Exploring Japan For FREE and CHEAP (living in my camper van) - RV Life

Last time on Let's Turn It Up World in Japan. That's right there. All right, now take it back. Run, there you go. Focus, Dave, focus. With all the hard work that we put in today, would we be able to work for you? Would we be qualified to work here? Yes. Oh, really? Oh, my gosh! Your powerful power will help other people. Wow, it's what we do. Wow, our power of our travel and adventures inspires others. I'm getting goosebumps. The air is so fresh. Good morning from the beautiful northern Japanese Alps. Yep, we are still here in this beautiful area of Ishikawa. Last time, you guys, we were hanging out with our friends, Mitsuru-san and Tomiko-san. Unfortunately, they have left us and are heading off on their own adventures. But also last time you met Yama-san from Happy Days Touring who gave us that amazing food tour in Takayama. Well, he's got another thing for us today. He had so much fun with us and we had so much fun with him that today he's going to be sharing with us this beautiful town and all the history that we can learn about. Maybe some good eats as well in Shirakawa. So we're heading there right now. I'll tell you more about that. We're a little late. So Dave is off wiping the windows of the RV Wanita-san. So let's get going and see what this adventure is all about. This is absolutely beautiful. You can probably hear the sounds of the water just running behind us as we're about to head into the amazing town over here in Shirakawa. So I'm excited to kind of check it out. I know Dave's excited to check it out. So look at that. It's amazing. It's a bit busy on this bridge. Everyone taking photos. Oh, yeah, this is like a very popular spot for folks to take photos. I mean, you can see all the beautiful white snowy mountains in that direction over here. There's a lot of folks on this bridge taking that memorable moment photo right here. Maybe we'll have to capture one on the way back. Yeah, it's beautiful. It's a beautiful spot. So right behind me, right up at that point, that's probably the most popular point you'll see in a lot of people's photos here in this town of Shirakawa. But normally around this time of year or February on when it's really snowy, well, when you're up there, you look down at the town, it is completely covered in snow like a winter wonderland. And during February, they do have like a festival, like a festival of lights that just goes off around this beautiful city. But right now, as you can see, things are melting, rooftops are exposed, but the view from up there should still be unbelievable. And that's where we're headed right now. But there's two options to get there. You can either take the bus, which is a faster route, or, you know, it's a 10-minute walk straight up the slopes over there. And that's where we're going, right? And, oh, we are? I guess that's where we're going. That's where we're going. We're going up there. So manholes here are very unique. Here's another example of a unique sort of manhole cover, which we call here. This is almost the area of Shirakawa-go. So this is the symbol for Shirakawa-go. Here's the flooding for all the waters. If you look in this direction, these are the homes. And, of course, the trees, the beautiful trees you see around on that corner. So that's just another level of how much care goes into everything here in Japan, including these manhole covers. I want to take it home with me. Put it in my backpack. We'll carry on. We just learned a very interesting trick. So if you're having a coffee or a snack, there's a couple of different observation decks here at the top of Shirakawa-go. And if you're up here, and you see there's a lot of very popular spots over here, but if you purchase a coffee or a beverage, well, you can come in here and basically have a private view all to yourself right here. But I see a bunch of other people buying, so we better hurry. Come on, Dave. And here's the view from the upper point here in Shirakawa-go. We're looking down on the beautiful town right here. Kanpai! Wow, what a view. Isn't it amazing? Incredible. It's so beautiful. It's kind of what you see in so many of the photos of Shirakawa-go. So there's a very interesting story to this lovely town, and it goes a little something like this. There was once a samurai named Ujigashima, and Ujigashima built a lovely castle up here, Kaigigawa, and it had gold, full of gold. And so the story goes there was, which is a true story, it goes earthquakes. Earthquakes are very common here. The earthquake destroyed the castle, bring it down the mountain, and all of its gold killing people along the way. And to this day, there are still people that will come up here and search for that gold. So there's a lot of lost gold, huh? There's a lot of lost gold, man. We better start searching. Let me just take a quick peek. And as we're getting ready to head out, we're back here at the parking lot. You can just see all the tour buses behind us. So if you're coming to Shirakawa-go, just be prepared for a lot of tour buses coming. This isn't even really peak season yet, but the buses definitely come up here in droves. Wow, so it's been really a lot of fun and a really special treat to see this place. And thank you so much. Big thank you to Yama-san from Happy Plus for really giving us a full experience because there's certain things that we, on our own, wouldn't have known about. But having Yama-san to be able to point out different things really made the experience exceptional. So thank you very much. And may this bring much more business and enjoyment to your life. Thank you, Yama-san. I love you. Thank you. Arigato gozaimasu. Thank you very much. Have a great trip. That was so much fun, huh? That was a lot of fun. Yeah, Shirakawa-go is really cool. It's definitely a very touristy place. So if you're going, it actually worked out for us getting there early in the morning before a lot of the buses showed up. Yeah, and so, of course, where are we headed next, maybe? Yeah, we're actually heading down towards some warmer areas out of the Alps heading towards a city called Nagoya, not so far from there, hoping to see some cherry blossoms. So we'll see. Oh, that would be wonderful. Cherry blossoms for Tanya. That means we're going to be heading out of the snow and into warmer pastures. Onward we go! Two-hour drive ahead. You can smell the beautiful flowers here. This is Bairin Kohin or Bairin Park. It looks like it's a variation of plums. And one of the cool things about the plums in season, plums bloom early, apparently, earlier than, say, the blossoms, the cherry blossoms. So this is really beautiful. We're going to see various colors, I'm sure various types. And what's really amazing is as you're walking through this park, there are signs to kind of give you descriptions in terms of which tree this is and what the flower will look like. But welcome to early season plum bloomage here at Bairin Kohin. There's a really nice lawn area right here in the center of the park, which must absolutely be stunning later on in the spring. It's still pretty early, but there are some nice blooms that you can see with some of the early plums flowering. But this park really is a nice gem here. So it's very different road station, I guess your road stop station life, which is truck life here, more in the city life than outside, right? Like in the country? Oh, no, it's so different. We were kind of enjoying being up in the Alps for a while and it was like country, the mountains all around. Now we're just driving, and it's not too bad, but we're driving city streets. Yeah. Right, and very different. I like the truck stop too. Of course, you're right in a city environment where there's actually baseball fields all around you. You have like teams training, high school teams training, like you saw the track team was training. And traffic galore. And a lot of traffic. You're kind of dealing with the traffic side of things, but it definitely feels a little bit different. Like you're right, you're waking up to the northern Japanese Alps and the beautiful skies and that fresh air, and here it's like your city environment style. But you do get more options too, from shopping, grocery stores, amenities, and where we are heading now. Because the one thing the truck stops do not have are showers, y'all. They don't have showers, but they do have these spots called internet cafes or the clubs. So we actually signed up as members to the club a while ago. You might have seen that in a previous episode. And it's a free sign up. It's a free to sign up, and then you pay. We'll talk more about that once we get there. But that's where we're going to have our lovely shower before heading to our next home on the road, which happens to be a truck stop. Another truck stop. Because why not? Don't cost nothing. Into a very cozy parking spot here. Welcome to the club, which is sort of an internet cafe. Now the internet cafe here in Barre, this one in particular, actually has 24 hours, has showers, free Wi-Fi, there's snacks, things like that as well. Now the membership cards that we have, which are in our bag here, that we got last time, they don't really cost you anything. As a matter of fact, you just kind of pay for your time that you're using here. So if it's a, let's say an hour, it might be a little less than 500 yen for an hour's time in here. And that's showering and whatever things you want to do within that hour time frame. Anything above that, I think they tack on a few more yen per 10 minutes, if that's the case. I think that's just a great way for them to allow people not to overdo it and stay too long. Things can start to add up. But hey, this is where we shower because most truck stops here don't have them. Welcome to the club. Here's shower room number one. Dave is going into shower room number two. Bye, Dave. I'll see you in 15 minutes. See you in 15 minutes. Bye. All right, y'all. So I will see you after my shower. Well, that was a lot of fun and very easy process to work through. I know, it's great. It feels, it's funny, like when you're van-lifing it, shower is like a special occasion a little bit. Oh gosh, yeah. To be very honest with it. Yeah. Right? Yeah, and like 15-20 minutes is not, you know, you want to be a little bit longer since you've been like a couple days without showering, but you want to respect the culture and etiquette as well, too. So yeah, it was great. I mean the little nooks and crannies, you could have upgraded it for a little bit more privacy. Right. Elevation. You could even plug into an ethernet, like you were saying, and you have like super speeds. I think it was really comfortable. So I haven't talked much about it, but right now we're about to head to our next home for the night, which is another truck stop. But tonight we're going to have something extra special to make this feel like a five-star restaurant. But there's a couple of ingredients that I need to get and right here on those invalid supermarkets. I was crossing my fingers because it's the first supermarket, the first supermarket that we found in miles. So let's go see if they got the veggies I need. This is so cute. I got my basket ready. This is a very interesting grocery store that we've been in, Dave. I feel like everyone's... Wow. It's very animation in here. Let me see what we're going to get here. I'm getting some pumpkin. This is a very common thing here. I'm going to put on the grill, a nice pumpkin, little olive oil. But I think you might like these, which go great with what I'm making tonight. I like that. A little pepper, a little spicy peppers. A little spicy. A little bit spicy, right? A little spicy. Maybe not too spicy. So I'll get two of those because you might really enjoy those. If they're too hot, good luck. We're actually here. You found it. Shishito peppers. Wow. So these might be small and spicy. What do you think? Should we go for one or go for two? I'm all up for two. It's up to you, babe. You're cooking. I'm going to go for two because I know you like them. So we got all the groceries we're going to need to make this amazing, luxurious, Japanese-style dinner at our next home, which is a truck stop. So yeah, that's going to be extra special. But there's one thing I am missing. I don't have all my pots and pans here. So Dave actually scouted out a store like a Marshall's here that has a pot. So I'm going to put these groceries away. I'm going to grab that pot and we'll see you for dinner. Konnichiwa and ohayo or as they say hello and good morning. So Dave and I over the past several weeks have been living in a camper van and it's been here in Japan all around and it's been absolutely incredible. Now I have to tell you outside of like the local grocery stores and the markets food is pretty affordable there. But outside of that it can get pretty expensive. So over the past week Dave and I have been living for free at various road stop stations or as we like to call them truck stops, but they're very very different than the truck stops that we have in the US. So we're going to show you exactly how we travel how we live in these truck stops and what they are like because you're going to be really surprised at what you can find at these truck stops versus ones we have at home. All right. So first and foremost one of the cool things that are here at these truck stops are these vending machines and I knew that's exactly where I would find Dave. Hi Dave. Hey, good morning. Good morning. I think I'm going to try this little hot latte today. Isn't that really cool? Hot latte. Hot latte right here. 150 yen. Isn't that really cool? Hot lattes in a vending machine. I agree and not that I get a latte for 150 yen. That's not bad. I am pretty amazed. It's like hot lattes. You can get corn soup little snacks inside of vending machines and they're all over the place. So not just here at these like road stop stations. You might find them in just a side Street somewhere by a farm and they're everywhere. All right, pick your pick. What do you want? They're both hot. Mommy, mommy. At this road stop station a lot of them you'll find markets actual markets where you can buy groceries. You can buy items snacks treats all kinds of good things in here. I'm actually going to pick up some spinach because I got a really special treat that I'm making for supper this evening breakfast lunch. We got a couple nights here at this road stop station. So cooking is going to be a thing over the next week. So very excited to pick up some spinach. So I have to tell you really quick here. They're pretty well known for their strawberries and their apples. We've actually been eating these over the last several weeks and they just been delicious. So I'm excited to try some more. Oh my goodness gracious, babe. It's so cold. It is getting windy, right? But what do you think of our new home for the night? I am definitely liking the new home for the night another truck station, but we drove in here. It was pretty big, right? It's massive. I think it was like a full supermarket or something. It's crazy. A full on supermarket y'all. But we'll have to give you a tour of that in the morning because I'm also going to make us a very nice luxurious breakfast. Stay tuned and we'll see y'all in the morning. Right here starts the luxury truck stop cooking of these delicious expensive steaks. Let's go. All right, y'all. So let me tell you how this is going to go down and what we're having for dinner tonight. That's going to make this a luxury Japanese cuisine here at this truck stop. Well, I'm going to have some delicious shishito peppers. We're going to grill up. Now, these are small so you're going to get some spicy ones indeed in there. Different type of peppers. We're going to have, I'm actually going to put a nice side of rice. I'm going to be grilling up some pumpkin, which is very popular here with some salt and soy sauce. But the gem creme de la creme is going to be this hiragayu beef right here. It's inside this cooling package, which we have in the refrigerator. This is going to be amazing. And I can tell you right now, pop it up on the screen somewhere if I remember, but it was 13,000 yen, equivalent to I think $80, $80, $90 for these two nice sized pieces of really, really high-end steak. As a matter of fact, the place we got it from, it has a certification to show you that it's genuine hiragayu beef. And it's just, I'm really excited, like a wagyu deliciousness. It's going to have so great marbleization. And these same type of pieces that you find in the U.S. would probably cost you like 500 bucks. So we're definitely going to be enjoying that. And how am I making it? Well, our friend Mitsuri-san and Natsumi-san left us this pot so I can cook it in. So it's very unique. It's sort of like a Japanese grill, if you will. So I have right here, we're going to put a little bit of water in the bottom of that right there. And then all the fats that you see from the steaks and the vegetables, it's going to just kind of cook into it, a Japanese grill style. So, and of course to kick things off, we're going to have a nice delicious Japanese cucumber salad with the cucumber dressing. And of course, from our previous episode, you guys saw us making some sake. Well, we're going to have a nice, delicious, several cups of sake. This is a hitokogochi, which I think is a type of rice. So that's where this is from. Delicious type of rice. It's a type of rice, but it's going to be delicious. As a matter of fact, why not just kick it off with a little kumpai before we get cooking with dinner? Not a bad idea. Crack that open. There you go. I've never seen that before. Almost like a bottle of wine. All right, y'all. Here's to cooking a delicious meal. Luxury cooking in a truck stop, baby. Kampai. All right. So first up, I am going Japanese cucumber. And I have a nice dressing for those as well. So I'm using here a crushed cucumber sauce. It's a really nice sort of spicy tanginess to it that really complements the cucumbers really well. Dave doesn't like this and anything else but these cucumbers and it works really well. So I just give it a nice dosing of it. Normally I have a nice big bowl and I kind of put all the peppers in and then shake the olive oil on, but because I don't, I'm just going to go ahead and dump these in raw. We love peppers at steak. It's just, I don't know, we just do it with shishito peppers. A nice little coating of olive oil. I'll mix up in there. Once we take those off, we'll put some salt and pepper on those and we'll set those aside and I'll probably put them on the grill for a few seconds afterwards. Once I cook the steaks, maybe get some infused some of that steak flavor that we're going to have on the Japanese. I'll put that on the Japanese barbecue, these peppers, at least a few of them. So give it a nice confident flavor. So we're going to let that cook in there before I go ahead and put the pumpkin on next. All right, next up, I'm going to throw some pumpkin in here. Just kind of grill them up a little bit. I've been having pumpkin soup here lately, which seems to be a very popular dish here. I'm going to coat some of that with olive oil. And they've been really tasty. I've had a pumpkin tempura here, which seems to be a delicious compliment to any soup that I've had. Ramen, different things like that. I'll get like tempura, which seems to be a side dish here in Japan, but I'm going to actually just grill up a little bit of these here. I do like pumpkin with olive oil. I'll put some salt on that. You get a nice little hint of flavor, sweetness to it, and it's like salt and savory. It's a little like sweet and savory when it comes to pumpkins. So I'm going to let those kind of grill up for a little bit. I'm going to give Dave one of these here. Shishitos with a little salt and pepper on it. I'm going to pass them off to Daisy. They're smelling really good. Get some of that crazy salt. And then I have like the just regular salt. This is kind of salt and pepper. This might actually need a little too salty on that one. But hey, this one looks like it's going to be perfect. Ready to try it? I'm ready, baby. You going to try it too? I don't know. Okay. Here we go. Cheers. Kampai. Dave, what do you think? I think it's amazing. Yeah. It's really good. I love shishito peppers. These are really good. Nice job, babe. Perfect job cooking. Oh, it's going to be amazing for this day. Absolutely. Really important tip while I'm dancing. Make sure you've got good ventilation, especially in here when we're cooking. I have a fan going up here. Kind of sucking out the air and I have a window cracked over here, which is nice that we have that. I do that in desert snow as well too, just to, you know, we're using propane and it's gas. So I want to make sure that we have good ventilation. Also, while the pumpkin is pumpkining up in that pan over there, I figured we have another round of toast here. To my incredible, amazing husband and his journey here in Japan with our Let's Turn Up Well family. Thank y'all. This is how you, this is how you luxury cook in a truck stop. Y'all. We're going to have some expensive steak, Japanese style and some delicious expensive sake. I want to toast to you. Okay. I toast my amazing wife for cooking a gourmet gourmet. I want to see this. You have to see this one. Here we go. Oh, now I got a little stage fright. To my amazing wife. I love you, Tanya. Cooking a gourmet meal here in a truck stop in Japan. That's incredible. So that's amazing. Kampai. I love you so much. Thank you. I love this man. Get that balance in just a second. First time for everything. I'm trying a Japanese frying pan and I'm assuming this is usually done with like small pieces of steak. Put it on quickly. It steams, cooks. Almost like steaming a little bit. Exactly. But this is big fat pieces of steak. So this is going to be a hairy experience if you will. Oh, yeah. I got a model this for you guys. I mean look at those two pieces of steak there y'all and a nice fat piece to rub on top of that to really get it sizzling and right but all that fat marbleization in there. That is just heaven. Heaven looks amazing. Those are going to be really nice with the rice and the shishito peppers. So let's get to grilling. All right, y'all really quick. So second thoughts now, I've never used a Japanese barbecue before. It's probably not a big deal. But you know, this isn't our RV. I don't want to take any chances and these pieces are so marbleized and fat. I don't want any flames getting anywhere near that. So we're kind of reverting back to the good old skillet days here. So I'm going to rub a little bit of the fat lard in there to keep it from sticking. But I think this has so much fat in the steaks already. I'm not going to need it at all. But you know what just for the show add a little bit to it. Why not? It's already fatty enough, right? Let's give a little bit of that lard on there. It's a nonstick pan. Anyway, look at the marbleization in that as it's going in. I'm going to just do one piece at a time. That's that popping, grease popping. Smelling good. It is smelling delicious and that's only one piece. We got another piece coming up and when you complement that with the nice cucumber salad, the Japanese cucumber salad with the Japanese cucumber sauce dressing, the pumpkins on the side, some rice with a little soy in that and I have steak sauce, y'all. So you can dip those pieces in there and just really bring on that flavor and texture and little salt and pepper goes a long way as well. But it's just dynamite. Now, I don't need to cook these too long. It really depends on how you like your meat. If you like it medium, you like it medium rare. Kind of like ours are true medium. One last look y'all, right there. But I'm going to need you to do me one thing, one favor. That's it. One favor, go and wash your hands and get yourself ready for dinner because it's going to be delicious. All right. Nice job, baby. Oh, you're welcome. Come on in. Now, the only real thing that's not truly luxury are the plates. Unfortunately, I don't have like the plates but everything about this is a high-end dinner, baby. Oh my God. Yeah, absolutely. Thank you, baby. Oh, you're so welcome. Give it a try. I've got real forks and knives. I'm going to try a little of this Jane's crazy mix of salt, a little bit of shake it like that. Oh, there's a lot. That'll be good. It's going to be good. I definitely want to try some of these shishitos. Yes. And there's two kind of peppers in here, aren't there? There are, there's shishito peppers and I don't know what the other ones are. It's a Japanese pepper, but he said it's not spicy. I'm going to try it. I'm going to take a bite of it. Give it a shot. And if I get really hot, you'll know. You'll let me know. You like spicy. So no, not too bad. Nice. And I'm going to show you that. Look at that fat on that. It's just really rendered into the meat and it's really really juicy. I mean, I'm looking forward to this first bite. I'm waiting for you. I'm going to jump in here. Okay. Yeah, let's do it. Try this together. Yeah, they're both so nicely. All right. Cheers, baby. Cheers. Oh man. Oh my God. That's so good. That is so good. Give me a kiss babe. Holy cow. Can you believe it? That is so good. We just need this to be this kind of steak every night. Every time we cook steak. This is amazing. It's amazing. And you're only going to find this beef in that part of town. I know, right? You're never going to find that part in the world. It's just kind of right there. And you have some nice rice with that. If you want to sop up some of the juices with some soy sauce as well. Quite the steak dinner. This is quite the steak dinner. They turn out to be an absolutely amazing meal. My incredible husband and we're in Japan. Right? In Japan. Oh my gosh. At a truck stop. At a truck stop having A5 Japanese Wagyu. Having $500 piece of beef. Yes, exactly. It's like Gordon Ramsay. Exactly. Gordon Ramsay steak right here. Right here. In the middle of a truck stop in Japan. Hey, just saying. For a lot cheaper. Even better than that. Absolutely. It is actually. Kampai. Good morning. We actually stopped last night at an amazing road station here. It's a road station Toyohashi. It's massive. It's the biggest road station we've been at so far. But you can see there's just. There's so many RVs. It goes off in the distance. China is actually making a really nice breakfast. So I'm super excited. But right now I'm going to get us some coffee. There's actually a coffee car. Coffee car just outside the farmer's market. So let's get some coffee. And very conveniently written in English. Coffee stand. All right. Two large lattes coming up. Arigato gozaimasu. Good morning, baby. A little coffee for you. Coffee, coffee. There you go. There should be. That first sip tastes so heavenly. Well, thank you for the coffee. I'm making us some delicious breakfast. I don't want to tell because I'm going to surprise you and you. So first sip. Now breakfast is going to taste even more amazing now because extra love goes into it after Tanya-san has her first sip of coffee. Kampai. So today on the menu is French toast. We're going to have a nice thing of French toast and a little side of bacon. It should be really nice and I like the bread here. It's really thick. Almost like that brioche bread that just delicious sourdough big whatever you want to call it, but soft vibe. So I'm going to crack those open and get started. French toast today, baby. French toast and a truck stop, baby. It's coming out so perfectly with the butter on the bottom. It's going to give it a nice taste. The only thing missing is a little maple syrup, real maple syrup, but I think it's okay when you have this style of bread with soft and supple on the inside and then you have the egg on top and a little bit extra butter on there. I don't think you'll miss it as much this round. Although, you know, French toast and maple syrup, a little bacon on the side. Evan! It's gonna be nice. Bacon is always nice. Bacon. Thank you, baby. You're welcome. Everything looks amazing. Thank you. Well, you know, like I say, I love it to see you try it first. So I think you should do the honors. No, I cooked it for you, baby. I cooked it for you, my baby. Looks like I'm doing the honors today, which is not a bad thing. Not a bad thing. There you go. I know it's not proper way to put them on there, but that is for you. So give it a shot. Thank you, baby. Itadakimasu. All right. Nice. This bread is really nice. You did an amazing job. Look at that color. It's perfect. Thank you. And you can just kind of almost like smell the buttery goodness on it. All right, I put a little extra on there just because we don't have the maple syrup. Yeah, but hey. Mmm. Yeah, that's very good, babe. How's the bacon? Take a bite. Yeah. Wow. That's good. All right. I am going to dive into my creation. Gotta have the bacon. Gotta have it. Here we go. That is really good. That bread absorbs everything. The butter, the love. It's very good. Yay. French toast. All right, going in. Yeah, now that we had our breakfast, I think it's a real good, really good time to show you what this roadside station aka truck stop is all about. And it's already busy, busy, busy. I mean, people are actually parking in an overflowing parking lot down below just to come up to shop here. Yeah, it is. It is so busy. Oh, I definitely have to get this for my phone and footage for the gram. This is amazing. It's a little Pokemon manhole. Look at that. I've been taking a bunch of pictures around Japan. These manholes kind of giving our feet shots and a fun little like, you know, something to put together. This one is so colorful. Yeah, colorful. And it says Pokemon. So right off the bat when you come out here, there are a lot of like food trucks or even selling like motorcycles out of your truck stop. You can even put your bid in to buy a motorcycle, I'm assuming, but there's coffee shops, food stations all along here, the 24-hour bathrooms over this way with vending machines, but the grocery store, that is another world in itself. This is very, very cool. I have not seen this before. So these are electric racing bikes. Wow, that's unbelievable. I think that would be my favorite. That looks pretty cool. Right at the roadside station. Yeah, what is the name of your company? G-Tension. Do we have a company card? Can I give you? Very cool. There it is. At this roadside station, you can go pick up your electric racing bike. I would love to be so cool. Looks fun, right? So like here, this is like Lager, Box, Stout, Pilsner, Ale. So if we were staying here in the evening, like we're not going anywhere, we could probably get some of this right here. That looks amazing. How to toast. Cheers around the world. Kanpai! Around the world. Thank you. First, hajimemashite. Hajimemashite, domo. So you're from Kyoto? I'm from Kyoto, yeah. Wow, excellent. Very countryside of Kyoto. I roast this coffee by myself. I roast it. You roast it by yourself, yeah. Looks different, but it's me. Wow. Everybody compare. Your English is very good. Good coffee. Oh, yeah, very good. Yeah. She's very good. Worth the wait. Where are you from originally? I'm from Nepal. Oh, wow. Yes. Have you been there in Nepal? Not yet. Definitely want to. Plum beer. Plum. Yes. Plum. This is plum. Wow. How do they buy it? Only here. I recommend, recommend buying it. That's really good. Yeah, you like it? It's really good. So, unfortunately, no plum beer for me at this point because I'm driving. I'm driving. Wow, here's a store that has like all the flower shops, popcorn that we got yesterday, all kinds of snacks. It's like a shopping row here from hats and trinkets, gelatin, which is amazing, another market for snacks, and it just keeps going on and on and on. It's amazing for a truck stop roadside station. Well, that was a fun truck stop. I feel like everybody was just smiling at us. I know. Exactly. We're very funny. I think the folks appreciate it when we try to do some Japanese things. Of course, I do it all wrong. Yes. Right? I'm sure, like I'm trying to bow or this kind of thing, and I'm totally doing it wrong. Yeah, but it's funny because I'm like, I'm trying to pay attention. I'm bowing with my hands to the side. Yes. And I also see people bowing like this to each other. So is it a different form of bowing? Is it an older person that does this and the younger generation does this? It's like a level of respect. If you know anything about the bowing culture, let us know in the comments below. Do you bow like this or do you bow like this with your hands to the side? Do you look at them when you bow or do you put your head all the way down when you bow? Let us know. Jax, we need help. Help us. Wow, let's try this again. I know it's a little on the windier side over by the beautiful waterside. Right behind us is Mount Fuji. This spot here is, I think it's Miro Shubure, this section. And it's a pretty famous section. You'll notice a lot of artistic creativity showing Mount Fuji and those beautiful, beautiful sort of pine groves over to my right. And it's amazing to see, you know, a little bit of normally when that cloud is gone, that beautiful white caps. We were fortunate enough to capture some of that earlier, several episodes ago. So this is amazing to see this here, to be here with Dave on these black sand beaches and just that fresh air, the hawks just hovering above us, the sun shining in our face. It's just amazing. Seven minutes to our destination. Are you hungry? I'm starving. I'm excited for dinner. It's gonna be awesome. I know we passed up a couple of fun spots throughout the day here and we could have stopped, but I'm glad you didn't. I'm glad you resisted because there's a lot coming on the menu for tonight. It's gonna be awesome. We have arrived. Yay, this is home for the night. With Fuji in our sights. We just arrived at our truck stop for the night. Tana's gonna be getting a gourmet dinner prepared, so I'm gonna definitely be spoiled tonight. Just wanted to show you the truck stop though, real quick. We're actually at a roadside station in Fuji. Bit of a view of Mount Fuji right behind us. I'll show you as well. You can see the trucks right here. Trucks are lined up. And of course, we definitely don't take a truck spot. We fit right in pretty nicely to the car spots right over there because it's not that big. But right around here at the truck, you can see... Bye-bye, there he goes. You can see Mount Fuji right back there. Not a bad view, right babe? Crispy cold night. I am telling you, that was such a great dinner. We are so stuffed right about now. So, I am... One thing I'm really happy about is... So, we're parked right over there. As you can see, we're right over there. And the bathrooms are right here. So, very close and convenient. We also have all of those vending machines right there. So, if we do need to get a little late-night snacky-poo, it's right there without having to go out into the cold. Now, because we're a little bit more on the southern-southwest of Japan, it's a little milder. Although, it's still pretty cold, but it's pretty mild. So, we're gonna enjoy tonight. Just chill. I think we're gonna actually try and do a movie, have some popcorn, and just chill. And hopefully, tomorrow morning, right over there. Right over there. We should get a really beautiful view, if it's sunny, of Mount Fuji. So, we'll see you guys in the morning. We're almost there. I see the big ol' sign. Alright. We're going up. And on up. And on up to the, what's it called, the skywalk? Skywalk. Skywalker. Luke Skywalker. Lukey. Lukey Lukey. Jedi scum. Luke, I'm your father. You have arrived. Oh, and look at that huge, that's in huge spaces. Take a spot. Yay! We made it. We made it to the skywalk. Yay! Heading south, you felt the weather getting warmer and more beautiful. The drives were incredible and there was something really peaceful about it. We took our time and enjoyed the area before heading to our next roadside station, like the Skywalk Bridge. Now, the Skywalk Bridge is a very popular attraction. A suspendable bridge with views of Mount Fuji. And on one side, food trucks and attractions await you. And they even have a zip line. It's time to make our way to our final truck stop, which happens to be right on the ocean. I mean, after all these mountainous and steep terrains, it was kind of nice to be on the coast. Welcome to Itomorin Town. It's awesome because this is where we're going to be staying for the night. Home for the night. And it's free. It's kind of the map is right over here. I think, Dave, you're kind of pointing out something earlier. Yeah, we are right here. And actually, we aren't too far. We came, today we actually came over this way all through like, those are the fun roads you liked. All those windiest, windiest. All those fun roads. And then tomorrow, we're heading back up to Tokyo. It's our last night here. It's our last night, yeah. No. But let's go check out this place before they close. Wow. The moment you walk in, there's like a lot of different shops in here, stores, restaurants. There's a restaurant row upstairs. We actually ate there already. You'll see some of the footage in just a little bit. It was awesome. So much fun. But there's a lot to this place to check out, for sure. As a matter of fact, you can overlook the wonderful ocean water from up top. Should we try it? So here's restaurant row. There's five different restaurants up here you can choose from. We decided to eat at this one here, which was delicious. And we had a nice dry beer with that, which was great. All right, I'll see you outside. It's amazing. Yeah, this view is unbelievable. It's an unbelievable view. Now, it's getting quieter. I mean, things are starting to close down now. But we were able to explore this place. And I just cannot believe that this is all free, Dave. It's like, well, obviously things inside you pay for. But you can camp overnight here for free with this view. No, it's awesome. I know. This is amazing. Not your normal truck stop. Michi no Eki, as they say. Michi no Eki, which is roadside station in Japanese. I keep saying this, but I am so excited that this gets to be our home for the next 24 hours here. And it was for free. It's amazing. This is not your normal truck stop. No, definitely not. Yeah, this is incredible. Give me a kiss, babe. I love you so much. I love you. This has been great. All right, I love you so much. But there is one thing. Uh-oh, what? One thing that is bothering me. Oh, no. What? We've been in Japan for about 30 days, 30 nights, 30 mornings. Yeah. And we have not seen the sunrise over the ocean yet. Oh, the rising sun. And Japan is the land of the rising sun. I got you. Right? Yeah, I think I know where you're going with this. And so I was pretty sure it was east, but I wanted to double check. I just checked on the compass on the phone, and it is east right out there. That's right out of our bedroom window. Right out of our bedroom window. Well, you know what? This is our last night making something very simple. I'm just going to make almost like a family-style dinner, but just for the two of us. Like a soup. I'm going to have like mushrooms and spinach and cabbage and all kinds of ingredients in there. Soy sauce in there. Like a soup. It's going to be nice. And then, of course, we're going to have some nice beef pieces in there that we can cut up like a hot pot. That's going to be good. Right? It's going to be like a hot pot. It's going to be awesome. Moved it over. Center table. Yeah. More hot pot style, right? So we're going to have dinner at the table. Yeah. I like that. Got some mushrooms in it. So I'm separating just a little bit. But normally they don't mix things together, but this package came kind of pre-mixed with stuff. All right. Got my spinach in there. Throw some peppers in. This is really like potluck. We got leftovers. Vegetables. We're cooking the leftovers. Cooking the leftovers. Put it in. Doesn't that smell good? It smells excellent. Very good. You like it? I do. Are you excited? Very excited. It's going to be awesome. Since you're giving me the honors. Hot. It's good. Need some more soy sauce. Soy sauce, salt, and pepper. Needs more. Other than that, very good. All right. Ready? Yeah, I am ready. All right. Chashu. I'm going to grab a whole bunch of this stuff. Oh, you like that chashu. Grab the chashu. Chashu. That's what these guys do. Bean sprouts. Yeah. They're good. Yay. It's hot. Hey, babe. Good morning. Hey, good morning. So, this is it. One last... I know. I can't believe it. It's been... One last pack up. We've been here like about a month and it's gone by so fast like that. So fast. I feel like we just got here. I do miss the kitties. Yes. Oh my god. I can't wait to give them a big hug. I can't wait to see the kitties get back in the desert snow. I know. Right? I mean, these have been amazing for Japan. No doubt about it. It's been perfect. Fun size. It's been very easy to get around. But we love desert snow and getting back with the kitties is going to be really nice. I know. I agree. Well, we better get a move on because I think we have what? Like three hours? Yeah. We have about three hours drive today. Three hour drive today. Plus, we're meeting some old friends. Yes. I know. I have to give them back their blankets. We have had one of the best times exploring Japan living in a camper van, y'all. I mean, stepping a bit outside of our comfort zone and driving a camper van in a country we've never been to. Come on. Give us credit. Meeting new friends and making incredible memories. Our time in Japan has come to an end. But we hope by sharing this series with you, it inspires you to live your life a little bit more adventurously. And as I hope I'm saying this right in Japanese, see you in the next adventure.