00:00:02 John Daub: So we're in Sakura City in Chiba Prefecture and this right here is an old samurai house and we're going to go take a look inside. They have samurai armor as well. There's like nobody here. This is one of the great experiences that you get in Japan after you leave the city of Tokyo. You get out here to the middle of like nowhere. This is a pretty, it's not nowhere, it's actually really close to the city of Narita. Let me show you here on the map before we get started. This is really interesting.

00:00:34 John Daub: We are really close to the city of Tokyo. I mean it's a local train ride. You can get here by the Narita Express but it's not really that much faster to the city of Sakura and this town has a really long history going back thousands of years they say and the castle is no longer here but this samurai area, the samurai residences have been very well preserved and this is a great way, a day trip or just like a morning trip from the city of Tokyo to come out here and see some Japanese history in a quiet location where you can feel that connection with nature. I'm really shocked how few people are actually here. It is a weekday but still I mean we're all the tourists. This should be a lot more popular. Arthur Vandelay's in the house. Thank you Arthur. This is, that was the site of the castle you can see that big, that clearing on the right side and we're going to kind of walk around here and get a really immersive feel.

00:01:33 John Daub: Now I had to climb my way up to the top of the castle but up some steps in order to get here we're gonna go to this hill I missed that there but we're gonna go there next and it's an amazing bamboo forest through here you're gonna be pretty shocked that you don't have to go to Kyoto to get that Arashiyama bamboo forest depending on the signal because we are live right now um I'm actually right there this is in the in the wooded areas on the bottom left there that's where the samurai houses had to go up right there and the JR station is not too far away but you can see it's like kind of on a cliff it's a certainly an elevated area it looks like there was a castle wall around here no longer is it a castle wall but it's I'm just fascinated that there's like nobody here well very very few people here the temperature is about 23 degrees 73 Fahrenheit let's take a look inside you have to take off your shoes oh so this side this side you don't have to take off your shoes but here so if you're not sure, just follow what everybody else is doing.

00:02:44 John Daub: Like in this old tatami (straw mat flooring) samurai house. It's really cool in here. It's a lot of tatami rooms. Oh, they have some armor here. Check this out. Armor looks really small. I guess people were smaller back then. Helmets remind you of Darth Vader. You know, in the hot summer days, you can throw open these shoji (paper screen doors) and you'd let the wind into your house. You didn't have air conditioning, but you had a lot of ventilation. You could sit out here. I could see myself sitting here with Leo having a beer and him having an apple juice. It's pretty cool. I even dug my head there. I'm going to put my shoes on. We're going to keep on moving here. I have some more information to show you.

00:04:40 John Daub: The way to get there is another samurai house here. You know what? Let's break it up. I'm walking back in this direction in about 10 minutes, but I want to show you this. You can see that slope with the bamboo forest. I haven't been there yet, but we're going to go there together. When I got here, there was nobody here. Now, there's a few people here, but it's an amazing contrast to the city of Tokyo, where Asakusa is just overrun with tourists. You go to Skytree. You go to Shinjuku. It's like all foreign faces now. And here, I don't see any foreign faces. And this is actually the day. If you're in Tokyo, they actually have a festival going on tonight. This is their autumn festival. Here, let me show you. The lady at the tourism office gave me this. She said, yeah, you should stay here till 3 p.m. I don't know if I can do that. I got to get back. But I just was curious about this town because a lot of people have been talking about it. And here I am. It's weird because I'm so close to Tokyo, and I feel like I'm not in the city at all. Because I'm not. But it's just sometimes I forget about it. You don't have to travel very far out of Tokyo to get to places like this.

00:06:11 John Daub: Samurai Forest. Really? All right, let's go. I'm going to go take a look-see. They say you can observe this forest freely. I feel free. It is free. What are you talking about? Just a quick look-see. Usually at these attractions, they tell you which direction to go. Like this is, I think Kyoto has this. This is the usual route. I always go the other way. Just to be different. I see Stelio SHZ is from Greece is here. How you doing? Beyond Travels is here. Thanks for being here. All right, let me just read some of the history for you. I like the fact that they have it in English here. The most samurais were poor at that time. There were many kinds of fruit trees such as plums, persimmons, and chestnuts in the backyard. They also grew vegetables and planted a hedge of tea trees so they could do it themselves. All self-sustaining. It was a private garden arranged to be connected to their property and their guests. So this is all like fruit and nuts and just being able to support yourself.

00:07:44 John Daub: If I lived out in the countryside, you better believe I'm planting like a mango tree. You can plant plums. You got to know what grows in your area. But it's really interesting that, you know, samurai, not all samurai were rich because you were samurai. You have a special life. You have a special status, a certain status in Japan, but you didn't get, you know, koku (rice stipend). You didn't get money, which was rice at the time or granted rice areas. The Garden of Kokon Sakura Masago. That's a mouthful. Kokon Sakura Masago is the book written by Zenemon Watanabe, who was the samurai in Sakura. Sometime between 1701 and 1773 in the Edo period, the book tells what the town was like and how the life of the samurai was like. So, you know, it's interesting. So I guess this is like some of these are fruit trees. I'm not sure. But I like what they've done here. The city has a little picnic table area. That's very nice. I think, oh, here's a well. The well of samurai. So they used to drink from here until about the mid 18th. Anybody down there? I've seen too many Hannibal Lecter movies. Always wondering. It's Halloween after all. Getting closer and closer to it.

00:09:22 John Daub: There's a lady over there is like walking around the bamboo. Let's go to the bamboo forest, shall we? It's not called a bamboo forest. It's called a slope bamboo slope. But seems really impressive. And you have to walk through a cemetery in order to get there. I do like the signs in English here. The garden scene from living room of the samurai house in Sakura. So they would throw open these doors, I guess, and you'd be able to see this. And it hasn't changed much, apparently. Since the age of samurai. It's fascinating, isn't it? The way that Japanese houses were back then. Again, like there was no air conditioning. There was no fans. What you had to do was you just live. And we know how Japanese summers are. You just had to live through it. Imagine the heat and the cold. I mean, it's not like I mean, the paper doors don't really keep in a lot of insulated heat. So they had fireplaces in the ground. You can find them out in the countryside. The tatami mats. You can take them. You can pick them up and you can put that out in the summer and make an open space. But you really could take advantage.

00:10:33 John Daub: Let me show you a map here because I don't want to get lost myself. I saw this at the station. So I'm actually there's actually a walk that you can do. The tourism office will give you a map. And I'm going right now to the left side. You see there's a slope, the samurai forest. That's where we are. And then we're going right now down to the through the temple to a slope where we can see the samurai forest. And you can see that the bamboo I believe this is the this is the train. That was a nice shot. This is the train station. So I could a train station and information centers right below. I was funny. They turn off the lights to conserve power. So they're they're really efficient. I suppose you could say. And that's where I got the map there. And you can see I walk. Why is it so close here? It's creepy. Okay, there you go. I had to walk up a slope to get here. And you can see it was it was really scenic. You know, you see the bamboo left and right. It's not quite the same as Kyoto, but you get you get that vibe. You get that vibe.

00:11:51 John Daub: All right, let's as crafts value rates in here. Let's slope. I do have a map, but just in case. And I did check out the signal to make sure that everything was okay. But this old world map of what the samurai city used to look like. You can see the plots of land. These are like giving to this given to the samurai. So there's probably family names written in here. And the bigger the plot of land, the better of a Sam or most successful you were, I suppose. All right, let's go into. Oh, oh, we're here. Oh, he'll do it. He's got the old samurai road. Are you guys ready? I click the like button because we definitely need to show appreciation for this. Much appreciated. Here's the walk. The map is really good that there's Sakura Station right there. And I walked across, but I went straight to get here on the slope. And now we're walking. In this area right here. And then afterwards, if we have some time, I'll take you up here just to have a quick look. See what's here in Sakura. But it's really convenient because you can take the Keisei line, which is up here. And that takes about 19 minutes, according to Google Maps, to get to this area. Or if you come from JR Sakura, it takes you about 15 minutes to walk to this area. So, again, it's very, very manageable. You don't need to take a bus or public transportation or anything just to get here. And once you get here, you are here. And at 3 p.m. today, the autumn festival starts, which is really cool.

00:13:36 John Daub: All right, let's walk this. This is pretty bad. Arse. Did I just say that? I did. This is so cool. You can see me. The signal seems unstable, but I have to pan up. You have to look up. The temperature has absolutely dropped. It is like 10 degrees cooler. It feels chilly here just because it's shielded from the sun. I don't know if you guys can even hear or see me, but the signal goes in and out. This is pretty cool. It's pretty incredible. It's just a path leading from leading going down and you can feel the history and underneath here. But that's quite amazing. You have to look up the sun. The sun just broaching, breaking through the through the bamboo as you walk in this direction. It is pretty tall. Bamboo grows pretty crazily.

00:15:30 John Daub: My friend Peter von Gomm wanted to grow some bamboo in his yard, but it grew so crazy it started to go to the neighbor's yard and he got in big trouble. He had to dig it up. I think he had to hire people because it was so deep in there. It moved so fast. He had to dig it up and apparently bamboo in the city of Tokyo is not good to plant for neighbors, especially if you want peace with your neighbors. But look at this. I'm telling you right now. If you just want to go to a bamboo forest, you don't have to go to Kyoto, to Arashiyama. They're like in a lot of places, people. I mean, it's just bamboo. But this is not quite the same. But what is great about it and what you miss at Arashiyama is you're supposed to have a connection with nature. But if you have all these tourists and in particular like Instagrammers trying to take selfies, oh look at me, I'm in the bamboo forest. Like this is so annoying in particular. And actually what I'm doing right now, it might be pretty annoying, but there's nobody else to disturb here except for those people. But let's be honest here. It is what I do. All right. Instagrammers. I don't know. Just don't talk. Get in trouble. Mouth, foot in mouth. Wow.

00:16:55 John Daub: So now we get in the slice of like old Japan here. Look at this. That sign looks like it is dated. Well, if it wasn't rusty, it wouldn't be cool. It's pretty awesome. All right, let's let's do a little walk. Walkthrough. According to the map that they gave me, the tourist map, you can take a right and get up there. But yeah, you can come down the slope here and then take a right and then go right back. Oh no, it does connect here. I'm sorry. My, my, it's a really narrow road here. Look at that. You have to stop to let other cars pass. So I could just walk right and then connect here. I see on the map, this right here, this one, there's not a lot to see here apparently, but you know, I think there's a lot to see actually. So I'm kind of curious to see, will this connect? What's it like? Let's do it. Look how long the map is. That's, that's pretty cool. Lady was very friendly. She could speak a little bit of English. She said hello. And then she started speaking Japanese, even though I had a foreign face, she speaks Japanese. So I don't know if she could speak English. Seems like she could. What do you need to, what do you need to speak for? You grab a map. And she was, she gave me a lot of information. The festival today starts at 3 PM. Wow. This is a slice of real everyday Japanese life. Look at the, look at the futon out on the balcony. That's kind of air it out. We do that every now and then. Let the sun get in there and makes it all fresh and warm.

00:19:17 John Daub: But we're walking now. I guess this is the lower area on the side of the bamboo walkway that we just came down. Let me see. I think I do have another map here. There was this fantastic, this is the brochure that you can get online. It's a PDF from the city. So I kind of took a screenshot of it. And I said, if I get lost, I can kind of, I can zoom in on, on certain parts of it. So that this is the main, just the map part. I took a picture of it. So we started at those samurai houses and we just went down the Hyōdōrizaka slope. So we're on the bottom of that. And then I took, I'm taking a right, which I guess you can do. So this map tells me that this is the route to go. We will see what happens. So now I'm at a branch here and it says to go right. So I'm just going to keep going right. That should take me up. And if not, that's okay. But I was really impressed here. So the JR train trip, it takes you through the urban landscapes of Tokyo. And then you get into like this. There's a train going by the Sobu line. There's like nothing out here. I love it. This is what I was searching for, for today. But I need to get some B-roll shots from here. So that's actually why I'm here in Chiba. Not China, Chiba. For those that are wondering, there's not a lot of trains, just so you know. This is the trains going to Narita airport. You can see it starts at around 5 a.m. Just to an hour. And then they kind of increase when people decide to go home to work, go home from work. And this, this is the trains going back to Tokyo. And you can see a lot of ones in the morning for commuters who live out here. And then it kind of is not so many. And then it really increases. Going to Tokyo, there's a lot more trains. It's interesting, huh? But yeah, this is definitely worth. If you wake up, you're jet lagged. Get on the first train out at like 5 a.m.

00:21:22 John Daub: Hold on a second. I guess this way. I don't know where I'm going. I'm very easily can get lost here. Okay. Is anybody here? Can you help me? So we left the slope here. Oh, no, I don't want to go. I could go this way. But I'm going to go the other way. The train was about again about an hour, a little bit over an hour to get here from central Tokyo. Yeah, I changed. You take the train, the Hanzomon line up to. I took the Hanzomon line up to. Oh, wow. You got to go up this slope. The Hanzomon line to Kinshicho. And I switched to the JR station and got on the Sobu line, which took me to towards. Chiba City. I didn't get off the train. It was a straight shot and got off at JR Sakura. Yeah, about 55 minutes later, something like that. Oh, wow. This is the kind of experience that really refreshes me after being in Tokyo doing like fighting the crowds in the city. Don't got to do that here. You're all alone. You can even rent that house like populations and that probably not too high. I do like this. You know, I do like the proximity to Tokyo. I said to Narita Airport. So if you are coming in from Narita Airport, you can actually maybe there's a couple of hotels, including an APA mansion. Maybe like a rental units like apartments or something right next to the station. Don't know. You have to look at look what it is online. Maybe spend the first night here. Get over the jet lag. Wake up early. Looks like everything's open early. 24 hours. And just explore the town next day. Going to the city. Save a little bit of money. Maybe experience quiet and slow Japan before you go into the hardcore tourism thing.

00:23:47 John Daub: Because this area is a hey, sorry. It is here. Thank you. Welcome to becoming a traveler. Joining on the only in Japan go. I really appreciate that. I kind of winded here. All right. So apparently I'm up now. This is the road that you could walk. To get to the castle park. But there's no castle anymore. This is a lot of the castles in Japan were destroyed. Not just in World War Two, but in earthquakes and fires, lightning strikes and whatnot. Japan's history of castles. Not a lot remaining that are original Osaka's castle is nice, but it's not an original one. So we're back on the main street here. We take a left. We go up towards the botanical garden and the castle park. We go right. We go to the shrine. I was looking for some street food or some eats or something, but did not get any. So they do have maps all over. So you can't really get lost if you have a smartphone vending machine. All right, let's keep going.

00:25:14 John Daub: Joshua writes in here. PVG is the handsomest foreigner in Japan. Really? Are you? Is this PVG in disguise? Although, you know, he's not too bad as a dude. I reckon. Look, I love the manhole covers in Japan. This one. It lets you know this is for fire for water. This is where the fire hydrant is. You won't see fire hydrants on the street. Often they're underground and they put the pipes for the water here and you can firemen will know where to go because they have the colored manhole cover there. The festival starts at 3 p.m. The information lady said that traffic patterns and everything is going to be quite different in a couple of hours. So keep that in mind. I said, well, thank you very much, but I'm not going to be here in a couple of hours. I just came to get some B roll and just walk around because I have not been. Well, I love seeing samurai history like this. Let's look at that. You see the samurai that it was rare to have a camera in Japan at this time. So that's why you don't see so many old photos like you would in the United States at this time period, like the mid to late 19th century. Just they didn't have a lot of cameras here. They didn't have a lot of technology anywhere in the world, despite the fact that cameras are really people associate cameras with Japan. If I can get get the focus better back then, it really wasn't like that at all. So you don't see a lot of photos. So this is pretty rare. That's at the gate of the Sakura Castle.

00:27:10 John Daub: I'm not exactly sure what what I'm going to find at the end. But we started this stream looking at the samurai houses, which is extremely impressive. And that bamboo forest. But the town's really sleepy. I like that. This is like most is that a school? It looks like it could be a school. Looks quite big because I don't think the population is as high to fill all those rooms. If it were a school, probably as a school. Some of the abandoned schools have been turned into hotels out in the countryside to try to get people to come back instead of rebuilding, rebuilding something. They just renovate a school. The problem is they also have to earthquake proof it because if it's abandoned for a long time, it's not been taken care of. They have portable toilets out here, too. My friend Ken in Kochi, the Nyodogawa River area, he has a brewery down there and he, you know, he could have bought a school to put his brewery in. But the costs to renovate the school were just prohibitively expensive. Although he would love to have had the space, he had to pick a smaller place because this is Kyoto Lemonade. Really? What's so great about Kyoto Lemonade that makes it special? Don't know. This Kyoto Green Tea looks better. Hojicha (roasted green tea) is really nice. That might be more the ticket here. What do you guys think? Should I get a drink? Oh, they take the Suica. Lemonade's a little weird. Not holding my Suica cards in my bag. They don't, well, you know, not all the, this is a Suntory machine, so they don't have CC, oh, they do have CC Lemon. That is Suntory. But not all those places are going to have the same cards. So what, some of these you have to pick. I get the Hojicha. You have to wait for the beep. It's old school. Hojicha. You know, I don't like sugar. Okay? I like sugar. That's the problem. Can't get off of it. If I have one taste. All right, Kanpai, so to speak. I suppose you don't really say that unless it's booze, but.

00:29:54 John Daub: Oh, I love that. Roasted Green Tea. The roasting is important. It's really important because it gets rid of the caffeine. So if it, like most of the caffeine. So if you're drinking green tea at night, I, if I have a choice, I'll always ask for Hojicha because it's got that roasted taste, you know, like coffee's roasted, right? It gets rid of the naturalness, the natural greenness. When you do have Hojicha, you lose that. But what you, what you gain is the roasted taste and less caffeine. Or they say no caffeine, but I don't believe them. I think that the people who, oh, that's really refreshing because it isn't hot out here. But after you've been hiking around a little bit, cold drinks are pretty nice. I think that the tea people that tell you Hojicha has got no caffeine, you will not feel the effect. Those people are drinking green tea every day and they're caffeinated out of their mind from that natural caffeine. So when they drink something and it has like a little bit of caffeine, it's like not even a speed bump. It's like. So. You have to remember, you have to think about people's experience and ask them, so is this based on science? But apparently roasting the green tea does get rid of the vast majority of the caffeine. So it, you know, I know this because I foolishly, I did not know that I came here in 98. Okay. We didn't know a lot about green tea. Now the Western world knows a great deal more about it. And back in 98, I remember going to an event in Gamagori, just outside of Nagoya, where they were doing the tea ceremony for the harvest moon. So it was in October. And I believe it was October. And they gave us, this is at night. They gave us matcha. And, uh, all right. So the lady gives me, I know nothing about this. I'm there assuming I just arrived at Japan. They're assuming that I, I'm, I know what I'm doing. I go, I was the first one. I gulped down the entire jug. It was a big cup. I was supposed to share with everybody, but I drank it all. I put the cup down cause it, it took over my head. I had the cup like this. I couldn't, I couldn't drink it. I couldn't see the people around me. It's like a mask. And then, and then I got, I take the cup down and I see the people's faces. Like first of all, the lady who made the tea skill was shocked. She's in a kimono. Didn't know what I did exactly. The other foreigners that were waiting for this, some like a sip of tea, a little bit disappointed. Lady had to go in there, remake it, but nevermind any of that. Cause you can fix that. What you couldn't fix was the fact that I was like this for like two days. I'm not kidding you. I was caffeinated out of my mind for like 48 hours. I could feel the effects of that matcha. I don't, I think it was spiked.

00:32:43 John Daub: All right. Look at the blue sky there. Oh my goodness. And these trees probably sakura trees. The city is called Sakura for a reason. I think it's a really beautiful place for the cherry blossoms, but we've come to the park and this would be the castle park. Let me see if I've got a, a picture of it on the map here. Yeah, we're up there where you see that the wifi is up on the top. That's where we are right now. So this is the castle parking lot. So there is free wifi here. Hey, and I guess this is where it would be here in that shack. You don't, you have no idea how many stories I have for 26 years of living here. My whole life here is a story. It's a pretty crazy stuff. Go cross by you. Thank you. Thank you for that. We got to hear the next hojicha. If you subscribe to the channel over the course of the next year, you're going to hear all of these anecdotes. It's from living in Japan. Well, you probably have over the series is over a thousand live streams now on this channel. But over that time, a lot of here's the botanical gardens, a lot of stories that some people who watch it, they meet me and they know more about me than I realized because I just share a lot of the stories that I have from living here for so darn long. I'm not going to say too much of the park. I was just kind of curious. We're going to take a look, see, and then head back straight past the park. I think it's a shrine. I believe that is there, but it's this kind of walk. It's this kind of walk that I think I don't know. I put you in the place. I if I'm leaving to go to another country, I don't want to go to see all of the tourist attractions. I want to see everyday life. I want to get out into the parks. I want to get out and see nature. I kind of want to get away from people. Sometimes this would be that experience. Sakura City, which is sad because I really want them to be successful and I want them to have a big tourist experience with the economy and all that.

00:35:04 John Daub: You can see the castle here. Some information on it. We're here on the wall. You can see here's the plots of land where the samurai residences were. We're now here at the gate because it says you are here. You can see the castle would have been right here. Why don't we go over there and check out and see what we can see? Sakura Castle, one of Japan's top 100 castles, was constructed from 1611 to 1617. A lot of castles at this time after Ieyasu Tokugawa took over. Successive lords of Sakura were chosen from among the most trusted vassals of the Tokugawa government for the defense of the eastern part of Edo, present-day Tokyo Castle. The remains of dry moats, water moats, earthen embankments demonstrate well that the castle surroundings in 1871, the feudal domain system was abolished, Meiji restoration, and the castle was knocked down to build army barracks. Interesting. After World War II, the barracks were demolished and the castle ruins became Sakura Castle Park in 1983. Good year. I remember 83 pretty well. I was nine. Oh, look at this. We got a tea ceremony room. Bronze statue of Hotta Masayoshi. And this is where the castle used to be. So go straight, left, right. How hard could that be? We're not going to get lost. No. It says here. Clean up your dog poop. So bring a bag and make sure you don't leave your doggy doo doo behind. Craig Kawaguchi's in the house. John, thanks. Thanks, John, for putting Sakura on my list for the next trip. Well, that's great, Craig. I think this is so close and so convenient between the airport and the city of Tokyo. It's almost like a no brainer to stop here on your first day if you're coming here like at 11 a.m. Going in the city, it doesn't make a lot of sense. Why not just stay here? Wake up early with your jet lag. Walk around this place because you're starting to see it's a very walkable area. And then, you know, saying, I heard I heard that. It's OK. It's OK. I make I'd make fun of me, too. I'm walking around with a stick like like a dude going like this talking. Yeah. You know, it's it's a really good stopover. I want you to think about your trip practically. Just either if you're going back, you're coming. The first thing you want to do to get off of a flight is to take a shower. And to kind of unload a little bit. Get some, you know, maybe you ate too much on the flight. Kind of want to walk around, get some exercise. That's this area here.

00:37:47 John Daub: And right now, the signal is not too good. So that's not a good sign for this live stream. Signal is going to go in and out. Folks are just out in the countryside, blocked by a lot of old history. I think I can see renovations coming in and building up a kind of a stopover for tourists. I see a lot of potential for Sakura. You know, quiet. It's like a blank sheet of paper. All right. There's something over here. Let's go off road. Hopefully the connection, the connection, including. Whoa, look at that big spider web. Look at that big spider web. Oh, it's a creepy looking spider up there. All right. It's a view. It shows you it's a view where they don't have a lot of much out there, which is perfect. The castle is over there. The signal is not good. It's really dying down. So we're just going to head back now. Might have to do some editing to this later. Watch your step. I do appreciate the signs in English and the thought. Look at that creepy spider. Do you see it? He's like the bumblebee variety. He's got it's hard to see. He's got black and yellow. I can jump on my back. Oh, I'm city folk. I know my wife is. She sees like a bug runs away full speed. But the expression on her face is is what you remember the most. It's pretty good. It's a flyby. Are we going to be walking now towards a shrine? Hope you guys stick with me. Stick with me. Share this experience with you. The signal is not good in there. I could I could tell I was losing you. But that's the Sakura Castle Park for the record. Boom. There's the sign. The Sakura Castle Park. There you go.

00:41:04 John Daub: John writes in here. Go go blow. Why would you write that? I have a different spelling for the state. Oh, I got to love football rivalry. You guys are going to have a really tough season. I don't need to say anything at all. Just finger crossed that Buckeyes beat those Oregon team in on Saturday. I'll be trying to watch. It's not easy to see. College football in Japan. Not just because of the time difference. That's really interesting. I don't know if it's something to talk about, but keep it to myself. Use good judge. Oh, ginkgo tree. Oh, ginkgo tree. Oh, ginkgo berries. Yeah. Smells like B.O. Like acidic B.O. Which is the opening to the botanical garden. Botanical garden. Garden of everyday life. Part of the National Museum. Foster six items. Let's have a look in here. I don't have a lot of time. I love how the door handles remind you of something other than door handles. You really should think about that. But it looks like a real pretty place. You'll find you'll find vending machines just about everywhere, including in the middle of here. Which is really cool. All right. Signal is not the greatest. So I got to get back this afternoon. Do some editing. Yeah, I've been getting out those videos on the main channel. I hope you guys are liking it. The last one was me dressing up like Joey Tribbiani in the thumbnail showing you clothing rental service so you could leave your bags behind. It was a sponsored job. I put the mark up at the top saying this is a paid job because they yeah, they asked me if I wanted to do this. I said, heck, yeah, I'm real curious about this thing. And it was it was really enlightening. The thing that the thing I took away was that I'm kind of happy that they are thinking about this kind of stuff. I don't know if anyone's going to use it, but I would hope so because I'd like to see the service continue. Maybe just out of curiosity. I think it's about sixty dollars. I think that six thousand yen was like thirty five dollars or something like that. Thirty forty dollars for two weeks of clothes. So I think it just depends on the kind of person you are. But for me, I learned what I learned was Hokkaido is really chilly in September in Asahikawa. You need a jacket, a light jacket, too. I don't look that bad in semi dressy clothing. I should probably I should probably do it a little bit more. I don't I don't do that. That was not I was I learned a little bit about myself from it. And it was a really cool it was a cool episode. Leave me a comment on the videos, guys. I like I like it. I'd love to hear from you. Just anything. Ask me a question. This episode is approaching two hundred thousand views in the first six days. And I love the questions in the comments I'm getting from this as well. So let me know what you let me know what you think. And that's the great thing of the social media. I'm reading the comments, even the bad ones. There aren't that many. There aren't that many. You surprised. But when the bad one comes in, I sometimes try to give a cheeky response. So you can get yourself in trouble.

00:46:31 John Daub: Gordon Brothers has gone downhill real fast. So I don't promote them. Crafts by you. Gordon Brothers has gone. You know, like how clothes, if you look at them from ten years ago to today, it's all like cheaply made and not really good anymore. That's Gordon Brothers for you. They're focusing on trucker hats. And so all the quality hats that the grandfather used to make have become like really poor quality. These to make the flat caps. In the United Kingdom. And it was shaped better. There was more attention to the details. I think it was just a really old school. I think they had it in a stand. One of the places where the airports are in London, outside of London, they were making the hats there. And then they decided to cut costs, cut corners, save money. They charge the same amount for a hat. That's a third of the quality. How could you do that? So it's heartbreaking. Stamsted, I think, or I can't remember. Gluten, gluten. I don't know. It's been a long time since I've been in London. I don't really go into brands. I don't know. I seem to have a lot of L.L. Bean stuff. But even there, they've gotten into the cheap fast fashion. So guys know. All right. I don't know. Guys know. If you're over the age of, I guess they're trying to groom the next generation. They gave up on the Gen X and they're going to millennials. We know good material because if you grew up in the 70s and the 80s, like you had jeans were jeans, man. Now, jeans are like made of paper and they fall apart and they start frizzing real fast. Back then, jeans and dungarees and clothing, man, they were made really well. They're made in the US or in Japan back then. Nowadays, I don't know. They're finding ways to add in all sorts of weird materials. So just the quality goes down. And that's the problem with the hat. That's the problem with a lot of the things that L.L. Bean makes now. And they don't know their customers too well. It's like they hire some college kid, save money. They have these unique ideas but it doesn't match the clientele. People just want, like if they didn't change anything, I probably would every year just buy the same shirt, a new one. But they keep changing the colors and the styles and styles. And what you have to do is you have to buy three pairs of everything. If you like it, you buy two pairs as a backup. You have to put it somewhere. So like ten years later, you've got a brand new shirt from an era that you liked. It's not like fashion's changing that much. This is where we came up from the hill. We're going to go instead this time go straight and take a look more of the city of Sakura and run down my battery. I'm going to go. These cars. See that Honda car? These boxy cars are the number one cars in Japan. I think I found this out. Look at this little truck. You can haul stuff all day. It's called the N box. Honda makes the N box, which is the number one selling car in Japan for like 15 years. You can't get that here. This place looks abandoned and yet it isn't. The K cars are getting more efficient now. They're getting a little bit more. The criteria for K car, they're a little bit bigger. The engine now. The standards have changed just a little bit. Good stuff for the consumers. You actually don't need all the power. Look up here. You see this? Up above? These are chōchin (paper lanterns). That's for the festival that's going to start at 3 p.m. Not too long from now. All right, picture. History, history. It's in English here. Sakuramachi, Chiba-ken, Japan. Dr. H. Hamano-Sais Hospital. Wow, that's like an like a Edo period hospital. Run by Dr. Hamano. Interesting. So many small towns in Japan that have these ancient histories. But just the population is decimated by the demographic shift. People not having kids and stuff. Or kids just leaving and not, and leaving things abandoned. And now you see potential in some of these older cities. It's mostly Westerners who are coming now here buying a lot of the Akiya (abandoned homes). But just to, just to put a little bit of a picture here. Just a little bit of a asterisk next to it. I really think that you should, you should stop and consider whether or not you really, really want to do that. You should probably visit Japan and get to know the country before you decide that you want to move here. Like really get to know Japan because the experience. Yeah, I had a live stream about maybe about three weeks ago. Where I got the saddest comment in the world. If you guys, did you see that? I just read a comment and I tried to respond to it. It was a book that this person wrote. And I believe they deleted the comment. But there's so much truth in that. That you had, I had to address it. Truth in the feeling that this person had that a lot of people feel the same way. But you can't just move to a foreign country. It's not, it's not done the same way that your country is run. It's run in a completely, I want to be mindful of people. It's done in a completely, Japan is run in a Japanese way. It's not like America. So a lot of the things for daily life. You who are visiting Japan have to change. But I don't know what it is. But a lot of people who do move here. Too many. Not everybody. They don't want to change. So I mean how can you. How are you going to assimilate into a foreign country with a history that goes back thousands of years. A proud ancient history. And you're feeling like you don't fit in. Of course you don't fit in. You have to find.

00:53:05 John Daub: They're very famous here in Sakura for this. I'm kind of glad that I made the walk here. Sakura means cherry blossoms. And here's a cherry blossom. A cherry blossom mailbox. That's really cute. Alright let's walk. Let's walk over there. Just get a quick look see. I think the festival is going to be starting up here too. I see some more people in kimono. That's so cool. Look at the cat down there. That's nice. Painted in the beautiful pink color of the Sakura trees. The Sōme Yoshino are actually white. But maybe the ones here are different. Like there's so many photographers lining up for the autumn festival. So the old samurai houses you can see the sign here. Down there in that direction. I just wanted to go take a quick look see at this shrine. See the festivals being held. You can see the omikoshi (portable shrine). Oh wow. They got something. Something's happening soon. I feel like I should stay for the festival. A lot of people coming in here. You can wash your hands over there and go pray. But it doesn't look like a great time to go to visit the shrine. It's very very local. There's like no tourists there. I love it. I love it. You can cross the street here. Oh here's another. There's another portable shrine over there. Game Night Arcade is here. Hey had a random question. I will be vending at a convention in April at Makuhari Messe. The great convention area. And was wondering if you knew of any of the required licenses or documents. Actually I don't. You know what you could do? In your country there's a JNTO. Japan National Tourism Organization. You could ask them. There's a lot of resources where you can ask questions. That would be one of them. And you can also reach out to the convention organizers. If you do it by email it gives them a chance to translate it also. If they can't speak Japanese. Sometimes email is better than calling. But. They really will make an effort 90% of the time to try to help you out. But I don't know about the documentation for that. I wish I could help you a little bit more. But try calling JNTO. They have offices in many countries around the world. And there's a toll free number that very few people actually use. So when they get like the phone rings. They're like wow we've been waiting all day for your call. How can I help you? So I mean maybe they will find a way. Or what I found is that they will go out of their way to try to find a way to help you. That's in itself a really good thing. Wow you see locals coming up here for the festival. Starting in a couple of hours. Alright let me check the map. Haven't done this in about 30 minutes. So we're now walking down. So it looks like I should take a right and a left. And I'm back at the samurai houses. So that's what we're going to do. This is a very thorough. Experience of. I guess this is just a driveway. My instincts are to go straight though. But after seeing the map. Maybe it dead ends. As it sort of does. Alright goodbye to the. You'll see this if you come this way. There's the shrine up there. And we're going down. I'm glad that I did come today. I'm glad that you guys are here with me too. Hitting the like button. Leaving a comment. Sounding off where you guys are watching from. All the other viewers that are watching this live. There is you know. There is an actual conversation. With other people watching this. So I don't always have to look at the live stream. I know that a lot of you are communicating with each other. Helping each other. Get questions. Sometimes insulting each other. Which is not so often. Because we have some good moderators. But. I've got some Puerto Rico here. Awesome. America. Louisiana. The great Joe Burrow from Ohio. And. I hated seeing him go. I was following him all through high school. And then. He got beat out by Dwayne Haskins. And went to LSU. And did an amazing job. As Joe Burrow always does. Look at this lantern. You can see. You can hear the fue (flute). In the distance. So the festival is starting over there at the shrine. I wish I could stay. I've got to get back. East Netherlands. Philippines. California. We're already around the world right there. Thanks guys for. Sharing where you're from. Toronto. Home of the second highest free standing tower in the world. After the Tokyo Skytree. Mexico. Manila. Long Beach. California. Wow. Seattle. Ireland. Remember about 20 years ago. Everybody had Seattle Mariners gear. From. Ichiro there. And now everybody has Dodger Blue. It's weird how things. How fast things change. Okinawa. Australia. Singapore. Awesome. LA. Hey Daryl. Oh I'm getting a suntan now. I can feel it hitting me. It's nice. With the winter and the fall coming. It's nice to soak in a little bit of vitamin D here. Because the last week we've had all like rain and clouds. And a real cool weather. And it's nice to be able to come out here. Kind of decompress from a week indoors. I got those two videos out real quick. And. I have to get back into the grind of things. Try to get a couple more out this month would be ideal. Look at that big bird. It's a property. It's for sale. This land is for sale. What? Imagine what you could build here. The only in Japan amusement park. Maybe not a lot of space for that. I'm sure the neighbors wouldn't like that. Bumblebee. I'm not afraid of bees. Bees can smell fear. I read that once. And I don't fear them. I'm bigger. And you can see the festival. The festival is starting soon. I have to get out of here. Why don't we. Why don't we end where. Where we started. I'm just going to take you a little ways here. To the samurai house. I want to show you the house that was next door that we didn't see yet. So we'll end where we started. Sakura town so far. I'm pretty impressed. I like the fact that it's super chill. Almost no foreign tourists. Almost none. And this is a day of a festival. And there's like almost no. No foreign tourists. It's like almost no people. It's Friday. It is a weekday. But I'm just really shocked. How I feel like I'm far from Tokyo. And yet I'm just less than an hour away. That's crazy. It doesn't make sense to me. Like how did you guys. How could people. How have people not found this place. It's certainly a hidden paradise. But there's Toyota Raizes are everywhere. It's like a micro SUV. That's the car that I usually rent from Tokyo. A Toyota rent a car. It's a lot of good space in the back. It's fun to drive because a little bit higher off of the road. They get about 18 to 20 liters per kilo. 18, 20 kilometers per liter of gas, which makes no sense to Americans. So you got to do the conversion. But that's actually pretty good. What is it? How many liters in a gallon? 3.2 or something. And 5K is 3.1 miles. So all right. The samurai houses are right there. Good job. Good job. That's how countryside I am. They looked. They saw I wasn't. I wasn't Japanese. And then they started to smile and laugh. Do they not see that many tourists here? I guess it's Asian tourists, perhaps. I don't know. I don't know. I was supposed to. I was supposed to pay. Oh, I didn't do that yet. Okay. It's 250 yen. Saturday holidays are free. I don't know. Maybe it's free today. 22. It's free? I understand Japanese. I'd be happy if you can speak English. You don't have any? I don't. It's fine in Japanese. You're fine in Japanese? Oh, it's fine in Japanese. I'm in it. There are guests here now. Yes. I mean, it's called a samurai house. It's information desk. It's called a samurai home. It costs 250 yen for one person. Yes. And there's another place to go to. Juntenra or something. It costs 100 yen for the 3-car rate ticket. Oh, but it's a little away. It's here. It's a samurai house. This is the old house, the old house, and the old house. It's far. Then I'll come again. This time, just this. You are good at Japanese. 250 yen. Thank you. I will explain the explanation of the name. Yes. I will explain the name of the name of the name. You are here now. You can see the river now. The river does not rise above. It is a view only from the outside. There is a road in front of you. You can pass through there. Go out for a while. Turn right. The gate of the Tajima family is open. Go in and see the Tajima family and the Taki-ike family. You can see the inside by taking off your shoes. I understand. It is connected by the back garden. You can go from behind. Yes. There is a gate here. Go in and see the Tajima family again. I understand. You can go to the place where you walked for about a minute on the right. There is a picture of the Taki-ike family. There is a picture of the Taki-ike family. I see. Thank you. Thank you. You are very good. Thank you very much. Here is the ticket. I went in and did not buy the ticket. It did not say clearly what it was. It did not say clearly what it was. This is really cool. Look at this. You can't go in there. There are places. There is no entry. Keep that in mind. There are places where you can walk. You can go inside. We did that at the start. You have to take off your shoes. This is a wonderful example of the old samurai era. This is the kitchen. This is the kitchen. You have things stored. You have some meat or rice in these things. Here is the kitchen. You have some fire going on here. You are cooking. It looks like a Kama-meshi (rice cooked in iron pot). There is some rice in there. These certainly look like rice cookers. There are some fish and tools. You get a chance to glimpse into the old samurai life. You did not get this at the first house that I started the live stream at. It is interesting to see it right now. I like this. Let's go outside this way. Here is the well. There are three houses including in this ticket. You can get one for all of them. There is a little bit of separation between the houses. It does have a Ghibli feeling. You got that right. This is the outhouse. The toilet. Or is this the bath? I really do not know. Let's see. It looks like it could be the bath. Oh yeah, this is the bath. Hold on. They would sit and you would have to bring your knees in. This is where the hot water is. You take the bath. I guess you would wash your body over here and then get in. You could use the same water. You did not have to waste the heat. You can clean your body before you get in. It requires energy, money, and effort. That is why Japan has these public baths. Historically. Interesting. Everything is made of wood. A little bit of metal. But mostly wood. This is kind of a shame here. It looks like some tourists have carved their name into there. That is not really nice. Samurai had accountants. They had business. It looks like maybe their business was being run around here. Maybe they were running a business. Perhaps. It looks like an office. I do not really know. No Ikea here. I think this is so worth the day trip. Or just half a day trip. To come here to see this kind of stuff. Again, I could see myself sitting here eating a bento one day as a samurai. If I take a time machine. I probably will be beheaded. Because Japan was closed to foreigners. Just keep that in mind before you get into the time machine. Just remember that Japan was a closed country. And if you were an outsider. You would just be destroyed. Until the Meiji Restoration. During the Edo period. Foreigners could not come here. John Manjiro's story. If you have not seen it. Take it on my channel. Japan's most unsung hero. Without him. I do not think Japan would have navigated. The US would have gotten into war. There you go. That's all I got for you. I hope this is a really good overview of Sakura. It gives you an idea of what's here. Perhaps you want to put this on your itinerary. If you are coming from Narita airport. It gives you a chance to decompress from that flight. There are a couple of much more affordable hotels. Not too far away. Again, you get to in the morning. Grab some history. Once you leave here. And you go into the city of Tokyo. You are fighting with all the other tourists. You don't have to do that here. That's pretty cool. I will be doing a video on this in the next episode. By the way, I am planning to go to Nikko. I haven't been there in the live stream yet. I will be taking you with me. Maybe we will see a couple of familiar faces. If it works out. Tomorrow morning I will take you to Nikko. For a trip up there. To go see the shrine in the area. As I try to get B-roll for a show I am doing. Alright everybody. Thanks for watching. Matane (see you later). Back to Tokyo I go.