00:00:01 John Daub: Hello everybody, we're live. This is the Only in Japan Go channel, and I'm in Ginza. On the weekends here in Ginza, it turns into a shopping street where all the cars and traffic have been closed off, and just the entire street is open to the public. It's super cool. People are really enjoying a beautiful sunny day here in Tokyo on a Sunday afternoon. Ginza is one of the more historical areas, famous for very big brand names, very expensive shops, lots of really stylish cafes. Lunch here can cost you anywhere from like $30 to thousands of dollars, and it's pretty cool that on the weekends they open it up to the general public.

00:01:01 John Daub: You can snag a seat if you want, but you have to get here pretty early. A lot of these chairs and tables—you can bring a coffee from a cafe nearby, sit outside, and enjoy the middle of the street. Right now I'm walking in the middle of Ginza, but this is only on the weekends. They close this off Saturday and Sunday, between like 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., and on the weekends after 5 p.m., Ginza turns back into a real road where cars can go back and forth and they can make deliveries and such. This is what it's like. Pretty cool. Right there is Wako, one of the famous department stores in Japan, maybe the world. And on the other side is Mitsukoshi, famous for having the lion in the front there.

00:01:56 John Daub: So I thought I would walk around Ginza a little bit today and share with you the experience of being here on a nice, beautiful day. It's not that hot today. That's really great. It's the end of August. Usually it's sweltering hot like a sauna, but today, pretty cool. I'm quite happy with the weather. This shopping mall that I started coming out of is the newest shopping mall in Ginza. This is Ginza Six. And Ginza Six has all these really big brand shops. Most of the shops in Ginza Six, they're like stuff I would never buy. For a guy like me, I'd rather just shop on Amazon instead of in this shop. However, I have to point out that the roof of Ginza Six is pretty cool.

00:02:56 John Daub: After you get to the 6th floor, it's just a bookstore. And if you go to my Instagram page, Only Japan TV, I'm going to post some pictures from the 6th floor up. They have a Starbucks in there that has a bonsai tree right in the middle, and it's pretty darn cool, I thought. The top also has a garden, which is really neat because you can see a panoramic view of Tokyo, including Tokyo Tower in the distance. This will all be on an Instagram post so you get an idea of what Ginza's newest shopping mall looks like. That there, I've been there so many times—that's the Uniqlo. This is a Uniqlo t-shirt. So a lot of this stuff, I'm pretty basic. A lot of the things that I buy clothes-wise, probably is Uniqlo stuff.

00:03:47 John Daub: So we're in Rokuchome. Ginza's broken down from Ichome, which is the first district, to Hachichome, which is the eighth district. And then after that, it turns into Shimbashi. So this is the world famous, main, massive store for Uniqlo. And this Uniqlo is huge. It goes way up there, and it's just loaded with stuff. I see Jim is here from Tacoma, Washington. I will absolutely be putting the Super Chats to some pretty good use today. So what do you think of Ginza? If you do come and you're here in the spring, summer, fall, the weekend's really cool. I think Shibuya is too crowded. And because they open up the streets and you can see how wide it is—between 10 a.m. and 5 p.m., Ginza's a great place to go just to chill out.

00:05:04 John Daub: You have these chairs, these little garden chairs behind me. You have a really wide street, which is pretty cool. And people can come in, and you don't have to worry about cars or anything like that. It's also really good for shopping, especially if you have a platinum card or any credit card with a $10,000 limit. You can max that out here. One of the great things about Ginza, though, is not this main street. This is Chuo Dori, the main artery that runs between Ueno and Asakusa. It goes all the way towards Shinagawa. And Shinagawa is one of the big stations on the Yamanote Line. It's also where you can pick up the Shinkansen. Tokyo Station and Shinagawa are the two main stops going on the Tokaido down to Osaka.

00:05:49 John Daub: But I'm going to go off route from Chuo Dori and go down some of the side streets. This is Miyuki Dori. One of the great things about Ginza is not that main street—go off the main street. Absolutely. And there are alleys, I'd say four or five streets on both sides filled with little trendy, cool shops that have all sorts of things from all over Japan and the world. A lot of shops, worldwide global brands, they open up satellite shops here in Ginza. And that is a big thing to have, right? If you can write Ginza in something, that means you pretty much have a pretty good brand. See down here on the side, lots of little trendy shops.

00:06:45 John Daub: Here's a Singapore—I think this is from Singapore. This is a Bee Cheng Hiang. Singapore's favorite bak kwa brand. Wow, delicious. It's got a smokey taste. Sweet. It's all freshly baked. Thank you, Vikram Ray. Thank you very much. I wouldn't say it was beef jerky. It was sweet. It had kind of a barbecued taste to it. It's not something I would expect here in Ginza because a barbecue, the image of something that's barbecued is maybe like a cheaper meat, I guess. But that wasn't—there's nothing cheap about that. That was pretty darn good. Now that he gave me a little bit of taste of it, it's so sweet and tangy that I'm going to have this in my mouth for the rest of the afternoon now.

00:08:17 John Daub: This is what the side streets look like in Ginza. There's a lot of really trendy signs. Ginza has a lot of trees as well. You don't really notice them because the buildings are all over the place. Most of the buildings, they're not skyscrapers. They're about between seven or eight stories high, most of them. Oh, this is one of my favorite shops. All right, so Japan has 47 prefectures, and each prefecture has a satellite shop in Tokyo. This one is the Nagano one. And Nagano is one of my favorite prefectures because it's a very natural place. A lot of people know it because of the 1998 Winter Olympics, right? It's also famous for having the Japanese Alps. I guess we can take a quick look around.

00:09:09 John Daub: They also have craft beer and stuff that's really good. Nagano is probably home to some of Japan's best craft beers, if you're into that. And they have lots of vegetables and produce. It's one of the most natural places in Japan. Whoa! This is what I'm talking about—like the Nagano craft beer. This is from Karuizawa. Captain Stu. This is actually pretty reasonably priced. Nagano has some good cheese as well. This is miso cheese. That's eggplant. Whoa! Oyaki, which is very famous—very famous in Nagano. Whoa! So many different tastes. This is so cool. Amazake. Whoa! That's a big peach. So these peaches are like $6 each. This is my hand. That's how big it is. You can see the farmer who makes them in Nagano.

00:12:03 John Daub: Alright, we're back outside. I'm sorry about the connection. I think we lost the connection there. So those things I showed you in the freezer, they're called oyaki. And oyaki are like hot pockets. They're like grandma fresh handmade hot pockets. You can put those frozen ones into the microwave and heat them up for about 2 minutes, and they're so good. I don't know how many times I've been to Nagano on location shoots for NHK or some sort. But oyaki is one of the amazing Nagano mountain foods. And I'm surprised it doesn't get that much attention. So this is what some of the alleys look like. There's lots of really trendy shops. Here's a famous waffle chain. Oh that smells so good.

00:13:33 John Daub: This is now Yonchome. Yonchome is the 4th district. And it's also home to the world's most expensive real estate. I'm serious. It's super expensive. This is the world's most expensive intersection. Ginza station's right there. This intersection is ridiculously priced. And if you Wikipedia this you're gonna see that I think it was like one square foot is like 4 million dollars or something ridiculous. Don't write that down as fact. But it's somewhere on the internet. It'll say Ginza's 4th district real estate price. This intersection is ridiculous. And the buildings are pretty crazy too here. This over here on the other side—this is a brand new building. Nissan has owned this corner of the 4th district for a long time. And a really famous architect created this crazy looking building that you can see.

00:15:11 John Daub: On the second floor are the cars. Wow, what the heck is that thing? Is that like Knight Rider or something? That's an awesome car. I'm a big fan of Nissan too. Look at this thing. Look at the curves on her. Wow. I gotta go inside. This is too cool. Look at the color on that. Is it real? It's a concept car. This is crazy. Look how thin the windows are here. And the color, the paint on it, it's sort of like a matte on it, right? It's got like a matte, shiny matte red. Wow. That's awesome.

00:16:43 John Daub: I'm gonna wait for the light to change. The only place where there are cars on this walkway during the weekend is right here at Yonchome. There's no way to shut the traffic down. Up here you have Ginza's Wako, which I showed you in the beginning of this livestream. Every hour on the hour, the clock will ring, the bell will ring inside that tower and you can hear it all through Ginza. It's pretty cool. This street goes all the way down this way towards the Imperial Palace where the emperor lives. When I ran the Tokyo Marathon, so I was at the front of the Ginza Six. The sixth floor is where there's a really fancy Tsutaya bookshop and there's a garden on the roof. So I highly recommend going to the Ginza Six. This here is Mitsukoshi, a really famous department store. I'm gonna take you over to the lion.

00:17:54 John Daub: It's so festive on the weekends here. Do you see it? All the people are here. All the grannies found it. Good lion. Look how shiny it is from tourists rubbing it. This is the famous lion of Mitsukoshi. You can see the Nissan building behind me, which is pretty crazy. Oh, there's someone giving a live performance. There's a little guy with a big hat. This is in front of the Yamano store. It's a really famous music store that's been in business forever. But it's pretty festive. Another place I want to highlight is right here. This behind me is Kimura Pan. I was telling you how expensive the real estate prices are here in Ginza Yonchome. It's one of the most expensive, if not the most expensive place for real estate in all of the world.

00:20:01 John Daub: And behind me is a bakery. And the reason why they could have a position here is because they own the building and have been here forever. Kimura Pan. They still use the old sign from the Showa era that says Kimura Pan, which is the Kimura Bakery. If you like anpan, which is the anko red bean paste inside of a bun, this is the place to go. And it's always crowded. I'm going to do an episode on the main channel about this place because I've met the son of the owner, and he invited me to film here. But that was a couple of years ago. Kimura Pan since 1869. So that's why this place can have a location on the intersection. And the breads here, you can see the red bean paste, and this one looks like it's infused with green tea, maybe? Let's have a quick look inside.

00:21:13 John Daub: This is Kimura Pan. This is white bean. Wow, curry. This is chestnut. Ah, summer mikan. Wow! This is an orange taste. Cream cheese. It's 410 yen. I guess I gotta buy one, don't I? I'm going to get the mikan. But chestnut looks really good too. This has white chocolate in it. I'm getting this one. One mikan please. Street food! This is getting good. So we got street food and music. She's really good. So this little bun. Oh look at that. It's got a little circle on it. The circle of life.

00:24:30 John Daub: So we're going to enjoy the smooth tunes of a really pretty lady with a guitar while eating a summer mikan bread from Kimura Pan. Kimura Pan is right there. Sorry, it's one of the most famous bakeries in Japan. This is good. I love jam. This is so sweet. This is so good. I love anko the red bean paste there and they're one of the best makers of anko anpan. But they have like seasonal flavors and this is a summer mikan. Just like cream cheese but I'm trying—I'm on a diet so I just picked jam instead. It's so good. And the bread is still warm. This came right out of the oven I think not that long ago. I'm going to turn the camera around while I devour this mikan bread.

00:25:41 John Daub: You can see a little bit on this side of Chuo Dori is a little bit different. The street really goes on straight and then makes a left turn. That's the end of Ginza where there's an overpass. It's so good. I don't have to explain what this building is do I? That's the Apple store. This is the first Apple store in Japan I believe, the one in Ginza. Whenever a new iPhone came out, when the first iPhone came out everybody was waiting in line here at this Apple store. And it's great. It's quite famous and it's quite crowded. When Apple first started you could get help at the Genius Bar pretty quickly. And now it takes hours. Last time this phone that I'm streaming on was the screen broke—I dropped it. And it took me four hours to fix the screen maybe about three or four years ago it would have taken like 30 minutes.

00:27:16 John Daub: Are you a YouTuber? Yeah. I'm a YouTuber right now. You're on YouTube. Oh I think I've seen it. My channel is called Only in Japan. Yeah yeah yeah. Now you know it. Where are you from? Portugal. Oh Portugal. Okay. How long are you in Japan for? About two weeks. Oh okay. Welcome. I'm live streaming now. So now we're going to eat and so on. Oh okay. Have a good day. Bye bye. Wow from Portugal. So there's people all over the world coming to Ginza. That was funny. See he knew who I was but he didn't know exactly from where.

00:28:11 John Daub: Now I'm not a big fan of chains but I did a couple of shows on the main channel. Again, this is my second channel. This is a live streaming channel and I'm going on to the side streets again of Ginza. I'm going to take you to the world's most beautiful Starbucks. I know Starbucks well not because it's a brand that's everywhere. It's because when I first came to Japan in 1998 there weren't many chains. When I got homesick there weren't that many places I could go. There was McDonald's of course and I'm not a big fan of McDonald's or fast food. So that the options for me when I felt homesick were very limited to going to the video rental store and getting a VHS cassette to watch a movie like a Hollywood movie or something. It's pretty much Japan was Japan back in 1998 and it's not even that long ago. It was 20 years ago about. But Starbucks was one of the first massive chains that was really trendy in the US at the time that opened up here in Tokyo and this here is the first Starbucks ever.

00:29:32 John Daub: This is the first Starbucks in Japan in 1996 I believe—1997. And they opened up about the same time that I did. They just renovated it. This is brand new. Before it was a beige color and it looked a little bit old. Now this building looks brand new. I'm gonna get a coffee. Maybe they got something cool inside that's new. But I wanna show you the marker more importantly. Boom. So when you come you can touch it. My hand was here too. Okay. I probably should wash my hands now. But they have some cool stuff in here. And it's a pretty crowded Starbucks. Matcha donut. Very cool.

00:31:16 John Daub: I walked in there and everyone was staring at me like I broke the line. And cutting in line in Japan? You could get arrested for that I think. It's worse than getting arrested cutting in line in Japan. People will stare you down and make you feel guilt like it's worse than murder. You never cut in line in Japan. Another thing that you never do is stand on the escalator on the right side. You have to understand the manners of Japan. People stand on the left and walk on the right. And this department store right here—this is Matsuzakaya. Matsuzakaya in the basement has a lot of really good sweets. It's called a depachika (department store basement food hall). And depachika are in every single department store. In the basement you can find like a museum of food. They have some of the most delicious foods. I mean they look really good. But you could go broke down there too because the prices are like ten times more than a regular supermarket.

00:32:20 John Daub: So this one is Matsuzakaya. This is an old department store. So we're still in the side alleys here. And if you go on the next street over or a little bit further towards Ichome, you're going to find a lot more trendy stuff. And a lot more Starbucks too. There's a ton of Starbucks in this area. I'm going to wrap around to Chuo Dori and then we're going to end this live stream. But I thought this would be a pretty good day since the weather is really nice. You can see beautiful blue skies today. Not that humid. Usually Tokyo is ridiculously humid. Today is pretty nice. Look at that—like a really little old plant store. Look at these little guys. They came with their own moss. Very cool.

00:33:30 John Daub: I'd love to have a house that looked like this. This is what I look like walking down the street by the way. I'm holding this stick. I'm 43 years old. Alright. So we're getting to the end. This here is a very famous stationery company called Itoya. This is the back entrance. Right there is Chuo Dori. You can see on the weekends bicycles and cars are not allowed in here. It's prohibited according to the police. So you're not allowed to drive your car through here. Which is cool. Very very cool. I like this to see all the people walking just enjoying the afternoon. You can see there's Chanel. There's Cartier. There's Bulgari. So you have to have a lot of money in this area. This is the golden intersection. This is really expensive.

00:35:04 John Daub: So now we're a lot closer to the end. Right there is the end of Ginza. That's Ginza Ichome. That's sort of where it starts. And it goes all the way to Hachichome. So 8 blocks. About 8 blocks of walking you can do here. Alright, one more building. I'm against diamonds. But this is the De Beers building. You can see the funky shape to it. Look at that. Wow. It's got more curves than a supermodel. So this is the De Beers building I believe. It's really beautiful. I don't know how they made it. Looks like it's not open yet. I was pretty sure this was the De Beers building. It must have changed ownership. So I guess this is a brand new building. The average lifespan of a business in Ginza is like a few years. Kimura Pan is the exception. They've been open since like the Meiji Restoration in 1860s, right?

00:36:34 John Daub: You want to get off of Chuo Dori. Come see some mannequins. I had a friend who used to work there 10 years ago. She moved to the Osaka branch inside Osaka Station. Which is a shame. Beautiful afternoon. This is Printemps. Okay. Now I know where I am. Mikimoto building is pretty cool. If you're into architecture, Ginza is also a wonderful place to take a look at some of the amazing buildings. Kabukiza, which has been renovated—I guess it was finished about two years ago. It's been renovated and it's beautiful. They renovated it because after the 2011 earthquake, yeah, it needed to be more earthquake proof. Wow, you can see the Mikimoto building. Which is also pretty insane. And this is Printemps. It's a French name.

00:38:16 John Daub: If you keep going down the side streets in Ginza, you get to Yurakucho, which is where JR is. So Ginza subway station is on Ginza line, obviously. And it's very close to Yurakucho, which is the closest JR line. So if you're coming on JR, Ginza is accessible from Yurakucho. And this is pretty much Yurakucho now. There you go. We got cars again. Traffic. Yeah. It's Tokyo. So that pretty much ends the live stream. I think that's the most you can see in 30 minutes. There's a Tokyo Hans. Lots of new buildings. But in general, if it's a weekend, try to avoid Shibuya and Harajuku. It's so crazy. It's so crowded. My suggestion is probably come to Ginza. Get some Kimura Pan. Grab a coffee somewhere. It's not too crowded. Maybe don't go to the first Starbucks ever. Go to another one of the 10 in the district and just chillax.

00:39:39 John Daub: There's a lot of stuff to do here. Ginza Ichome, which is the first area. The end of the Ginza district right there. And that's where I'm going home. What the heck is this? Ishikawa. Wow. Do you know what that is? That's the golden ice cream. You know, that's Ishikawa. So I told you before that every prefecture in Japan, there are 47 prefectures. And each one seems to have a satellite shop in Tokyo. And they appeal to tourists here as well as sell some of the local goods. This one, Ishikawa. Ishikawa is famous for Kanazawa. Kanazawa is a place that I noticed when I was hitchhiking. Loads and loads of tourists have been going to Kanazawa. So this is the Ishikawa prefecture shop. This is Kanazawa stuff. And I ate this ice cream while I was hitchhiking in Kanazawa. It was pretty good.

00:40:55 John Daub: Kanazawa is famous for gold. Gold. Oh, it's kind of expensive. Like a thousand yen. Ten dollars for this. Cool. So inside the Ishikawa building you have on the basement floor, there's a bar and there's a lot of Japanese sake. Ishikawa has some great sake. The first floor is the ice cream and gift shop and the second floor seems to be book shops and pottery and stuff. So it's a very cultural place, a lot of natural stuff here. But I mean, everyone comes here for that, right? The golden ice cream. Very cool. I'm going to save that for another episode. That's another episode in itself. The golden ice cream of Kanazawa. I'm not really in the mood for ice cream. That's sort of why I'm not buying it actually. I ate lunch before I started this livestream. Big mistake.

00:42:32 John Daub: That oyaki though at the Nagano store that I showed you at the beginning is really good. This is the Café de Ginza. It's not that old. This café I remember opened up about 7 years ago. It's not a bad place to chill out. It's a little bit more than Starbucks and usually there's an open seat because it doesn't have the name brand of Starbucks. Starbucks is always crowded. The first McDonald's in Japan opened up in Ginza in the 1960s or 70s. I think it was 72 maybe. McDonald's does not match Ginza's image. Even back in the 70s, Ginza was a place of high brands and quality. McDonald's was one of the first foreign businesses to open up in Ginza. They had a branch in there that was doing business until 1998 when I first came to Japan. They still had the McDonald's right near Yonchome, right near the most expensive intersection in the world. And they closed that down. So McDonald's closed their Ginza location in 1998, which sort of makes sense because it just didn't really fit into the image of Ginza.

00:44:09 John Daub: Oh, the Shinkansen! So Tokyo Station is the next station over. And you can see the Shinkansen. The Shinkansen flying by here at Yurakucho. Pretty cool. It's going to Osaka. So these trains are going to Kyoto and Osaka. And guess what? This happens to be the Osaka satellite shop. So even Osaka has a satellite shop in Tokyo. And of course they sell takoyaki. Takoyaki! Boom. And there's the Shinkansen going again. So that's it. There's your Ginza adventure on a weekend. Beautiful Sunday, sunny afternoon. What can I say? This livestream could go on and on and on forever because there's just an endless amount of things to show you here.

00:45:45 John Daub: But that just means I will have to be back here with Jennifer or another car reporter to make this a little bit more interesting. Yeah, there is a Muji over here. Also a couple of other shops here. There's a big camera on the other side. But we've walked all the way from Ginza to Yurakucho Station. That's a pretty complete Ginza walkthrough, okay? So I hope everybody goes to that Starbucks. You can touch where I touched. Wash your hands afterwards. And I hope you enjoyed this mini adventure. Thank you everybody. Tomorrow I'm going to a place called Tomioka which is famous for silk. I'm going to be doing a quick episode that's more historical in nature there. But coming tonight is a new episode on the main channel, okay? It's a ramen episode. So don't miss that. Definitely subscribe to both this channel and the main channel. And make sure the notifications are on so you can watch this livestream live. Because that's what this is all about. This is sort of fun to be able to share this experience right away with you like this.

00:46:49 John Daub: Here we come to the end of the line. So I'm going to turn the camera around for the last 20 seconds so you can check out a little bit of Yurakucho before I cut off. See ya. Have a good day everybody. Bye. And I'll see you wherever you are in the world. There goes the Shinkansen. Bye bye. That's a long train. Hurry up. I'm trying to cut this off. Hurry up train, okay?