That's what a vegan would do, mouthfeel

Good morning guys, welcome back to Journey Across Japan, never-ending adventure of discovery

This morning, I'm standing alone outside the front of JR Okayama Station in the city of Okayama (岡山市)

and I'm alone for the first time and I think it's been a week or 2, since I've been alone

Unfortunately, we don't have much time in Okayama today, we pretty much arrived yesterday

And we've got to go straight away, so I'll give you two cold hard facts about the region

Number 1: Over 50% of Japan's school uniforms are actually made here in Okayama

And number 2: Over 50% of Japan's peaches come from Okayama as well

So, there you go, here's your 2 key facts. Here's your challenge of the day

Sent in by you guys and the challenge is

Oh, for god sake, of course it is

I love the way there's a smiley face there

I don't know who drew that, but they knew this was going to be a tough day for me

Bastards

I'm a little disappointed, guys

Given that there is a McDonald's just there, right next to me and I was going to go in and get a Mega Muffin

So there goes that out, there goes that plan out the window, still this is the land of peaches, so

I might as well exploit that to our advantage and get some peaches for the road

and there is a big market over there with a giant peach above the door

It's probably the place to go, in it? Let's go and get some breakfast

Japanese malls, love to play uplifting music

On today's journey, we'll be traveling from Okayama to the port town of Onomichi (尾道市)

In preparation for the journey across the Islands of Japan's Inland Sea

and along the way, we're stopping off at Kurashiki (倉敷市) an old town known for being Japan's answer to Venice

But I'm not going anywhere, until I've had my breakfast and whilst my search for peaches has failed miserably

I've stumbled across a shop selling persimmons, mochi and enthusiasm

Okay

So, we found a little fruit shop, apparently peaches aren't in season at the moment

But, this lovely lady have giving us some grapes and some mochi as a gift, it's very kind

Very nice of her, this is where the action is, persimmon, Japanese people love persimmons

Before I know it I find myself in some sort of persimmon taste testing session, you know, just like any good vegan would do

Very juicy

Do you want one, cameraman? - Sure

I'm not gonna feed it to you, I'll take the camera, here you go

[...] of my day, having breakfast and discussing the, where bananas come from, standard morning

We turned up asking for some peaches, there were no peaches, probably not in season

So they gave us free persimmons and rice cake and they're very nice people

Very lovely ladies

Some people have been critical recently at me, that

I don't talk the locals enough, it is quite difficult

Not just talking to people in Japan, but getting them to agree to be on camera, they agreed to be on camera

and give us free food, so, I feel like I've vindicated myself, I can talk to the locals, yeah

Well, it's been an excellent start to my new life as a vegan and having discussed topics, ranging from the cultivation of bananas to excursions to Uzbekistan

I hit the road to Kurashiki, with a sack of persimmons to see me through the rest of the morning

I must say, I've got nothing against being vegan, but I did once travel with a good friend of mine

Regan, the vegan, his name rhimes, it's very clever. We traveled around Japan together and

All he ever ate was just bananas and nuts and tofu, those three things bananas, nuts and tofu

If you watch these videos, you'll know that I basically live off an exclusive diet of fried chicken and wagyu beef, so

Today is gonna be a tough one, I'm not gonna lie, it's gonna be a tough one

Kurashiki got that rare quality of a historic town

Whereby it feels very much lived in, as opposed to some kind of theme park attraction

This is an authentic bustling town, the people going about their daily lives in the setting

Who looks like one big time bubble straight out of the 17th century

The town was once a prominent merchant port and the wealth it brought still remains today in the form of decadent architecture

Hell, there was even an ancient Greek temple thrown in for good measure, built by a wealthy local businessman in the 1930s

and turned into Japan's first Museum of Western art

But here, the old streets are very much dominated by the presence as a turquoise blue canal

Filled with eager passengers being ferried around town

On a scale of 1 to picturesque town, Kurashiki really is stunning

I've been to a lot of old towns in Japan, but this is actually

Like this is the best and the reason it's the best is because there's a canal

It's like being in Venice, It's kinda got a Venice vibe

I heard somebody refer to this as the "Venice of Japan" and I can see why, I've been to Venice and this is

Not like Venice at all, but there's a canal and canals is what Venice has, so it's the same

It's definitely the same and it looks like there's no foreign tourists here, so, apparently foreign tourists haven't yet discovered this town

It's pretty big, I've been lost, getting lost down the little alleyways and side streets

The only thing I need now, is some vegan refreshment there, vegan refreshments some sort of drink first and then some lunch

To think like a vegan, what would a vegan do if they were here right now, pure and new mouthfeel

That's what a vegan would do, mouthfeel

She took a grapefruit, stuck a machine into it, they kind of scooped the insides out and crushed and mushed it up

And now it's just pure grapefruit juice and it tastes

Mmm

That's bloody good

I can really experience the mouthfeel

Not vegan, not vegan, not vegan, not vegan

Not vegan, so I've had my delicious tasty mouthfeel grapefruit juice

I'm actually having trouble finding some food that's vegan though, I've been looking around I found

Yeah, it's all been meat. There's lots of croquet

Potatoes with beef in and there's lots of sushi and seafood, but

There's nothing vegan, I'm having a little bit of trouble finding that. What's this here? Cheese. Is that vegan?

Cheese comes from cows, no, it's cows

Shit

Having failed to find a great deal of vegan friendly food

I've decided to cut my losses and get a move on to my final destination of Onomichi

Where a stop off at a convenience store she hopefully bear fruit

Quite literally as fruit is one of the few things I can bloody well eat today

Nothing takes the fun out of cycling more than traffic lights

Stop, start, stop, start, stop, start, Yes, go

Okay, I stand corrected, nothing takes the fun out of cycling more than a bridge

Goddamnit

Hahaha, nailed it

When it comes to veganism in Japan, it's still remarkably rare

Typically a lifestyle only adopted by Buddhist monks, living off a diet of Shojin Ryouri, is estimated just 4.7% of the population a vegetarian and

2.7% of vegan, but outside of monks, I personally never met a single Japanese person, who's adopted it as a way of life?

But whilst dining out here as a vegan might be a nightmarish inconvenience, if you have access to a supermarket

You'll be able to get by easily and if you're into eating tofu

It can be a better place to be, with dozens of varieties tofu cheese and even soy meat stocked on the shelves

however, given that I'm on the move today, I've only got time to stop at a convenience store

And here my options are certainly more limited with nearly every single item

With nearly every single item I'd normally get, out the window

Which to be fair is basically just fried chicken or pizza bread. I spy with my little eye

A Lawson's convenience store, get in

All the bread is out the picture, because it contains either butter or milk or eggs, bread section complete right off

The ramen sections also right off, most of the broth contain pork

So yeah, no ramen there, you might be thinking; Yeah, rice crackers, there's lots of rice crackers, they're vegan

Well actually, no, because they contain, they're flavored here in Japan with dashi, fish extract

And also this one which is just Wasabi flavor, is flavored with pig extract as well, so

Unfortunately, a lot of the rice crackers with flavors, are out the window as well, so that's kind of shit

Well, guys, we've arrived at our last destination of the day, Onomichi the port town in Hiroshima prefecture

We've just come through into Hiroshima prefecture and I've got my dinner, I think

I wouldn't want to be a vegan in Japan permanently, because if you're living a spontaneous life on the move

It really isn't practical just walking into a convenience store, your options are limited

Most vegans I know who live in Japan, do go to the supermarket, where they can buy and cook their own food?

I didn't have that luxury today, so what I've got is this

One of my favorite snacks while I've been cycling, are these Soyjoy bars, they're sort of soy powdered biscuit bar things

But on closer inspection, they do contain eggs and milk, so they were out of the picture, I did find

These kind of oatmeal biscuits, with wheat and oatmeal so they're right there quite nice, so I've got those

Next I went to reach for some Calpis the yogurt flavored drink, but that was out of the picture, because it's got yogurt in

So I've got a fruit smoothie and there were loads of good fruit drinks and smoothies and things, in all the convenience stores

That wasn't a problem and I also got good old-fashioned banana, individually wrapped

No less, Japan pride itself on being a country that doesn't waste things

But then, you see individually wrapped banana and you can't help to think, that's a lie

Now there's a really big section in the store dedicated to rice cracker

Snacks and things, but my favorite flavor which is wasabi, and it had essence of pork in it so

That was out of the picture unfortunately, so instead, I went for some potato chips, some

Salted flavoured potato chips, I'm not gonna complain there

Now the last thing I got is a hot food

The most bitter pill to swallow was nearly every single hot food, all the fried stuff was not vegan

Remotely at all, fried chicken of course, no chance, but one thing I did find was some fried potatoes

There you go, some fried potatoes with some ketchup, so that's what I'm looking forward to the most

Even though, they're completely cold by now, because I've been walking and talking and filming and now they're frozen solid, so

Still we did make it to Onomichi and I've had a lovely cycle today, a most wonderful cycle and to end it here on the dock of the bay with the sunset

It's a nice way to wrap things up

It also reminds me of the Otis Redding song '(Sittin' On) The Dock Of The Bay'

Well I'm standing on the dock of the bay and I'm eating cold fried potatoes

It's not quite as romantic and as glamorous as the song, is it?

But for now guys, thanks for joining me on my trip today, my vegan day of experimentation

I really want to play '(Sittin' On) The Dock Of The Bay' by Otis Redding

But for copyright reasons, I can't put the song in the video

So I have to sing it, can't remember the lyric to pass the first line, ♫ I'm sittin' on the dock of the bay ♫

♫ Watchin' the ti~~~de, roll away ♫

Yeah!

♫ Sittin' on the dock of the bay ♫

♫ It is really cold and fucking horrible potatoes ♫ Don't know why I bought 'em, what an idiot

In the last six years of living in Japan, I've been incredibly lucky to travel the whole country

But this place is hands-down the most beautiful place in all of Japan