00:00:01 John Daub: Hey everybody, we are live in Asakusa and right behind me is Sensoji. That is the Kaminarimon (Thunder Gate), which is the big lantern. For Asakusa, the path Nakamise-dori (shopping street), which is where you buy all the gifts leading up to Sensoji Temple. But I'm not live streaming on Asakusa's Sensoji. What I'm doing is giving you a chance to meet another fellow YouTuber, somebody who is a world traveler. There he is. Oh, you're vlogging this too? This is Joe. And he is also a YouTuber just like me who's visiting Japan. How you doing today?

00:00:43 John Daub: Yeah, this is awesome. So what we're gonna do is walk around and I have some questions to ask you about Japan and your experience here. So how long—this is your second trip to Japan?

00:01:01 Joe: I just started. I love Japan. So I'll come back for sure.

00:01:06 John Daub: What attracted you to Japan to want to come back the second time? Besides YouTube.

00:01:11 Joe: Okay, I went in 2017 to 32 countries I traveled to and when I went to Japan, it just made me fall in love. Like, you know, I traveled so many places and you find that place. This is my place. The people, the culture is totally different. So kind. Arigato.

00:01:34 John Daub: And that's why I live here. I've been here for 20 years and every time I meet new people who are visiting, it makes me really happy because I get that energy. It is a really amazing place. But your YouTube channel—last time he was here, we tried to meet up in Osaka, but we didn't get a chance to meet up. So I'm so happy to have a chance to meet Joe here on his second trip.

00:01:57 Joe: Yeah, finally. We tried to meet actually last year, but we couldn't make it.

00:02:03 John Daub: But right now we made it here in Tokyo and we made a video together: 12 things not to do in Japan. Stop right there. This is very, very important. You have to know that. There's actually more than 12, Joe. There's a lot of things that you have to learn what not to do in Japan. And even if you break the rules, it's okay. The people forgive you because they're so kind.

00:02:30 Joe: People forgive you and experience is the best teacher, which is what we came up with.

00:02:37 John Daub: Wow. Look at the streets. It's amazing. This shop is closing, but you could see this is the back streets of Asakusa. And there's so many little food stands and stalls and it's all off of the main street. Lots of cafes.

00:03:03 Joe: Welcome to Japan. This is awesome.

00:03:09 John Daub: Well, what are some of the things that you like about Japan besides the culture?

00:03:13 Joe: Green tea.

00:03:16 John Daub: All right, let's get a vending machine. Yeah, let's stop at the vending machine.

00:03:27 Joe: That's what I learned right now. Green tea.

00:03:30 John Daub: Oh, this is going to keep you alive until 120 maybe. So we're going to see your YouTube videos. Cool. Which one can I take? Oh, the green tea is right here. This one doesn't have a lot of green tea actually. This one is green tea. That is 500 yen. I can tell you're new. You don't know the coins.

00:03:51 Joe: Sorry. I'm learning from Only in Japan.

00:03:54 John Daub: So I have to tell you, I'm going to put a link in the description of Joe's channel, but he's got a very popular YouTube channel.

00:04:01 Joe: I speak Arabic. If you guys speak Arabic, come to me. Join the family.

00:04:07 John Daub: Which one? This one. That's green tea. This one? Yes. And it's on sale. 140 yen. Oh, this is sale? Yeah. Like a shop. The good stuff is always on sale, you know.

00:04:21 Joe: That's why I like Japan. Everywhere.

00:04:24 John Daub: I'm getting a lot of people asking you, where are you from? A little bit of introduction.

00:04:29 Joe: I am from Jordan. I've been doing YouTube for two years. I quit my job to travel the world. So now it's become YouTube. It's become a full-time job. I just reached one million subscribers.

00:04:40 John Daub: One million subscribers.

00:04:42 Joe: I did skydiving and I do not regret it. It was a great experience. What I'm doing exactly, I'm overcoming my fears. I motivate people to travel and do things they are scared to do or they don't like. There are so many crazy stuff I do. You have to check that. Like for example, skydiving, public speaking. I did so many such experiments in Korea and Japan, too. And this is like so many fears I overcome for my YouTube channel.

00:05:14 John Daub: Okay, like we're getting some audio problems. Can you hear me now?

00:05:25 Joe: You can't hear. Audio is bad.

00:05:26 John Daub: All right. Give me a second everybody. How's the audio now?

00:05:35 Joe: Okay, we get here. That's fine.

00:05:37 John Daub: Alright, thank you. So once again, this is Joe from Jordan. He is a YouTuber with a million subscribers. Congratulations. He's visiting Japan for the second time. I'm sorry if the audio was bad. But we've closed some of the windows and now live streaming is an imperfect science. Yeah, and we have—this is kind of cool for all of you. This is Takeshi Kitano who is famous for having in the mafia movies, the Yakuza movies. He's now promoting Wanda Coffee. Goodbye. Goodbye Tommy Lee Jones.

00:06:09 Joe: No, she's not a mafia.

00:06:11 John Daub: She could but she could be—the tattoos start right here. Yeah, oh yeah, give it a try why not. It's like the best thing you can never like—even the old store clothes you can find this everywhere 24 hours. But they have vending machines in Jordan, right? Not like this.

00:06:28 Joe: Oh not like this. It's only Japan.

00:06:38 John Daub: Wow, and if you look up you can see Tokyo Skytree. Oh, this is not Tokyo Tower. That's Tokyo Skytree. Here's the sushi blade just next to us. Yeah, there's so many food little food stands here. It's pretty crazy.

00:07:04 John Daub: But I wanted to ask you—is there for travelers coming from other places around the world a lot of people have—how do I say this—like I know that you can't eat pork, right?

00:07:18 Joe: Yeah. So it does this dietary—this one make a difference in your—yeah, you have to be sometimes you have to be vegetarian, you know, yeah when you go someplace for example Korea, they love like pork. It's like every every food they have to put pork inside which make it difficult for me, but now I think they started to open halal food a lot in Korea and Japan yeah, which make it like easy for me as the Muslim traveler and yeah, I eat fish. Fish. It's okay fish.

00:07:50 John Daub: We just had tendon (tempura over rice). So you can eat a lot of stuff in here. So they're taking a picture. We can't walk—go in a sec. Those are those—oh that's a scene that's only in Japan, huh? Take picture with them. Do you want it? We did have a tendon which is really good.

00:08:11 Joe: Seamless, eh, so we did have a tendon which is really good, but you can eat tendon. Yeah, but there's just some beauties, huh?

00:08:21 John Daub: Japan it's difficult to eat without the pennies like someone speak Japanese. Oh, that's right. Yeah. But they did have an English menu. Yeah, but some store they don't—local store like this is Nakamise-dori this is the main and you been here no. Yeah, but it's amazing. They still have the cherry blossom decorations up there, but Nakamise-dori is famous as the path leading up to Sensoji Temple and on the left and right there's lots of places where you can buy gifts and food and try lots of things they have street food galore here so we're live streaming so he's vlogging while I'm streaming very cool alright let's get off of the main street here now.

00:09:16 John Daub: These here are called shotengai (covered shopping arcades). Shotengai are covered shopping malls that have been around since the 1950s. That's what I like about shotengai—that even if it's raining you can still walk it like a shopping mall. Here's the back and what you can see behind me is the back street this is off of Nakamise-dori which is also another famous street but I'm gonna come back here at night and show you a different side of it unfortunately you're going to Kanazawa though first time oh hey what's the attraction to Kanazawa actually.

00:09:50 Joe: I heard about Kanazawa a lot but I have a secret that's what makes me travel in there this one guys you must come here and take this but you have to be not Japanese right yeah.

00:10:05 John Daub: I can't get what he has cuz I'm a resident Japan so this is like seven days free using the train all around Japan just rub it in I can't get the JR Rail Pass right you got the JR Rail Pass I can't get it because I'm a resident of Japan we only are allowed to pay the extra high price yeah so one trip to Osaka and back is like the same as your trip yeah so there you go so let's walk down here I have my family's visiting me from the United States I'm gonna go back and say hi to them and we're gonna let you get on your way.

00:10:50 Joe: You're welcome having me in the live thank you guys no it's really cool to get another point of view are you still hungry by the way there's something nice here yeah.

00:10:54 John Daub: I'm gonna get you a taiyaki (fish-shaped waffle). Oh matcha yeah taiyaki what what flavor would you like matcha maybe okay matcha cream.

00:11:27 Joe: Hi, you want me to hold it? Uh, yeah.

00:11:47 John Daub: What did you get? I got you a green tea cream and I got myself an azuki (red bean paste). Cool. You're buying it for your mom, right? Yeah. I got you a green tea cream. People say it looks so good. It tastes really good. It's a taiyaki. Okay. Thank you. Yay! We got this! This is yours. Give me the gyoza. This is yours, please. Check this out. I'm not going to let you go with this. I'm going to try a taiyaki because they're so good here. Is it a snack? No, no. It's right out of the oven. The griller. The fryer.

00:12:42 Joe: Oh, man.

00:12:44 John Daub: You had to squeeze it to show the guts. It's good, right? So I got here. This is called taiyaki. Oh, come back here. So this is called taiyaki. Oh, I lost the gimbal. So taiyaki looks like this. It's a big fish. There's my teeth marks in it. And the taiyaki, it's made like a fish because traditionally it's always looked like this. This is the traditional one. You have a new one with cream inside of it. And they have the matcha cream because it's good. But I always bite the head off first. Someone said the gimbal is drunk because it's moving a lot. Oh, it looks so good. This is red bean paste. Not a lot of people like it from abroad, but it's actually really good.

00:13:49 Joe: Yeah, that's really nice. I like this much. Take it with me in the train.

00:13:57 John Daub: So how long are you here in Japan for?

00:14:00 Joe: Two weeks.

00:14:01 John Daub: Wow. Yeah, I'll be back in autumn maybe. Oh, good. Yeah. We'll be together more. Give me a shout out. We'll do something.

00:14:08 Joe: Yeah, sure. I love the streets here. It's just so good. This walking here is amazing.

00:14:13 John Daub: I know. You can just walk the streets of Asakusa and you'll just run into really amazing stuff every single corner you go to. These are stuff that probably tourists buy like the Hello Kitty geisha bags. People like it. I don't think so. That's kind of gross. Why is that here? It says don't put it on. And we have here some of the cats. These welcome you in the genkan (entrances). Oh, you're rich, man. Oh, that's nice. How much are these? Good for gifts, right? The best place to buy gifts. This is a good place to buy gifts, but I always get it in Narita Airport. Is it cheaper or expensive? It's a little bit. No, you know what? It's about the same. Oh, really? Yeah. Even if it's airport, like airport. And you can put it right in your suitcase. You don't have to carry it around. Yeah, it's the same price. It's okay. Of course, it's different. You can say you bought it here in Asakusa, but... That's different. I got it at the airport. I think it's going to be new for them.

00:15:42 Joe: Is this a link? Smoke?

00:15:45 John Daub: Oh, no, this is everywhere. In Japan or outside of Japan, you'll never see.

00:15:49 Joe: Oh, really? Okay, well, show us. Are you a smoker?

00:15:56 John Daub: Yes, I never see machines doing... So about four or five years ago, they started selling. They started with a TASPO system, and you have to go to the kiosk, fill out an application, and they'll give you a card that allows you to touch it, and that proves your age. So kids can't buy tobacco anymore. How about now? Until now? About four years ago, they started this system. That's good, yeah, because anyone can come and buy it. If you don't have a TASPO card, you cannot buy any tobacco with this machine. You can buy them in this store. So from the machine, you need a card. But if you want to buy them in person, you can go in there and they'll verify your age. And it's getting... The beer vending machines are also starting to have requiring ID in order to buy them, which is a good thing. Because kids would... You'd see kids smoking. Like, where'd you get that? But believe it or not, in Japan, you don't have a lot of people that will drink and smoke so much. And the reason why is because the community sort of checks them. If a grandmother in the community sees a kid smoking, the first thing she does is get on the phone and call your parents. And boy, you're gonna get slapped. So the community always has hawkish eyes. Like grandmothers are always watching. And when they do that... There's a grandmother everywhere. I think in a lot of countries, the old people are the first line of defense when it comes to security.

00:17:23 Joe: Yeah. Very good.

00:17:28 John Daub: And you stayed in a hostel here.

00:17:30 Joe: Yeah, I stayed in a hostel. Very comfortable. Convenient. And also cheaper. Yeah. Sharing room. How much was it? It was around $20 per night. Okay. Yeah, and... The cool thing, you have space to put your camera, good laptop. Very comfortable. Wow. It's everywhere here in Japan, I think. The capsule hotel too. I tried before when I came. Was it comfortable? It was comfortable. Really? I like it. Really? It's good for filming.

00:18:00 John Daub: Yeah, I would know that. We did make a capsule hotel video a couple of years ago. But it's pretty cool here. You'll see in Asakusa, people wearing kimonos and yukata all over the place. Most, like 99% of the time, they're tourists. I'm just saying that because it's true. And when you want to get a picture with somebody who has a yukata, they might speak English because they're not from around here. I'm just saying. If you try to speak Japanese, they might just go like this. A lot of people from China and Korea, they come here. But Westerners will make a mistake for Japanese. It's true. But so good.

00:18:37 John Daub: Well, it's really great to meet you.

00:18:38 Joe: Yeah, it's really good to meet you too. I hope we hook up again next time you get to Japan.

00:18:43 John Daub: Yeah, we'll come back and we make more content. Make more content, get more stories out to you. So this is just a mini tour of Asakusa. Thanks everybody for joining me. There's no cigarettes for tourists. Well, you can go inside and buy the cigarettes if you're a smoker. But if you want to get it from a vending machine, you have to get the TASPO card. Safety first.

00:19:02 Joe: Yeah.

00:19:03 John Daub: Alright everybody. Alright, thank you guys. See this guy on YouTube. See you next time. And see Asakusa next time. Thanks everybody.