head abbot, I'm not sure. This pagoda is 43 meters high, it is the third highest in Japan and it's still standing.

00:23:35 John Daub: Around it there's some very ominous looking figures that represent the 108 desires that is part of Buddhism in there that make you go bad. So I actually went inside of here yesterday and I want to show you a little bit from inside. That's the from another view. That's like the pictures are just incredible. Here's the shot inside here and you can see the way that they stabilize the pagoda so it doesn't fall over during an earthquake is a technology they use in places like the Skytree. Inside there is a shinbashira (central pillar). I think that's what they called it and there's a six centimeter gap you can see here between so that when it does oscillate in an earthquake it won't fall over because this sets it right. There has to be a really strong earthquake to knock it down but it stays upright pretty good. I thought the things that they thought about back then is really fascinating to me.

00:24:54 John Daub: There they are on a tour here. Oh what are these like high school kids? Yeah these are just kids, they're learning about it. You're gonna see Kobo Daishi all over the place, statues of him. And it's a really peaceful feeling. I like the reasoning why people do these three-month pilgrimages, these really long pilgrimages. He's also a head of the iroha which is the shukubo, really nice guy. Here's the main entrance. What was cool about this was we asked him hey why is this gate so high? Couldn't you just make a normal size gate? And he said hey well back then there was a general about I don't know in the Taisho-Mino? At the end of the Meiji era and he was a type of horse and he also had like a spear and he wanted the gate to be high enough to accommodate him on a horse carrying a spear and thus the gate is that high. I thought that was fascinating because there's a reason why everything is the way it is.

00:26:20 John Daub: Right and that's an interesting story. Over on this side we walked past it when we entered in here but there's some amazing trees and you all know I'm a tree hugger. I'm not into this green revolution and all this other stuff too much but I am into protecting the trees. And this tree right here is over 1300 years old. It was here before Kobo Daishi, the Kukai, which is crazy. It's a power spot they said here. He told me yesterday this is really crazy, this power spot is too powerful. So he said there are a bunch of people doing yoga. People could come here and just do yoga right here and he said that after a while people were complaining of having too much power or they're feeling it so they had to stop the yoga. And they said you know this is a super power spot. So there's some power spots and then there's super powers and you kind of get it. This thing is massive. This tree has been around before like the dark ages. This is a mega tree. I should rename this live stream Udon restaurant to mega tree because it's been alive as long as they've been keeping records. It's an amazing tree and just shows you that life goes on after we're gone. This tree will still be here. That's why it's good to hug a tree. Tell it all your secrets to the tree. Maybe the tree will pass it on. Who knows?

00:28:20 John Daub: Anyways, it's a pretty impressive tree and to think that the Kukai, the founder of this sect of Buddhism like in the year 800, this tree was still here and he wrote about it. So that's how they know that they can confirm the age of the tree based on records from the Kukai directly. Which is just insanity when you think about it. It's beautiful. A lot of tourists are coming in here. This is a mega power spot. Make sure you come in and check out this tree for sure. You can see it's like busting out. You cannot contain this tree. Look at it, it's coming out of the wall there. So mega tree will not be contained. Eventually nature takes over. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust.

00:29:33 John Daub: Right so it's a really impressive place. Again if you're doing the pilgrimage, for most people take about three months. You don't have to do it all in one spot all at one time but in this kind of a heat it is really insane to be doing a pilgrimage. You'll see a lot of people at the end of winter start it and you can go around in a tent and camp at michi no eki (roadside stations). There's places where you can take a bath. It's amazing, Shikoku has made this really easy. There's places that are really affordable, just a few dollars a night that you could go and get a cot, continue on in the morning. There's tons of places to eat. But you know whenever you're lost in life and you're not sure what's going on, everything seems down, everything's going in a bad direction, you're not going to be able to get out of the tent. A lot of people that will go on these kinds of pilgrimages and just stop and reset and that's what this sort of does. You don't have to be Buddhist in order to do the pilgrimage to go around. I don't think you just have to be adventurous and be willing to lose yourself in a mission of walking around an island visiting all 88 of the temple shrines. And by the end of it I think you would have accomplished something that's really great.

00:31:11 John Daub: If you had a good mission and you know in a way it kind of reminds me of the Appalachian Trail, those that are hiking on the northeast down to the south in the United States. That's quite an undertaking, it probably takes years but for Japan this would be something similar to that. And I can't promise I'm going to do it one day but I certainly like that's one of the things that I would love to do while I'm in Japan. This temple is temple number 75 of the 88 but it does not matter if you start at number 75 or if you start at number 36 or whatnot. It's all up to you.

00:32:12 John Daub: So on this trip here I could show you a couple of other things. This is really cool experience. This young man here he's a master perfume maker. All right he makes these incense with amazing scents. He mixes them up and I can't tell you because it's a trade secret but I got a chance on this tour to make up my own scent, which is great. And it's so strong the scent that we had and mixed up here like my backpack is smelling better than it ever has. So I think some of it was cinnamon. There was some of it I don't know what it was, spices and all sorts of stuff. In Japan and I think this cinnamon must come from Indonesia I think they said. But you can see it's by mixing this up we put it in a little bag and the bag just radiates amazing smell like an incense. So everything it's the essence of Daub. That's what this is. You could people could sell something like this so you come up with your own scent and it becomes you can I guess you could trademark it. But it's really fascinating isn't it to see like to mix it up. I don't even know what a lot of this stuff is. It all I know is that it smells real good.

00:33:42 John Daub: And yesterday we had the tea ceremony where we made some we made our own wagashi (Japanese confection), which was anko (red bean paste) inside there with the sweet confection around it. But instead of having it presented to you I like the way they did this, they gave you a chance to make your own. So I don't like that so much to be honest with you because it never tastes as good as if someone makes it and puts love into it. But there's my green tea which I drank and gave me a nice buzz because it's got more caffeine than cappuccino. So yeah I was buzzing. But you could see that's what it looked like, my wagashi, my anko I made that. That's pretty cool. Took me about five minutes and it was a little messy but just doesn't taste as good when it comes from my own hand and I did wash them so there you go.

00:34:35 John Daub: I thought this is a really cool experience. I'm glad that they had come up with something like this. Oh and then we went to a place they make this a local kind of sushi but this sushi does have meat in it which was a welcome thing because we've been eating mostly vegetables. They put the meat and vegetables and all this stuff in the rice and it was almost like a cooking show at the tourist center here in Zentsuji. She mixes it up and the presentation. This is you know what was really great about it it's home cooking. And when you're on a tour usually or you're visiting Japan you're basically getting like McDonald's and Yoshinoya, you're eating at convenience stores and stuff. This was home cooking and it was really amazing because I mean it wasn't as good as Kanae Daub's food because you might be watching but it was really amazing. And I think you can feel and taste love and food if it's home cooked. Just the presentation of it is amazing. Right now my wife doesn't make the food look exactly like that but she does a really good job.

00:35:49 John Daub: So I was impressed. It's the little details here. And here's a view of Zentsuji. This is a good image to leave you with. This is the city it's pretty flat in there except for these popcorn looking hills that just are gumdrop looking hills. There's a great Seto Bridge that I drive across. Then from this point one of the temples is up on a hill. Look at that that's a long bridge cut across to get to Shikoku and they have a lot of these waterways which are reservoirs because they've had droughts in the past so these reservoirs often are ancient so they won't have a lack of water now.

00:36:25 John Daub: I came to this shrine with a view because just I only have this here queued up. One of the other things we did on this tour was practice hiragana. It doesn't matter if you stink at it they tell you how to do it and this isn't mine by the way. But the teacher will correct you in the ancient ways of it and it was hard. But what I found when I did this was that this is another thing I think especially if you've got a lot of stress in your life if you focus on one thing like just trying to write hiragana in Japanese or cooking, going on a walk, you forget about everything else and it kind of resets your body a lot. So doing hiragana and trying to do it perfectly and focusing on that I found that I was just forgetting everything else and just focusing on what's right in front of me and it resets the way I think and it's quite a healthy thing to do. Now I'm not good at it. I would get good at it if I kept doing it. Most Japanese are not good at writing anymore because they use computers and things.

00:37:38 John Daub: This kind of a tour that they did today, the last few days, I wasn't sure if I was gonna like it. I only came because I'm here for I came to Zentsuji because I love the farmers. And I came this is the postcard for this month by the way you see the logos and it's a square logo you see there it's kind of weird. So I came for this story which is coming up next week on the Only in Japan main channel. And it's one of the reasons I love this town because I've made friends here I love the people here. But I don't know much about the cultural side of it like the temples and the areas like this so I wanted to come along and I learned a lot. But what I also learned was like you know living in the city is like chaos there's so much stuff that you can be overwhelmed and I feel overwhelmed quite a bit. So if you just take 30 minutes out of your day and you do something else just change gears but instead of thinking about all that other stuff that's making you stressed focus on one thing and try to do it the best you can like laundry or cooking. Don't just cook to cook, cook to try to be really good at it and maybe the end result's bad but you focused on it and you find like at the end of it you're like dang I feel pretty good. I forgot about all this stuff. That was an important lesson I took away from this.

00:39:00 John Daub: So I think it's a pretty cool tour. I don't know they're going to do this tour I guess it's his that's doing it. Lisa likes the square watermelon Only in Japan logo. Maybe I gotta keep that one. It is kind of cool. But thank you Sarah. I think the little lessons you can take away from coming to Japan it's not just the food and seeing Japan's a trendy place to go just lessons you can learn from visiting Japan like how to earthquake proof buildings from ancient technology right they knew this stuff. So I think that this is my biggest takeaway from this trip. I'm more at peace. I feel good. I'm going back home recharged.

00:39:51 John Daub: And I gotta go and use the restroom so it's a true story live stream anything can happen. Sacred oath. Hey John been a sub for a while really helped me get to know Japan and understand the culture. We'll visit one day and if I'm around try to find me I'd love to meet you as well. I do have "you found me" cards with me. Anyways I gotta go meet up the rest of the team they're doing they're making some kind of artist stuff. I've even made a mask for Leo. Let me see if I have it. It's a super creepy mask though. Here's here take a look at yesterday's food as I look for the mask. Can I do that yeah look for the mask you look at this. This is yesterday's live. Oh not this one. Yesterday's live stream we I ate so much food here. This is the dishes that we had. You can see this in the live stream from last night if you didn't. Yuri is no meat what happened stop there no meat. There's the edamame there's some spinach in there so men noodles with kind of a potato in there. There's a drink for the palette that's a nabe that we had in here. All of the stuff non-meat. What was really crazy was that sashimi it looked like maguro but it was really just like a gelatinous substance right there you see that's not maguro but they make it look like maguro and you kind of feel yeah maybe I kind of ate maguro but in the end it was just a gelatinous dish which was good actually. That's Japanese cuisine it's all really creative.

00:41:20 John Daub: And here's the mask that I made. Uh it's a little creepy you see kids were making it uh this one's going to Leo. That's gold on there I don't know if he's gonna be that's a tengu so it's slightly creepy. Slightly but the cool thing about the trip was you got to do arts and crafts and while I was making the mask again one of those things that completely erased my mind and I was just focused on painting a creepy mask which was so cool and I get to take it home and wear it run around the house and scare my son.

00:41:55 John Daub: All right everybody I'll see you in another live stream really soon. I probably will put together some of this information from this tour and share it with you. I don't know if this is something you want to do. It's really convenient from Okayama to get to Zentsuji and again like I love this place I'm guaranteed to be back again. But there you go come here for the udon stay for the culture how about that. Look at that telephone booth. Stay for the culture that's telephone booth. All right thanks for watching guys that's really cool you don't see them too often. It's like a slick they even have a phone. Look how thin the phone book is. Oh my.