00:00:00 John Daub: Greetings from the balcony of our hotel here in Tumon in Guam. It has been an incredible three nights. I can't believe it's flown by this fast. It seems like just yesterday we arrived. But I wanted to share with you in this episode this snippet of our trip here to Guam. The Kmart, which if you're American seems like it's gone out of business a long time ago—they actually have one here. It reminds me of a Walmart. I'm going to take you inside. Take a look inside the Kmart.

00:00:30 John Daub: Here, which might have the cheapest prices in the mall. However, there is a Don Quijote (Donki) from Japan that opened up like this mega plaza that we're going to investigate today. We're going to see which prices are probably better. But the cost of living, as I discussed in the last live stream, is a little bit higher—well, it's higher here in Guam than perhaps Hawaii for some things and maybe cheaper for other things. We'll talk about that if that's something we want to do in the questions from the live stream. I'm also going to take you to the Wednesday night market in this episode. We have some clips that I went there in hopes of meeting a lot of you, but it was a very informal meetup. I'd say about 25 people came up to say hi, which is great. Got a lot of gifts from you guys—thank you so much. You could really feel the island spirit. I think every island in the Pacific, not just Guam, has a soul to it. Perhaps it's from watching that TV series Lost, but it's kind of true. And you have to respect that soul, but it really reflects on the people that were born here and live here and so warm.

00:01:30 John Daub: I'm looking forward today to get a chance to meet with the governor of Guam. She's a very nice lady I've heard, so I'm really excited about that. And shout out to Hank for making all of this possible to meet with people on the island—I'm really grateful for that. All right, so let's take a look at this. We're going to start here with the night market from yesterday. You know why? Because of food.

00:02:13 John Daub: I want to do the volume a little bit so you get a little bit of the ambiance before I start to talk about it. But that's Hank right there pointing out this is the street food on Guam. It looks so good. It's actually really cheap compared to the hotels. If you're a tourist here, it's going to pay if you eat at the hotels or touristy places. $12 for a plate is really good. There's pork belly, spare ribs, sausages, all sorts of good stuff. Red rice, which was really delicious. I think these fried banana fritters on sticks were so good. I don't know what they're called, but this gives you a vibe here—very, very local. And I think tourists that are visiting, if you're looking to learn more about Guam's culture, especially with food, you can feel it, you can eat it and taste it here at a really reasonable price.

00:03:04 John Daub: They had like these go-karts going on in the middle and this tower here was a climbing tower. You could climb it and every time somebody reached the top, a bell would ring. And then the bell went off, which kind of startled us. But you saw the smoke in the background—that is the barbecues going. Check this out: it is some ribs and sausages and corn and some noodles and this chicken. I don't know what it's called, but it was so good—this like chicken flakes or chicken dish. They give us a big scoop of it. So the one that I got, I'm going to show you in about 30 seconds from now. But you can see there is the barbecue plate. And then the pit in the back there, continuously bringing it up. I actually EK is sold with that rock wall—it's, I don't know if it's always here, but it's so much fun. That's me right there. I got lost or Kanai got lost, and I was trying to do an Instagram story last night to try to find her. I think that story is still up on Instagram. It worked too, because some of the viewers that were with us were able to say, okay, John's over here and get in touch. There's the rock wall. I'm not sure she's going to make it, but I'd say half the people who tried to climb it, they didn't make it. But they tried to climb it, seemed to get to the top. Looks like a lot of fun.

00:04:14 John Daub: All right, this is Chris's barbecue. The line was really long for it. You could see Fiesta—I think I got the Fiesta plate, the $18 one, because Leo, me and Kanai were all of us eating it from the same plate. Oh my God, those ribs. There's, I think there's some grilled squid in there as well, but those ribs are so good. Oh my gosh, I'm looking at it drooling. You can't see me on the other side of the screen. There's some noodles there—Leo really liked that. There's a chicken that was telling you about—don't pass this up, this is so good. I believe that was chicken. I'm sure there's influence from the Philippines, influence from Hawaii, and then there's influence from just Guam—you know, people coming up with a local cuisine because there's a local culture here on the island. I'm impressed.

00:05:06 John Daub: There's Hank as well and there's those bananas—oh my god, you got to get one of those as well, these are so good. Any food on a stick usually is. I'm sold right there—there's some shrimp on a stick, squid on a stick, and there's some barbecue chicken there. It was just all really good stuff and you can smell it in the air. We don't have a barbecue culture so much in Japan—they kind of barbecue it on a flat top, so the yakitori (grilled chicken skewers) is one thing, but this is another. It's just a wonderful plate—this is $18 and it filled two and a half of us up. Really did—the two spare ribs for me and Kanai. I'm a huge fan of these.

00:05:47 John Daub: Kanai, we found for Leo, thank goodness, a coconut. And I think that I put it on Instagram. And she goes, Japanese, what is it? Coconut samurai, he said to her. And they cut it open. And Leo got coconut sashimi, which is a fancy term to say coconut meat. But it was a lot of fun. And Leo got to live out his dream of eating a coconut from the coconut in an island with coconuts. Oh, and we saw the coconut crab. If you've never seen these, these are all over the islands. They're built like tanks. They're kind of scary, like alien form. And there's a guy there—I guess it's his pet. But Leo was quite impressed. And he got a chance to touch it, which he probably dreamed about.

00:06:31 John Daub: There he is going with Sienna. We had a lot of aunties and uncles here. Sienna's been watching the show, she told me, since she was in junior high school. Now she's going off to medical school. This is crazy. Am I that old? There's Leo touching the coconut crab. I think that's what he was dreaming about or nightmaring about last night. And there's Hank and us. Thank you so much to Hank as well. And Leo Mar was here. And there's some, not all of, not all the people that came out to say hello. But here's some of the people from Guam that came out to say hello to us. And it was a huge success. I love night markets. You know, I love market food. In Japan, we have some. But the culture, I think it might be very similar to what's the Philippines might be like. But there's just this really wonderful closeness to people here on the island that's kind of missing with Japan. People are a little bit shy—kind of let people, people don't approach other strangers, for example. But here people are so much more friendly and you get a feeling of that. And that's why I love coming to island—it's an island culture, you know. I guess there's a real natural happiness to it.

00:07:45 John Daub: I want to now take you to the other side, which is life in Guam. And I think for many people here, you can't pass up the Kmart. And you can see it over there on the right side. It says Kmart right there in the center. It's like there's not a lot of them left, if at all. But it's an institution here. There's a Little Caesar's in the background—I thought that was pretty cool. We did not eat there. But it looks very much like the Kmart of my childhood, which looks sort of like Walmart. I'd never seen Asahi Pacific Blue. That was new. I think it's a little bit different—it's just basically Asahi. I don't know. But I'm not going to find out. Leo was obsessed with the potato chip tunnel. Although he didn't understand that they were potato chips left and right. I think he just liked the tunnel. But Kmart was awesome, man. I have to say, I wish they had more Kmarts. It's just a real fun place. I think to us, if you're not living in the United States, it feels like a museum of food and stuff. I'm impressed. I could have walked around here for like hours looking at stuff. Of course, you can't buy it because you have to bring everything back. We bought some stuff like matchbox cars and some snacks and things like that that we can't get in Japan. But it was really fun. There's the matchbox cars. These were $2, which is about the same as a Tomica car. That's not going to fit in the suitcase, Leo. But I like his spirit. Only Kmarts left in Florida are just gas station convenience stores and not full ones like this.

00:09:51 John Daub: We were impressed with the spam aisle. Of course, this is something similar to a lot of the places around the Pacific—Okinawa, Hawaii, maybe even the Philippines there. But maple flavored spam? Had not seen that before. And we had a good trip to Kmart. I have to say, I asked for a bag and they gave me one to put the stuff in. Gotta love it. This is part of our Guam experience—Kmart.

00:10:17 John Daub: Oh, and this is switched into the DFS, which is kind of the duty-free shops. Completely empty. And I think this is an indication of how tourism is going here in Guam. This typically would be full mainly of tourists from China, but there's just not a lot of people here. And we felt bad. We didn't buy anything because it's not really made for us, I think. I don't know. But there's a lot of good stuff in here. I love the dolls. I love some of the stuff in here, but we didn't get anything at the... This will probably go and get it at the Don Quijote today. I don't know why. But the center of Guam, where there's some shopping malls, felt really empty. And I think after everything hit in 2020, it never really recovered.

00:11:08 John Daub: Today I'm going to talk with the governor and see if we can do some stuff together. I'd love to help in any way. I think Americans might find it very interesting to come to Guam—not just because of the history, but to see like, got U.S. dollar, you go straight to—you're not a foreigner here. You kind of just go right through customs and immigration. It's really—it feels like going back to the USA in a weird way. So it's a nice contrast to Japan. Just look at the view. And then you got this. And yeah, you could go to Okinawa, but this is just three and a half hours away. And it just feels like another country. For kids, I got to say this Crowne Plaza Resort is really nice. My complaints are the coffee is not hot—it's fresh and not... So we never got really hot coffee here. It's like warm—not great. But other than that, it was really good. The pools are fun. This is the adult one. You just saw the kids one. And you can see Leo and Kanai playing down there.

00:12:24 John Daub: But my goal is to introduce you to a little bit of the culture on the island here and just say we had a time in Guam that was too short. I don't think three days is enough. And we were waking up late because we're so exhausted. Despite going to bed fairly early, we were exhausted. So it was a pretty good experience. It feels—if you're going to stay here for more than a week, I would say the resorts are nice. But the resorts... You can get Airbnbs from what I hear in the south part of the island. It's very local. It's very nice. It's very rural. It's very like maybe what Guam was like 40 years ago. And still feels like that. So there are some extremely... You can get any kind of experience that you want in Guam, including hiking, which is really good. You can get adventure rafting through the jungle. You can go to the night market. You get the food experience. The bakeries are really interesting on Guam.

00:13:33 John Daub: Leo! Leo! Mama! I don't want to shout that loud. It wasn't as loud as you might have thought it was. I still live in Japan—I don't want to be disruptive, but I see them down there. Despite the fact that I'm American, I'm also like Japanese in a way. I could shout and then I check myself and go, that didn't feel right. And then I kind of stop there. But we had such an amazing time. I showed you last time we got a cake from the Crown Bakery, which was really good. The I Love Guam on there—that was a lot of fun. We've had so many amazing experiences.

00:14:26 John Daub: The other day we went to Jeff's Pirates Cove. I got a pirate bandana—Leo did too. I don't know why he didn't wear it. And we had these pirate burgers. It literally has a pirate skull and crossbones stamped onto the pirate burger. And they have some really good seafood there as well. And I think that this place is an experience. It's on the other side of the island. So it's about a 30 minute drive away from the beach. You really do need to get a car in order to do that. The compact rental started at $37 a day. But with the insurance, if you get full insurance, you can just double that basically—$50 a day, which is not that bad, right? I guess, I mean, it's probably cheaper than a taxi going to the other side of the island.

00:15:15 John Daub: And we did see Jeff the Pirate—not this guy, but he was around. I wish I'd gotten a chance to meet him there. And I heard that Hank Rice was one of the people who helped to inspire or is the one who inspired the I Love Guam concept. And you drive around the island and see these I Love Guams in these beautiful spots. I have to say this is a really nice touch. And every time we saw one, we had to stop. And there's Kanai posing with the I Love Guam. Again, the rural areas—it looks like this. It's so nice to drive around. The roads are big. The parking spots are big. It feels like America. But it's not—I don't know. It's hard. Patricia down in Iwakuni—you're not that far away from us here in Guam either right now. But it does remind me of Okinawa or India in some places. But it's very rural. There's chickens on the side of the road, which is really interesting. I thought that was cool.

00:16:22 John Daub: And at the hotel, we got a chance to see with Anthony Reed and Hank Rice. And their magic show here was legendary. It was really good stuff. So I have to say I recommend highly coming to Guam. And these three days were not enough. We'll be back here. There's a sunset from the hotel. This is another reason Tumon Bay is just perfect. The sunset is perfectly placed there. This is from the restaurant. It's just too nice. We're like, what? This is paradise. Now the dinners were like $70 a person. But this is the last time. And they had free s'mores—they're doing like, okay, if you come out here, you can get a free s'more. If I knew that, I would have eaten three of those and maybe skipped dinner. But the sunset, I guess, it's just so wonderful here.

00:17:21 John Daub: This is the sunset—this is our first day. It's nice. It's a slice of like tropical paradise. But somebody made a comment that the days of Guam being a honeymoon destination are over. I kind of disagree with that. But I think that there has to be some changes might have to be made in order to get more tourists to come here. I think it's more about I wish that they had some more budget options, budget flights from Japan. The flights are pretty expensive to get here. But if they can get a budget flight from Japan to here, I bet you they triple the amount of people coming. The flight is maybe the most expensive part. But if we didn't use our miles, it would have been about $3,000 to fly here. And that's just too much. So, you know, thank you to ANA and letting me collect all those miles.

00:18:08 John Daub: And I see Michael Sassano is here. I don't know why—I guess the Super Chats aren't coming, but it's okay. It's okay, Michael. This is the new X5 Insta360 camera. So shout out to the Crowne Plaza Resort. Everything was pretty good here. The service was really good. Everyone was friendly. You know, I probably would stay here again. You know, I just wish the coffee was hot. And they had an omelet bar. The chef was never there. So we never got an omelet. I think Leo might have gotten one today. But the first two days, it was like empty. It's a beautiful hotel. It's only like 10 minutes from the airport, which is crazy. Because we arrived at almost 10 p.m. So we got here by 10:30. We were in bed, which is great. So pretty fast transition.

00:19:15 John Daub: All right, that's about it from Guam. I'll give you another update soon. But let me walk through the room and just show you from our messed up bed what it's like getting out onto the balcony. That's how we've been living for the last three days when we're at the hotel. That's pretty awesome. If we didn't use the miles, it would have been $3,000. I used 70,000 miles and it still cost me $700 to fly here. I consider it a bargain. Guam is empty. So the positive of this is that it's just so wonderful to have it all to yourselves. Oh, there they are. Leo! I got it. It's 30 times zoom. There they are—30 times zoom. Oh my gosh. There you go. Have a good day everybody from paradise, from Guam. We'll see you back in Tokyo. Maybe I'll do a live stream from the airport. But other than that, we're going to enjoy the next four hours here before we fly back to Tokyo. See you.