00:05 John Daub: I'm not sure if you can see this, but this is Harajuku's Takeshita Dori (Takeshita Street). I've been here, I don't know. You know who might want that? My mom. She might want that. And you know it's a touristy place when there's a Wolfgang Puck Express. But nevertheless. Yeah. I'm trying to avoid it and I just can't do it. Because I will brave Takeshita Dori for you if that's what you want.

03:23 John Daub: That's kind of what I want. I like to get into it sometimes. It's full of interesting people. Nobody dresses like this normally. The Harajuku girl. You're going to notice as you walk around Takeshita Dori there aren't that many people who are dressed like freaks with dyed hair with colored outfits. These people are very rare and unusual. Although it is cool to see they're not part of Tokyo.

03:58 John Daub: This is not the Tokyo that, for example, Logan Paul or Paul Logan—I don't even know what his name is—that YouTuber who got in trouble. The image that he has of what Tokyo is is not the image of what Tokyo really is. Like it really, really is. The image of Tokyo is totally different. It is a very conservative... And Japan in general. It's a conservative country. It's a country where people have a lot of respect for one another. They follow the rules. People line up properly. They pay on time. They're never late. Well, almost. But that's what Japan is to me.

04:32 John Daub: And even here in Takeshita Street you can see that people although they're probably mostly tourists people are not dressed like Harajuku girls in the center of what should be Harajuku kingdom. Like the Harajuku girl should be all over the place. But they're not. It's normal. Okay, maybe that guy's wearing some kind of fashion. But it's normal fashion. It's not like freak fashion. Although there's nothing wrong with that. That's what I'm trying to say here. But it is fun. Even the stickers on the walls are pretty cool to look at.

05:12 John Daub: The street does have its own personality. But it's not really what you think it is. It sort of is cool. I like to see all the colors. It might be Akihabara, but that's a different kind of weird. I do like it. I mean, nobody really wears that. You know? It's not normal. Or maybe I'm totally out of touch. What do you think? Am I just out of touch with Japanese culture? Wow. That's kind of cool. It's like a dinosaur backpack. Wow. Very nice.

06:00 John Daub: A lot of these places don't allow filming, too. Oh! I love this. Wow! What the heck is this? Oily Soft... Ah! I couldn't see the soft from the screen. Oily Soft. It's like a soft cream with some sort of chocolate eclair in it. Wow! That's insane! Why? That does look good, though. I might have to get a crepe. I definitely don't fit in here, though. This is why I avoid the street. Although, it's not that bad. I mean, there's good parts to it. There's these lingerie stores. I don't mind. I don't know if I'd bring a date here, though. That's a little much.

07:10 John Daub: Oh! This is new. Alta. This is under construction for the longest time. The street has been under, I guess, what would be like an identity crisis in a way. There's the past, which is represented right here. My friend's shop. ACDC Rag. I featured them in a video a few years ago. ACDC Rag was... Yeah, they have like this 1980s sort of hip-hop, weird cross fashion, for example. You know? This is ACDC Rag. It's colorful. It's its own style. What can I say?

08:09 John Daub: Metroparka. Who doesn't want a metal parka? This is a metal-based material. And it's only 2,500 yen. Yeah, that's like $25. I do like the colors. I like looking at all these colors, though. It is pretty neat in here. And the medical cat is pretty cool, too. I do like that. No food, no drink. I wonder if they're there. You know, I am friends with the son of the owner of the shop. We've been riding back and forth. It's been a while. They used to have another shop, but it's been closed down. So this, I think, is the only ACDC Rag shop.

09:00 John Daub: Oh, that's the pre-cross shop down there. It says, no guys allowed. And it's closed. That's not cool. Oh, there's a sign. No men allowed. Right there. No guys. Boom! Stopped at the door. But yeah, you know... You have to look up sometimes. And you see there's a lot of signs. The shops don't end on the street level. They go up three floors usually. And to be honest with you, most people never go up to the second or third floors. That's where the real satellite shops are. You know, it's not off of the main street.

09:55 John Daub: This video is probably going to be demonetized because of the music. So that's all right. However, there's the crepes that I was talking about. There's some more crepes. Now, this is where it starts. I'm going off-road. Now, I'm going to take you to where I like to go. Okay. Now, just off of Takeshita Street. First of all, there are restrooms. And nobody knows about these. We're not even that far away. You see, there's Takeshita Street. You notice how quiet it got, huh? It's gotten really quiet really fast.

10:37 John Daub: It has a secret shrine in the back. And the music just... It's starting to quietly go away. Just sort of fade in the background. It's a good feeling to be back here. And, you know, this is sort of Tokyo in my image. There are those loud places that I absolutely avoid. And then there are the places... The long routes in the back that... Like, there's a shrine. An entrance. There's a torii (Shinto gate). An entrance to a shrine. These are the places that you have to go off the road to find.

11:34 John Daub: Alright. Now, I'm getting reports that the audio is out of sync. I apologize. I might have to redo this livestream again. But anyways, I just wanted to bring you through here for now. I might have to do this again. I'll bring a friend with me next time. Looks like they're making some additions to the shrine. It's pretty nice. Okay. There's the shrine over there. This is a nice shortcut if you avoid... And now, look, if you can hear... I'm sorry if the audio is out of sync, but if you can hear, it's so quiet now. We've totally made it to another world, it seems, just by walking about a minute away from Takeshita Street.

12:43 John Daub: That's Tokyo to me. You can go down Takeshita Street, and if it stinks, like how I feel most of the time, just hang a left and go past the shrine, and you'll be right on your way. This road eventually will lead to Shinjuku if you make a left up here. I'm sorry if the audio is out of sync for some people. Oh, good, he's gone. And then here we are. We're back away, and we can take a look in the distance is Harajuku. And then you get a better look now of what we avoided. It's nice, you know, I like to come here and avoid the crowds.

14:10 John Daub: Locals also do not go down Takeshita unless they are forced to by nature. And I personally, that might be the... I don't think I walked down that street last year, the entire year. And this is the first time this year. So, yeah, Takeshita Street. Avoid it at all costs. And, you know, if you want to enjoy it, that's fine. I got nothing against that. But if you want to skip out, hang a left. Go past the shrine. Why should we avoid it? Well, you shouldn't. It's residents who avoid it because we... It's so crowded and it's so loud and it's so... So, it takes such a long time to walk through there. We usually take the roundabout way. I don't know any friends that purposely walk through there. Everybody I know avoids it. I'm serious.

15:12 John Daub: It's a beautiful shot of the city. Yeah, J. Sato has it right. It's like Times Square in New York. Look at the sun is setting. It's like, you know, you want to avoid it if you can. You sort of go around it. It's a big headache. It's crowded. There's stuff going on. There's something blocking. You might be implicated in something. Who knows? Takeshita is right there. So, yeah, tourist trap. But the reason why I don't like it that much is because Takeshita Dori has lost its identity to me. Now, I'm talking more from the heart now, okay?

16:00 John Daub: Takeshita Dori... Thank you, Oliver Stone. Thank you, by the way, Oliver Stone. I don't know if it's a real Oliver Stone. But Oliver Stone gave me a super chat at the end of the last one and I cut off. So, I want to thank you for that. I did see it and I appreciate it very much. So, I'm talking from me now, like deep down as a resident who's been here for a long time. This street behind me, which is right there, it used to be a place with a lot of personality. And it was inevitable that it had to change the way it did. It had to, you know, I guess clean up a little bit. But as a result of that, to me, it lost its identity. And it's now kind of overly commercial. It's too commercial. It was pretty commercial before. But it was like small business owners had owned property there since the 1980s. Or 1970s or 60s. Yeah. Like in the video I made on Takeshita Street, the Harajuku Street Fashion.

17:01 John Daub: But I'm going to take another shortcut back to Omotesando. I'm taking the side streets back. Yeah. And after it lost its identity and they knocked out the ACDC Rag in the corner, I decided that I'm just not going to go there and support Harajuku. And, you know, the neighborhood, there's some nice people there. But it's lost its identity. It's a totally different place. It's more for tourists. And even, you know what? The teenagers, as you saw, like people don't dress like the Harajuku girl. Those teenagers, they go elsewhere. They go to other places. They don't go down Takeshita anymore. They go down places like here. You know, the side streets of... The back streets of Omotesando here. These places are where a lot more younger people go. Nobody goes down Takeshita. Everybody goes down here. So, just trying to point you. And the only reason it's crowded is because everybody's a tourist. Well, or they're confused or something. Maybe not. Maybe I'm wrong.

18:02 John Daub: But I know Florencia probably knows where we're going. These streets back here have way more personality. There's lots of little shops with the original storefronts. Colors, styles. You see it. Big windows. Fashion. Carlsberg. Much, much cooler. The problem is... And somebody... I do actually love it. Yeah, see? So, the hat store. Somebody gave me a superchat to get a hat. The problem was that none of them had my size. I'm a small size. The sizes start at medium. So, they're like... This is a small size hat, you know. So, I can't find... I couldn't find my size in Japan. I usually order them in the US and have them sent to Japan because they don't have small sizes. People have, you know, larger heads here. Blame my mom. Blame me. Maybe my hats are too small or too tight when I was a kid and my head didn't grow. I don't know.

19:32 John Daub: But you start to get the vibe, right? It's quieter here. It's more trendier. This is a place where they make a lot of movies back here. You'll see more things featured in cinema. There's still a little bit of snow from Snowkio. The two-day snowfall that we had last week. It's been pretty cold the last 10 days, so... Today is warmer than most of the other... The last 10 days, so... I can get out here without a big down jacket. Whoa! Vending machine. Weird, weird one. Pan can. Panda in a can. Panda vending machine. I've never gotten a panda from a vending machine before. Maruko. That's cute. These are coin purses. Very, very nice.

20:42 John Daub: So, somebody just wrote, do you need thermal underwear here? You know what? You can buy that here. You don't need to bring much of anything. Just buy everything you need here. That's sort of the way I travel. I travel light. I buy the stuff here and I bring what I need back home. It's pretty cool here. I travel light mainly because I'm usually running for the airplane. I'm always like just on time. And the lighter my suitcase is, the faster I can run. Wow, that looks pretty cool. That looks my style. You know what? This could be Peter von Gomm's style. Peter could sport leopard skin patterns, I think. Leather gloves. Matches jacket. His leathery skin. I bet you Peter does shop back here. Peter should wear a morph suit. That's a nice looking cafe. Would you guys want to come and join me here? That would be fun. I wonder how many people we could pack in here. The B.O.G. on cafe. Cool.

22:07 John Daub: Peter does have a very distinctive fashion sense. Where'd he come from? Did that just happen? Well, you know, I have to say this, okay? At least Peter has a fashion sense. I have no fashion sense. My fashion sense is go to L.L. Bean and just order off of a catalog. It wasn't a boosted board. These are really nice shops. I like the lights. Do you see these? The street lights up here? Very stylish circle. The maru (circle). What do you think about that? I like the lights. The faceless ones. Wow, you're too fast. Slow down. Wow. Did you see that? That cat just jumped into the back alleys. Probably shoplifted a pair of socks or something.

23:17 John Daub: All right. And now this is where I ended the live stream when I bought the Japanese sake a few days ago. Right there is the Ralph Lauren shop. So I've made it back to Omotesando and the Shonji Lazer. And I'm going to the next stop of the day of Tokyo. This would be Omotesando. You know, a funny thing happened. I came here for a reason. My iPhone, the battery is dying. It's not good. And the iPhone 7 Plus that I bought in March isn't doing very well. So I came here to get the battery replaced and to fix the clicky thing on the home button.

24:05 John Daub: And I went into the Apple store and I thought all Apple phones had a one-year limited warranty. And I did some sort of test on my phone, a diagnostic running test. And then he said that my battery was fine. And I said, it's not fine. Because remember when I was doing the live stream in New York with the meetup, meeting up with all the people there? The phone went from 30% battery to like zero. There's something wrong with this phone that I'm using. And the iPhone guy said, nope, no battery for you. You didn't qualify. I said, how can I not qualify? I thought it was like $29 to replace the batteries at Apple. So I'm very, I'm not upset. I don't really, I sort of care because I need to replace this battery. But Apple is pretty cheap.

24:53 John Daub: The guy told me that he looked quite apologetic. I mean, how else is he going to look? And he said, they're very strict now. They're very strict. So I guess Apple's losing money. Apple is not doing well. Their stock isn't bounding, leaping and bounding like they used to. You know, like it did five years ago, maybe. I don't know. If this was, yeah, this was two years ago, they would have replaced the phone. It's 2018. They don't replace the phone anymore. They would have given me a refurbished version and fixed it. But they don't do that anymore. That stinks, huh? But I think, you know, I don't think I'm going to get a Samsung. Until another phone comes out that's convenient as the iPhone. I probably will stick with this one. The Google Pixel seems pretty nice. Samsung phones might be. But Android, I don't know. This iPhone just works good for me.

25:53 John Daub: This is Omotesando walking up towards the station. Omotesando connects with the Hanzomon Line. That's the purple one. And that's the one that I take home. It also has the Ginza Line and the Chiyoda Line. Chiyoda Line, which is a different color of green. Rimowa. That's some sort of German suitcase maker, right? I don't know any of these brands. iPhone Guilty, yeah. YouTube will like that. This is Florencia. YouTube will like this. We've changed from YouTube Guilty to iPhone Guilty. You know what? Apple Guilty. Apple Guilty. What have they done for me lately? I used to put the show on Apple iTunes as a podcast. And they never... They never took care of me like YouTube takes care of us, right? YouTube takes care of us in a way. Apple Guilty. I'm starting to taste that a little bit. It tastes good.

27:20 John Daub: I don't mind that much. I mean, I'll probably have to buy a new iPhone in the fall. But I would have liked to have replaced the battery. I think they're just being cheap. They're running their analytical software. I've had this phone for over a year. I've updated it. And it doesn't work as well as it did. And they should have replaced the battery for $29. So it's on Apple. I'm not angry. Did I say that? I'm not. I'm pretty sure that Peter von Gomm shops here. You know where I shop? I shop... There's a massive L.L. Bean in Kichijoji. And it's right near the park there in Kichijoji. And I go there maybe once every couple of months. It's more expensive than the United States. By 25% more. But if I bought it in the U.S. and shipped it here, it would be more expensive than that. So I figure in a way it comes out just about the same.

28:23 John Daub: The thing with buying clothes in Japan is that the shoulders are usually for men... Foreign men. The shoulders are more narrow in Japanese sizes. And a large is really... Sorry. An extra large is really a medium. The U.S. medium is a Japanese extra large. I'm not joking. This shirt is a medium. And at Uniqlo I take an extra large. Because the large on the shoulders are not wide enough for me. And the socks here only run from size 8 and 9. And I have a 10 and a half foot. So the socks haven't fit me well for 20 years. I've had to buy my socks a size and a half too small. But the underwear is just fine. So I can buy underwear from Uniqlo just fine. Peter. Harajuku too crowded. He might be a closet Harajuku shopper. Or might be getting his stuff here. I don't know. But I bet you deep in Peter von Gomm's closet somewhere is a full leather bodysuit. With mask. Next time we go to his house we're going to have to rummage through the closet just privately. He won't know. He doesn't watch. Alright. So maybe he does. But it's all in good fun. Yeah.

30:06 John Daub: So we have here some other wonderful brands. This is Hugo Boss and Coach. Which is an American company. Nespresso. Armani. And here is the guilty guilty party. They're very very guilty. They're so in debt. They're doing so poorly that they own this massive complex in the center of Omotesando. Oh my. Awful. God bless you. Yeah. It's alright. I love you Apple. You try your best to with your marketing but I don't know. I'm an LL Bean guy. If you made phones you know. What you gonna do? Alright. So there you go. Thanks for walking with me. It's time for me to take a hike. Go down. Just like I said. Nathan Simpson thank you. I'm sorry you got Appled. That's true. I got Appled. I got Appled. I waited in their little line for... I waited in their line for 30 minutes for them to replace the battery and they didn't do a thing. They said that I didn't qualify. That stinks. Why did they make me wait for 30 minutes? Wasted my time. So I'm gonna go home.

31:56 John Daub: Alright. I hope you had fun. I'm gonna turn the last 20 seconds at a shop where people get married. This is a big popular place for the couples. This one is called Anrivada. It's an anniversary and they've been here for ages and usually you can see married couples coming through here and they have a really nice cafe that you can sit and drink coffee and see romantic couples and love. And you can also see people overpaying for their wedding by 700,000 percent. But you know, I think love has no price. Therefore there's not a reason not to get married here if you have somebody else's credit card. And it's one of the only outdoor cafes and it's right in the middle of Omotesando which is not bad. You know. I mean for people watching it's a good place. So thanks everybody. Enjoy Anniversary Cafe. See you in the next live stream.