00:06 John Daub: Alright, I'm in the middle of nowhere in Saga Prefecture. I thought it was Nagasaki. I came in from Nagasaki Airport and went to this supermarket here called Fresh Takeda [?]. I'm a huge fan of them on Instagram and thought I'd go in, get a bento, and share it with you. Here's the inside of the supermarket.

00:31 John Daub: There's nothing around here except for this supermarket. It's so funny. It's over an hour drive from Nagasaki Airport. I came in, the weather was so bad, there wasn't anything I could do in the city of Nagasaki anyway except go to a cafe or something. So why not go for a drive across Saga Prefecture to a place I've never been to before? But it looks like everywhere else in Japan.

00:56 John Daub: The supermarket is so cool. This is one of the quirkiest, funniest supermarkets, and the deals are really good. There's a tendon tempura bento right there for 480 yen. And it's the characters of the supermarket. Look at that. These guys are so funny. The area is full of people over the age of 65, but I guess the son of the owner or something has...

01:21 John Daub: Anyway, I love watching them on Instagram Reels and decided to come out here and make the trip. Look at that karaage. I actually got that. We're going to eat that right now. I got the miso soup for 50 yen. That's like 30, 35 cents. That's a pretty good deal. But they make going to the supermarket so much fun because maybe there's not much else to do in this town. Look at this chicken and potato thing. I was kind of starstruck going around here. Just apples are fun. They make apples cool. The banana section is kind of fun. Who does this, right?

02:00 John Daub: Well, these guys do. I went in here, got a bento. I love just jumping into a car and going somewhere with no particular plan other than to go here. This is such a bargain. Check this out. So this is the bento that I got. I'm probably not going to eat all the rice or this red hot dog, but we're going to try this. In a second. And I also got that karaage, the deep-fried chicken. Boom. So we'll try this. It says it's their Toko-chan original karaage for 300 yen. This is pretty heavy. That's $2 for this. This is crazy. And of course they gave me a pair of chopsticks.

03:03 John Daub: I thought I would talk about my trip here to Nagasaki with you and show you some clips of Mount Fuji from the airplane coming over. It was about a two-hour flight from there. They said because of the wind shear, I might not even be able to get into Tokyo. Check this out. Here's Mount Fuji from the airplane. That's a lot of snow. You don't want to climb Mount Fuji this time of year. But in about three, four months, there's going to be a lot of people on there. All that snow is going to melt pretty soon. But this is as built up as it's going to get. That was cool. And it looked like I wouldn't be able to see it at all, and all of a sudden I nailed it. So I got a chance to see Mount Fuji on the flight about three hours ago.

03:57 John Daub: A lot of people like to take the Shinkansen and trains when they come to Japan. But if you're going to a place like Nagasaki in Kyushu, even Hokkaido, it makes a lot of sense to save the time and money because it's actually cheaper to fly from Haneda and get a cheap flight. I don't even remember how much I paid for this. Hey, Ann Dugan is here. I am doing well. And I saw Nihon Nio there as well. There's the flight to Nagasaki. It was pretty uneventful. I thought because of the wind shear it was going to be a really bumpy ride, but it wasn't.

04:34 John Daub: One thing I enjoyed—if you take the Pokemon ANA flights, just a little note here before we get into the bento—the narrator is Peter von Gomm. You can't hear the voice, probably because of copyrights, but this is a really cool video. There I am filming, and I recognize that voice. That's Peter von Gomm, who is the voice of Only in Japan for the narration call, the title call since I started, like 2012, 2013 or something like that. So that was really cool. I didn't even know I'd get on a Pokemon flight.

05:04 John Daub: So where exactly am I? I can show you on this map really quickly. From Tokyo, you can't take the train here easily—it would take about nine hours. The flight is a little over two hours, and the rental car was such a smooth transition. The airport's in the middle of the bay. And then I'm here. First of all, I don't understand why this took over an hour to drive. I guess there's a lot of people in little kei cars (light vehicles) driving around over the age of 65. This is such a cute little town. I don't know what else is here except the supermarket. So this is where I am, and I'm going to Nagasaki tonight to stay there. It's kind of a weird stop today. I didn't get much sleep because of the pollen—I talked about that yesterday.

06:04 John Daub: You know, sometimes you don't need a reason to do something. You just do it. Don't overthink it. Just go. I kind of was hoping I should have contacted them on Instagram, but I didn't have time. I'll do that later. This looks so good. I have to pan this down. If we hit the Super Chat goals, it's just something they're doing. Let me know, moderators, if we hit the goals. I'll take you out to the vending machine. We'll go get a drink because I forgot to do that. I just start up with the rice here. Mmm, that's rice. It's nothing spectacular, but maybe I am just spoiled.

06:56 John Daub: Walter L Walters is here. Thanks for bringing us on your trip to Nagasaki. Here's a warm beverage to help. Well, thank you so much. I'm gonna put that to good use. There's a vending machine over there. I'll take you for a quick walk in a minute or two. Let me chow down just a bit. It's not a hot bento by the way. They had a microwave, but somebody told me you shouldn't microwave the plastic because it's not good for you. You make do. It's not that bad cold. This looks like some deep-fried renkon (lotus root). Mmm. I can't believe this is under five dollars. This is crazy. Shiitake mushrooms. Mmm. Typically I stay away from those—there's something with the coloring that made me sick when I first ate it 20-some years ago.

08:05 John Daub: I noticed driving here the Chinese influence. There's a lot of Chinese restaurants, a lot of ramen places. It's interesting because we're really close to China. I'm guessing this is kaki fry (oyster fry). Green pepper—what can you see? That's so interesting. Mmm, oh. Look at that. It's wrapped in chicken. Mmm, wrapped in chicken. Oh, very good. And a really nice looking piece of fish here. Nicely salted on the top. Well done. Mmm, this is a great bento. I think we need something to wash this down with, huh?

09:14 John Daub: Pong cold soup. Ben is here—get some Fukusaya castella in Nagasaki, either at the airport or original store in Maruyama-machi. Thank you. I'm not going home empty-handed, and I'll try to get some tonight. I'm staying... where am I staying? I'm not quite sure exactly—the navigation will take me there, but I'm sure to give you a tour tomorrow around the downtown area because I'm staying pretty close to everything. I'm looking forward to this. I haven't done anything at night in Nagasaki before, so we're gonna do Nagasaki at night, which is gonna be kind of cool. I'm gonna walk around, show you what it looks like after dark. I don't know if it's gonna be today or tomorrow. The weather has been bad. When I flew in, there was a gale warning, and they said there was a high possibility the plane would be diverted to Fukuoka.

10:29 John Daub: I asked a lady at the gate, "If the plane is diverted from Nagasaki to Fukuoka, how do I get to Nagasaki where the rental car is?" And she goes, "Yeah, well, mmm." She didn't really have any answers. I put her in a tough spot. So I wasn't gonna get anything useful from that interaction. But I didn't want to leave suddenly, so I waited around. Then she said we can't give you your money back. I said I don't want my money back—I'm just trying to figure how to plan this. My sixth sense was like, yeah, we're probably gonna get to Nagasaki, and I was right. We made it in.

11:05 John Daub: I think I have a video of it. We're gonna make a trip to the vending machine—I'll pull this up real quickly. The weather was really rough coming in. There it is. You can see the clouds. It was really windy. Oh, here's a better one. Look, that's snow. That was snow going into the engine at the beginning. The weather was windy, wet. It's gotten a little bit better and worse, but it was absolutely not so great.

11:47 John Daub: If you buy Fukusaya castella, go sanyaki is the best. I'm gonna note all this stuff. There's a lot of people who know Nagasaki better than me. This is one of the areas so far away from everything, like Kochi, Nagasaki. There is a shinkansen, but it doesn't connect quite to Hakata station in Fukuoka yet. So Nagasaki is really out of the way with a unique culture. If you explore here, you're gonna get a pretty unique experience. The food is different, the people are different, the supermarkets are different. It's all quite good, and I love driving around here. It's so relaxing, so easy.

12:28 John Daub: Alright, let me take you on the gimbal. This is totally unplanned stuff because that's how we roll. Alright, you're gonna go spinning on this gimbal for a second. Okay, so I apologize. Alright, you're back now. I just saw you get a little bumpy at the beginning, but you're gonna get a smooth ride to the vending machine. Let's go. Get my wallet. Oh, I don't know if they even have Pasmo or Suica here, so I'm getting out the coins.

13:37 John Daub: Yeah, there's no Pasmo or Suica. So what we got here? Just the usual hot coffee, zero sugar Coke, Fanta, green tea. Not much. What do you guys think? Maybe just go for the nama cha (fresh tea). Let's go for a hot green tea. Oh, that's nice and warm, as you can see. There's nothing around here. Even the parking lot's kind of empty. They don't get a lot of foreigners here, I could tell. Oh look, here's a logging truck. You don't see that in Tokyo. Awesome.

15:04 John Daub: Alright, let me put you back on this one. Kind of gives me not eat the vibes. Yeah, this is a Toyota Vitz. It's an economy rental. Sorry, put the phone back in there. Okay, we're good. This is nama cha from Kirin. Whoa, it's got little pieces of tea in there. Do you see that? So you know it's good. It's got pieces of real tea. Oh, that's good. That's really refreshing. So Pongatsu Ben, thank you. I will go and check that out as well. David Q, thank you for the bento, brother. Bradshaw Studio is here as well. Nice to see you.

16:09 John Daub: Alright, we're gonna try this before we end the livestream. This is their original karaage chicken. This is $2 for this. This is insane. Another thing I love about driving in Japan is stopping at the service areas if there's a good one. I think it's going in the other direction, but stopping at michi no eki (roadside stations) is a way to see local culture. There was one on the way here. I'm gonna stop there to see what the vegetable situation's like. Sometimes you can find some wow stuff. The plastic really dulled it. Now look at this. Wow, oh my goodness. I'm gonna have to chow down on all this after I end the livestream. Have a little quiet lunchtime in the car.

17:08 John Daub: Yeah, there you go. They also—I'll show you what this is after this karaage. It's not that I have to worry about getting cold; it's already cold. The bento has a microwave right next to the food you can heat it up in, but I've never had karaage like this. It looks like they've put in something like Rice Krispies. They've made it look like a monster. I love it. Oh my god, this is good. So oily? No, actually it's not as oily as I thought. But just some oil, and it's good oil. Tastes good. This is so genius. Karaage chicken out of the deep fryer is always crunchy, but then if you package it up, it gets soggy. But these geniuses found a way to keep that crunch despite being in a sealed container. It's amazing and it's good. You don't eat this for health; you eat because it's good. Mmm. I've never had karaage like this. Leo would love this. Look at this piece. It's going across your big-screen TV in 720p 'cause there's not enough upload speed for full HD.

19:29 John Daub: Now let's try this one. Oh my goodness. It's like it's burned but it's not burned. That's really good. It looks burned. Try that step part here. Oh yeah, skin—get some skin in the game. This is a great lunch in the car. Hahaha. Great lunch. It sure beats when we go on car trips in the United States with the family. We stop off at Wawa and get some sandwiches. They got a great coffee area where you can get 16 ounces—that would be the largest size in Japan, I think, but they go into 32-ounce coffees. It's pretty crazy.

20:51 John Daub: We'll be going back to the US in June. So we might have a meetup in New York. I don't know if we're gonna get to Montreal, Canada. Danny, if you're watching, I don't know if we're gonna make it over there. But it'd be nice to see some people, maybe make a trip into Philadelphia. That'd be really cool. We'll be back in the US for a few weeks or maybe even longer. But I'm here because of you guys. Over the last couple of years, I made a video in Nagasaki and Hiroshima about the atomic bombing. This is gonna be a really tough few days for me, so these livestreams are what's gonna sustain me in a positive way.

21:35 John Daub: The people I'm gonna be interviewing are hibakusha (atomic bomb survivors). One gentleman, I think he's 95, and I've seen archives of his interview, but his story is really impactful. You learn a lot because each person has their own perspective on how they saw it, how they felt it, what happened before, immediately after, and in the years after. To really understand the bombing of Nagasaki and how it's different from Hiroshima, you gotta talk with the local residents, the people who were there. There's already too much archive footage and news reports. Now let's see how it all was on the ground by the people who were there. This isn't America versus Japan. It's just what happened. They have an incredible mission. They won the Nobel Peace Prize, whatever that means to them.

22:57 John Daub: Hiroshima is known as the first place where the atomic bomb was dropped, and Nagasaki as the last place it's been used in war. That's a fitting legacy, and the one they have to work hardest to maintain. Because if you're the first, you're the first. But if you're gonna be the last, you have to keep it that way. So it's maybe harder for Nagasaki. But I'm really curious to talk about their feelings on everything. I'm not gonna get too political, but there might be some politics to them. You just talk to people and see how they feel. I'm just curious. I get a lot of questions, and you guys have been asking, "What about Nagasaki?" Well, we're here this week, and I'm gonna bring this episode to you in a way nobody else has.

23:57 John Daub: I'm gonna be here for four days—today, tomorrow, the next day, and I leave Friday. I'm going to be interviewing hibakusha. I wish I could go to Huis Ten Bosch. I saw the bus for it coming here. I almost made that trip, but I ended up not doing it because I got the rental car. Maybe next time. But there are a lot of wonderful things here in Nagasaki. Over the next 72 to 96 hours, it's going to be really hard on me. I get emotional. I feel these episodes that I make, and that's why they're pretty good. The main channel stuff takes time to edit, but I want to get this out in July before the 80th anniversary. You're gonna feel something from this, and it's important these voices get heard because a lot of them are leaving. The people who are 100 now were 20 when it happened. So a lot were just kids that are still alive. He was 95, so about 15 years old. Probably finished high school or been working. I'm really interested to talk to him—what was Nagasaki like before and after in regards to his life? Why does he want to tell this story?

26:01 John Daub: In fact, if you have a question you'd like me to ask, leave in the comments or DM me on Patreon. I'd really like it because this is a Patreon-funded initiative—all from you guys. That's why I'm in Nagasaki right now. It's too important. It needs to be done now. We're losing too many voices. They're all in their 90s. There was one woman in her hundreds we haven't contacted yet. I'm working with the Nagasaki nonprofit organization to set this up. They're so busy and have such big hearts. I can't thank them enough, as well as my assistant Emmy who helped behind the scenes. Looking forward to a great few days, despite my heart being in my stomach editing. It's gonna be hard to boil this down to 30 minutes or less. My hope is you take away a lot from this.

27:16 John Daub: Tonight or tomorrow night, I'll take you around Nagasaki in the evening, during the day, early mornings. Perhaps look at some Nagasaki food. We're gonna take a look at the area on this channel. I really appreciate all the support from Patreon supporters. Benjamin asked about supporting me—I sent you a message on Instagram yesterday. We're doing good stuff with the channel, and we'll make a really great video. Gonna be thorough with maps and archive footage, like the other Hiroshima videos. But this time, Nagasaki deserves a lot of love and content with heart, in English so the rest of the world can understand.

28:13 John Daub: I still got a lot of stuff to eat. I'm addicted to this chicken. I might come back here before the airport to get some for Leo. This is really good. If you have questions, leave in comments. Looking forward to seeing you in Nagasaki with me. If you're in Nagasaki and want to meet up tomorrow, let me know. Best to DM on Patreon 'cause I check that more. Peso's here. Hey, Peso. It's like Famichiki, but they don't put a lot of spices in it. I always found after eating Famichiki or convenience store stuff, there's preservatives or chemicals, and I can taste it for hours after.

29:25 John Daub: Dugan, 57 months—amazing. Sid, will you ever do an interview with Ralph Macchio? I don't know, maybe. I don't think he watches this channel, but if he does, I'll try to work it out. I'd love to talk to Ralph Macchio. If he comes to Japan, I could be a stunt double. He's older than me. I think I can do it. I've been working out. Anyways, thanks guys. I'll see you in Nagasaki. We're gonna have fun over the next four days because I need to have some fun. This topic is really deep stuff, but really important. See you on the other side as I finish this bento and drive back into Nagasaki. I hope the weather gets better 'cause it's not wonderful.

30:27 John Daub: I wonder if anybody inside the supermarket is watching. WTF is a bento? A bento is a Japanese lunchbox. You get them at any supermarket, convenience store. They're pretty tasty and affordable. Supermarkets usually use food at expiration date—they cook it up and make bentos for the next day. It's still good. Alright, everybody. Thanks so much. I'll see you maybe tomorrow in a livestream or two or three, and I'll go heavy with livestreams here to show you Nagasaki. Matane. Back to lunch.