Travel and Living in JAPAN ask'me anything

00:00:01 John Daub: Hello everybody, it's John. On a Saturday afternoon. I thought that there was going to be a typhoon coming in, so I was planning to stay in and work on a video editing. Here you can see the typhoon that was supposed to hit Tokyo today. Kind of what the meteorological agency expected. It took one look at Chiba and said, and it just started heading north northeast towards Alaska in the middle of the Pacific. Which is a good thing, because if you look outside, you get really beautiful blue sky.

00:00:35 John Daub: I might go outside to get some lunch in a couple of minutes. But I thought this would be a great time to do a Q&A. It's been quite a while since I've done one of these. A lot of people are coming to visit Japan. They said in the first six months we had 22 million tourists, which broke all of the records from before. This is by day, I mean Japan National Tourism Organization publishes the numbers on the demographics of tourists here to Japan.

00:01:05 John Daub: And that's pretty impressive. So we figure that we're probably going to exceed 40 million tourists this year, which is crazy considering when I came to Japan, I think we had maybe 3 or 4 million tourists in 1998. But this is a good thing and that means that tourism is on the rise. So a lot of you probably are thinking about coming here and more and more people are coming here to think about living here. I'm going to be releasing this video very shortly.

00:01:36 John Daub: This is the video I've been working on for the last few months. I went there in March and I want to went back again a couple a month ago to finish up the interviews. It's about the day that the bomb dropped in Nagasaki with witness accounts by survivors. I interviewed two of them as well as how the legacy of Nagasaki will continue once everybody is, you know, quite old right now. A lot of Hibakusha have passed away. That means their stories have passed away.

00:02:08 John Daub: So I'll be uploading this and it's a great tour around the hypocenter on remembering what happened that day. The devastation in Nagasaki was extraordinary. There are still reminders of it and getting a chance to walk around and then hearing the stories along with old video footage. Archive footage from the National Archives in the United States released videos that are now public domain, getting a sense of the devastation that happened.

00:02:38 John Daub: It's time perfect, because we have the service coming up on August 6th for Hiroshima and August 9th for Nagasaki. So this video will be released tonight or tomorrow. I'm just polishing it up and kind of fixing some stuff up with everything, making sure that everything is accurate. Because it's a hard one, you know, if you make one little mistake, it can be... well, it's a hard one to do. Especially those interviews. They're really deep.

00:03:09 John Daub: And one of the survivors was in tears, and so was I in the interview. I cut that out. But it was really harsh to hear the brutal what they saw on that day and the days after. It's good for people to hear that, just to remember, because every three generations we seem to forget this. Yeah, I'm still working on it. So that's not the final thumbnail. We'll see.

00:03:40 John Daub: Hard to drive in Japan, coming from a western country where you drive on the left side. So driving in Japan, that's a good question to start off with. And I got a couple that I took from yesterday's livestream on Tokyo Bay. Driving in Japan is... if you're coming from the United States and not from Europe, where they drive on the same side as Japan, it is... it's challenging. I have to be honest with you. It's not something that's very easy to do because you're not thinking that way. The most dangerous part of this is when you're taking left and right turns because you're used to taking a left turn into a different lane.

00:04:17 John Daub: And when I first started driving in Japan, I had a couple... I was lucky. I was on the countryside for a lot of it. I was like in Miyazaki, where there's almost no traffic. I remember I almost turned right into the wrong lane. And just after that, I never made a mistake again because I did take a lot of driving practice, but there's little things that are hard for you to get used to. Now I'm very used to driving either in the United States or in Japan. I can just change it like someone changes with their language.

00:04:48 John Daub: But if you're not, don't have muscle memory, or you don't have any experience driving on the other side, I'm not saying don't do it. I think it's great to drive in Japan. You will unlock a completely different side of Japan that you don't get with the train travel. Train travel is so convenient. It's also getting a little bit crowded, but it's very limiting. You have to... everything is based on train schedules. Everything is based on where you can go by train. A lot of people try to stay away from the buses. And that is very confusing.

00:05:18 John Daub: But driving in a car is wonderful and it's freedom because you get to go anywhere you want because the roads are everywhere. Japan is one of the very few countries in Asia that has almost perfect roads everywhere you go. It's quite incredible. Maybe Kochi and there's some places in the outskirts, these one lane highway, one lane roads are kind of scary. Going around the mountains in Kochi was always very nerve wracking. But it was a good experience for sure. I think it's something you should experience driving.

00:05:55 John Daub: The service areas or rest stops on the highways are awesome. They're clean, local foods, local culture. You get to see all of that. The Michi no Ekis, these road houses, every single town has one. You drive through the countryside, you stop in at Michi no Eki, you can get like a local ice cream, like a wasabi ice cream or like they got weird stuff inside of there too. But it's great, it's a great way to see Japanese culture more locally because every tourist is taking the train. If you drive, you're separating yourself from the rest of the tourists and you're going more local and that's a good thing. But there are risks to it and it's not always easy.

00:06:32 John Daub: The typhoon, as some people are joining us here, the typhoon was fine. It didn't... it rained a little bit this morning and then we haven't seen it now and we've got blue skies outside. Currently the typhoon is somewhere out to sea. I think it might be impacting Sendai a little bit, but it's just basically a little bit of wind and rain probably up there. But Tokyo is no longer being impacted. By tomorrow it'll be like way out to sea. That happens too. It's extremely hard to predict the direction that typhoons are going to go. This is the same with tsunamis. And you know when they give you a tsunami warning like we had a couple of days ago, you don't know for sure.

00:07:37 John Daub: Now I was quite inland when that came in and we weren't gonna be impacted by that because we'd already seen Hokkaido was getting about 30cm of water. We think that most of it was going in the other direction and the news is pretty accurate on that. But people up in Hokkaido, which was much closer, went to higher ground. You just don't know. And this is why when you have a tsunami warning, you do have to heed it.

00:08:07 John Daub: Oh my goodness. If anyone saw the traffic in Hawaii. And we have a lot of viewers from Hawaii. It was horrendous. Brandy was sending me pictures. I was hearing stories. We were seeing all of these YouTube and Instagram reels on the traffic in Hawaii from the type tsunami warnings. Because people aren't really used to it. You don't know what to do. But the traffic in Hawaii is really bad anyways. It just was compounded by the fact it was like, okay, everybody get home. Let's get on the highway. And that didn't... I don't... I don't know. But it was... I'm glad that Hawaii did not have much of a tsunami and it was a lot better than what could have been. But you have to take these warnings and watches quite seriously for sure.

00:08:38 John Daub: Let's see here. I got a bunch of questions here. May I recommend Monjayaki? Monjayaki is in a town called Tsukishima in central Tokyo. It's an island. It's about five, maybe about 10 minutes from Tokyo Station. You can take Yurakucho line here. I think it's three stops to Tsukishima. This is not... a lot of tourists come here to Tsukishima and I think that's really an interesting area to walk around as well. I've taken you on this channel too. It's got a Showa feel, but there's a lot of construction going on around Tsukishima. But there's about a hundred different shops. They're all pretty much the same. But I would stay away from any shop that looks like a chain because usually this...

00:09:45 John Daub: I don't want to tell you too much because I don't want to ruin it, but there's a couple of good shops. Oshio is quite popular. And Yoshi... is it Yoshino or Yoshida? Yoshida. That's a good one. There's maybe five or six that locals know that are really good. There's an information center. You can ask them about it. But when I say it's really good, like everything is pretty much the same, but sometimes the portion sizes are somewhat different and the service is somewhat different. Some of the family run places, they've been doing it for generations. And then there's some chains where they have staff that are not really well trained. So you might end up waiting quite a long time for your food. Or you get not as good as you would get from a family run place. So you just have to be a little bit. But it would be... Monjayaki is Tokyo's soul food, just like okonomiyaki would be Osaka's soul food in that sense. And it's quite good.

00:11:22 John Daub: Bobby Don writes in here, I'm coming in October between the 6th and 8th. Would we have to bring rain clothing or worry about typhoons? Not... not usually. The typhoon season is at the end, so the chances are much smaller. But there is always a chance. What kind of weather does Japan have in October? It's usually quite nice. The humidity is gone. You have shorter days because we're a few months away from the summer solstice, which is the longest day of the year at the end of June, so the days start to get shorter but the humidity is gone. I think that long pants... I still wear shorts. I'm an anomaly. I'm like a 13 year old kid. So. But you know, in Tokyo you probably want to wear pants. Have a sweatshirt. I have a zip sweatshirt that I always wear or travel around with. You can have a light windbreaker. I don't think you need... unless you're going up to Hokkaido, you don't really need to have a down jacket. I went to Asahikawa, which is north of Hokkaido, one of the northernmost cities in Hokkaido, last October and it gets chilly at night. You probably want to have a down jacket and in October like a light down jacket up there.

00:12:29 John Daub: But again, when we talk about Japan weather, please keep in mind the generality of what should I wear when I come to Japan... to me as a local, I guess I would say I don't even know what that means because Japan to me is Hokkaido which is much colder and Okinawa which is much, much warmer. And then everything in between. If you go up to Tohoku, it's much cooler than it is down in Kyushu, which is much warmer. So it depends on where you're going. If you're talking about Tokyo, I would say like typically the weather is something like Washington D.C. or Paris. It's very comparable. Perhaps it can get cold. It doesn't snow much in Tokyo, but it can get cold. Typically winter is like about 10 degrees Celsius or about 48 degrees Fahrenheit. So you don't really need to have massive down jackets in Tokyo. However, if you do go to the mountains or you do go to Tohoku, you probably won't have a down jacket. It is cold, you just can't predict. And it's a dry cold, so it feels colder though.

00:14:02 John Daub: Pickpocket situation is very different in Paris though. Peso, I am glad that you brought that up. There have been reports in Japanese media, increasing amount of reports on pickpocketing and petty crime around Tokyo, in particular around Asakusa and Shibuya. The Nakamise Dori. And they're not Japanese pickpockets. Foreign pickpockets and foreign criminals are here doing this petty crime. Pickpocketing and police are aware of it. There's cameras all over the place. So they are being watched and they're catching these foreign criminals that are pickpocketing. When they do get arrested, they don't always... this isn't always public stuff. So I don't think Japan publicizes, for example, the death penalty. When someone is put to death here and they do have the death penalty in Japan, they won't announce it until after. So there's no media protest or something on the... you're sentenced to death and then one day like what is it like 30, 36 hours before or 24 hours before you're told that your day's tomorrow and then it comes, then they announce it. So they don't really publicize arrests and things like this so much.

00:15:05 John Daub: So I do know that foreign pickpockets have been arrested in Japan and there's an increase on it. So please be careful of your belongings. There's also a big problem in Japan right now with suitcases. People in particular... I mean, this is... I don't know how big of a problem this is because this is the Japanese media, which tends to exaggerate sometimes just a little bit to make it seem worse than what it is. But it is a problem though. There are a lot of... even small crimes they punish. Yes, they do. Although you know, Johnny Somali seemed to get off lightly. It just depends on the crime, like vandalism and flying a drone. And there's certain things now you're getting penalized and sometimes quite severely, but it's not publicized as much.

00:15:40 John Daub: Yeah, see the suitcase problem. They Japanese TV yet yesterday or two days ago, I was watching a tourist had left a suitcase with the handle up just abandoned on the street in Kabukicho and Shinjuku. The media sat there with a video man. And he's just like filming it and waiting. And the hours passed. The hours passed and I... I think I gave up on the show. But somebody eventually came and picked up their suitcase. They didn't put it in a locker. They just left the darn thing on the street. Nobody took it because nobody actually normal Japanese are scared. Like, there is an unclaimed... and it's a big suitcase sitting in the middle of Kabukicho. Why is it here? This isn't a...

00:16:42 John Daub: It's becoming an increasing problem where tourists don't get a locker because it doesn't... these big suitcases don't fit in the lockers. They walk around the city with their suitcase and go shopping with it inside the stores. And if you've ever been inside of a Don Quijote, you know, there's like not a lot of space. So if you got tourists and then what they do is they leave the suitcase somewhere in the store and start walking around and the suitcase will be... and if enough people are doing this. And I was in Aachimachi in Ameyoko three days ago to get the packages for the daimyo supporters. By the way, your packages are on the way. And there were several people that did this. There were visitors from, you know, all over the world. It wasn't one particular country, but they would wheel in their suitcases like several people had the suitcases. It's such a pain in the neck. They would leave the suitcase in the aisle, walk around to go shopping, and the manager would come in here and try to stock the shelves and couldn't because there's a suitcase here and because of personal belongings and a great respect for it, they don't touch it really. They want to move it, probably, you know, throw it out. So they're like... there's actual frustration with store owners and tourist spots with the suitcase situation.

00:17:44 John Daub: You have to leave it in your... leave it. Don't bring such a big suitcase. First of all, if you're going to be traveling a lot, you're going to have to leave it at the hotel. And if you can't do that, you can leave it at a left luggage place or something or pay to leave it. The one thing I think this is a really interesting thing people are doing: everybody knows that you can send your bags by Takkyubin. There's a service. You can do it at the hotel check in desk. So you can do it at the convenience stores as well.

00:18:19 John Daub: You take your suitcase, they give you a form to fill out. You can have the hotel staff write it in Japanese, and sometimes the clerk at the convenience store will help you as well. You can also do it in English, in Roman letters if you, if you know, with the phone number of the... of the business you're going to. So you write where you're at and then where you're going to. And then you can also write in the shipping date. This is kind of cool because you can ask them like, all right, I want to be traveling for the next three days. Can... I'm going to ship this to Nagoya from Tokyo, but I don't want it... it's now Monday, but I don't want to get there till Friday. So then for four days they're going to hold on to it and then ship it to you on Friday at the hotel. So you don't have to pay for a locker for those three days because you've put the date that you want it to be shipped for Friday. So it's kind of a cool thing that you can do with these shipping companies. So you can write in the days that you want.

00:19:57 John Daub: Ling Li, thank you. It's nice to see here. Ling, I'm going back in case I missed anything. Sandrock writes in here, will you let Kanai host a video? She seems fun. Well, she is fun, but she doesn't want to be a YouTuber. And there... we've talked a lot about this during the pandemic, there was no place to go, so there wasn't really much to do. So she did become a YouTuber and she was with me because we had to eat. We didn't have a... we didn't have Leo yet in the beginning, so there's not a lot to do when you're stuck at home. So she was in the videos quite a bit. She is fun. She's a great dancer. She teaches dance, but she doesn't want to be a YouTuber. She doesn't want to be in the video so much, but sometimes she will be. However, I don't... I don't know. I'll keep encouraging her, but I wouldn't expect it, maybe every now and then.

00:20:27 John Daub: Peter also, I think, has somewhat retired from YouTube, so I don't know. I'll ask him every now and then to see if he wants to be on, but I think he's really busy with his work. He did the new narration for the ANA safety video for the Pokemon. There's a Pokemon safety video on ANA. So of course he's the English voice in that. So Leo said when we were coming back from the U.S. he goes, "It's Peter." And like yeah, that is Peter. So he could recognize his voice quite clearly, which is really funny.

00:21:30 John Daub: WRX Turbo is in the house. Thank you. That's two days in a row. Welcome. Rondania is here. Hopefully not stuck in traffic now. Looks like you're marching just fine. Is there really any reason to go to Kabukicho? Seems kind of... seems like not such a nice place, right? Saying Cobra Bebop from the back of a... Oh no, that's a good question. I think it's a... Kabukicho is known as an entertainment area. So there's a lot of drinking establishments, there's a lot of seedy stuff, but there's also a lot of entertainment. They've cleaned up Kabukicho at least Governor Koike has been pushing for that because there's a lot of hotels in the area. This has been a hotel investment center for quite a long time. Juku, the name Shinjuku actually means like new in like new accommodation. So it's a new part of the city comparatively.

00:22:03 John Daub: But I think Kabukicho, there's some things that are quite interesting and there's some things that are not. I don't know personally. It's not my type of place. Golden Gai has those narrow bars, but it's gotten quite touristy and they all have kind of COVID charges. But look, it's a part of Tokyo's culture. Anthony Bourdain went there and everybody loves Anthony Bourdain. He's... he is sorely missed. But he went there and did an episode in Golden Gai. So I think it's always going to live on as one of these things that is part of the core and it is kind of a cool place. But there's other places that you can get that same similar or a very similar experience. Like the snack bars in Shimbashi, which is an episode that I did a few a few months ago. And those places you don't have to take the tour, you could just walk in. Although it's a little awkward if you can't speak any Japanese. But it's all right.

00:23:45 John Daub: Guardian Robots Hi John, when you are back in the States, did you ever consider having a meet up for fans and subscribers to your channel? I have, but it's also become... I don't know right now... I had a talk with another YouTuber, a friend of mine, and he said that we were talking about live streaming in Tokyo and there are some dangers to it now. And I think right now there's a lot of pushback from locals seeing people walk around with a stick talking in crowded areas. Some locals don't like that. And there have been some incidences. And so I'm a little bit more, I don't know, cautious about it. Leo is four years old, going on five now, so he was a little bit too young. And for example, like we were going to go in New York City, maybe we'd have a meetup. But when we bring him into the city, it's something that's quite concerning to me. And we'd want to do it maybe at 8pm or 7pm so people can come and say hi after work.

00:24:17 John Daub: I think we'd need to have a location and not do it outside. It's just difficult, more difficult because we have a child now. For me personally, I'm not as worried about that. But yeah, there's... it seems like when I started doing this it was a lot more relaxed, but again, I might be seeing too much into it. But we had somebody who was killed in a livestream in Tokyo not too long ago and we've had more attacks on livestreamers walking around the city of Tokyo or Kyoto by locals who are just tired of it.

00:24:54 John Daub: So I try to get... I try not to go to populated areas or to go to places inside the city of Tokyo. And I don't do these long walking tours as much as I used to. But yeah, you know that doesn't mean that I don't do it at all. But I think I'm more mindful. And when I do travel outside of Tokyo, I, if I can, I do like to get permission to do the livestreams and to go in and you get access to certain things that you wouldn't. So there's maybe there's a way to do that. And again, on this channel I might get back to like... I guess you don't really see it here, but I do have a microphone and I do have a lot of audio gear here. So I might get back to podcasting here. The audio is a lot better. The software has gotten a lot better. The computer systems are much better to handle it these days than they were back then.

00:25:59 John Daub: Mobius 0 is in the house, how you doing? Question. What do you think about Chinese people's view of Japan in general? For the life of me, I can't understand how Chinese people say they hate Japan but love Japan at the same time. I think that's a hard one to answer. I really do appreciate the super chat. I'm not sure where to go with this, but I don't see it that way. I mean, I don't hear that. Maybe there... there's going to be a certain amount in every single country around the world. It's not limited to China and Japan and of people that are just out of their minds. They're very backwards in their thinking. Let's just say there's just a percentage of people that are like that. It's everywhere around the world. It's not limited to China or Japan for that matter, because there's a lot of people here that probably don't say...

00:27:01 John Daub: Just two days ago or three days ago, I think two Chinese nationals were attacked by somebody that they say was Japanese in the streets in Chiyoda, which is where the government is. So they came out of a car, beat the crap out of him, and then drove away without taking anything. So I'm not quite sure about this, but I think that there's been attacks and murders in China of Japanese nationals. And then that happened just a few days ago. And I don't know if we don't know enough information to say beyond the fact that something like this took place, but there's just crazies on either side. But I want to tell you, the majority of the visitors from China, first of all, don't mix up Taiwan, Hong Kong and mainland China. They're both speaking Cantonese and Mandarin, but they're also... it's hard to differentiate for Westerners, but they're also very different in culture and personality and experience. So that's one thing I'd say a lot of tourists are here from Hong Kong and from Taiwan as well as from Singapore. I can usually get kind of an idea based on personality and dress and things from where they're from, mainland China usually a little bit easier to figure out.

00:28:12 John Daub: But it's a really tough question here. But I don't see it as much. I see visitors from China really do love being here and most, vast majority of rational, good people.

00:28:46 John Daub: Summer... oh, that... my recommendation for summer festivals and fireworks and the date. All right, I can get into that. That's interesting. That's from Shinyamoto, from Indonesia. And Mobius 0, by the way, have you been to Korea? I have, back in the day. I used to have a girlfriend who was from Seoul and I visited her in '98 and '99. We're talking like 25 years ago. So my experience in Korea has been like that. And I went to a YouTube creator summit in 2018 and that was a big deal. Like everybody had 10 million subscribers. And I just... I think I was getting close to a million subscribers on my old channel. But Korea is great. I think it's... you can do both of the countries and get a really good experience between the two of them. The food, oh my goodness, the food is so good in Japan, but it's so freaking good in Korea too. And me being half Indian and I grew up on spicy food, my mom cooking it... I love Korea because it's... the food is so good. There's so many different... it's just different. And it's good.

00:29:53 John Daub: And you know it is. There is a rivalry between... tourism to Korea, tourism to Japan, technology from Korea, technology from Japan, soft culture, television dramas from Korea, movies and drama from Japan. K Pop, J Pop. But I... look, there's some difficulties and I'm understating it from the war and the occupation and some nasty stuff. But I think eventually we've got to move beyond that because these two countries have such a strong connect with so many things. So I think it would be great to have like a... you enter in like a very easy to travel between the two countries. I think that'd be really cool. I think more tourists should also go to Korea and experience the street food in Seoul is incredible. The scene there, the culture. I remember going to the movies in Korea. There's so much better with going to the movies and the movie cinema culture than in Japan, which was almost non-existent. I was... I always went to Korea because you could get the... back then because you always get the latest movies. Movies start really late. Hollywood movies came really late. Armageddon came in December. It didn't get to Japan until December. But when I went to Korea, I was able to see it there and I don't know why Japan is... I think you have to tell them the date too far in advance. And so a lot of Hollywood productions are like, okay, never mind. We'll just do it whenever we can in Japan. So Japan's usually the last place to do it.

00:31:58 John Daub: On summer festivals. All right, this is a great question. I want to say thank you for this. This is and Mobius 0, thanks for those questions and the super chats. I appreciate it. Shinyamoto from Indonesia wrote in here, my recommendations are summer festivals. I think it's starting like tomorrow. But the Nebuta festival in Aomori is one of the best. And if you get there early enough, you can rent a yukata for dancing in the festival. And you can... anybody can take part in it. You don't have to make a reservation. At least I don't think you do. It wasn't like that before. You dress up, you go there like 30 minutes to an hour, 30 minutes before. They'll tell you where to go, and you just join in. And it is the greatest festival because they got these taiko drums going in the background. Like, everybody. The beats from the drum from the summer, they power you up. They hit your soul. And for the rest of the year, I feel like every time I did the Nebuta, I got, like, extra energy.

00:32:29 John Daub: That is my favorite summer festival, and that's the one in Aomori city. They have a Neputa in Hirosaki. And I believe they have other Nebuta like festivals around Aomori. It's not limited to Aomori city. There's a lot of people. We're talking like 2 to 3 million people, I believe, go to Aomori for to watch this festival. So the streets are quite crowded and it is really hot. So be prepared for that. They have a free... I believe it's free. It was when I went there. They have a free camping spot. So you can bring a tent or rent a tent and bring it with you, and you can just camp up there. When I went one time, I'm talking like 20 years ago, I went and I was able to find a love hotel to stay in. So you can find love hotels if you can't find regular accommodations. I've done that in the past many times. If you're traveling with a friend, they don't ask questions. If you're traveling by yourself, sometimes you can manage to get in a love hotel. Hey, they don't ask questions. Some of these places don't ask questions. If you got the cash, you can have the stay. So, like, what are you going to do in there by yourself, huh? But usually you get... they do a very good... this is still Japan. They do a good job of cleaning everything. Sometimes there's like... there's Nintendo Entertainment Systems inside there and you get a jacuzzi bath and you're able to... and you have to check out, I think it was like 9 or 10am but hey, you can't find a place to stay, there's always that. Or there's the manga kissa. The manga cafes. So there's always a place to crash.

00:34:37 John Daub: But the festivals are great. Fireworks festivals. Nagaoka is maybe the most recommended these days. It's pretty cool. The Sumitagawa fireworks in Tokyo which was last week is not so great because the buildings obstruct the view. It's hard to get one. You can buy seating in advance. But it's expensive. It's too crowded. The fireworks aren't even that big. Most of them are like this big. They're like, do I have one with me? They're about like size. I think the biggest one they can do is a size 5, which is about this big. When I did the fireworks festival, let me see here. I made a video here. You guys might want to check it out. This will give you a great introduction to Japanese fireworks festivals. And I want to thank my community for funding during the pandemic we had two fireworks shows that we put on.

00:35:42 John Daub: But you can see here we were... the... the Shakudama is a massive fireworks shell. It's like this. It's about this big. It's the size of a baby. I said here, it's massive. I'm going to Omagari in October I believe. So that might be something interesting here. But do I have a video of this here? So I want to show you. Because our community funded this really amazing lift charge on the bottom of it. So you can see. These are the... the shock... the Shakudama number 10 ones. There's the message I wrote on the Shakudama. I think it was like "may the force be with you." And that... that's Mr. Komatsu. Komatsu-san. He's a fifth generation fireworks maker. Happy... What did I write on there? "Happiness to the world" or something. So the community bought two of these and we had them in... all in here. This is at Omagari, right? We also launched up... we had community members buy 10. Did we have 10 here? I take it back there.

00:36:43 John Daub: We bought... no, I think it was like like 17 or 18. It was a lot of these number 10 size shell shakudamas. And we were able to... you're able to buy these for Japanese festivals. And we had, I think it was like about 15 and was Night Wolf who had... who paid for $5,000 like his own movement inside of there. But each one of these shakudamas we had messages coming in from our viewers and we glued right there the message under the shakudama. And they were able to see this in the documentary. And then we launched them up. And this is just such a cool thing because in the pandemic nobody could come here. But the summer festivals are all over Japan. They're all over Japan. It's just such a cool thing.

00:37:15 John Daub: Nagaoka is good today. Was it today? Today? If you're in Tokyo today, highly, highly, highly recommend. Get on the train. Go out to Shinozaki, my old neighborhood. The Edogawa Fireworks festival starts at 7:15pm I believe. So you want to get there by 6 and earlier if you can get a blue sheet, you can get them at sometimes the Daiso, the 100 yen shops or at the convenience stores. Put it down in the grass. There's lots of space there. The later you go, the harder it is to get closer. And there's a lot of grass to sit on the riverside. And it's a much better fireworks festival than the Sumitagawa. That's tonight. The Edogawa Hanabi Taikai. Oh my goodness, I wish I could go. It's so hard because Leo and Kanai aren't going to want to go. And it gets really crowded. You're not going to be able to get back home. Usually I would stay... it finishes at 8:30. About 8:30. And usually I would stick around for half an hour because the station is not that big and it is crazy to get in there. It's a lot. That's tonight. That's a great one.

00:38:16 John Daub: What else is there? The biggest fireworks festival I would have to say is probably Suwako. Lake Suwa in Nagano has 40,000 yonman patsu. So 40,000 rockets. That's a great summer festival. It's hard to get accommodations there usually. The thing is if you do get there and you watch the festival and I think it goes on till about 9pm I don't know if there's a train to get back to Tokyo. You have to have a reservation. I don't know if you have a train. You have to get on some train. It's very hard to get accommodations. You probably have to go stay somewhere in between. I had a tent and I camped in front of Suwako Station. I camped in front of the train station. And then at 5 in the morning, my friend Robin and I, we both... he's a crazy guy. We both packed up our tent and then we took the Seishun Jihachi Keep, which is like the 2,000 yen ticket, and we traveled back to Tokyo.

00:39:22 John Daub: I think the Seishun 18 ticket is going on right now until September 10th. And that's... they've changed a little bit. But you... there's a local train pass which is like... like 3,000 yen a day for unlimited train. You can get wake up at midnight and you can travel until midnight or as far as you can for like 2 or 3,000 yen. Like 20 bucks on the local train ticket called the Seishun 18 Kippu. Seishun 18 ticket, which is... only locals really know about it. But if you're a tourist and you have time, you're gonna be here for a month, that's pretty cool experience because you see the local culture on local trains.

00:40:23 John Daub: Great questions here. I can talk about summer festivals all day. The Kanto festival in Akita is also... I think it's going on at this time. Then you have Obon with the bon dance, the Bono Dori. Oh my goodness. Those are all over Japan. They're happening at different times. Usually during Obon, which is the holiday, the August summer holiday, which is about a week or so. So there's festivals going on all over August. The thing is, it's so hot. It's so hot.

00:40:53 John Daub: So you have to take care of. Sam writes in here. How is retirement in Japan? From a... from abroad. A lot of people want to come here and retire. There is a YouTuber who I believe he lives up in Tohoku. He has a YouTube channel about retirement in Japan. But I've talked with people. I think it's going to get a little bit harder. You know, Japan had a political turn recently in the election. So I don't know how this is all going to play out.

00:41:29 John Daub: But there's a lot of Westerners who want to retire in Japan. I don't quite understand why. There's a lot of earthquakes here. They are talking about the big one all the time. Health care is not the greatest. All right. It's free and cheap here and the doctors are pretty good. But my son had to get an ambulance a couple years ago because he had like 105 Fahrenheit fever, which is... it scares the crap out of you when that happens. Like, oh my goodness, he's probably going to be fine, but we're going to call an ambulance. Ambulance came, got in the ambulance. There's no hospital that could take him. So we sat in the ambulance waiting for a hospital. Imagine if you're having a heart attack waiting in the ambulance. Ambulance went about 50 meters, stopped, pulled over to the side of the road. The paramedics are waiting and they said what they're doing, they're trying to treat him, get his fever down. They're asking us where you want to go. No, we can't go there. They drove another 50 meters and then they said, this is gonna have to wait a while. But his fever started to come down. I think maybe he's just... and he was scared. My son was really scared. So we said, look, his fevers seem to go down. I think we can go to the emergency room in the morning during the regular hours. This is in the middle of the night. And the ambulance driver said, that's probably a good idea. And we left because there's probably other people that are having worse situations. And we walked back because we were only 100 meters away from the house.

00:43:08 John Daub: His fever just started to go down enough where he could fall asleep. But it was a tough night. And in the morning we walked to the emergency room. This... situations like that where people die in the ambulance all the time. I don't want to scare you, but if you're thinking about retiring, I mean, medical care is a lot better in the United States than it is in Japan for that stuff. Okay. Just saying there's a lot of different issues. It's all about timing as well. But the ambulance came from a different ward because the ward that I live in didn't have any available. So we had to wait a while for the ambulance to come as well. There's so many things that you don't understand before you retire here.

00:44:11 John Daub: The healthcare system here is overburdened. So there's a reason why the Ishin party gained power. There's a lot of foreigners are moving in here. They're taking advantage of the welfare, which if they're paying into this is sort of... I guess they're right, but they're also paying into the healthcare system, which is needed, but they're using the health care a lot too. So there's less hospital beds and there's a lot of issue with older people that don't like that. It's already really hard in the cities, populated areas to get hospital. There's a shortage of doctors. There's a shortage of nurses. There's an issue where Filipino nurses were coming here to work. And they're great, so friendly. I love the Filipino nurses and the doctors who do come here because they always have a smile and somewhat better attitude. But there's not enough nurses in Japan, and a lot of Filipino will come to Tokyo and... but the problem was they had to pass the test. And the test was too hard, unnecessarily hard.

00:45:16 John Daub: And they made it easier to be able to pass so that we could get more nurses in here because of the shortage. It's like, come on, we have to do something. They finally did something. And it's a little bit easier because you got to know kanji. You have to know how to speak language, right? You could make mistakes with medicine and things like this. So they were able to overcome that. And you can make a lot more working in the hospital in Japan than you could in Manila, for example, depending on the hospital. So a lot of nurses would come over here, and it's a pretty good life.

00:45:46 John Daub: So the, you know, retiring in Japan, you have to think about this and be realistic about it. Also, Japan doesn't want more people that are over the age of 30. All right? They got enough, and you have to think about that. But for those that do come here and retire, usually if you've done your research, you can find a nice place and you can do that, but it requires a lot of research, and it's not for everybody.

00:46:16 John Daub: A lot of Filipino nurses in California rates in Saya. Most of them are so nice. I have never met anybody from the Philippines who was not nice or didn't have a big smile. Smile, right. Which makes what Vitali did in the Philippines like so much more bizarre. Everybody in the Philippines is so great. I can't wait to go and visit. You know, people tell me, be careful in Manila. How dangerous is... I can... I get that. But like everybody who visits the Philippines in Japan, they're like the best tourists in the world. So any... any plans to go to Lake Biwa? I think the Biwako Fireworks festival is next Saturday. It's... it's after Edogawa. I think it's two weeks after Edogawa. I'm not sure. No plans to go to any fireworks festivals this year. I want to go to Nagaoka, though, but probably not this year.

00:47:19 John Daub: I got a lot of stuff to do. But, yeah, the festivals here are amazing. Retiring here. Look, come here in Tokyo and live here for a while. Get an Airbnb and live here for like two weeks, and then make a decision if that's really what you want to do. Talk to other people. Find an area. Find an area. The towns and cities that are decaying, they also have a lot of issues, all right? If you're younger, you can get things from Amazon. You know, it's... you can't get Western food. You have to have it shipped to you. Things take time. There's supermarkets. Everything closes early. It's not a life for everybody. It just depends on how... how, you know, Bruce Lee said, be like water. You know, are you like Bruce Lee, or can you be like water? Can you fit into a community? That most likely will be hard. Japan is... people are very friendly on the surface, but then if you go deeper down, it's hard to win them over. It's hard to make Japanese friends. It really is. It's hard to make Japanese girlfriends like real ones. I don't know, because the cultural differences are real.

00:49:26 John Daub: I'm very lucky. But it's hard for Japanese girls. If you're having a relationship in your 20s and you're serious, they might not be because it's just a fling. Because I'm young, I can do stupid things when I'm young. I can mess around when I'm young. And a lot of... I mean, you're so long. I'm just speaking honestly with you. I don't know how many times. I'm not talking about me. I've had so many friends, foreign friends, guys. Their hearts get smashed, broken. Oh my God. They meet the most beautiful, cute girl. They have this fantasy they're gonna get married. You know, they want to move here. And that girl, you know, they say, I love you too early. They freak them out, because in Japan, they don't say that. They don't quite... the foreign guy doesn't recognize what the relationship really is because they have a Western point of view and they know nothing about Japanese culture. And then the girl, probably already seeing another guy on the side, decides, okay, this is getting too serious. I just wanted to mess around. Guys heart's broken. I've seen friends in massive cases of depression. I... you know, it's hard a breakup, but if you can't read the signs, well, which is really hard, you know you're gonna get... you can... it's very easy to get destroyed by girls and guys I guess dating if you're not recognizing the signs.

00:49:58 John Daub: Michael is here. My brother Aloha and 27 years living in Japan. Yeah. You know, July was my Japaniversary. Over the years have seen an increase in westerners moving to Japan and if so, what area of Japan mostly? That's a great question. I told you just like a couple minutes ago. You have to do your research and pick an area. It's not easy to pick an area. It's really hard. Weather's different. We all say Japan, but Japan is as... the weather is as different as in the United States between Alaska and Florida, right? You got to do your research.

00:50:28 John Daub: Living around Tokyo is kind of cool for expats. Or nearby Chiba is pretty cool because you're close to Narita, you're close to the port, you can get back easier to the US. So living around Tokyo or Osaka has its advantages. Right? But let me put it... but when you live at a regional airport, like let's say Miyazaki, which I love Miyazaki, I'd love to live there. Despite the fact that they say the Nankai Trough is going to destroy Miyazaki and all this. They say that every year, every month, every day, it's a great regional airport. So you take a flight from Miyazaki. They have several that go into Haneda. They also have budget airlines that go to Haneda and Narita. And then you connect to an international flight you're into... you know where you want to go. It's about 90... about 2 hours extra depending on how long your layover is at Narita or Haneda or Kansai to get to your international destination. But typically it's a lot more convenient to live within an hour from one of the international airports.

00:51:35 John Daub: Something to think about. If you don't want to do that, you're going to find amazing deals in places like Kagoshima, Miyazaki, Oita, down in Kyushu and Shikoku. You'll find amazing deals, places to live. Violet, a friend of mine who lives in Kochi, lives in her mom's old town, which is like one of the most rural and poorest towns in Japan. And she's talked to us about some of the challenges of that, but also some of the good things. So you really have to do your homework. It's nice to have a community of people around you. There's a town in Gunma which has a very big Brazilian population. And that also kind of makes you feel comfortable. But you can get Brazilian comfort food there. So there's advantages to that.

00:52:35 John Daub: I lived in Japan in... in 1998-2004. I lived out outside of Tokyo for those seven years or so. And in the early years, I was homesick a lot. We didn't have Amazon.com. We did not have the Internet. All right, it was different. So when I felt homesick, you could go to McDonald's. But I didn't really like that that much. I didn't eat McDonald's a lot. So I would go to Hard Rock Cafe, which they had in Nagoya, and I would go and get the burgers and the nachos. But it was expensive for the money I was making. English teachers are like working poor here. And there are a couple of places that the foreigners all congregated at with foreign beer. Back then, it was interesting lifestyle. It's so much different now, though, because of Amazon and Rakuten and being able to get... and the opening up of the market, you can get pretty much anything anywhere, all the time, which is great. So you're not limited to where you could live, but it's something you really need to think about.

00:53:40 John Daub: If you ask me, Michael. And you are... you did. Thank you. High on my list would be... I love Aomori, but I don't like the winters. It's too cold. I love Miyazaki because I like Hawaii. I like that weather, you know, Miyazaki has palm trees, has mangoes, you know, it doesn't have a Shinkansen. It doesn't have a train. It's inconvenient. Kagoshima is so nice. I love the people down there. I love the food, the vegetables and the meat. It's so good. Kagoshima, Kyushu. Kumamoto is a beautiful city. I don't know Nagasaki. Nagasaki as well, you know, Kyushu is like calling me. I'm feeling Kyushu. That's why a lot of people are moving to Fukuoka, because it's also an international airport increasingly. So a lot of connections. Big city. You have the Shinkansen, the Tokaido Shinkansen, which is a direct connection to Tokyo. It's a far trip, but you can get the Shimonoseki to the ferry to Korea. It's... food is good. I don't know. It's a hard one.

00:54:43 John Daub: I do not collect... go shooting. It's something to look into though. Ronan. Thanks for that. I don't collect much. I don't like... I have to see... I have a Nebuta festival hat. That's the one that you would have to buy. They're about 15 bucks, I think. I don't really collect a lot of stuff. What do I... I don't collect anything, do I? I got like a drink collection from the vending machines. But I don't really do that anymore because I get no place to put them. I think it's hard to collect anything in Japan because you don't... you have to have a place to put it someplace. So I don't know. Oh. Discord server. Anybody who uses Discord we have was about 18,000 people there. We could use some boosts. Nitro boosts. We have a Nitro boost group for those that do to say thank you and we always appreciate it. We have, I think we're just enough where we have these server tags which are pretty cool. So we have a pretty good community. One of the best on Discord. One of the oldest as well too. Thank you to Katayama getting me to start the Discord so many years ago. But 18... we're working on getting it to 20,000 and we always love any kind of support.

00:55:44 John Daub: So the boosts are very thankful. One... one away from the server tag. Thank you. Peso. Yeah, one away from the server tag would be cool. If anyone's got a boost to spare or two. Yeah. Our moderator. Hello. Hi. 821 also is doing a great job with our Discord and making it a fun and safe place where you can share photos. There's a lot of people traveling around Japan right now. You can write and ask travel advice there and get it pretty good response pretty quick as well.

00:56:48 John Daub: Suica is back. You're welcome. Suica's back. You can get Suica just about anywhere. I don't know. The IC cards is one thing. It seems like it's evolving and it seems the future is that you're just gonna have your credit card and you're just gonna touch with that. So there is... I saw this in the news about a month ago. There's kind of a war going on and JR wants to win this war of the IC cards. They want to win this war. It's like the Betamax, VHS. Like what is going to be the payment system to get around Tokyo or to buy stuff? Is it going to be PayPay, which a lot of Japanese use? And it's a way to get around Visa and MasterCard and the massive fees that they charge. So Japanese have been going to PayPay, and the Japanese government has been actively pushing PayPay. And I need a PayPay account so I can get wires from the government for taxes and other stuff. So PayPay is not going to be the payment system... JR is really investing heavily to get the technology where it's facial recognition based on, you know, Suica accounts, which is connected to a credit card perhaps, or another source or your bank account. So there's a battle now between JR and different groups to be that cashless payment system. And Japan is one of the leaders around the world. So we might see some really amazing things in the next few years with that.

00:58:22 John Daub: Yeah, the problem is some prefectures don't use Suica. It doesn't matter. Suica is accepted everywhere. So the regional cards are just... you buy them regionally, but and you return them regionally. That's also something. So if you buy a Kitaca, which is a regional card, Suica would be Tokyo, and a Kitaca would be JR Hokkaido. If you are finished with that card and you want to return it, you cannot get your 500 yen deposit back unless you go back to Sapporo to do it. But it's only 500 yen. So I have a nice robust collection of these cards, but I do collect. There you go. But usually you would get the card from the area that you live so you can return it. But these days everything is on your smartphone or your smartwatch and more people are just touching their phone and touching their watches because it's easier to charge. It's one less thing to lose. My card has fallen out of my wallet, on my smartphone, in the pocket, like so many times. And I've had to get in at the police station because my name is registered and people return that. It's amazing. Nobody buys anything off of it. I've had it returned like nine times out of 10. I think there's one time I couldn't get it back, but I've gotten my card back. It was just an inconvenience to go and get it, but that was my fault, so I don't mind.

00:59:23 John Daub: Yes, Seth, I'm inside today. I kind of planned it this way, so I can get some work done. Is that like PayPal or Venmo? You mean PayPay? It's a Japanese payment system that uses an account that's online and a QR code that's on your phone and the vendor will put in the amount and then he'd take his camera and scan it using the PayPay and your QR code. And that money would be wirelessly transferred to the vendor. All of the vendors, food truck vendors are using PayPay now, like almost all. Maybe they won't take Visa, MasterCard, but they will take PayPay because the vendor can just use his own smartphone and ding ding. The credit cards require like a square or attachments and stuff. And the fees are too high. They don't want to charge as much. PayPay's fees are much cheaper. So it's... I guess it's like Venmo. Saya would know more. I don't know much about Venmo, but I guess Saya Cyano is better than me. But she's writing in here. It is like Venmo. Thank you.

01:00:30 John Daub: Sigh. Nightbot. Thank you. Actually, I do got a couple of blu rays here. So if you want to get there... there's also on the Only in Japan... what is it? Store.onlyinjapan.tv. There's some new merch from our Kickstarters in the past. There's some fireworks shells, some posters and things like that is available on the Only Japan store. So thanks for that.

01:01:03 John Daub: Oh, this is a good one. Lala Curse Fan 88 writes in here. So just how popular... I don't know how if they're saying it like this. So just how popular and big is Shohei Ohtani in Japan? Is he perhaps the most famous person from Japan now? He's pretty big. He's pretty big. I think especially last year after they won the... did I say almost? I almost said Super Bowl after they won the World Series. My gosh. He's everywhere and rightfully so. He's in Family Mart doing the onigiri right now. He's on the Itoen pet bottle. All the vending machines. I see Oriental Pearl is here. Hey, Alyssa. He's on UFM Mitsubishi bank, which is one of the top three biggest banks in Japan. He's got sponsorship deals everywhere.

01:02:10 John Daub: He's making so much money from that. I... he what he did with his contract to defer like he... he's deferring 99% of it so the Dodgers could use the money to get the talent around him to win World Series, which is amazing. He deferred it all because he doesn't need it. He's getting so much money from Japanese sponsors and in America as well. His face is all over the place. And at first I was getting a little bit sick of it, but then I watched him play and I hear him and he's a really great role model. And like there's so much to love about Shohei Ohtani. So I don't mind it and I'm so happy if he can be even more successful because he seems to do a really good... he seems to have a really good upbringing where he's very responsible with how he uses his money and how he does everything in his life. And I don't know and I'm glad. And I'll answer that question on hitchhiking in a second. But Ohtani and his wife are pretty frugal too.

01:03:13 John Daub: Yeah, she... that's the way you're supposed to live when you're just throwing your money away. It doesn't really make a lot of sense on stuff like... I'm pretty cool with just wearing plain old El Cheapo T-shirts from Uniqlo. I really don't need to have anything expensive anymore. But I like that multi night culture. But I listened to... I mean Ichiro was... and normal would be the godfather of Japanese baseball players. He broke every... he broke in... it was hard to do like the Jackie Robinson and that was a different era. You can't really compare. But in terms of Japanese players, you know, he broke the barrier. I guess you could say that we could have star athletes in Japan and Ichiro changed the perception that like only Japanese pitchers, no, it was Japanese hitters. And he... his Hall of Fame speech last week was so good, it was funny. He did it in English. It was funny. It hit on cultural differences.

01:04:19 John Daub: It hit on things that kids need to follow to be successful in baseball and in life, you have to work hard. The best way to be a good teammate is to be the best person, to be the best player that you can be, to take care of yourself, to have personal responsibility in your life. And it was such a great message. I highly recommend that everybody watch. Even if you don't like baseball, watch Ichiro's speech in English and you get an idea of the Japanese mentality of how they become successful in the United States. And I think Shohei Ohtani is following so much that Ichiro has set up for him. And we can't forget the people come before us, right?

01:04:49 John Daub: Peter's here. Hey Peter. I'm gonna get to that. That's a great question. Walter L. Walters. The last person's question you read their name is LA Lakers fan. Oh, really? The Lakers are pretty big here in Japan too, by the way. I think all the way back to Kobe Bryant, man. And maybe that connection with Kobe, I don't know. Am I gonna hitchhike again? I want to answer this really, quite quickly. I don't know. I'm very tempted to do that, but there's a lot of people who are hitchhiking already right now. Hold on a second. I'm kind of searching for something. I'm going real deep here. Oh, I'm making a mess. I got it. That was not fun. I did keep these. Do you guys remember Hirosaki? Homan is the direction of Hirosaki and Aomori. Japanese language is okay. Nihongo. Okay. Put it with the tape. Because people were hesitant to stop. I don't know why I keep it. I keep it hidden in the back of my... here's the last sign. Wakkanai. The direction of Wakkanai. And so the... these are the... like. I don't know why I still have this stuff, but would... would I do it again? I... it's always an option, but to do it as a trip, I don't know. I was away for 45 days or so. Wasn't it about 45? It was quite a while. The first time, it was about a month. It's hard out there. I don't really need to do it anymore. I did it. I did it this last time to film it and make a documentary on it, and I did. So I don't know if I want to do it again. Maybe it's... I don't know. We could do that. I still have my orange jacket. I wear that every now and then. You'll see. You'll see me pull that out.

01:06:27 John Daub: But I think it's hard for me to recommend hitchhiking because there are risks involved. It's not for everybody, and you have to remember that there are risks involved. But hitchhiking in Japan in general is very safe. You don't... it was hard to do it during the pandemic. Some people were still able to do it. There are some really great people in this world. Some of them Westerners did hitchhiking and they sent me messages with pictures and said, John, I traveled around Japan like you did. This is my ride with... and they made Japanese friends. And this just makes me so happy because that's what I want... I want to see interaction with the Japanese and travelers, tourists. I don't like hearing about the differences and the fighting. I like to hear about how somebody and the great thing about hitchhiking is that the people who do pick you up are the people that want to talk to you and meet you, right? They're willing to make an effort and to introduce their lives.

01:07:30 John Daub: And that's for tourists. I would get picked up and they would say, where are you staying? And I said, well, I'm not sure yet. I have a tent. Oh, you have to stay with me. So you have to make a quick judgment call, like is that safe? Because even if it's Japan and nine times out of 10 is probably okay, maybe 99 out of 100 or 999 out of a thousand, there's always a chance that there could be some danger involved. And but like, I don't know, I was pretty adventurous and I would stay at strangers houses on their floor, on their sofa.

01:08:07 John Daub: But at night we would go out to their izakaya or they would treat me to dinner and in the morning I'd get a shower and then they would drive me before they went to work or something to an area that it was easy to be to hitchhike out of. So I mean I got so many stories like that. It's in the DVD or the Blu Ray, if you're interested in it, I can send it to you. We have about, I don't know, 30 left, but it's an interesting way to get around. But again, there are risks and there are dangers and it's something that you have to, everybody has to think about that, right?

01:09:17 John Daub: Peter Steinkeller, Kellner. I can't wait to come and visit you in Austria. You know, we're going to be back there sometime. You know how like Kanai and I have this amazing affinity for the city in which you live. So Peter, we hope to see you again. Peter's like family too. You feel like family. How well are people with disabilities integrated into Japanese society? Peter, it's a lot better than it was. You know, I can speak about Japan twenty quarter century ago. It's a lot better. I think the Paralympics actually had a lot to do with this. And I had more fun watching the events of the Paralympics than I did the Olympics. So I think a lot of people did in Japan too. And there was a lot more, in particular in the city of Tokyo, a lot more learning and understanding about people with disabilities, about all disabilities, and not just people in wheelchairs, people that are visually impaired, that work on that require tactile pavements.

01:10:21 John Daub: And the great thing following the Paralympics, and this might be the... because the Olympics are kind of a bust, but the Paralympics are really great because inside of Japan we could all learn more about this and the importance of not walking on the tactile pavements, the importance of keeping that clear, of understanding that people do use this, of understanding all the other disabilities that people do have, because you don't get to meet people in society every day like this. But the Paralympics brings people to the front where you get a chance to see them, hear them. And that was really great. And I think around the city we saw massive amounts of money and resources going into renovating the stations, the train stations. Almost all of them in central Tokyo now have an elevator. They didn't before the Olympics. They started to build them around 2017. And I remember Shinozaki, where I used to live, they didn't have an elevator for a long time. And then one day I just saw like this hole in the ground and this construction crew. And three months later there was an elevator. Sometimes I would take that elevator. Didn't get used very often, but that was great because the staff would have to have this like contraption to get people to go down the steps if they were in wheelchairs. And that was really hard for everybody because you have to call the station. So anybody who's visiting with disabilities, Google Maps is great because there's a telephone number for the station master. A lot of them do speak some English, but if you're staying at a hotel, you can ask the hotel front desk to give them a call, give them a heads up that you'll be coming in a wheelchair and you may need assistance. And this... and the staff comes and gives you like VIP treatment.

01:12:05 John Daub: On the one hand you could say, okay, this is, you know, I don't really need this. I want Japan should make it so I could do this myself. But the reality is that it's a really challenging thing to do. But they do it in such a great way. Like you're a VIP and they go out of their way to make sure that it's a smooth transition. And then they'll contact the station and where you're going so someone will meet you and they close the gap between the train and the subway station so you can get off easily and move up to the ground level with very little fuss. But the staff also does this in particular during really crowded times because I love talking about this topic because it's so crowded.

01:12:39 John Daub: They also want the people that are walking to have a smooth transition so nobody is bothered by that because people are going at different paces. Also, the station master can also make sure that people are not using the elevator because there's sometimes a queue of elevators at busy times. They should walk. All right. The elevators are for pregnant women, for the elderly, senior citizens, people with disabilities. That's what the elevators are really for. They can be used, of course, when that's not... when none of those people are there. But sometimes it gets abused on the train sitting in those special areas as well. It can get abused. People using their smartphones in places that you're not supposed to use your smartphone. Japanese are guilty of that more so than the foreigners are. But I think that this is a great topic maybe to do on this. What situation should I expect as a traveler with disabilities? I can't see the full message there, Peter. And of course I can talk about this tomorrow in our Patreon live Q&A. We're going to do something similar to this. I think that maybe this is a good topic to do a full episode on, Peter. And like, I would like to be in a wheelchair for a day and I think other YouTubers have done something like this and just to see how challenging it is to get around and learn firsthand how this works. But also talk with the station, talk with hotels, talk with police about the safety issues, if there are any, and get a whole story on it.

01:14:54 John Daub: Because I know there was a girl who... I don't... she wasn't really honest with me with a lot of stuff and I can't falter too much. Gretchen was her name during the pandemic a little bit before that. She wanted one of her dreams was to come to Japan. She... it would have been really hard. I think she was confined to a bed and she was... we brought her in a livestream. She was a big fan of the show. She got me thinking about like, boy, I think it'd be really hard for her to get around. But would that even be possible? So I was able to look into that and research a little bit. And there are situations where people have done. But it's expensive, but it's definitely possible. And this would be a good topic to talk about more. I really appreciate it, Peter.

01:15:29 John Daub: Gosh, I could talk about this for a lot longer. I should... non physical disabilities are now more acknowledged as well. Look. Oh gosh, this is a heartbreaking topic before I leave here because I gotta get back to editing. This video should be released really soon. And when we're talking about disabilities, I'm actually... I might have a little bit of time. I might insert this in. But Yoko Yamasan, who's one of the hibakusha that I interviewed, she... one of the... she's vice president of the association that won the Nobel Peace Prize last year. One of the things that she said was that people were discriminated against awfully. After the atomic bomb occurred, the Hiroshima and Nagasaki people, it was hard to get married because Japanese were fearful that if you married somebody from Nagasaki, they might have birth defects, they might have other leukemia, higher risks of cancer, things like this. So they were discriminated against with that. Marriage discrimination, work discrimination. It was really hard to get a job between 1945 and 1995. That's a long... that's generations. So people live with this stigma for a very long time. And it was a kind of a handicap that you can't see.

01:17:27 John Daub: Following the atomic bombing, I learned... and this is just a heartbreaking topic. It's so important to discuss this now. If you didn't have like physical burns or bleeding, it was hard for the rescue workers to say you were in need enough to have medical attention. Although the radiation was burning you on the inside. You know, people died from the stuff burned on the inside without having burns on the outside. So there's so many things that we see... you can't see disabilities sometimes. Right. I learned this so much at making this episode and it really. The stories really hit home.

01:17:57 John Daub: And Ujihara-san, who is on the thumbnail here, he's 95 years old. He was 15 at the time. That's the picture of him in the thumbnail. He's 15 at the time. Mobilized student. All the adults were also in war. He was mobilized to work at Isahaya's train station. He's like a little adult here, right. This is just that this picture is just a couple of months before the Atomic bombing. Imagine a 15 year old having to go with this. And he's at the train station and they have something in Nagasaki that YouTube has not even made an episode on called the rescue trains. Four trains left Nagasaki with the first train has 700 victims was sent to Isahaya station where a 15 year old Ujihara-san was tasked to take the people off of these freight cars with skin split, sagging, with deformities that you know they're not going to make it. And this 15 year old kid is tasked with this and by hand, by helping people. He ended up having issues inside. He's lived a very long life. But his son died at 7 of leukemia. So like he passed it on. His other children were fine. But it's just really hard. The doctors say very strongly it's because of that day. There's a lot of stuff that you can't see.

01:19:00 John Daub: I put them on the thumbnail because it's... it's... I think the one thing that hibakusha could not do in the first 40 years was tell their story. You couldn't admit it because of those discriminations, because of the things. I hope I can portray this correctly in this episode. For 40 years or more, you couldn't say that you were a survivor without having some sort of prejudice from people in Japan. Meaning you are genetically deformed. Right. That's the one thing I think people, when you talk about this, you don't talk about it. So yeah, it's a tough... it's tough. This is why the episode's taking me a long time. It's a tough one. So this will release probably tomorrow. I don't know if I'm gonna be able to finish it today.

01:20:02 John Daub: Look what you did, Peter. I'll get through it. When you make an episode, you kind of live through them, you know. And I think that's the emotion you have to put into it. You have to be up, you have to get into it. And I spent a lot of time with these people. So, yeah, never again. It stuff is real. It's not just the bomb and getting destroyed. It's the stuff that happens after. I just... just... an atomic bomb is not as big. The Nagasaki bomb was 40 times bigger than the Hiroshima one. Just think about that, all right? And the mountains kept it from getting out more and made the explosion reverberate back in. So it was even more destructive than Hiroshima in many ways. And both of them were awful. And it was the stories, you know, that day, if you survived, you really survived the day, but you ended up suffering... it would have been... and this is, I don't know if I can say this.

01:21:04 John Daub: I think the episode can say it's better if they tell you, but for many of them, a lot of people ended up, you know, it would have been better to not have made it through that day because of the suffering that happened for years and decades after not getting, not having, not being recognized as having a medical condition. So health insurance wouldn't cover stuff. I think about, think about it. I don't know. Japan's a tough place. And I asked, I said, like, if you want to live here, there's the good and the bad. You're not going to agree with everything. The policies are sometimes backwards. Doesn't make a lot of sense. And it's not just Japan. A lot of countries are like that. You really, really have to think about stuff, that it's not going to go the way that you want it to all the time. And when you live here and it doesn't go your way, you start to think this system sucks. It's very easy. And then people, that's why they leave and they go back and say, you know, I can understand the American system better. It's true when you do live abroad, you start to appreciate what you do back home. But I found a way to integrate myself by learning the language and the culture. And I've been able to make a life here. And I probably would have had a good time no matter where I lived. You know, I think I would have been fine, but I'm glad I'm here. It was destiny, Peter.

01:22:50 John Daub: As soon as I make it back to Japan, I'm also visiting Nagasaki not just for the Atomic Bomb memorial, the memorial for 26 martyrs. Absolutely. You know, I... Nagasaki was a weird one. Because most of Nagasaki was Christian, right? So you had the Urakami Cathedral. You had people who were more... this is like Japan's international port of call. So I don't know. I think that this is such a tough decision. Kokura was the primary target and Nagasaki was the secondary one. So this was, Kokura was spared a lot, but it... Nagasaki, it's in many ways it was worse than Hiroshima in so many ways. And in many ways it was better in the sense, like because of the geography, it kept a lot of it from getting out and impacting a wider area. So the studying both of them was such a good thing. This episode's going to be a really hard one to make. It was a hard one to make. It's going to be a hard one to release and then see the comments. But I appreciate all you guys support. I live through all the episodes that I make on the main channel and they don't come out so often all the time, but when they do come out, I want it to make an impact. So I hope this one does. I made one on Hiroshima, two of them. And it was my community, the Only Different community that said to me, like, what about Nagasaki? What about Nagasaki? What about Nagasaki? And I said, you're right. And I spent time there and I get to meet the people there and I talk with the NPO that won the Nobel Prize and they're very open to work with me. And you know, I'm a YouTuber. Who the heck am I? And for them to say, okay, you can, we're going to share stories with you for an hour and or more.

01:24:36 John Daub: You know, I was at Ujihara-san's house for three hours. I said I was going to be there for an hour. And he sent me, I want to show you guys, give a second here. I want to show you like how nice he is. He's 95. All right, I'm gonna send you show you. He's 95 years old, he's a beekeeper. And he sent me, he sent me this that he made out of wood. You know, he's made it in his 90s, which is crazy. And it's signed by him on the side. I keep it on in the other room. Really amazing, right? He said this to me, Takkyubin afterwards, because I give him my business card and then he makes these out of, I believe it's bamboo. These are shoehorns. It's got his name on it right there. So he likes to stay busy and handicraft stuff. But he sent this to me, so I sent him a thank you note with pictures of us and kept in touch. And I don't... I hope this does him justice, this episode. But I promised that one day I was going to bring my son, bring Leo and Kanai, and we were going to go stay with him and spend some time. He lives in a beautiful place in the countryside of Nagasaki.

01:26:21 John Daub: But when I do these episodes on YouTube, I want to show you a local point of view. And in order to get an authentic voice, you have to spend time with people and get to know them. And I was going to be there for an hour. I ended up being there for three. I almost missed the sunset. I was kind of speeding a little bit to get back to Nagasaki in time for the sunset. I would have stayed longer if not and stayed for dinner. But you make connections with people and this is such a wonderful episode. But that's him. 15 year old boy tell. And now a 95 year old man telling the story after living his life on what it was like, you know, with hidden disabilities and what the life was like for this and Yoko Yamasan, whose interview was just as impactful. I wish I could have talked with more people, to be honest with you, but everybody's really old. Some of the people that I wanted to talk to, they weren't answering their telephone. They weren't answering their telephones. It was hard. But this episode will be coming by Tom, by tomorrow night on Sunday. So if you guys watch it, if you do see it in your feed, please watch it. And I hope it makes an impact on you and it's something that you share and I hope it's one of the definitive videos on Nagasaki and for people to understand what happened on that day. Yeah, it's a good piece. All right, that's all I got for you.

01:27:58 John Daub: This is a great experience. I like to do these Q&As. Sometimes we get a little off target here, but yes. Subtitlers, get ready. Yeah, it's a long one, but Peter, I appreciate that. Thanks very much. And I might, we might see you, Peter, in Vienna before you see us. So we'll see. We were thinking about going there for the Christmas market, but if you have any questions, you can leave. I'll do another one of these. I usually do one a month. Leave me your comments below and maybe I'll copy paste it like I get with other questions like how do you dress for October? Or you know, cyclone. I thought cyclones were the Brits term for hurricanes. No, it's... cyclones originate in the Indian Ocean mostly. Pacific Ocean for the typhoons and the Atlantic Ocean for hurricanes. I guess hurricane can go across Mexico and go into the Pacific, I've heard. So I don't know, there's some gray area perhaps.

01:29:07 John Daub: This one was kind of funny. August is still bloody hot. I will never forget it in August in Tokyo. I am not sure if it was anxiety or heat. I had to go to Tokyo to ask my future father-in-law for her daughter and naturally he chased me around. So we get all sorts of really cool questions. A lot of the people who are watching and this is the best thing. We have viewers so many of them that have a connection with Japan maybe going back to like the '60s, '70s and '80s with some of the most amazing old stories. Dale who lives in Alaska has so many of these as well. And he's always writing to Peter and myself. He's also a Patreon supporter. We've gotten to know over the years so many amazing little tidbits of information or stories or things that have changed that you notice that we don't. So I appreciate all the comments. I read as many of them as I possibly can. But if you ask a question, the algorithm usually will pick that up in the comments if you ask a direct question. And I can see just questions if you lead off with that. And that's also really good here.

01:30:12 John Daub: Chased you, right? I mean it's like I can see that actually happening. As somebody who's married to somebody. I had to have dinner. In fact, maybe my wife and I will sit down and I'll talk about the day that her father took me out to dinner. I'm not gonna say no. And he said so like when are you gonna pop the question? Because she's waiting. And I'm like oh crap. Yeah, yeah, it's a good one. Thanks dad. I paid for that dinner, by the way. He tried. I don't actually remember he tried. I don't know if I relented. But very, very rarely do I let him pay. Although he tries. But that was funny and in the end I did. So there you go. You all know the story sort of. Maybe you should hear it from her. Be more fun.

01:31:15 John Daub: All right guys, take care. If you have any questions, leave them in the comments below. Carrie, I'd love to hang out with you sooner than later. It's been way too long and as soon as this Nagasaki video gets uploaded, I'm gonna definitely need a coffee and be great to catch up with with you as well as some other friends. It's been too long, including Peter, who should be getting off of work real soon. Take care. Thanks for hanging out with me for an hour and a half. I'll see you in another livestream tomorrow as I hopefully this weather is really beautiful. Oh, she said let's do it. Awesome. Until then, Matane. Thanks guys. See you then.