Driving Japan’s Highways & Countryside

[Music] how you doing everybody we are now driving the highway is this the east e4 we're not sure driving the highway going up to fukushima and i thought this would be a great opportunity to talk about driving in the countryside and the highways look at how beautiful it is the blue skies those beautiful white clouds the green on the left and the right a far cry from tokyo it's so nice to get out of the city as we pan around here and for the next 30 minutes or so we're going to be talking about driving in japan on the highways and out in the countrysides we're getting close to iwaki in fukushima and so far we've had a really beautiful day how you doing everybody i've rented this van um not not so much rented it but we're using this fan from a company called dream drive jared is in charge of it and ozzie who started this company and you can see behind me check this out there's a bed back there right there's a one up on the top and there's one down in the bottom and there's a little sofa it's pretty comfortable it's almost like a camper van but the difference is that um well it's it's not quite just quite as spacious and we're gonna be going out for a few days to film can i tell them once is it top secret it's that secret yeah onsen so we're going to be filming once and um basically showing it i don't think we want to tell them that greg this is a big and yes that's greg from life from from he's not going to look at the camera because he's concentrating on the road concentrating on the road so this is something that i think both of us have a big passion for and onsen though i think the way that the way that you might see it as a visitor to japan and the way that i see it as somebody who's been living here for for so long and greg as well might be a little bit different so this is a pretty neat episode check this out look how beautiful it is this is going to be pretty neat episode that we're we're going to be making i'll have my point of view and greg has his and we're going to share some resources like this car and we have to bunk together for the next three days what could go wrong right greg nothing really short i gotta tell that story i don't know if i should tell them now maybe do this at night when we have to actually funk there so in the back this is sort of a problem no food fights alexander so in the back there's two beds there's a big bed which is on the bottom and then that bunk bed which is made for someone who's five foot nine how tall are you greg i play four five four not even you're not even five four generously i'm 5'4 i'm so lucky that i'm going with greg because if it were anybody else i don't think i tried to try to see if if i could fit their kanai you're about the same size as can i right maybe yeah could i could i couldn't really fit up too well so i was like hmm who's gonna have the top bunk and who's gonna have the bottom bike and then greg tried it out and he fit pretty pretty snug you have to bend your legs you have to bend your legs but we can the thing with this and i'll show you i'll show you this a little bit later on how this band works but it's really really a lot of fun the way that it's set up there's actually a mosquito screen so we can keep the doors open and just put the mosquito screens down on both ends and have this really nice country air coming through as we sleep i'm just kind of worried greg and greg somebody who camps a lot about you know um serial killers in the night we are not locked in they might be able to get into the van there's nothing preventing them from coming in robbers and highway robbers and i just have seen more of those tv shows than most people i think kanai says i watch too many violent shows but i don't know it's a cop mysteries and things like this stuff happens out in the countryside right am i right i don't know i'm full of it yeah marty ditmer's in the house thanks marty we we actually we just stopped for some snacks at a japanese service area tony p's here tony says hi jennifer french is here i love that one that's the uh fireworks that's pretty fitting with the fireworks festival coming up and shane's here the three amigos hello from fellow winnipegger hello john and greg uh oh you're so you're from winnipeg yeah you didn't know that i know you're from canada i just thought it was one big country one big country no oh winnipeg's up there right up there where winnipeg's one of the provinces right no no wait calgary little city of manitoba manitoba that's it yeah manitoba dakota it's above north dakota so while you're up there so it's cold there yeah i guess cold winter like minus 30 summer plus 30 minus 30 yeah but it's dry so it's not as bad as you would think not as bad as i would think i can't even think about that we're going to go through a tunnel here i get a pretty good feeling we're gonna lose you hey john kimura i've been to iwakuni yeah it's beautiful all right this the kentucky is really nice i i think we're gonna you lose you so we'll see on the other side of this tunnel unless the signal keeps going which is weird the tunnels in fukushima and tohoku are super long some of them go several kilometers but it looks like we're at the end of it already but they don't come in one tunnel they'll be connecting tunnels like four or five at the same time there's a little patch and then you enter another tunnel just listen to the sound of my voice as we cross cross through i think it's another tunnel right after we get out the opening here [Music] so it's a little bit before and i want to get into the driving in japan here but it's a little bit before before the the colors change it's still summer but as you can see driving on the highways in japan is super easy outside of tokyo but in tokyo it is another it is a completely separate problem issue challenge just watch my driving in japan video that's right you have a driving in japan video right yeah and i drive up and through tokyo not that much but yeah it sucks in tokyo but outside it's good yeah i got a driving in tokyo video coming uh sometime this fall it's it's scary you have to know the roads in tokyo so if you are going to be driving the highway in tokyo you have to know the roads very well it actually you need to study if you don't study you will get and if you get lost you have to go all the way around the entire city of tokyo once again this is is that right [Music] i don't think so i'm kind of not if you get off at a place that you don't know it's easy to get lost but luckily we have here navigation almost all the cars have heard of navigation system and greg has he's using uh google google maps which is very convenient but when you use both of them usually you it's very hard to get lost these days however with that said the exits on tokyo's highway the shittukol is so fast it comes up on you it just sneaks up on you and says in in 50 meters turn left it's like 50 meters you're going like 80 kilometers an hour it's very easy to miss your exit or you're on the in the right lane and you have to exit on the left lane and you can't get into the left lane because there's so many cars there you have to kind of plan this in advance hey fukushima welcome to fukushima are we supposed to do something like bang the ceiling or something is it do you do that like no i don't know what you're talking about you don't know like you have to turn on the headlights if you i don't know some people have rules now greg doesn't have these coats driving long trips um the highways in japan are very very good very smooth uh when they do have construction the construction usually is done pretty quickly and not it doesn't really create a lot of traffic japan's really good in that way they have robots out there waving flags to tell you in advance that there's a you have to swing into the right lane things like this service areas every 30 kilometers or so so they're kind of expensive it's more expensive oh yeah toll roads are so pricey you can be end we end up spending we'll probably end up spending a couple hundred dollars on tools right i don't know but it's more expensive sometimes in your rental more expensive than your gas for sure yeah right the gas is going to be a guzzler this is a a regular it doesn't take diesel but i know it has a very big tank what is the speed limit see why he's laughing you see why he's laughing they have it up on the highway i believe it's 90 no it's 80 usually it's 80. okay no one goes 80. nobody ever goes 80. but the speed limit is 80. um some highways i've seen 110 up in hokkaido it just depends yeah some of the highways have raised the speed limits but this is no autobahn okay this is not the police though i rarely see police on that follow the speed of traffic in the left lane i've never had a problem right but like people this is the left lane the slow lane and it's 110 right now the speed limit is much lower than 110 yeah it's but people people i i remember i would go 100 and there'd be people passing me going like 150 so it's hard to say exactly what the speed limit is but legally it's 80 yeah it should be 80. it should be 80 and if it's uh the unwritten speed limit's 100 and the and should i be saying this publicly i don't know this is e6 the gilban expressway going up towards tohoku tell the cops exactly tell the cops exactly where we are sorry road marker mile marker uh 155.6 but um you don't want to exceed the speed limit as as somebody who's just a resident here i kind of try harder to adhere to the laws and rules just because i know people are always watching me a little bit harder that's why you're driving greg actually i drove here to pick him up so um he has more experience driving these bigger vehicles how do you say in canada vehicle or vehicle either either either either okay either either vehicle because we have british stuff and we have american stuff vehicles canadian stuff so do you say aluminum or aluminium no aluminum okay aluminum the brits say aluminium it's kind of weird so why is everybody is that an actual cop car and you won't let it it's a total like total highway type of car so he's actually going to speed limit and so that's why we slow down everyone's slow down to 80 now so that's a it's not a cop right so i think people are starting to pass the person down people are figuring wait that's not a copper we can pass him but it's too far away i can't read what the sign says the speed limit don't know what the actual sign on the vehicle oh no the fancy yeah my zoom is not that clear either is my eyesight but yeah i think these guys are like okay it's fine to pass ronald writes in here pass with respect i can i can i can dig that yeah the people who run the highway the highways are are privately run by mexico mexico yeah mexico on the truck you can see nexco so i remember i was hitchhiking um at an interchange and they told me to get off of there and i said well wait a second okay so this is not public this is private goes yes get off of you no hitchhiking on the highway so i had to get down to the low road or on to the turn into the highway area but next go does a pretty good job of maintaining it and the service areas in japan are legendary they're some of the best in the world gotten a chance to to find something impressive once and inside some of them look historical inside like they come from the edo period renovated to kind of uh show japan's history in inside of a service area but service areas are a place where a japanese service areas and by the way that the restrooms i can use them right like their japanese restrooms are usable right i mean you could do a number they're awesome you could do a number number two in there and not i don't just say like i would never do that in the us i'm just being honest with you oh they're really clean they're super close yeah you can do it so for those that are to think yeah it's like this is live so like if you have to do a number two you don't have to hold it you can go there no like that's probably one of the features is that they make sure you really clean the restrooms right it's weird so all that any families there's probably some kid giggling in the corner they're talking about mama yeah no okay that's just look it's oh it's a part of life here the restrooms here are top notch so what are you gonna do about it you gotta you have to mention it why not truck stops in america is cleaned i would never use a u.s public restroom if i can hold it for several hours i can do that but it's not healthy so i don't recommend did you do that i'm just saying they're too japanese i am very very japanified yeah speed limits are all they don't have any indicators i know did you see that it's a digital speed limit it was off so i'm that's that's been like the fifth one in a row maybe it's off because it really is 110 and they don't have three digits it was a two digit one i could be yeah i don't know i don't know why they're off though they're all off right so we're headed to fukushima not um the coast although we're going inland now towards close to the middle right between the west coast and the east coast right so we have a kind of an appointment for filming there but there's a lot of really unique onsens in fukushima i think that and i've already made a video on it that was pretty good video but there's so many more it was pretty comprehensive they let i think i filmed 16 16 different baths i think it was 12 john i just watched in total the live streams you have to watch both channels sorry my apologies channels well you have also the uh life in japan x uh life run from x right yeah so you have two channels two channels yeah i have three i don't know why oh the 360 channel i got a 360 channel but uh not everybody likes long format videos not everybody likes uh to be watching live streams just everybody's different what have you so you've driven a lot of the highways is there a certain island greg like tohoku kyushu honshu shikoku has better highways are they all pretty standard right i think they're all pretty damn good yeah i've never had any problems to highway all right signal's going in and out we're really deep countryside we'll make do here obviously there's a raccoon sign on the left side yeah the highways are pretty standard here in japan the great thing about it is if you were to fly in a rent-a-car and get up to chitose airport in sapporo you could rent a car and the highways up in hokkaido are extremely well maintained and uh yeah a little bit wider yeah it's more like american canadian style like it's just everything is wider bigger that makes sense bigger uh bigger trucks going by there more camper vans but it's it also hokkaido is perfect for motorcycling if you if you know how to run a motorbike riding a motorcycle and spending a summer up there it's so cool at night just bring a sleeping bag you sleep outside right next to your bike wake up and get back on the road something that i'm probably gonna do next summer if the olympics are not held uh i think i think they're gonna have the olympics it's all right another thing that's really interesting about um driving instead of taking the train is the reason why i started i got my license is because there's so many attractions so many places in japan you can't get to unless you have a car and it's shinkansen is very convenient you can get to some tourist sites but the sites that i want to take you to in the in the series and only in japan require a car to get there and if you if you have that ability you open up the country to a lot more places um japan's trains are really convenient and i live in tokyo so not buying a car makes no sense however renting one makes a lot of sense the rental prices for cars start about you can get a cheap one for up to 30 a day but they're extremely compact and those companies have a lot of things that they try to upsell to make it back but usually all right we're back we're going we're getting in and out out here in the countryside the thing about the countryside roads when you get off of the highway and here's a service area you can get off every now and then some of them are parking areas some of them are service areas service areas are nice they have usually a cafe a bakery a couple of restaurants um really big bathrooms in there and they show you all the traffic um so you get a digital screen inside of the service the parking area the service areas of where the traffics are parking areas are usually what they are what they say they are you park on the side of the road you can get a vending machine coffee and take a break shut your eyes for a couple of hours if you want to but that's pretty much standard everywhere but what you can see already on the road signs is that they have everything in japanese in kanji and in english that's at koriyama going to the left and sendai going to the right so whether you can read japanese or not you can get around japan just fine it's very internationalized i'd say maybe 30 years ago maybe they didn't have signs too often in english outside of the major cities but when i came to japan 20 years ago these 23 years ago they started to put in more science in english and the train stations and became more globalized at that era so the 1990s big shifts in the highway for globalization are taking place now you can see again sendai and koriyama are we going towards koriyama yeah and to the inside so sendai is that way going towards the coast we're going deep koriyama then the tohoku express people saying the signal's not good i wish i could broadcast from the roof but it's not quite permissible anybody have any questions about driving in tokyo we're driving in japan driving in the countryside roads we're happy to answer them for you for the next couple of minutes there it is right there 80. it's a different highway who is greg who is greg i don't know i am greg he's greg greg is has a channel called life where i'm from and he introduces life where he's from which is japan but he has he's someone sort of like me in a way he makes it more in a longer documentary type of format narrating over the videos and telling a story i think uh if you like only in japan you're gonna like life where i'm from maybe most people do he's a robot man i told you i told you missed him no i did not go looking back can you see him through the robot man come back oh that was a full like yeah it's not even like the digital like sign one it's a full-on robot maybe we'll get a chance to see one but nexco puts in human looking figures that takes the place of a job and the dude is like 3d and he's got the thing and it looks like a real man it's a mannequin right yeah it's a mannequin a movie a moving mannequin not a robot is it a robot if it's moving and has electronics does that make it a robot mannequins don't move greg animated animated mannequin i think you just made that up i think an animated mannequin is a robot am i wrong let me know cyborg knows life works half human half robot maybe you never know man have you done any robot videos yet no no i don't think i've done any the tolls are really expensive um just driving around tokyo is 700 yen it's a basic fee to get on there and if you miss your exit you exit you have to pay 700 yen again to get back on so it adds each mistake costs you 700 yen so don't make a mistake that's why i said if you miss your exit sometimes um people will just go around the whole city again like the yamanote line to get back out because they don't want to pay the 700 yen depends how busy you are and how much you like driving i guess um how much is a japanese driver's license good question i yeah it's not expensive otherwise i would have known it's yeah it's under 100 isn't it it's under 100 it's not very expensive and it lasts for what like five years there's a catch though you need to have you have to go to a school uh like i did gaiman kitty kind of you're lying you're lying so wait you don't have to go to a driving school you just have to pass the test oh you got to be canadian and you have fine but what about japanese what did oh like had to go to a driving school and she had to pay about three thousand dollars and she got her license right but it took like three months of study yeah you don't have to do that at school though oh no no no i like my my nephew he's uh almost 18. he wants to do like a three-day intensive one where he just goes for three days learns how to drive against his lessons yeah they have out in the countryside they have um driving school camps how much fun is that where you go with like 30 different people and you and by the end of the camp you have a license so that's pretty cool oh we're getting on to a um going to go through a tunnel in a second greg did you have the new leaf sticker was it fun no no no i was just completely normal yeah yeah he didn't get that i didn't get a japanese license all right we might lose this looks deep we might lose you for a couple of minutes oh no no there's light at the end of the tunnel um i didn't go through a driving school but i did hire some people to teach me how to drive not teach me but to practice because i always felt like it was in my best interest to be as safe as possible because driving because as you can see greg's on if we're in the united states or canada you're on the other side of the road driving here for me it wasn't too big of a i don't know was was it a big deal for you to drive on the other side of the road when you first came here greg uh that wasn't as big of a deal as just the narrow roads air roads really got me because canada's roads are so wide oh right but like sometimes when you're like especially in tokyo you're on a street and then the line disappears but it's still a two-way street and like what do you do you have to figure that out you gotta figure it out i was i you know what i i was kind of mentally into it because if you live in japan you're walking on the left side so my problems were when i even though i wasn't driving in japan when i went back home and drove again i would be taking left turns and swinging into the wrong lane because just mentally that's the way i was thinking based on the way japanese walk in in public because i was walking the way people drive on the left side of the road and ride a bicycle as well i don't know when i got in a couple of times i almost got an accident luckily the population isn't as as high as here in japan in certain places in the us there's 80 again but driving on the left side of the road in the in the first couple of weeks it was a little bit scary but i got used to it and now um it's when i go back home to the u.s and i'm more worried about it just because i've spent more time now behind the wheel over the last 10 years over the last three years i should say on the left side yeah maybe you should you should explain so with an american license you have to re-test in japan to get your japanese license is that correct right right with canada you just go and you just transfer your license and like exchange it so we don't have to do a test you're one of the blessed yeah i'm american i'm one of the the cursed so there's nationalities that are blessed and nationalities that are cursed americans are cursed except unless you live in maryland and washington state and i don't know why apparently you can do that yeah if you're in washington and maryland you don't need a a um a license yeah you don't need to take the driving test i had to take the actual road test and a miniature driving exam with 10 questions and there's always three of them that try to mess you up all right and you have to fight you're like that doesn't make sense if i gotta if i pick the other one all right and then i just go against my feelings and i got it right i had a 99 out of 10 right i got on the test so it's an a it's a minus but today i'll take it um but the driving test was really hard you didn't have to take the you had to take the written test right nothing nothing nothing change it nothing oh my gosh nothing there's a truck between japan and canada oh yeah canadians are so trustworthy my wife went to canada she just exchanged it that's it yeah canadians are that trustworthy they don't steal they don't rob there's no crime in canada vancouver you get your cars broken into your bike stolen yeah that's true yeah you do in the us too everywhere except japan japan's got crime too my i don't know people i i take our safety here in japan way too much for granted sometimes i don't lock my door sometimes i won't lock the car door i'll go to the restroom and i'll just leave the door open i don't know yeah i just think like why would anybody want to take anything i got nothing that they want but people have done stranger things in japan i guess sometimes we get too complacent with the safety that we're in which is why japanese get in trouble when they go abroad with trusting people sometimes um they trust they don't ask enough questions be like oh i'm paying the money so i can trust them because they're doing business and guess what they get ripped off but the longer you live in japan the more you get really comfortable with the safety here driving though there are accidents on the road you do have to drive safely and i've seen my share of insane people driving at 150 kilometers or 200 kilometers an hour in sports cars down the highway to know that when you are driving on the highway stay in the left's lane as much as possible don't don't drive in the right lane right like right now we're in the left lane and then i'll go in the right way you wouldn't do that yes you would actually i'll get close enough so the passing lane is this plane and and you get tickets but that's always the thing right yeah we'll stay out well right lane is the fast lane yeah in the u.s the right lane is the slow lane that was the thing that confuses me sometimes right the fast lane is over that's a was that a hog that was a wild boar how do the wild boars get up here at elevation to cross this highway i don't know how the wild boars get up here i guess they find a way it's a board crossing this is another one of those pacer cars anything else about japanese so the countryside roads they're very narrow and they're not quite as maintained um one of the things that you have to think about is the the narrowness of it and i usually will go into google maps and just kind of check out some of the roads out in the mountains just to see what it's like to get a feeling of it google maps is gives you that kind of opportunity that's a mexico car google maps gives you an opportunity to take a look and see what the roads look like so it's good to kind of scout ahead a little bit and get some pictures of the roads as well as you can just follow along the certain patches but in general though driving in japan once you get out of the city oh there's the robot dude did you see it did you see it [Music] i tried to i was at a service area and i was filming it and the next girl guy goes like this and don't film the robot i don't know why there's like intellectual property inside of him i don't know it's the robots if you miss the robot you have to go in the playback to see it all right now it's at 60 kilometers per hour it was a speed limit yeah but in general though the speed limit on the highway is 80 it gets down in 60s for construction zones you want to be careful um it says 50 miles per hour 50 kilometers per hour yeah kilometers i have to check myself queen of tacos is in the house i saw mr das hi john tunnels are super cool not for the signal though hey hey you got the oh is that it no i think this is a flat guy he's not 3d oh he's not 3d yeah this is the standard dude yeah he's white though isn't he yeah it's a white dude i'm hoping to ride a motorcycle with pvg pbg likes his privacy though he likes to go off on on his own and think of think like a man grit as teeth i said hey i'll get a license let's go out together it goes now man i like to go out there on my own do the pgt thing pbg that's how i roll how's this thing driving it's fine no complaints yet but we're not into like the little we're gonna go to some really little mountain roads i didn't know if i told you that john super mountain roads oh really in the mountains switchbacks and strobie strobie i don't think we're gonna have a signal for that one i'll destroy that mr das wright's in here man's got that full g license what is a g license like you're a g or gangster a gangster gangsta that might be the ability to drive trucks i don't this one you just need a normal driver's license yeah this one's normal bradshaw studios here brenda from hawaii i we did brenda were you able to see the streams yesterday hi john enjoy the trip great to have a live stream hi to kanai kane's probably watching live at home she's just waking up i not she's watching the playback hi can i greg's driving now don't worry she thinks like this vehicle's too big for me it's true hey madison's here welcome madison does it does this look like the roads in canada [Music] not this section in hokkaido some places i thought that's like canada but i mean just all the little details they're not like canada at all so no i would say no it's different yeah it's like the sign is like we don't have these little digital signs like that all right this is there's some technology on the highways here and our highways wouldn't be barrier like the same way usually there might be a section or two in canada but we normally don't have these types of barriers in between at least where i driven it's funny i forget about american highways because i'm just so used to seeing the japan ones now i guess there are differences like the way it's twisting and winding through these mountain roads we don't have many of this same type of scenery yeah so japanese highways are different in that sense and again sos phone right there's sos phones all over the place so if you do break down they do have help next co which is the private company maintaining it has those vehicles that are consistently monitoring it so even if you do break down japan is such a compact country even in hokkaido somebody is monitoring the roads all the time so we don't get into too much trouble breaking down here um it's actually would probably be a pretty neat experience i can make a video on that breaking down in japan they think i had like a baseball bat and went into a post office or something now the car broke down but for those joining us we're actually renting a i don't know if it's a camper van or like a converted converted van but on the bottom is a bed and on the top is a bed and we're gonna be sleeping here for the next couple of nights um going through fukushima exploring some of the wild onsen some of the places that are quite unique that i don't think any youtubers have filmed and that's sort of the attraction of it and also getting a chance to get away we've both been in um me until about a few weeks ago in like lockdown so yesterday i got out for a series of live streams there are a little bit too many people for my comfort i thought but uh it went pretty good try to you try to take as many precautions as you possibly can in this in this pandemic era but the show must the show must go on [Music] so i'm looking here at some of the questions that you have here make a rest stop video john actually one of the things you do need to do is have permission to do that i've done a couple of them on the old channel i have a um rest stops in japan service areas we call them have local food there's also like michi nueki which is a way for you to get a michi nuekia like roadhouses from towns and they put a lot of the foods that they sell inside of the local towns on an area that's very easily accessible by road so you could stop and pull into these michi no ekkis and get fresh vegetables from the farmers there you can get food cuisine like breaded pork cutlets made from pork from that town things like this but i found though that on the highway all of the service areas have some unique um food that brings customers into that particular one tomobae was one that had a food challenge at scuba mountain isn't too far away and they made this pork um bowl of rice massive bowl and you could take that in as like a food challenge so i went there and tried to eat the whole thing and we failed the first time went back and finished it like men me and dean but uh uh yeah elijah doesn't eat pork i know they have sometimes with chicken too and different kinds of meat and maybe even vegetables you just have to look for it but certain areas of japan are famous for pork certain ones that's a robot guy again it's awesome why aren't there why are none of them on on the left side here in the movie up you know the dog and he's like squirrel yeah so that's robot guy yeah but you can see the squirrel for like one second right the robot guy doesn't move but we're moving pretty fast it's different retake the burrito challenge that was not a burrito that was a gyoza and i believe a lot of other youtubers including um chris tried to eat it i don't i think he failed i don't know anybody that can eat it i can tell you this do you want to hear some information i could break some news here i i hurled a lot after i i ate that after we i thanked the owner and when i got outside it was about 100 degrees fahrenheit it was like 30 34 degrees that's that summer i was all sweaty and oily from from it and i like it all came out and for the next day and a half i was really sick from trying to eat thai gyoza i pushed the limits i had 65 of it um that's the monster jumbo gyoza challenge that i've known for like 20 years now the owner was that the owner i was the only one that the owner would let give an interview to nobody's ever gotten in to do an interview so i asked him so can you tell me why do you have this challenge and he told me but he never does interviews now so i was happy that i kind of made friends with them always make friends with the people before you film if you can go in and scouting that's the advantages and then you get certain kind of access to it mr das will you hand break park for a manhole cover i you know what i've never seen a hand manhole on the highway but i i think i would the handbrake's like down here it's a weird handbrake like you have to turn it but i haven't stopped on the highway just to get someone to handle it i would that's you i you're not are you're not a manholer on the side of the highway man that's dangerous how do you know that that was you didn't even take the test i was testing you that was a test greg you passed don't stop leisurely on the highway no no you just passed it congratulations nobody believes me i just made that up i i would not stop on the highway for a manhole cover up emotionally i would but michael sosano writes in here i meant to send you this for the battle of uh yuzo kosho musical show is so good thought you'd find a bottle in the coaches i did i bought two bottles yesterday thanks michael i can i and i eat that stuff like crazy it's my favorite condiment yeah one of the japanese things i never knew existed before use it before in canada we have japanese markets but i don't know just how did i live my life without it for so long i often ask myself this anything music is awesome this is the tohoku expressway from koriyama going in into fukushima into the center here the way john lapse makes it sound like he's plotting an evil overlord it's true i am plotting i have plots things are turning i'm gonna get behind the wheel again i don't know i i like i like being a passenger but i also like to drive too but this thing is a beast to drive i think you really do have to get used to to something this big there is a sink here do you see behind [Music] so i get the sloshing water right on my ear which is a unique sound now we're getting closer to uh getting off here no we're still going straight this is one of the things you gotta really check out all right the navigation this is the city called oh no way but we're staying on the highway right here's something for a snack you got it we'll stop off they have some really good uh food in fukushima as well just little mom and pop shops on the on the side of the road it's nice to stop in and support the local businesses and try some of the offerings and and a lot of them are really popular they're in guidebooks japanese guidebooks have a wealth of information for for foreign youtubers but they can't read it but because we live here i shouldn't be saying that i just like giving away all my secrets of how i find videos just all right cancel that you with what i just said there oh look how beautiful that is hey john i have a question for you you got a question okay yeah you understand like oh yeah the food's really great in fukushima right so i hear japanese people say that about every single prefecture is there a prefecture where the food isn't good no you know what all right all right i take that question i'll take it and i'll give you an answer i'm plotting so my answer is um there's degrees of good and if you look very closely in the degrees of good the lower good degrees would probably be bad but we would never say it was bad we just say it's good and not great does that make sense and if i have to if i have to i i can say this probably the food is best in hokkaido and kyushu kyushu has probably the best food in all of japan it's just volcanic soil temperature it's ideal for the cows are really happy there hokkaido the cows stay cool in the summer um i don't know something about kyushu the food just seems to taste a lot better down there shikoku as well um but i don't know what do you think greg you answer your own question how dare you give me that question i just think it's funny because every single place you go they're like oh the food's really great over there it's so awesome and it's like where is it bad i haven't heard someone say oh you know what the food over there i wouldn't eat it how i never heard that like funny haha i didn't see you laughing about it but i mean the truth is in japan on average in comparison to canada like that the standard food is just a level higher so on average you'll probably get a decent meal yeah yeah even at like you know like the rest offs or anywhere you go in it's usually pretty music i've only had a few bad meals in all my time in japan that's really where were you where were those bad meals because they're usually quite memorable actually you know what one of them i didn't like was sizearia siria this was like a decade ago and they like i ordered a uh steak in quotation marks all right and the salad was horrible and the steak was not a steak and so yeah that was one of the places that's your fault i mean come on steak at a family restaurant who does that well denny's is okay i mean i don't know denny's jonathan's family restaurants do have some good steaks but you have to know what to order it's like ordering a cheeseburger at a chinese restaurant very rarely is it going to come out good but somebody said there's a chinese restaurant in new york that has really good cheeseburgers so i don't know i i don't yeah i don't know oh wait can we get a robot do we have a robot here oh my goodness is it inflated it's an inflated dude awesome that is cool yes oh that is so awesome i've never seen the inflator dude and the wind of the cars cars kind of make it shake left and right so it's it's animated by by wind that was awesome here's a real guy he's less animated than i know the blow guys got more power and i don't think they do they make prisoners clean up on the side of the highway like in the u.s i've never seen that i don't think so i've seen something you got like a whole bunch of 60 year old prisoners yeah i haven't seen too many it's usually the elderly who need jobs um or are retired need something to do they'll come in um part of the community and we'll clean up the highways and things like that but i have seen some prisoners do it i don't know they were wearing jumpsuits i i think i did i don't know i see a lot of stuff it's kind of mentally checklist here wrx turbo is checking in welcome abroad welcome to this super live stream that will probably be whoa thunderbeard missed your previous chats thought it relevant as these trips are similar i probably missed some thunderbeard i apologize yes yesterday's live streams were i was so um focused on the people around me sometimes i missed the screen and wasn't able to see it i might have missed a couple of women i apologize i if anybody the reason why i might answer some of the super chats is because i'm so appreciative and i think you have to you should say thank you for somebody who's who's uh giving you something always say thank you be nice i like the little animated science here top tamura city we've just entered in fukushima but we still got a ways to go i'm surprised we're not getting enough questions here for highway chan [Music] what are the rules around sleeping in the camper van i think that's a good question um greg knows more about camping than i do i don't know why you think i know about camping john cause you made a video about it yeah because i went with people who knew how to camp in japan that was my first time camping in japan so you're saying you don't know i've kept in canada before especially when i was a kid but japan i've only been once yeah so i heard you can camp in these pas or essays people do that like in your car you can sleep in your car i can tell you this i hitchhiked the entire country twice and i camped everywhere i wanted to just know way more that's not the same thing like there's recreational camping and then there's i pitched a tent and woke up at 5am before any of the law force enforcement told me to leave there's two different differences there um but my experience let me put it to you like oh that's so beautiful over there let me put it to you like this all right um if you're camping means something different to japanese than just setting up a tent okay camping means recreational camping means you have a radio you're playing you're being loud you've got a fire you have a barbecue that's camping in japan all right for me camping is anything where i have to pitch a tent so there's two differences i think it's very important that you differentiate that when you explain something to to anybody's japanese when you ask for permission so can i pitch a tent is different than can i camp all right um camping uh with a car like this you can park in the rest areas uh shut your eyes for a few hours that's perfectly fine usually you need to get permission if it's private land to to park there and let them know so you can call ahead or something like that but in general though you want you need to have permission meaning it's best to go to some of the camping spots and there are certain in the summer it gets quite busy oh look how beautiful it is over there it gets quite busy you should call ahead and always make a reservation um sometimes you don't need a camping spot you can just say look i've got my own vehicle can i just park here and camp and you might have to pay you might have to pay like like 10 or so something a very small fee for the bathrooms which i think is a good investment oh we're going to this parking area yeah oh i did i was going to shove the live stream and now look you did this live stream of me streaming yeah that's my good job that was a good one i'm laughing no that's horrible [Music] this one's a small one yeah oh look there's a eevee charger all right so we're gonna we're gonna take you around here really quickly to show you this uh parking area just a small one and i'm gonna cancel this after grade comes back from the restroom i'm not no i'm not gonna stream a stream all right they get it it's funny greg all right welcome to a rest stop all right catch in a few this is kind of interesting here now that i'm around strangers uh got my mask on again there's always a vending machine area like this hey thunderbeard i respect that john you're a very entertaining bloke in a good country in a great country thank you there's always a vending machine area like this and there's pretty much this one has every single company seems to be represented you have the coca-cola vending machine you have the uh which one is the sun tori and the keating vending machine this one here is keating so you have a little bit of everything here this oh my gosh look at all those monsters i never seen so many different kinds cuba libre what does that mean free cuba so weird it's a weird name for one uh but this looks like an older one it hasn't been renovated here's something that might be interesting to you see this little teeny half-sized bottle of coca-cola is 130 yen and then over here there's a double the size and it's only 20 20 cents more but people still prefer to buy the smaller one it's interesting right and the cans of coke are the the same as one of these big ones so why would you buy the small coke because people don't want to drink a whole big bottle so this service area and you can check on the map if you're interested is abukumakogen and there's a atm machine and there's some places they've got they're set up for the coronavirus there's some plastic wrap here and the doors are open 24 7 to allow some fresh air to get in there but i thought that was interesting because they have an ev charger so if you have a tesla or something i guess you can charge charge your car over here and there's a dog walk area mr das lies no machine that's true no asahi it also makes soft drinks mr das just so you know that asahi makes soft drinks too so this is the eevee charger this is an eevee quick charger you can see uh it's marked very bigly is that a word but uh they got english welcome connect the connector to vehicle operate the charge controller to start charging interesting how do you pay over here i guess you need to get a special card um that you can pay with electronically so that it doesn't actually take money you have to get a a card that you touch something to know interesting i like these eevee car points i might have an exclusive for you here oh okay what is it all right so they're renovating the bathrooms right so what they have set up in there is porta potties but in a building i've never seen it something like this before exclusive porta-potties inside of a building because they're they're they're renovating so it's just a temporary so you had to go into portal potty it's really interesting i'll go i'll go check to see if anyone's in there and i'll see i'll tell you if it's clear or not okay go ahead this is an exclusive and and we have a halloween display in japan this is weird craig has found us an exclusive we're not going to go check out a strange toilet situation at a japanese rest area if this was any other country this would be weird in fact it's actually kind of weird here in japan too but believe in greg he knows how to make good content oh there's a map over there okay we're okay all right you hold the people back in there get a few seconds what that's weird don't go further go further in these are pretty clean yeah it's really clean for portal potties but like little these green doors over here like they're real they just that's clean man i could use that it doesn't smell too bad i'm gonna wash my hands just touched a toilet yuck all right thanks and there's the gasoline how much is a liter of gas so i think it's like 130 yen 150 [Music] 128 yen for a leader 146. somewhere between 120 and 150. so this is fukushima prefecture we are now here um in the center we've driven quite a ways actually um during this live stream here and we're headed all the way you can see all these onsen marks you see in the center of your screen that's an onsen mark loads of them that's where we're headed 146 146 yeah oh there's that weird fish uncle you ever eaten that bizarre deep-sea fish try that lots of stuff what's she doing here why is there in a hawaiian girl aloha oh it's a boy oh you know that yeah interesting very interesting mayor johnston welcome to the new travelers so there you have it uh we showed you an exclusive greg found a toilet that's uh johnny on the spot inside which is unique it's greg's got a nose for good stories and uh yeah we're gonna keep on going and if we find something interesting maybe we'll we'll bring you with us live again we're gonna be filming for uh greg's channel this wild onsen and i'm gonna be making a story as well uh so hopefully it'll be something interesting that's whoa that creeped me out did you see that that is that's a big one that big fukushima's got some big spiders and there's an old telephone here so there you have it hope you enjoyed it if you have any questions leave a comment down below and uh check out greg's channel life where i'm from from from x which i'm trying to get him to do a live stream on and he's not doing it he doesn't like live streaming it's not that bad right i don't know you get used to it it's it's interesting you you don't like it live streaming pressure a lot of pressure there's pressure there's no pressure just be you right no one's gonna bother you no trolls out there i like these are for senior citizens these tags here so and for pregnant mothers yeah so that's the pregnant mama badge so pregnant ladies have closer access to the toilet so it's nice that they did that all right everybody have a good day have a good night wherever you are if you have some questions about japanese highways leave a comment down below i'll check it out for the next couple of hours and try to answer your questions driving in japan is a lot of fun you don't have to take a train you can see more stuff because of it and i'll bring you some more live streams on the road or the next couple of days thanks james you from canada ciao

Channel: ONLY in JAPAN * GO

Views: 37,606

Rating: 4.9056501 out of 5

Keywords: Only in Japan, Japan

Id: Y86zKytrvGI

Length: 57min 50sec (3470 seconds)

Published: Mon Sep 14 2020