00:00:00 John Daub: Roppongi on a Saturday night. This is a really exciting place for expats or tourists visiting, but I've been here for a long time. Hey everybody, it's Saturday night. I just happened to be here, so I thought I would take you on a drive-thru, kind of a walk-through of this area to show you what it's like on a Saturday night and answer this question: Is Roppongi safe? I've had a lot of people ask me if it was safe to go out here at night. My answer is, I'm not really sure because this area keeps changing. Every year it's just different. So we're going to take a look at Roppongi's nightlife right now, and I'm going to walk to the other side and go past all the areas.

00:00:56 John Daub: This is Almond, where I used to meet up with a lot of friends. Almond used to be there, but now it's here. Hi everybody. It's cleaned up a little bit. I think if I had to compare Roppongi to the way it was about 10, 20 years ago, it's really cleaned up a lot. A lot of the places are cleaner. I mean, I came through here during the day about six months ago in the summer. I walked through here during the daytime, and now I'm walking here at night, and it's a lot safer than it was about 10 years ago. And that's one of the topics that I wanted to cover today. Is Roppongi safe?

00:01:41 John Daub: I hate to say that it's a lot better than it used to be, but it's a lot safer than New York or London or some of the other places, I think, just because this is Tokyo. There's a lot of security here, and I think they've beefed it up because the 2020 Olympics is coming. In the distance, you can see Tokyo Tower. It's illuminated at night, and you can get a nice view from Roppongi.

00:02:09 John Daub: In this area, we used to see a lot of people from, well, most of the people were from Africa. They would pull you into the cafes, and they would have people pull me in, especially if you were female. They would pull you into the bars, but we don't really have that here. They still have some signs down here that warn people not to do it. It says here very clearly, let's abide by the rules of our city, Roppongi Charter for safety and peace of mind. And I like that. I like the fact that they've really cracked down on it because they used to pull you into clubs and stuff. And some of the people were really maybe kind of scary in that way. And in the end, a lot of my friends would just stop coming here. I think that the businesses suffered as a result of it, and now the area is starting to become new again.

00:03:05 John Daub: This might surprise some expats here, but it looks like that's TGI Fridays on the other side, and it seems like it's out of business. You can see the white and red of TGI Fridays, but it seems to be gone. There's a lot of changes happening in this area of Roppongi. A lot of reconstruction, a lot of renovations. Over there in this alley, there are some clubs down here. The first club I ever went to was called Lexington Queen, and it was down this alley about 20 years ago. And that club no longer exists, although... or does it? Maybe I should go check it out. But on a Saturday night, this is where you would come for clubbing. I'm not a clubber. I just stopped doing that. As soon as I hit 40, it's like yeah. You don't want to be that pathetic guy that's in the corner. Nah, that's not for me. I'm pretty good where I am. But there are a lot of clubs here. And it is a really nice place.

00:04:10 John Daub: The one thing that hasn't changed is the view. And I could just stand here and look at the Tokyo Tower all day from the center of Roppongi here. It is really nice. I'm going to turn the camera around and look back at the intersection. Roppongi intersection. And in the distance, if you keep walking this direction, you go towards Roppongi Midtown, which is a shopping mall that opened up about 10 years ago. It's really nice. I didn't come here to drink or go out clubbing. I came here just to walk around and show you how Roppongi is like on a Saturday night. Once again, Roppongi is pretty cool. Or at least they're pretty cool. But Roppongi on a Saturday night... it is fairly safe.

00:05:03 John Daub: Oh, hello. Oh, you do? Oh, well, we're on Only in Japan Go right now. We're live on the Internet. I'm a really big fan. I'm serious. Oh, thank you very much. Where are you from? New York. Oh, New York. Okay. How long are you here for? I live here now. Oh, wow. Oh, cool. Yeah, I moved here about six months ago. So now I'm actually going to stay here. Wow. I'm walking around seeing how it's changed. I came here about 20 years ago. I used to come here a lot. And it's a different world. I'm going to go back to my old house. I'm going to do the Naked Man Festival. I saw your YouTube video. Are you kidding? Did you do it? Not yet. I did the Kanamara Matsuri. Oh, man. Yeah, the one in Kawasaki [?]. Yeah, the Kanamara Matsuri. So that one was actually very cool. Oh, awesome. Yeah. So I'm definitely a big fan. Oh, thank you very much. Cool. I'll see you around. It's a small town. Yes, it is. Yeah. Have fun, guys.

00:05:54 John Daub: All right. There's another New Yorker. I bumped into somebody else who watches the show about 20 minutes ago. That was pretty cool to see. People do watch Only in Japan. So if you walk around with a selfie stick on a gimbal, people are going to stop and say hi, I guess. It doesn't matter where you're from. But this area of Tokyo really has changed a lot. He's new to Tokyo, so I'm kind of curious to see what his opinion is of it.

00:06:24 John Daub: You can't see Tokyo Tower from this angle. But what you can do is see Don Quijote. And this Don Quijote came here about, I'd like to say about eight years ago. And it's open 24 hours and you see a lot of maybe slightly drunk people inside there after about 1 a.m. waiting for the first train. But the area in general is pretty safer than it used to be. There's still some people from all over the world. And I think one of the reasons why Roppongi has a lot of clubs and nightlife and foreign influence is because this is the area where a lot of the embassies are located. Just down the street, I believe, is the Russian embassy. I have a friend who had an apartment that overlooked the wall looking into the Russian embassy, which is pretty cool. But in this area of Tokyo, you have a lot of embassies, which results in a lot of foreign influences, which results in a lot of foreign businesses in this area, which makes it pretty interesting.

00:07:30 John Daub: Oh, hey. Hello. Hello. Hello. It's a live stream. Live stream. Oh. Yeah. Yeah. Where are you getting married today? Are you Japanese? Yeah. Of course. Oh, wonderful. American. American. Yeah. What? It's a YouTube live stream. Oh! Congratulations on your wedding! Oh, it's a true story! She's married! Papa! Papa! Oh, congratulations on the marriage! Yeah. Yeah. Congratulations! Thank you so much! You're welcome! Have fun! Thank you!

00:08:15 John Daub: I don't know. That's the Roppongi magic! As you can tell, I started with the question: Is Roppongi dangerous? It's starting to seem like it's the exact opposite. It's like really friendly, right? That's not what we expected. I was sort of hoping that it would be dangerous because that would make for a better story. Slightly disappointed. Roppongi has let me down. It's not dangerous at all.

00:08:48 John Daub: Alright, I wanted to come this way just a little bit. First of all, you can see the taxis in Tokyo have changed. They look like these British cabs. So this style of taxi is now all over the city. The doors open wider for luggage and the prices are a little bit cheaper, which is a good thing. Now, this Wall Street is some sort of chain of clubs that they have around Roppongi. I've been in there about 15 years ago when they first opened up. It was kind of not a great place, but it seems to be a place that people go to now. Down there, if you are an expat and you used to live in Roppongi, you know what that building used to be. It used to be a building called Gas Panic and Gas Panic was notorious as a meat market and a pick up place. And now it's become a cafe and I believe it's a pizzeria. And I think that it's totally different. And that park, there's a park right across from it that used to be a place where like boys and girls would go and make out. I wouldn't know, I didn't do any of that stuff. I'm a good person. I would never do anything like that. But I know that for a fact because I had friends that used to pick up people and then they would yeah, that was the reputation of Gas Panic and this area of Roppongi. This street was famous. And I'm surprised on a Saturday night that there aren't more people here, that it is as quiet as it is. Very, very strange to me.

00:10:26 John Daub: Here's a shot now going back this is going back towards the intersection from where I am. I'm going to cross the street and then go past the Don Quijote and then I'm going to take a left and then go around the station. Yeah, so let me just take you a little bit towards the Gas Panic. This has completely changed. The image of it is different. And it is a club. What is that, Line Club? Hold on a second. Line Club? I know that this one above here is called Two Dogs Tap Room and I think Two Dogs makes beer. I'm not sure where they're from, but I believe that they make beer. But down here was a place. I think it was called, well my friend called it the Dungeon, but I think it was called like 69 or something, some weird club in the Dungeon. And it was really bad, bad place. But now it's called Line Club and there are some other bars right here. But it looks a lot cleaner than it used to be. I was like '98 when I came here. Nowadays I don't come to this area very often at all.

00:11:44 John Daub: I don't know too many people that are brave enough to walk down this street with a selfie stick. But alright let's just see what happens. Alright I'm turning the camera around. Keep it decent guys. Keep it decent. Don Quijote has a vending machine. Wow. And they have Red Bull in there. It's crazy. How you doing? You get this you buy it this one? I bought this on amazon.co.jp. Thank you I will look for it. Look for it my friend. I got this stick on Amazon. Yeah. Alright so this used to be a McDonald's now it's a 24 hour. You see that shop across the street that used to be a McDonald's now it's a 24 hour seafood place which is kind of cool.

00:12:50 John Daub: But the reason why it's kind of cool is because this is where everybody would go and just sleep until the first train. Now this place always has a line in the middle of the night. They have udon here this is a very famous udon shop I don't remember the name of it. I just remember that people will line up here after midnight and eat the udon. Looks really good. Here's curry udon and here's mentaiko (spicy cod roe) and this is tempura. Really good.

00:13:31 John Daub: Ok so I'm going to wait for the light and cross the street but I couldn't hear much Japanese over there it's usually another language. But it's pretty neat to see how this city evolves every time I come here. It's sort of changed. There's one shop here thank you Shady Town. Do you see that boom the Hard Rock Cafe has not changed since '98 when I first came here. It's been here forever. And one of the great things about that is that it's a consistent thing you know. I came here 20 years ago and I've been here for a long time. Oh 20 years ago yeah. I still live here. Oh really so this Hard Rock Cafe's been here consistently for the last 20 years so and maybe even longer it's hard to know. Japanese? Where are you from? Tokyo? Oh yeah? You speak Japanese well. I've been here for 2 years and I'm still here. That's good. Thank you so much. You're so good. You're so nice. It's Roppongi.

00:15:05 John Daub: Always cross on the blue lights. In Japanese we call these ao shingō (blue signals), which means blue although it could be green I guess but we say blue in Japanese. This moves fast too. So I'm gonna wrap around here. I came from the intersection. Oh it's really crowded. This is the Hard Rock Cafe that I was showing you across the street and this is the Hard Rock Cafe and it's consistent. It has not changed at all the whole time. There's where the main shop is and I've only been in here once in my life. I just never have a reason to go in here. But it's way back here in kind of hidden from everything. Oh look they're going into there. And here you have the memorabilia. And I remember 20 years ago everybody wanted a Hard Rock Cafe Tokyo t-shirt. And I'd say what gifts do you want from Tokyo and they'd say oh we want a Hard Rock Cafe t-shirt. And nowadays I don't know if it's as popular as it used to be. I don't see as many of those Hard Rock Cafe t-shirts being worn. But it's still here and it's still sort of a popular place.

00:16:27 John Daub: We do have a lot of different cafes. This used to be a really shady place. Now we have like the motsunabe (offal hot pot) and gyoza (dumplings) and it's a pretty clean looking place. You sit on milk crates and they bring the food out to you I guess which is pretty cool. Oh this hasn't changed at all. Oh hey how are you? Yeah. Things just happen when you're out here I guess. This is the hub. This is the Hub British pub chain. I don't know if it's actually British. It says it's British. They make their own beer now. But they've been here for almost as long as I have. I don't remember the Hub being here in 1998 but I do know it came sometime in the 2000s and they've really expanded. Now they're in Nagoya and I believe there's some in Osaka. And I actually have a Hub point card which has about $200 left on it $200 that I could redeem.

00:17:50 John Daub: This used to be Brewdog oh no no Brewdog's right there. So Brewdog is this has been around for now I guess four years. Brewdog is a Scottish craft beer brand. Some of you who drink beer probably know what Brewdog is. But Brewdog has a shop here in Roppongi. And I'll tell you a quick story about Brewdog. There's the Brewdog logo there you go Brewdog. Brewdog opened up about four or five years ago and their beers were really really expensive. Like I would say they were double what the normal price of a craft beer was which is really ridiculous. And I guess they lowered the prices or something because I thought they were going to go out of business for sure. And they're still here after four or five years which is rare. This is not the best best location but it's just behind the main street. I have been here a few times they do make some pretty unique ales and beers. It is a neat place to go but a little bit pricey.

00:19:06 John Daub: This is a neat looking club in here. This is iDarts Tokyo. That's pretty neat. Are these real? Oh no these are plastic. These are plastic and they have darts going on inside there. Welcome to Kento's. They have some music in here that's cool. There's a Blue Note that's on the other side. The Blue Note is at Roppongi Midtown. But they also have some music bars in here and this one looks fun. This one looks pretty fun. So I'm going to walk around now going back to Roppongi Station and then we're going to call it a night. I bet you there's expats that are watching that used to live in Tokyo and they're saying to themselves wow this place has really changed. Because this is one of the reasons I wanted to make this.

00:20:03 John Daub: Down here is a secret toilet. If you have to go and you really have to go just come off the main street. The main street is right there where everyone is walking. Just go down here and go straight into this free restroom. And then believe it or not the restroom is actually pretty clean. It's amazing how clean it is. Not clean enough to eat off of though. La Fura Brothers [?]. As I said there's a lot of foreign influences here.

00:20:38 John Daub: Alright I'm going to wait for the car to go by. So this is behind the station going up. Now if you go this road it takes you to Mori Tower or Roppongi Hills. That's where the Google headquarters is. That's where I go to the YouTube headquarters. I take this road to go to YouTube. But tonight I'm not going that way. This restaurant is open 24 hours a day. What's it called? Uohama [?]? I think it's called Uohama. 24 hours it's a seafood place. And boy is that a good location right on the corner. And if you look up there it takes you straight up to the intersection. That's the overpass with the Roppongi signage on it.

00:21:24 John Daub: One of the things about this street is they had a lot of foreign chains that would start here and then go out of business. And right now the chain that's here that seems to have been lasted the test of time is this one, do you see the red lights? I think this chain is, does anybody know? It's called Outback Steakhouse. And it's definitely not from Australia. It's a US chain. And they've been here for about 10 years now. But before that there were a lot of other restaurants I think that were in this location that I know and they did not last the test. They eventually had gone out of business. I guess the rent is pretty high but it's pretty prime real estate. And right next to it is Japan's cheapest steakhouse Ikinari Steak. Which is a chain that charges about I think it's like 1g for 1 yen or something like this. Or 7 yen for 1g, I don't know what the price is but it's ridiculously cheap. And it has meat of questionable quality, although it might be better than what I think it is. But it's a place that a lot of salary guys go to that are probably single and they need a quick pick me up, meat dinner.

00:22:56 John Daub: There you go. Oh man look at the chef, looks just like the guy in the picture. They do have the blooming onion. Boom. Outback is right here. I guess people do search for it. And just my friends my YouTube friends What's Inside were here the day before yesterday, I think they went back to America today. And they were eating a lot of McDonald's and they said that they went in the middle of the night to eat at McDonald's because of the jet lag. And they also ate at Domino's Pizza and they didn't have ramen until I took them out to go get some ramen. And I was shocked. How could you come to Japan and you wouldn't have any ramen at all? I mean that's like a crime against humanity. If you come to Japan you have to have ramen. It's like a prerequisite. You gotta check your boxes off: ramen, udon, okonomiyaki, sushi, you have to check all your boxes. Most of those boxes are food.

00:24:04 John Daub: So that's it from Roppongi, we've done a complete circle. In the distance we're back again and there is Tokyo Tower looming over all of us you see. And there on the left side you see the road sign for Gaien Higashidori Avenue. And Gaien Higashidori takes you all the way down to Tokyo Tower as you see over there in the distance. Of course there's a lot of media multiple TVs, nothing like Shibuya's Hachiko but it's still pretty busy around here.

00:24:36 John Daub: So thanks for joining me on this livestream in Roppongi. It's kind of an interesting place. Is it safe? I want to end with it's safer than it used to be. But yeah come with friends, don't come alone especially if you're female. I think you're gonna have a pretty good time. It's a lot safer, there's more security as we get closer to the 2020 Olympics. It's getting even safer and cleaner and there's a lot of shops are changing, the places that were questionable that probably should have gone out of business 20 years ago are out of business. And now new places are coming in and that's kind of neat. But if you're an expat and you've been watching this livestream this probably means something to you because you probably spent a lot of time here. And you can see in the distance this is the side where Roppongi Midtown is. And about 20 years ago there really wasn't that much on this side and now you have the shopping mall where that dark area is and inside there are a ton of shops things that I wouldn't buy but that's what we have in Roppongi. Nothing wrong with that.

00:25:50 John Daub: Roy's Mania writes, how shady was it? How shady was it? Roy, it was pretty shady. I mean it reminded me of shady places in other cities around the world. And it was just because of that motley mix of foreigners who they weren't Japanese and had the same manners and cultures. This area was always kind of an outlier. It was a place that never really mixed with the rest of the country. It's sort of a melting pot in a way the way I saw it. It was a fun place but it was sort of also a melting pot in a way where it just never really was.

00:26:37 John Daub: There he is. Chris, how are you? Good job! What are you doing here? Getting in trouble? It's my twin brother. Would you like to meet him? I'm live streaming right now. Bring your twin brother over here. Mark, we're live streaming. Sorry. He's going away. He's alright. Alright it's alright. This is what we do. This is your twin brother. You do look alike. Oh no. Hello live audience. I'm Chris, this is my brother Mark. Chris is a friend of Peter's as well. Everybody knows Peter von Gomm. Yeah. He's in Bali right? He's in Bali. Are you guys going out? Yeah we are. The name of this live stream is is Roppongi safe? Yes, I think it is safe. That's not bad. We were here just about a month ago right? Yeah. With Josh? Were we here together? This was after we did a Tokyo Tower event. I was pretty sloshed though. I remember Josh was there with somebody. I'm not sure I was there. Sorry Josh, never mind. Forget that. So anyway nice to see you buddy. Are you in Japan long? I live here. Alright, have fun guys. Bye bye.

00:28:13 John Daub: Oh that's a friend of mine. So uh is it shady? It used to be. How shady was it? Pretty shady. Some shady stuff happened here. I don't know how deep I should go with this. I had a friend and he would come here and find girlfriends all the time here. It was sort of a meat market I guess. There was a place where people would go to pick other people up. They probably would be here but I'd like to hope that the image of this area has changed. And it now seems to be more of an entertainment place. And I see that even just when I see the faces around here on a Saturday night it's not the same kind of people that were here 20 years ago or 15 years ago or even 10 years ago. So that's kind of a good sign. It means that the area is really changing. So that's I want to think that the area is changing.

00:29:16 John Daub: Were they making out behind us? I've never seen people in Japan making out before. I'm losing the light. So how do you get to Roppongi? You take the Oedo Line or the Hibiya Line and those are the two train lines. Or you take the bus from Shibuya Station or you can walk from Shibuya in about 30 minutes believe it or not. It's not that far.

00:29:37 John Daub: So I hope you had fun on this live stream and you learned a little bit of history of the area. I used to be an English teacher back then. Most of my friends were foreigners. Nowadays all those people are gone. And of the group of English teachers that were here when I first started they're all gone. I'm the lone survivor of that group. And I'm probably not going anywhere. So yeah leave a question in the chat below and I will answer it. Because I think it's important to kind of address any security issues that people might have because I've been getting a lot of questions about is Roppongi safe. That's why the title of it is the way it is. Yeah so have a good day. Good night everybody. I'll see you on the other side. Maybe over there, that's the other side right? Bye everybody.