00:02:00 John Daub: Wow, look at this shopping mall in the forest of Nagano, Karuizawa. There's a river down there. We'll go take a look at this.

00:12:00 John Daub: How you doing everybody? So, Kanae and Leo and I are on a little bit of a vacation leaving Tokyo. This is a live stream. We're here in the middle of the forest. We drove about three hours from Tokyo to get here, including a lot of stops along the way just to make a trip out of it. We left at around 7:30 or 8 o'clock in the morning. I love Karuizawa because this is like Tokyo's getaway, especially in the summer when it's so hot in the city. People come here because the humidity in the valley is so much less. It's on the Shinkansen line but not very far from Tokyo. If you go in the middle of the night, it's like two hours, but you're probably going to be three hours to drive here. You could do it in two and a half. The Shinkansen takes an hour from Tokyo Station.

01:14:00 John Daub: Karuizawa, beautiful place. You see there's a volcano that has erupted in the past. This is also where John Lennon and Yoko Ono used to come when they came to Japan decades ago. They came to this town, so you'll see their picture in a lot of the bakeries where John Lennon used to ride a bicycle and get baguettes in the morning.

01:35:00 John Daub: How you doing? Let's go see Leo and Kanae over here. This is a really good ice cream shop. You see that cow over there? We walked in there and checked this out. Look at that matcha gelato. That looks so good. And that white one was just plain milk, which is so good. That blueberry one, the blueberry is from Nagano as well. Just plain milk is highly recommended. It's not vanilla, it's just milk. And that one is the blueberry with the cream. It's so good. We're gonna have to get that a little bit later on.

02:19:00 John Daub: Let's take a look at some of the other ones on the way. This one had yaki dango (grilled rice dumplings), which looks so delicious. Probably some of them have miso on there, which is a local Nagano miso. The shops are very stylish. I don't know if you guys watched Terrace House, but they had a season here about eight or nine years ago. That's the first time Kanae is coming here in a very long time.

02:49:00 John Daub: Hello. Leo, show everybody the snow. This is the best we could do. I thought there'd be a lot more snow in Nagano. Usually there is. Leo's been breaking it into pieces as an icebreaker, part of getting rid of the energy that he built up in the car. Are you cold? Yeah, I'm cold. Look at the snow. There are some flakes here. Look at this snow. Alright, that's a lot of snow. That's very nice. Good job, Leo. He's a rock icebreaker. That's kind of sad. That's all the snow we have. You can drive up into the mountains. There are some ski places here to get some snow, but we just have patches of ice. Jason, tell Canada to send some snow this way.

03:34:00 John Daub: This is the bakery Sawamura. They have some really good bread inside. The bakery looks great. I actually went in there, had a quick look around. You can see it's all behind the camera. It's a counter, but the stuff that they have in there, the cinnamon roll—of course I'm a sucker for that. But all the different kinds of breads, amazing. I'm probably going to have to go in there and get some stuff for the hotel. We're staying here tonight, not at this particular place, but at a hotel in Karuizawa with an onsen (hot spring) in the room, of course. That's the way you do it.

04:18:00 John Daub: I'm going to walk you through this area just to give you an idea if you do come to Karuizawa. There's places where you can go and shop. You want to go back to the car now? I think Leo is going to be impossible to do that. We can start making our way back to the car. We're going to look at some of the shops here. There are some boutiques where you can get locally made products. That's what I like about this place. But look at these cups here. A lot of really stylish stuff, which Karuizawa is very famous for. They also have an outlet center, which is quite famous.

05:07:00 John Daub: Hey, Walter's here from San Diego. How are you doing, Walter? If you haven't ever had pudding, it's pudding. Pudding with a G. But Japan calls it purin (pudding). This is Karuizawa purin. You can see the consistency of it. It's so creamy. Mini-zine thank you from Canada. I appreciate that.

05:42:00 John Daub: I don't know if the signal is very strong here, which is why it's a 720p live stream. Leo, look at the river. He likes to throw the ice and snow. It's great that they put a shopping mall here. I went to the outlet mall there back in the day. Sizes were way too small. That's very true. The one thing that's really hard to find in Karuizawa, in Japan in general with clothing, are sizes that fit Westerners who have wider shoulders, which is the biggest problem. Feet sizes also much bigger. And then the length. Legs are usually much... Oh, snowing. Can you see it? You can see it a little bit, right? It's just kind of flaky. Small, small little one. Leo, the snow is falling. Look.

07:05:00 John Daub: We're going to go to a burger place, I think, for lunch. Bailey writes in, very disappointed. I'm sorry to hear that. With this live stream, I hope not. What I love about Karuizawa, you're going to find some amazing food. For vegans, you're going to find a lot of options as well. But this Italian bistro opened for lunch from 12 to 6. Apparently, good idea to make a reservation. In fact, in Japan and Tokyo right now, for popular places, always make a reservation. I remember a comment that said that even though there were vacancies in the restaurant, they wouldn't let them in, probably because you didn't have a reservation. Places, they'll hold the table for hours for loyal customers. It's pretty crazy in that way. But just because there's an open table, sometimes people just make reservations. And if it's a popular place in particular, you're going to need to do it. All you got to do is call ahead, and they will let you know. In fact, the hotel can do that for you in a lot of cases. And then you avoid the hassle of, oh, are they not letting me in because I'm a foreigner? Probably they don't care about that so much. Paying customers are paying customers. They have a reputation as well.

08:20:00 John Daub: Hope there's more snow. It doesn't look good, but we're going to have to drive up to Niigata or deeper into the mountains towards Hakuba to see more snow. Tomorrow maybe. But one of the reasons why I came out here was because we thought there was going to be some snow, but that's just not enough. There are a lot of konoks (konnyaku? [?]) here. There's a lot. Mama, we going to go to the car? Okay. Leo! He really wants to play with the ice and the snow.

09:02:00 John Daub: Let's go down towards the end of the... I think they call this like Hoshino. The Karuizawa Hoshino area. 110th anniversary. That's a long time. Now, if the weather was warmer, I bet you there'd be a lot of people drinking some craft beer and just hanging out with the river right there. This is really nice. I have a lot of friends that have left Tokyo and moved out here to Karuizawa. They opened up a second house or a bessō (vacation home). It's nice out here. But the attraction to Karuizawa, not that it's just cooler in the summer, is that it's on the Shinkansen line, right? So, it's so convenient to commute. It's like 59 minutes to get back to Tokyo on the Shinkansen.

10:10:00 John Daub: I'm digging this one here. Chestnut tiramisu. Maruyama coffee. That ice cream, that's sumac [?]. It's so cold. They do have a to-go menu here. Oh, okay. You wanna go to the car? Let's get out of here. A lot of people come here to get their wedding rings made. And I think Kanae and I came to the branch in Tokyo that they had. We made our own wedding bands. You could do that. They have a branch in Karuizawa as well.

11:10:00 John Daub: Sajito Cafe. That looks good. Nepali and Indian food. They have a curry lunch. Sagh paneer is really good. That looks good. Last order's at 2:30. Akichi Joji, James. Boom. Well done. I got a feeling Leo's gonna want to play with that. Leo, I found the ice. Look. I was right. Leo, ice blocks here. But don't walk there. Remember what I said. It's slippery. Mama doesn't want to touch it. It's cold.

12:32:00 John Daub: Let's take a look at a map here to give you an idea to wrap this up. It really does look like a village, doesn't it? It's not very big. There's a church over here which is very famous. This is one of the symbols of Karuizawa. Karuizawa Kogen Church. Right there. It's kind of a famous area. I like the fact that they have shops. And I like the fact that everything is low key. I have the gloves out actually. There's a skating rink and a bird sanctuary here.

13:13:00 John Daub: One of the things that I learned about Karuizawa is that they also have flying squirrels in the woods here. And you're seeing one jumping from tree to tree. Which is super cool. You'll see the flying squirrels. Maybe not now, but in the summertime or in the fall, you'll see them jumping tree to tree collecting acorns and stuff. It's pretty cool. Again, in the summer it's a lot better. You could eat outside like right there. They do have heaters. But this is also a dog friendly place. So if you do have a puppy, they're more than welcome. Karuizawa is a dog lover's area. For sure.

13:54:00 John Daub: Alright, there you go everybody. We'll be here for the next few days. So I'll do another livestream tomorrow. Or if I find something interesting, maybe again two or three times a day. Who knows? Thanks for watching. We'll see you in another episode real soon. Live from Nagano. Leo, what did I say about walking on ice? We have to get some crampons for you. Crampons. What do you call them? Spikes. I told you, with spikes. Bye. There you go. Bye Matane (see you later). See you, David.