00:00:01 John Daub: How you doing everybody? I am here at Costco in Makuhari, which is not that far away from Tokyo. It's about a 40 minute ride. I was here anyways and I found a bunch of stuff that was, I think, only in Japan, so I want to show it to you. And let me know if you have this kind of stuff in your Costco, wherever you are in the world.

00:00:20 John Daub: This here is randoseru (Japanese school backpacks), usually quite expensive. They can be like almost equivalent to about $1,000. You see these at Don Quixote discount shops. My wife said it's probably better to get it not like made like this, but it's hard to beat the price. It's like about $200 for a randoseru. A lot of tourists apparently are buying these because they're made quite well. It is made in Japan, but it's like a specification for Japanese school kids. So this is something I believe you can only get in Japan, but I think randoseru is like a Dutch word, so maybe it originates from Holland. But this is one thing that seems to be only in Japan. Like at Costco, if you can get savings one way or another, why not do it?

00:01:22 John Daub: I was going to get Leo, a Pingu. I think these are, I don't know, do you have these at your Costco? These are about 3,000 yen or about $20 at the exchange rate. They're quite large. So I'm not sure if I'm going to get it. I ended up not buying it in this round. Maybe I'll be back. But let's move on here.

00:01:39 John Daub: The next thing up, I thought this was interesting. Now for those learning English, Aeon is a school that I used to work at, an eikaiwa (English conversation) school, and they have these, they call them peepee books. I guess these pens, you touch the book and there's some sort of chip in them that will play the sound. So you can study English with these pens, in situations you touch it and then you can hear what they're saying. These are great for kids in particular. Leo's got a couple of these doing English vocabulary words. So I thought that was interesting doing that with English conversation. Here's one with 900 words in English. So that's kind of neat to see this at Costco. Certainly, I don't think this is anywhere else in the world. Well, is it? I'm not sure. Maybe it is, but they're about $30. So it's actually a pretty good deal.

00:02:30 John Daub: At this one, they move the alcohol up to the second floor, which doesn't make a lot of sense to me. But they do have Japanese sake up here. This one is like small bottles of 300, I think these are 350 milliliter bottles from eight different breweries. Sake is brewed more like beer than it is like wine. And this is Kubota, which is a very famous brand from Niigata. This is Junmai Daiginjo, which means the rice is polished down to more than 50 percent. It's a little expensive, but this is Manjo, which is the best kind. So what is it about $70, $65 for that, which is pretty good deal, I think. Of course, you've got Japanese beer cases and they even had like little mini kegs of beer in there. I thought was really interesting. But they moved the alcohol up to the second floor. I didn't get any alcohol. I pretty much stopped drinking alcohol. But I still ought to look out. I might buy a bottle of wine if I see something that I like that's there. So not on this trip.

00:03:29 John Daub: This one, I think, is really unique. These are like bath salts. This has yuzu, mori (forest), hinoki (Japanese cypress), which is like a Japanese scent. This one is like a cedar and lavender. So that's quite interesting. Hahu is like a big brand. And then this one is more local. This is about $13 for this one. These are bath salts from regional onsen (hot springs), going all around the country. I see like Kurokawa Onsen, which is my favorite down in Kyushu. I think that's Kumamoto. There's Nozawa Onsen, Shuzenji. There's a Nasu Shio. There's a bunch of them. I'll tell you some of the minerals that are in them that is different. So that's kind of a neat thing to pick up. It's like going to all these onsen in your own bath. There's Beppu Onsen and Kurokawa Onsen. Yeah, Kumamoto and Oita down in Kyushu. That's really interesting. I never get this. I just want to take a regular bath. But it's kind of neat to see that you can do that here in Japan.

00:04:42 John Daub: Boy, the wind has really picked up, the March wind. I have to hold on to the tripod here. So bear with me. This is the site going down. You can see it looks like any other Costco, doesn't it? I mean, just aisles and aisles of stuff in the warehouse. A lot of the vegetables, the fresh fruits. You have the pizza and the salad and the baked goods. A lot of the stuff just looks the same as though it were in the United States. But it might have katakana on it. So it's made for the Japanese people.

00:05:29 John Daub: Now this one here, a lot of you should take a look at. You can get sushi at Costco. It definitely looks better in Japan than in the United States. But the quality for Japan is kind of like, eh. I mean, the cuts are pretty big, but the color is not really exciting. It looks kind of bland in a way. But the price is pretty good for the volume. I guess that's what you're paying for. This is family size here. 3,698 yen. So that entire tray right there is about $25, $24. So I thought that was pretty reasonable. It's very clean inside there. So you know that they do a pretty good job here with that. And it is fresh. I'm not sure if I would get it. I'd rather go to a sushi shop. But it's Costco sushi. It's kind of interesting to try once, right?

00:06:28 John Daub: This is something that I really like in Japan. You get it at the ramen shops. These are rakkyo (pickled scallions), which are these like mini onions with like chili peppers in there. Rakkyo is great. But the problem is that you have to look on the back. These come from China, which isn't a big deal if you don't mind it. But I prefer the domestic ones. But at that price, 998 yen. Like $6.50 for that massive bag. That's a pretty good deal. So it might be worth taking one back home if you really like it. That'll last you a very long time.

00:07:04 John Daub: The wind, just like since I started, the wind is crazy strong. It is crazy strong right now. I had to take off my hat just because I don't want it to blow away. I have a hat head. All right. Let's keep it moving here.

00:07:20 John Daub: You can find all sorts of confections here in Japan. But let me go to the fruits here. This one, I don't know if this is only in Japan or not. These are called King Kong, which are these mini oranges. They're so good. You do not peel. So I guess you call them kumquat. But in Japan, they're King Kong. I absolutely love King Kong. You eat the skin of it. So I think you get a ton of vitamin C in there. Just really wash it quite well. But the best ones come from Miyazaki and Kagoshima down in the south of Kyushu.

00:08:20 John Daub: This is Makuhari, not that far away from Funabashi, actually. Don't try to come to find me. I'm getting out of here in a second. Like right after this. They have a bit of a station nearby. You can get a lot of these Japanese snacks as well. These are like beer snacks, but you can eat them as little snacks too in the car and stuff. These are like little fish and almonds. And this one has cashew nuts. These fish got a ton of vitamins in there. So they're pretty good for you. That bag was like $7, $8 for that. A bunch of packs in there. Yeah, like $7, $8 for the fish almond with cashew nuts. That's good stuff.

00:08:59 John Daub: These Alphards are the most addictive cookies that you can get in Japan. I'm not joking. They're really, really addictive. And this is the Takenoko no Sato. These are one of my favorites. I like the mushroom ones too, but these are really good. And the prices are pretty good for the volume. It's good to take a box home if you have it. You come in here to Costco for that.

00:09:25 John Daub: I don't get any of these ramen here, but I like to look at it. Sapporo Ichiban. So you get these. The ramen's here. A lot of tourists like to take this stuff back because it's better than the stuff you can get back at home. The instant ramen cup noodles and other types of noodles. Sometimes you get the fresh ones. You can find the Ippudo ramen sometimes. The stuff that the tourists paid twice the price. It's usually half off here. I've noticed it. And the volume is more. So you get a pretty good deal with instant ramen at Costco compared to Don Quijote is a good place to check it out because sometimes they have it there. But for discounts, you can't do better than here for instant ramen. But you can see like it's just so much different than the Costco. This is the Hokkaido ramen set. 12 different ramens in there. And this one looks good. I think that's spicy miso ramen. Kara miso ramen, right? From Hokkaido. Yeah, it's some really good stuff here. And the price is pretty good comparatively. Less than like 50 yen for each one of those.

00:10:31 John Daub: And this is the checkout. There's nothing any different. I usually come for the basics. You get some Greek yogurt, some soap, blueberries, some razors. I did get a birthday cake. Don't tell Kanae. I got it more for me. And olive oil. Some coffee. So it's nothing anything different.

00:10:50 John Daub: The last thing I want to show you here. There's two things here. It is getting chilly too. You can get green tea. Loose green tea as well. I couldn't find it on this trip. But the ones in pet bottles. It's quite cheap. It's like 75 yen for one 2 liter pet bottle of green tea, corn tea. All sorts of different teas they have here. Here's another green tea in the smaller pet bottles. And then they had the tonyu (soy milk) as well. So a lot of stuff. It's pretty much only in Japan. I know I spend a lot less here than I would in the US. But when it comes to the food court. Let's go over that really quickly and see what they have here.

00:11:28 John Daub: So here we have the clam chowder soup. The prices are pretty good. Except for the combo pizza. The hot dog price hasn't changed at all. 180 yen. Which is a dollar 18, dollar 20. The Hokkaido soft cream is really good. But the combo pizza. This is really interesting to me. And the jumbo bulgogi bake is so good. If you're hungry. That's a lot of volume in there. 30% more meat they wrote in there. But you see they did something weird. You see this. It's a big one. They took the combo pizza and they added 50 yen to that. And it usually was all the same price. It used to be just. I think it was 150 yen a slice. When I started coming here. Then it went up to 200. Then 300. Now 350. And now they separate it. And the combo is 400 yen. So I thought that that was pretty crazy. The hot dog is still at 180. Which is a pretty good value. I think you cannot complain. I'm not complaining at all.

00:12:29 John Daub: And there you have it. That's what we got here at Costco. The pizza. You got to go with the pizza there. So here's my hat. Which flew into the cart. And then I did get a combo pizza. Which is now ice cold here. It's some good stuff. They got rid of the straws. No more straws. And they have paper lids. I think that's illegal. To me as a consumer. I'm not really happy. So I don't know. But paper lids. And no straws.

00:13:05 John Daub: Mahalo, Brandania. Nice to see you in the house. I just saw your messages coming in too. I'll reply when I get back on the train everybody. And hi from Greece. Right. Said Stelios. Much appreciated. Let me know in the comments below. What do you guys think? Whoa. I'm blowing. Look at my hair. It's blowing away. Well, let me know in the comments below. What do you think? Are some of these items available in your Costco? Have you been here and saw some stuff that I missed? It's funny because things are always changing here. They don't have like some of the things that I usually get. They didn't have this time. So you got to come back every now and then and see what they get. But let me know in the comments below. I'll see you in another episode tomorrow. I'm going to get out of this wind. I can't even eat the pizza outside. There's people in the street that are blowing away. It's pretty crazy. Oh my goodness. This is strong.

00:13:59 John Daub: All right, everybody. See you again. I'll see you tomorrow in another live stream. It's Saturday tomorrow. The bakery items. You know, it's kind of the same stuff. Croissants. Cookies. They have the tiramisu bucket. They had strawberry shortcake bucket. The cake here is interesting. They don't have American frosting. It says whip with Bavarian custard inside. So I'll let you know how that is tomorrow. But bakery looks pretty much the same. They have the rotisserie chicken. It was I think 800 yen, which is about $5 for each one. Same kind of stuff. They didn't have limes today, which disappointed me. But yeah, I'll be back with Leo. Again sometime soon. Thanks again, Brondanio. Everybody, I'll see you in another live stream real soon. Matane.

00:14:42 John Daub: And if you haven't already, go check out the episode. It's doing quite well. But if you want to get out of Tokyo and stay away, don't go where all the tourists are, go check this out. We stayed at an accommodation, a Japanese inn, on the top of a mountain in Tokyo. It was a Shinto shrine at the top of the mountain. It was awesome. So check out this place where you can get a little bit of a taste of the city. And if you're out of the 20 million tourists that come to Tokyo, only about 100,000 ever make it out to here, which is just crazy. It's crazy. All right, everybody. Matane. It is so windy. I literally have to hold the tripod down so it doesn't blow away.