Oh we're not quite there yet.

Alright, so we've got about 30 seconds to go before we can pull to the left into a service area which is pretty exciting.

This is Saitama and I'm on the way to Nagano which is a 370 km, what is that like 280 miles or something basically.

Almost four hours of driving.

And I'm gonna be taking a break here at ca Misato I guess I could signal right now going at a cruising speed of 80 km/h, which is I think below the speed limit here.

Alright, here we go.

Alright, let's see here, cars to the left and here it is.

Oh it hasn't changed at all.

I haven't been here for ages.

There's a Starbucks right right straight ahead and let's park in the front row.

Ah They got to and I will show you this beautiful service area Now there's a big difference between a service area and a parking area.

Well, here's a couple of spots here.

Let's go straight here.

I can pull right in front of it.

Oh, this is a great spot, how you doing everybody Welcome to commit sato.

This is uh, service area in Saitama Prefecture.

On the road towards Nagano.

Today I'm going to be crossing through Nagano city, my final destination, the mountains to film for one day and then come back tomorrow.

Um, ca Misato kind of breaks up the trip.

I, I've stopped here usually when I'm driving in this direction one because they do have a Starbucks which is, which is you know, pretty good coffee and they have more restaurants and some of the other service areas now on japanese highways there's service areas and there's parking areas.

I grew up not that far from the New Jersey turnpike and on the New Jersey turnpike and new york thruway they were called um rest stops and here and here in Japan they're called parking areas and service areas.

And parking area is basically a place that you can go in there and you park your car.

Usually there's vending machines, a toilet, maybe a convenience store but usually there's nobody there, it's just for parking.

Service areas are services where you can get restaurants, gasoline, coffee, gift shop.

Usually there's some, you tie some stands where you can get some um street food um and it's a lot bigger.

It's it's, I don't know if you really want to take a break from the road parking area is if you want to rest arise service areas if you want to hang out for a while.

Some of the service areas are pretty intense though.

There's some service areas that are that look like ancient adobe like they have their own feeling to them.

Some of the newer ones, this is an older one, it doesn't make it any worse.

But it's not as interesting as some of the some of the ones that I'm gonna be taking you into over the course of the next year or so.

Um, let me just take you inside here and I will discuss it a little bit more.

This is karma sato.

I gotta take you from the perch here.

Here we go.

321.

All right.

I'm gonna actually rotate you because you're going onto a gimbal.

So that means you're going to go for a little bit of a spin here.

Hey, and dugan's here.

Thank you anne.

Okay, careful.

You're gonna go for a spin here.

Okay, welcome back you're safe.

Hey joe Michaels here, konichiwa, how you doing and patty, highland.

Nice to see you patty.

Thank you.

I'm actually going to get a coffee and put that to good use.

Alright, let's go inside here.

I have the keys.

I'll show you the car that I'm driving as well, make sure the parking brake is on, this is on the road towards Niigata.

Check that out.

Hey, bob jones here too nice to see you.

Alright.

This is the Toyota Rise.

It's a sweet ride.

Not a bad car.

All right, let me take you around here.

The calmest auto service area.

What what you see here is basically a place where you can park the trucks are in the back.

Usually there's pretty good cellphone reception because there's a cellphone tower over there.

Busses will park over here.

There's a gasoline stand or a gas station right there and they assume maybe a shell.

Okay?

There you go.

There's a lot of loads of vending machines and I'm going to take you there last, but let's go just quickly inside.

Usually there's a post office to at least a post box and you got that right in front of us here.

Same time I can't wait.

Michael is pretty excited about the site thomas.

So as I can.

How you doing again?

Nice to see you again.

Alright, let's go.

Whoa, Look at that food.

It says very delicate pork steaks.

Now, each parking service area usually has some kind of specialty to it.

Mm hmm.

Okay.

Oh yeah.

All right.

Now you can see there's a restaurant here and there's partitions here that I guess, you know because we live in the pan, we're in the pandemic age.

There's also a gift shop.

Well check this out.

And cheese cookie, wow, there's a lot of gifts here.

Yeah.

Let's see what they got.

The restaurants.

Mm hmm.

This is, you don't shop here, check it out.

So they have here.

Um you don With all these really delicious looking topics here.

You just get it from the vending machine.

Everything is about $7.

That one's $5.

But that's just plain with dipping sauce.

Let's go.

Let's go to the next one here.

Oh wow!

Rose scott scott.

Oh, nice.

Look at this.

This is a cheese pork Adan.

That looks so good.

There's a miso pork don.

Oh man, it's about $9.

But it looks so worth it.

And another shop here.

This is Ramen.

So they have um, Ramen is about $7 as well.

You get a red rum and check that out For about $9.

You know, if you forget your sunglasses.

Usually you can get them here at the service area as well.

I forgot my sunglasses, but it's, it's cloudy luckily.

Whoa.

Is that musical?

Yes.

Mm hmm.

Okay.

These look good.

It's good with some a cup of tea.

Oh, these look amazing.

Look at these made from sweet potato.

Oh, this is so I gotta get these for the diamond one of these days here.

four.

That's pretty pricey.

That's like $12 for four.

That's heavy.

That's pretty heavy.

Hey, Purple Cat Audio.

Okay.

Oh, there's a, there's a bakery here too.

Right?

I have some like melon pond muffins, interesting.

Mm hmm.

Okay.

Okay.

Now the service areas, they usually have really good and clean toilets here, which is amazing.

Um, this is a multipurpose restroom.

It looks like it's empty here.

You can take a look here.

There's a place that you have a child.

You can, I guess you can lay down if you, if you need it for people who have disabilities if you've come here with somebody to help you out.

That's also very useful.

Okay.

Here's a little, a little note here on the, I'm not gonna do a toilet stream.

Mm hmm.

Alright.

History committed to service area.

Uh, this is Kodama County of Saitama Prefecture located in the far north of Saitama Prefecture commits outta town faces Gunma Prefecture isn't flanked by the Kana and Karasu rivers.

The town is noted for its ancient history that stretches back to the early Jomon period.

Like 8000 BC.

What?

When people started to settle in the area in the middle ages, it was known as the domain of the fish Eagle, Gurdwara Naga hama and abu clans interesting.

Usually the New York service areas that I stopped on the freeway have history going back to the colonial periods of like 2, 300 to 200 years ago.

Here they go back to 8000 BC.

Geez.

Alright, these vending machines got quite a bit of options here.

Um Oh, they got corn soup.

They have onion soup to, that's, I think that might be new.

All right over.

Usually I just go for the Starbucks to be honest with you.

It's maybe you'll get something at the bakery.

But oh, there's, there's, there's cheese, there's cheese cookie thingies like there's always local confections or something that's just so interesting.

So delicious.

Purple Cat Audio rights in here.

Just need overnight Occam's and you can live there for a week probably.

You know, I have actually camped out at the now that I'm outside.

I have actually camped out at service areas and I was hitchhiking, I would just have my cardboard sign and I would be on the side here because if if a ride you can't you can only get on the service areas if you come by car.

So I would ask people instead of taking me dropping me off off of the highway leave me on the interchange where I can pick another ride going in that direction.

It's a little bit easier to hitchhike from a service area than it is to hitchhike from back on the low road.

Stay on the high road and I have camped I deserve his areas so you can't actually have accommodations here.

Um and they're usually open 24 hours.

Service areas are better than parking areas.

I have camped at parking areas to and it's not quite as exciting.

Um It doesn't matter anyways a lot of these restaurants don't really open until 10 a.m. I'll put a link in the description so you can take a look a little bit about the information for commis Otto.

But if you're driving towards Nigata or not gonna this is maybe a good place to stop Shawn.

I could do it something to nibble on here in the trunk.

If you're in this trunk I'll be able to see you because it's not really a trunk.

It's sort of just a hatch back.

Alright let's go to the Starbucks.

Yeah it's just like 10-6 p.m.

according to Google maps.

But yeah sometimes they open a little earlier and sometimes they close a little earlier.

I don't know this is an older uh service area, the one that I was at before.

This that's even older than this.

So uh you will find new service areas that are so beautiful.

You go in there and it's like going into another world.

They've done an amazing job.

There's one, another one in Saitama that looks like old Widow, you go in there and you're like what?

You're like three centuries ago with thatched roofs and stuff still got phone booths here and the recycle bins are very good.

They're constantly changing these as well.

So you have glass bottles, cans, plastic bottles, pet bottles and then waste paper which are things that are usually considered burnable and because they're in clear.

Oh look and here's an electric charger so if you have an electric car you can charge it here.

Evey but right now it is available.

Not too many of those.

I bet you they increase over the next couple of years here in Japan as Toyota starts with their electric cars, they're way behind the curve.

Alright, here's the Starbucks, let's see what they got on.

Oh Chucky here lookie lookie, they have themselves some Sakura latte like they make a tree trunk from the chocolate.

Very nice.

There you go.

I don't, it's gonna take forever to get the drink and I got to get in my way.

So I hope that this isn't an informa informational Livestream as a in the sf copyright music in there at the end here is a smoking area.

And uh, if you're smoking, you can't smoke in front of the rest up.

There's a designated area for its uh, the staff will, will come and tell you not to smoke there and you might even get fined.

It just depends who's got the power when you get there and then right, not that far away from the service area.

Usually there's a place where you can walk your dogs play with the kids, a park in the back.

We got that here and then it's not that far before you get into the town, ca Misato town and looks like, what is that, strawberry, strawberry um, farm or something.

Do you have any questions you can leave in the comments below.

I am, I'm going to be doing it like maybe three or four live streams over the next 48 hours, 24-48 hours as I'm in Nagano, I'm on the road a little bit more exciting than me walking around Tokyo streets, which I've been doing for the last two years.

I want this channel will be pretty special to show you other places around Japan, especially the countryside.