Japan's Heavy Rains, Floods & Manhole Explosions Causing Havoc

00:00:01 John Daub: Greetings. Welcome to the city of Tokyo, which is under attack by the weather. We don't have just earthquakes and volcano warnings, and we also have typhoons, but this isn't it. This is actually just rain. And for the last week or so, maybe even a little bit longer than that, a great portion of Japan has been under heavy rain, super heavy rains. It's very unusual. I did a little bit of research and digging.

00:00:32 John Daub: What the heck is going on Tokyo today. If you're a tourist in Japan, probably not the greatest time to be here. Not just because of the heat, which we don't actually have today, but we have this rain. We had it yesterday. We had it today in Tokyo. High winds today. As you can see, my hat blowing around. Maybe one reason why I have the hat is for impact and also to keep the rain out of my face here.

00:01:02 John Daub: But there's something going on. And, like, I'm not gonna say, let's take a look at what's going on here. So right now we have. In the Kirishima area in Kyushu, we've been having massive amounts of rainfall. If you look at that deep red, we're getting into, like, the white and the purple. I think there might even be some inside there. This is rain that is just. It's not just raining. It is, in a very short amount of time, dumping a huge amount of rain in certain areas, like local areas.

00:01:39 John Daub: It would. It's not just over the entire region. It's just like, all right, I'm in. I'm now in Yokohama. Let's just dump one meter of rain. Boom. And then this creates a lot of havoc. I'm going to talk about Kirishima and Chikoku. Kirishima is in Kyushu. A lot of volcanoes over there, by the way. It's a beautiful area. Maybe some of the best foods. But these videos have been making the rounds on the Internet over the last 24 hours.

00:02:11 John Daub: Here. I want to go over this. This is in, I believe, in Yokohama. This is a manhole cover that exploded because of the hammer effect. Meaning, like, just some air. The water was going down. More water was going into the system that it could handle. And then an air bubble comes, and then poof. Watch this. This is in Yokohama. I. And I think this was yesterday. That is scary. It wasn't just one manhole cover.

00:02:42 John Daub: It was more. And this intersection is getting a lot of attention. There are a lot of people that were recording this because it had already started to bubble up and spurt out of the manhole. And then the manhole exploded. A lot of people got this on a video. You can see this is Tokyo. You're gonna see Harajuku Station and you're going to see some scenes from. This is the Meguro River. Okay. In Tokyo.

00:03:12 John Daub: Crazy, right? You're gonna see Harajuku Station as well. Meguro river we're seeing. It's even worse. This is Harajuku Station. It's even worse in Kyushu and Shikoku. Shikoku had in like one day three meters of rain or something, which is just crazy. They're reporting 3 meters of rain in Shikoku. Like being dumped on it. That's just a lot of rain to be in such a short amount of time. No system can handle it.

00:03:43 John Daub: It's creating landslides. It's creating lots of issues. Landslides is a serious thing. We've got flash floods as well. I want you to take a look at a live view of the river upon which I live around. This is the Sumida River. It is quite high. I'm often over there in the corner eating a bento. It's a beautiful place. The river is a little bit higher. Nothing unusual. Seems like Tokyo's system, which is made for heavy rains and typhoons, is handling this well.

00:04:18 John Daub: But there are a lot of other systems that are older and not as modern and they're not going to do too well. This is what the weather looks like right now. So you can see like what's going on here. I was noticing like there's this red area that's circled around Kyushu. It's just getting a bunch of extreme weather. Look at that. It's all crossing through Nagasaki right now. The rainy season was non existent this year.

00:04:50 John Daub: Yeah. And this is causing a lot of problems. So I mean, just to sum up here, let me get through all of this here. I'll take some questions in a second. The line of rain is extending all the way from the Sea of Japan on the west side and then moving east towards Tokyo. Dumping stuff. Hokkaido's not getting much of anything. So that's probably the place to be right now. If we take a look at the reasons why all of this stuff is happening here.

00:05:24 John Daub: Let's just break down the last three months. The rainy season ended early. Summer rains. Rain less than usual. All right. Like the rainy season ended at the end of June, which is when it's supposed to start to really pick up. It was about like a. Like 10 days of rain. It was crazy. July when I wasn't here had extreme amount of heat. It was extraordinarily hot, like 100 degrees in a lot of places, which is not so typical.

00:05:55 John Daub: Combined with the humidity in the air, it's just way too much. We had it in early August and then now we're having a little bit cooler weather because of the winds and the rains. But now there's a sudden record breaking August rains in southern Kyushu. Severe flooding. We're seeing more rains in even the Kanto region than normal. This is a time of year where we wouldn't be getting much rain at all.

00:06:25 John Daub: It's supposed to be more sunny than not, but the last couple of days have been an anomaly. I found this. Okay, so this comes from the Japan Meteorological association, JMA. So it's a pretty good, pretty reliable source. And this comes from March of this year. I didn't realize this. So the average, the annual average sea surface temperature around Japan has risen by 1.3 Celsius over the last hundred years.

00:06:56 John Daub: That doesn't seem like a lot. That's about 3 degrees Fahrenheit or something like that. But it's also, let me put it like this. It's raising a lot of questions and concerns about the impact of that. You can see the temperature rise, the temperature rising over Japan off of the coast. The Sea of Japan between Korea and Japan the storms are coming from is just raising a lot of questions here. Something to consider.

00:07:27 John Daub: Aloha, my brother. Crazy weather there. Just looking at it, making me crave snacks. Michael. You can count on Michael Sassano to keep me fully full here. Down here in my gut. Thank you, Michael. Mahalo. Look, I don't know how you prepare for this as a tourist. There's my umbrella. I can't even get the umbrella out. You want to know why? It just blows away. This is the kind of weather where you need like one of these titanium steel umbrellas that doesn't blow away.

00:08:02 John Daub: I don't even know they exist. They're made from like, like golf club, recycled golf club poles, golf club sticks. Probably makes a lot of sense to do something like that. I don't know what they do with the graphite or the titanium for those golf clubs, but that would be a pretty good idea. There's not a lot that you could do as a tourist to prepare for this. We know that June 10th to July 20th is usually the rainy season.

00:08:34 John Daub: They said a meteorologist from a very reputable school in Nagoya professor there said that the age of Hokkaido not having a monsoon or rainy season is over. The monsoon has now gone north and it looks like Hokkaido is going to get more, and Tohoku will get the rainy season, and Kanto will be dry. And if that happens, that's gonna be really bad for Tokyo, I'll tell you that. But over the last two years, we've seen a difference in how the monsoons are dumping into Japan.

00:09:11 John Daub: It just ended too quickly this year. It ended quickly last year. What this does. And you can see there's, like, blue sky, which is just weird. So we get, like, some sun, and then it goes away, and then the rain comes. Right now, it is raining, as you can see from my shirt now, these hot summers are doing something with the autumn that I noticed about three years ago. And two years ago, I noticed that when I went to film at Yamadera in Yamagata Prefecture, which typically has mild summers.

00:09:47 John Daub: I mean, the sunshine and humidity is not as high. The trees are less stressed. And that's why Tohoku and Hokkaido have more vibrant autumns. Like the autumn colors in Tohoku are so vibrant because the summers are more. They don't stress the trees out. So the colors are more. Are better. But over the last three years, we've noticed that the autumn foliage in Tohoku has not been as colorful. It's burnt.

00:10:18 John Daub: The reds, the yellows, the oranges are more burned out. So they're not like fireworks. They don't pop like they did. I remember I have pictures going back from, like, 2004, five, six, all the way back to 1998 when I came here. And autumn here was stunning. And it's still beautiful, but it just doesn't pop like it did. I thought maybe it's my camera sensor, but I said, well, camera sensors have gotten better since 1998, when we only had film, but we had digital cameras in 98, they just weren't very good.

00:10:56 John Daub: But those pictures look more vibrant than the ones that we have today. So it's just. It's creating a ripple effect, and it's going to impact tourism in ways that we probably can't see one. How do you prepare for this? This is supposed to be the hot season where you have tank tops and it's kind of gets a little chilly today. I mean, I could have my window open if it didn't mean blowing everything off of my desk and all around the house.

00:11:29 John Daub: You can't even put your laundry out on a day like this. Some people who do. You're going to see it flying in the sky. A futon flying from one house to the next, which has happened before. My balcony, tomato plants in Tokyo are suffering rates in Martian sunset. I know. I got a lot of friends that grow tomatoes, that grow like cilantro, that grow things on their balcony. Not this year. I have a friend who has Goya, a friend who has Nasu eggplant if they're not doing very well.

00:12:05 John Daub: So. All right, I'll take some questions here before we end this live stream. I think it is something that I'm gonna be looking at over the next couple of weeks to see how the weather changes and what impact it has on tourism. How do we prepare for this? If my hat does blow away? I don't think it will. The strings pretty good. We'll see what happens. It'll be. We got it. We'll have it on film, that's for sure.

00:12:36 John Daub: Saw futon flying before. I have as well. I've seen futons flying, flying away as well over the course of my 20 something years here, which is not fun. I feel bad when a futon is stuck on somebody else's roof. Obon is going to be really tough. A lot of the places are continuing to do the festivals or delaying it. From what I hear, this stuff is going on this week. So if you're here in Japan for the festivals, for the bon odori or the bon rituals, it's gonna be really hard to do outside.

00:13:13 John Daub: Typically they have it this time of year because, again, we don't get a lot of rain. They're not rained out. People will still go out and do the bon odori even in the rain. The drum that goes, you know, when the people dance around, it's usually covered, so they can continue to keep it going even in the rain. I mean, these dates are locked in stone in many ways. The 13th, 14th and 15th and 16th. 16th is when they burn the fire in the hillside in Kyoto, the big dye on the side there.

00:13:49 John Daub: But it's not so humid because the wind and the rain is keeping the skin really cool. Not a bad thing. But again, a lot of rain. A lot of rain. And if you look at. Look at these videos that have been coming out, it's just scary to see what happened in Yokohama yesterday. And the system here is not handling this well. And Tokyo's fine. We've updated the system, especially in Shibuya. This amount of dumped rain in Shibuya would cause a lot of havoc.

00:14:23 John Daub: Shibuya is fine. And because it's in a valley, Shibuya is Buya means valley. Shibuya would have a lot of issues. But they've updated that since 2016. And now I believe they finished it. Where they have a lot of rain storage corridors so that the water can. Can fill up but not create havoc. So a big typhoon can dump a lot of water. Shibuya can handle that. Harajuku Station and the Meguro river, which is right here, cannot.

00:14:55 John Daub: That's Harajuku Station yesterday. It's crazy. I didn't. I was at Tokyo Station yesterday. We saw the rain coming in there. That's Yokohama. That's what happened in an intersection. It's scary. And it wasn't just one manhole cover. I think two of them exploded. Another one exploded four weeks ago. It's crazy. So this happens. It's called the hammer effect where the water is just too high and then a little bit of air goes in and then the.

00:15:28 John Daub: The water goes high again and it pushes it up and then explodes out because it's on a slope going down. Doing a little research into this. Like why that was Harajuku before this manhole explosion was. That's Yokohama. And you'll see the Meguro river in Tokyo. And you'll see Harajuku Station flooding. So this is yesterday. This stuff is getting a lot of play on the news as well. You might see it on NHK World.

00:15:59 John Daub: You might see this on some of the other clips that the news agents use. Are now a lot of news agencies in Japan are running this stuff in English using AI narrators, which is something that me and Peter have discussed. A lot of voice artists in Japan. English voice artists are getting the ax because Japanese TV networks are using AI narrators. You can tell they have zero personality. But it's hard to tell in NHK World because a lot of people don't have any personalities at all on NHK World.

00:16:36 John Daub: It's kind of supposed to be like that. An even flow. No laughing. If you do that could be seen as insensitive. No criticism. You can't criticize NHK World reporters there. Yeah. So there's a lot of stuff going on here in Japan. The rains right now, as I showed you before coming in the Sea of Japan is. What is it like 0.5 degrees Celsius warmer than usual? So it's. They say when a. What does this actually do?

00:17:07 John Daub: I mean, I'm not gonna dramatize this for you, but when a low pressure system comes in and this is what this is. The low pressure systems are more intense and they. And then some of them will just sit there. So it's like. It's worse than a typhoon in the sense that the typhoon will move out quickly. It comes in, dumps a lot of rain, moves out quickly. This is just coming in and sitting there and it's dumping a crapload of rain and the system can't handle it.

00:17:42 John Daub: In Kyushu and in Shikoku. Shikoku's getting more rain than Kyushu. From what I've heard the reports, Kochi is like the rain capital of Japan. It's a beautiful thing. But what it does is it creates landslides. And that means that if you're on a city or you're near a hill, there's a high possibility of the ground giving way and all of that mud comes crashing down into the town or the city below. Nagasaki right now is getting hammered as well as Kumamoto.

00:18:16 John Daub: And you're seeing flooding. 350,000 people have been asked to evacuate or on high warnings. That's a number I'm gonna have to check. But I did see the number. 350,000 people that are impacted by this. That's a lot of people. It's a lot of. A lot of people. I don't know. It seems like we're in. The AI narration is pretty annoying. Even on my main channel, on YouTube, they say to keep it on there.

00:18:46 John Daub: But I know I. I have a German viewer who's. Who's extraordinarily annoyed by it. And I don't blame her. I don't blame her. I'm kind of on her side. But at the same time. Whoa. At the same time. Oh, I brought some. I brought some recycling to take with me, but they blew away despite being in a heavy bag. Holy smokes. The wind is real, folks. The wind is. The wind is pretty real. This is not a typhoon.

00:19:17 John Daub: You can see there's like blue sky over there. So I'm hoping. Hoping things get a little bit better later on today. I actually had a lot of stuff I had to do outside, but it's Monday. Gotta get back to work. We had a bomb cyclone hit the eastern seaboard of Australia a few weeks ago. Lots of rain. I think when. When it comes like this and it. Rain is not a problem. Japan is set up for that, typhoons and stuff.

00:19:47 John Daub: But when it dumps this amount of rain, it. I don't think the systems just are. Are able to handle that. A lot of them need to be redone. Tokyo's has been before the Olympics. It's in a lot better shape. But despite that, there's some stations like Harajuku, which are older. They're gonna be. They're going to be more problems in there. So there's some areas of Tokyo that are older that are gonna have some issues with this, and some areas that are gonna be just fine.

00:20:23 John Daub: Wind is getting really strong out here. I already. My umbrella, it turned inside out once, and I put it away. It was basically useless. John, do you feel this summer has been hotter than the past? I wasn't here for July. I can't really comment on that. It feels like average, actually a little bit hotter. But over the last three years, like, I can't say for sure. I can tell you that it's. It's been super hot, like 36 degrees and humid over the 25.

00:20:56 John Daub: 26 years. I think it's 27 now. 27 years that I've been here. All right. I can't tell much of a difference. I think the media might be playing up, like a 1 degree difference a little bit. I feel like that. But I can't feel that it is any hotter. But I know that throughout all the years that I lived here, it's always been excessively hot in August and late September, late July, always. It's always been heat stroke.

00:21:27 John Daub: There's always been super humidity and a lot of sun. It's always been baking in August. I think we're seeing it more in the media because more tourists are coming here. Back then, nobody focused on Japan in 1998. When I was here, nobody focused on Japan in 2004. Nobody focused on Japan in 2008 and 2012. Except for what happened up in Fukushima, nobody focused on Japan even in 2015, 2016. It wasn't until 2018 that everybody started to focus on Japan.

00:22:01 John Daub: And I think it just becomes, because of tourism, a lot of people are coming here from the West. And now we're talking a little bit about, boy, it's really hot in Japan. I know that. I was telling you the Olympic. The organizers in 2018. You guys are making a huge mistake. This is a disaster. You're gonna hold the Olympics in August in Tokyo? Are you crazy? And hey, you know what? Nobody really came anyways, so it didn't really matter.

00:22:34 John Daub: They moved the marathon from Tokyo to Sapporo. What the heck? Just have the Olympics in September, just move it a month later, you know, to give you more time to plan, then you can have the marathon in Tokyo. But they held the marathon in Sapporo because it's just too hot in Tokyo. So this isn't an issue that's been going. This is an issue that is not really surprising to me. But for a lot of people in Japan, when they see Japan hit 38 degrees, yeah, they're breaking some records, but it's like you can't really tell the difference.

00:23:15 John Daub: It's like a minus, like minus 5 degrees Celsius and minus 10 degrees Celsius. All of it just hurts. I can't tell the difference in the temperature so much in Tokyo. I just know it's hot. It just feels hot. All right, that's a long term perspective. I think the media probably overblowing this a little bit, not liking this hat. Well, Christian, nothing I can do about it because I'm not taking it off.

00:23:45 John Daub: It keeps the sun off my face because I've been getting burned a lot this summer and it's the only thing I have that doesn't blow away. See, Christian, you're very controversial now. You don't go on a public stream and start telling people what you hate. Nobody cares. Nobody cares what you hate. Nobody wants to hear it. We hear too much of that. They don't even. I think most people don't even want to hear what you like.

00:24:17 John Daub: I'm teasing you a little bit, Christian. All right. I remember Tokyo 2005 was the hottest year on record. It's been beaten, I believe, since then. Yeah. But you know, if I look back at it, maybe it feels hotter. Back then because I didn't use air conditioning as much because I had very little money. I'm not rich now either, but I have very little money. I was an English teacher. Even when it's baking hot, you didn't turn the air conditioning on because you'd have to pay an extra 150, $200 for that.

00:24:55 John Daub: It's like a real luxury 20 years ago. So I survived by using a fan or walking. When I lived in Futako, Tamagawa, you used to walk across the street to the Mitsukoshi department store there. And I would just hang out there. I used to. My toilet was. And bath was so small, in order to sit down and do a number two. I'm sorry, for those that are eating, I'd have to put my feet in the bathtub because it was all like.

00:25:26 John Daub: I don't know what the engineers were thinking. I'd have to put. Typically I put both in there, but I would definitely have to put one or else my feet would get cramped. Unless you're really quick. And I don't know too many people that are like in and out with a. You know. You know what I mean? So I would go across the street to the modern toilets of Mitsukoshi Department Store. And they know. They know me.

00:25:57 John Daub: They'd say, hi. If you have a good relationship with working people, people that are there every day, they don't mind. They know I had a good working relationship with the people at Mr. Donuts. With the people at Mitsukoshi Department Store. At the supermarket in the basement. They knew what I was buying. They knew I was getting unagi or they knew I was getting some. Some fruit.

00:26:27 John Daub: They'd tell me what the sales were. I would talk with everybody all the time. You have good relationship with people. Your life is so much better if you're. You know. And that even meant using the toilet at Takoshi Department Store at Futako, Tamagawa. Yeah. I didn't want to use my own, even though the rent was real high. Buy some sunscreen. Yeah. Thanks a lot, Katayama. I'll put it on. I. I would have shaved this morning, but I told Kanai to.

00:27:00 John Daub: I was saving all the disposable razors for Moenai Gomen. She threw it away in the wrong trash along with the handle. So I can't shave. I gotta go get a razor. So I was mildly not happy. I was like, why would you throw the handle away? No, I can't shave this morning. She goes, oh, sorry. I said, well, you should know that you have one for you as well. She goes, oh, yeah, right. I think she's just upset.

00:27:32 John Daub: Like, why are you accumulating all these used razors? I'm like, well, I'm waiting to get enough to make it worthwhile to throw in non burnable garbage. But she threw it away in the burnable garbage. And I got upset. I said, in Japan you can't do that. It's weird that it's coming from me, the foreigner. Which is true, but I guess she didn't know. I don't know. I am religious about my trash sorting.

00:28:02 John Daub: I'm upset with my neighbors because they don't do the cardboard properly. They don't break down the cardboard box and bundle it up like they used to 20 years ago. There's some young people in my apartment complex that aren't very good at that. They throw the pet bottles in the glass. And I mean, I don't want to be a Karen about it, but like, if I had free time, I might stand by there and help them remember the right way to do it.

00:28:35 John Daub: Like that cart guy. You guys see the cart guy on that YouTuber? Or the Twitch streamer called Asmongold? He had this a couple days ago. It just popped up in my feed. This guy from goes around Costco and BJ's and he. And he polices the shopping carts as you go around policing the recycle containers around Tokyo. It's kind of funny. I'm not planning to grow beard. I'm just trying to make do without a razor until I can get a new one.

00:29:08 John Daub: Yeah. It's amazing to see the success of Asmongold. He's been doing the legal mindset. We're connected with the Johnny Somali thing and legal mindset's been getting mentioned. There's a lot of stuff with streaming here in Japan. There's a lot of information. Yeah, Cart narcs. That's the one. That's the one. It's like some of the ideas coming from YouTubers are fascinating right now. I would never have thought about that.

00:29:39 John Daub: But how it could be so interesting how people just don't put their shopping carts away, how they could cause damage to your car. Steve Wenzel's here. Happy to catch another live stream update. Thanks for the amazing Nagasaki video. One for the history books for sure. Thank you, Steve, for that. Yeah, I think this is a video that's gonna be really relevant for a long period of time. It's not just about the 80th anniversary.

00:30:11 John Daub: Most of the news stories are about like the right now. This is more about. For me, 80 years marks a time like a point now where we can't go back. This is where like you were under the age of 20 when this happened. Right. So all the firsthand accounts are people that were under the age of 20 or they're in. Which means like you're in your 90s if you were 15, so I interviewed. Or if you're in your 90s if you were 10.

00:30:43 John Daub: And you're not going to remember stuff so well when you're 10. So I remember I. When I filmed this, I got. The organization recommended I talk with Ujihara-san, who's 95 with an amazing memory. And he was 15 at the time, a mobilized student. Great interview, great man. He shared a lot of information and he remembered it like it was yesterday. He hasn't been in the news or done interviews before. So this is a recent thing where he decided he had to talk about it, which is great.

00:31:19 John Daub: I'd like to see him again and go with Leo and Kanai. I said, I'd love to bring my family to meet you, Ujihara-san. And he said, please do. And his daughter was there. So nice. It's a beautiful area of Nagasaki as well that he lives in now. And Isahaya. So I'll probably go back and visit him with Leo and Kanai. He's 95 now. I think he was 94 at the time. But his birthday came between the time I filmed him and the time that we aired it.

00:31:52 John Daub: So, yeah, I'd love to go. He's like woodworking. He's a beekeeper. He's a farmer. He does everything. He stays busy. Man, 95, he can run. He walks faster than I did. We went outside, walked around his house where he showed me where B29 had crashed after the war, in the relief efforts. B29 crashed and he's showing me where the plane went. And I was fascinated by that story. It was irrelevant to this story, but maybe for another one.

00:32:25 John Daub: But he was showing me this stuff. We went outside. He's. I turned and looked left. He's already down the street. I said, well, this is not the typical 95 year old guy. This is Ujihara-san. He's got some jeans that are. That Sweeney lady doesn't have jeans like this guy. All right. He got some nice jeans. Forgive me. Forgive me. All right. Are you going back to Tokyo soon? I don't know what that means.

00:32:55 John Daub: This is Tokyo. That's Tokyo. Skytree. Not sure if that was directed to me. All right. I don't see a lot of questions here. If you do have some, please. Bet they aren't American Eagles, though. I don't think so. They stretch. I like American Eagle jeans, actually. I got no problem with that ad, though. Swinging a miss. Hey, Walter, it depends how you lean politically. And nobody really cares. Ads are pretty edgy these days, no matter what side of the political spectrum you are on.

00:33:31 John Daub: So I would not expect anything less. Skytree. Actually, it's not that bad. When I got here, you couldn't even see the. The Skytree. Now look at. Looks like it's sunny over there. The heat's coming back in just a couple of minutes. This is how. This is just. It's kind of unusual. I can't even hold the gimbal straight. Yeah, I've had. Actually, I only have American Eagle jeans because they were so comfortable.

00:34:02 John Daub: They're the only ones that I'd bought for a long, long time. I never was able to wear jeans that well. American Eagle ones seemed like they were the best, so I always got their denim. But now I don't even. I don't even wear jeans that much. I just wear shorts and hiking pants. I'm like a gym teacher. I don't have to dress up. I don't have to wear suits. I think after the pandemic, I just sort of gave up with fashion.

00:34:33 John Daub: Maybe I'll get back into wearing jeans and nice stuff again, like sweaters and things. I just stopped caring during because the pandemic. We were all trapped inside. I'm like, yeah, I don't need to wear these jeans. Let's just go with those hiking pants that are so comfortable. Jeffrey Kennedy, 60 months, buddy. Thank you. I have a question. I found out some countryside bus. Bus stops only have the stops on one side of the road.

00:35:06 John Daub: Which side of the road do you stand on if you want to go to the other side? Why'd the chicken cross the road? I don't know. Do what the locals do. If you're not sure, you can wave the bus driver down. I think a lot of people understand that usually there's not a trap. A lot of traffic. If you've got questions about it, you can wave them down. But if you cannot speak Japanese, I do not recommend. Or you're not with the Japanese that can speak Japanese or someone who can.

00:35:41 John Daub: I do not recommend local buses. Rent a car or get a taxi. You're gonna save time. Unless you really have to, you're gonna save a lot of time. I don't recommend the local buses. You can ask people as well, or get Google Translate out and. Or write it out beforehand. But stand on the side with the doors. Ah, there you go. Stand on the side with the doors. That makes a lot of sense. That's how you would know.

00:36:12 John Daub: All right. The rain's starting to come down a lot stronger right now. I'm gonna get out of here. I'm just having fun right now. Space Boat is on the move. What festivals are you looking forward to for autumn? I'll tell you what I'm looking forward to going up to Tohoku in the fall, and you can expect me going up to Akita in October for one that I'm going to tell you about really soon. Jeff Kennedy, my brother.

00:36:43 John Daub: Make sure to get some tea and rain. You got it. Nice to see you, brother. We trade messages all the time, me and Jeffrey. I hope. I hope the weather's doing okay on your side of the east coast over there. Sorry we couldn't catch you this summer. Yeah, well, Juana writes in here. Wow. That boat. That boat is Space Boat. Watching the stabilizer off. Everybody knows about Space Boat. I guess not. What Soaplands do you recommend?

00:37:15 John Daub: Yeah, I'm not going there. I recommend none because I've never been to one. Soaplands are the James Bond. Women come first, men come second. Men come first, women come second. Go in there and get soaked up by a lady. And I don't know what happens after that. You know where Tanaka takes Bonsan and other ladies go to Bonsan? You say Bonsan. And Bonsan goes, what? Tanaka? And Tanaka goes bonsan. Why? And he goes tun dun.

00:37:47 John Daub: And he claps his hands and the ladies leave Bonsan and some of them go to him and they say they are fascinated by your. By your hairy chest. And Japanese have beautiful smooth skin. And Bonsan says, bird never make nest in bear tree. Everybody knows that line from You Only Live Twice because it's just such a 1960s, 70s, 80s type of a thing. But it's. It's very funny. I love the old movies. I don't know how we got into that.

00:38:19 John Daub: Oh, the soapland comment. But that's basically like a soapland where a bunch of ladies are bathing the, you know, rich and powerful. And the samurai. Back in the day, they still kind of have that culture. Yeah, this. It's a. The Space Boat. Is a boat. Taxi. I guess you could say a Suijo bus. And you can get that from Asakusa or Asakusa, and it will take you down the Sumida River to Odaiba. And you can catch it from Odaiba and get it to Asakusa.

00:38:52 John Daub: Asakusa. Or go to Toyosu. So people say. I don't. I say Asakusa. I don't say it like a local. So I'll say it like a local samurai so I don't make those people angry. Asakusa. Asakusa. This makes people. People get triggered. You have a great attitude. Thank you very much. I was only in Japan, Tokyo during the winter, and it was cold. I think Tokyo is not too bad. When it does rain, it does feel a lot colder and there's a kind of a wind or a bite.

00:39:26 John Daub: But it's very dry in Japan at that time. It's like the island stuff. It's very dry, so you need to have lip balm and stuff. But I hate Japan. Winter. If I can, I'm gonna escape and buy a winter house in Okinawa or like a hut. I don't really care. I'll buy a hut and live down there. I don't. I don't like winter here. If I'm gonna be in the winter, I'm gonna be, you know, in a nice. Here comes another Space Boat.

00:39:57 John Daub: There are. I believe there are four of them. Esmeralda. The what? I can't. The Himiko. It's on the tip of my tongue. I think there's four of them. Not all of them are the same. Two of them. You can't sit outside. Like this one. Some of them have a little platform. No. Sean Connery, by far. You know what? The best Bond movie. And we're gonna end because I gotta get back. Best Bond movie. On Her Majesty, Secret Service.

00:40:29 John Daub: On Her Majesty, Secret Service. Telly Savalas as Blofeld. Best story. He had so much depth. He gets married at the end. Actually, something happens at the end. He falls in love. The character development. And I really thought he was a great Bond. He had. He had kind of that. The. I don't know, he was a little bit more gentlemanly than Connery was, but he still had that. I don't know, the wit and the humor of Roger Moore and Sean Connery.

00:41:02 John Daub: He was great. I wish he'd done one more. He was an Aussie, I believe. On Her Majesty, Secret Service. I thought that Daniel Craig's first film was outstanding. Casino Royale, I thought it was outstanding. That was a great, great movie. This is the H. Yeah. He was great. I love George Lazenby in that movie. I thought he did such a wonderful job. That's the one I can watch the most. You know, he's making those copies from Blofeld's lawyer in Switzerland.

00:41:36 John Daub: There's just so much to that movie. You Only Live Twice. That's one I can watch so many more times. This one has a platform, but it's down because of the rain. Diana Rigg. Yes, yes. Roger Moore. It's hard to pick a good. A good one with him. I like Octopussy because I remember going to see that with my father at the movie theater back in 1980s. I think the Spy who Loved Me is really good. I'm a huge Bond fan.

00:42:07 John Daub: Sean Connery. I like Dr. No, because you didn't really know. You're starting to learn the characters, so there's an innocence to it. Goldfinger. Yeah. Thunderball. Elements of Thunderball were really great, but Goldfinger, I think from start to finish, that was a really good one. Pierce was a great. Was a great Bond as well. I don't know what they're gonna do. My eyes are on it. I hope they don't go, like the political correct route and stuff.

00:42:41 John Daub: People don't want that. I hope they stick with. I think Henry Cavill would be really good. I'm kind of impartial. I thought he was great as a Superman as well. He's a really good actor. The back and forth between Harry. What impressed me with Henry Cavill was in the Mission Impossible with Tom Cruise, that fight scene. He was so good with Tom Cruise and I know Tom Cruise is a perfectionist. Henry Cavill in that fight scene was so, so good.

00:43:14 John Daub: He. He's such a deep actor. So Christian Bale would be an interesting Bond as well, but he's American. I don't know. He could probably play. He would be pretty good Bond or Bond villain, either way. But I like. He might be a little bit too bulked. I don't know. I. I don't know. We'll talk about it. I. There's a lot of people I. I don't even see that could be probably good Bonds. And I'd say when they cast it, let's be honest, we really don't know because we're all kind of biased in a way.

00:43:51 John Daub: But when they did cast the last Bond. Why can't I remember his name? Maybe it's the wind. Yeah. Idris Elba would be very interesting, too. He would be very interesting. I think he's too old, though. I think he's too old. They want somebody young that can. Daniel Craig. I think when they cast Daniel Craig, I think there was a lot of controversy. They weren't really sure. He's too bulked, he's too brute.

00:44:21 John Daub: But it works so well. So I have to say, like, I'm kind of sad that the broccolis aren't involved with it. It's all Amazon now. I hope they really consider this, and I'm sure that they will, because you can ruin. Ruin this with the wrong. Trying to make a statement. This is what Hollywood tends to do these days. Stick with. Stick with the. Know your audience, dudes like me. But there's good love stories and I guess in there, too.

00:44:53 John Daub: I don't know. I don't know. Anime, Anime, robot Root. Chris Broad for Bond. That would be interesting. The athleticism is certainly there. The food scenes would be. Would be probably the best ever in a Bond film. I like to see him playing poker. They're saying, Aaron Taylor Johnson. I don't know. They're gonna go with somebody young. They're gonna. Mike Myers would be an interesting Bond villain. Tom Hiddleston.

00:45:25 John Daub: See, there's a huge debate with all the Bond fans. I have a Bond. I have a Bond video coming soon. Actually, I shouldn't be talking about it. I've been working on it. For years. It's a passion of mine, similar to how Bond is trying to look for Blofeld. This has been my. My specter. All right, guys, I gotta go. I'm getting super wet now. Connery. You cannot replace Connery as the greatest Bond. It's really hard, you know?

00:45:56 John Daub: And again, we would have had better Bonds if they'd done more than one film. But Connery will go down as. As the best, I think, because he just had it. It's going to be hard. All right, take care. Stay dry. Which is not my. Which is my problem.