00:00:00 John Daub: Hey, everybody. There you go. We are in Ginza. There's the Shinkansen going by in central Tokyo. And in this live stream, we're going to be talking about rent prices in the city of Tokyo. As you know, Tokyo is an extremely expensive place to live. But it all depends on where you live and how you live. And there's a lot of other criteria that go into it. So when people ask me all the time, how much rent do you pay and where's the best place to live, all of these things, all I can say is that it just depends. If you look at this map here, this is the center of Tokyo. This is Ginza. Hibiya parks that way, and Higashi Ginza is this way. And this is where we are, right here on the map. Boom. This is Yurakucho Station and this is Ginza Yonchome. Ginza Yonchome is famous for having the most expensive real estate in the world, so they say. I think it was something like 1 meter costs like a million dollars. So I'm going to walk across the street right there. That's where the old Sony Plaza building used to be. The Sony building now is being redeveloped, and they're probably going to build it in the same spot. Why? Because it's so expensive in Ginza, and it probably won't be for a couple of years. We'll see this building. But it's in the process of being built. And I'm not alone here. Oh, no, I'm not alone in Tokyo doing this report. Peter is with me. But Peter decided to go walk about. I don't know where he is. I don't know where Peter is. Oh, there he is. I found him. I found him. So we're gonna go. We're gonna go over there and meet up with Peter. I guess he's priced. I think he thinks he can buy this in order to build a new house. Peter has his own house. Peter will not be buying the Sony building. And that's right, Peter's gonna be joining us on this live stream as soon as this light turns red or green or blue, as you say in Japan. Actually, I told Peter to meet me here, but he decided to make this difficult. I see you. I see you. Do not, Peter, do not cross the street again. Don't even try to cross street again. This is another intersection in Ginza. This is I call this the Sony intersection. Ginza Yonchome, which is the most expensive intersection in the world, I believe, is right up there. And there. There he is. Doing walkabout. He's just doing his thing. Stay there, Peter. We're coming to you. One more bar. It's turning red. Red, turning green. Here we go. 3, 2, 1. Let's go. Dude. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. Hey, Peter, where are you going? You fit into this background pretty nicely. Look at that. Check this out. Yeah.

00:03:23 Peter von Gomm: Everybody. Sony showroom. And they're moving to another.

00:03:32 John Daub: Oh, it's a transfer of notice.

00:03:34 Peter von Gomm: Yeah.

00:03:34 John Daub: So they're not coming back here? No, no.

00:03:36 Peter von Gomm: They're tore the building down.

00:03:38 John Daub: Well, I know that I don't see it, but. Oh, this is a place.

00:03:41 Peter von Gomm: So it's already built, evidently. So we can check out the Sony showroom.

00:03:45 John Daub: Okay.

00:03:47 Peter von Gomm: But first, I want to show you this. Look at this.

00:03:49 John Daub: This is really fun. What I was looking on this mural that you're being drawn, and there's. There's kind of like, where's wall?

00:04:00 Peter von Gomm: Oh, is this him here? That looks like Johnny Walker. That looked like you. You know what? This looked like you about a minute ago. Same hat. I don't have.

00:04:11 John Daub: Yeah, you got the hat. They have drawn Peter on this wall. That's pretty cool.

00:04:22 Peter von Gomm: Look at this.

00:04:24 John Daub: Oh, yeah, they do have cool murals. And I guess these. Oh, this is in that'. That's either the De Beers building or the Audi building in. Yeah. Is that the De Beers building in Ginza? Yeah. It's hard to know what all these buildings are. They're changing so fast in the city. But they're in a park, eating at a food truck.

00:04:46 Peter von Gomm: We'll show them. Look at this up here. See up here?

00:04:50 John Daub: Yeah.

00:04:54 Peter von Gomm: And it's set up to detect the decibels that the building site is putting out.

00:04:59 John Daub: Oh, so this is a noise. This. This is a noise detect. Okay. You got to be near the microphone over there. Oh, maybe are you go over there and yell and we'll. Well, yeah, because you're. You're. I'm making a mental disturb, like an audio disturbance in the city.

00:05:28 Peter von Gomm: Right. So anyhow. So Tokyo's very good about being peaceful to the neighbors, being kind to neighbors. When they have these construction sites, they post the decibels that they're putting out the noise. And they have a limit. I'm not sure what the limit is, but they also make these murals. So check this out. Look over here. We got Spider-Man.

00:05:53 John Daub: Oh, yeah, they do. I didn't notice that. Oh, man, you got sharp little eyes even with those glasses on. Beady eyes. Yeah.

00:06:03 Peter von Gomm: So we got Spider-Man here.

00:06:05 John Daub: Awesome.

00:06:05 Peter von Gomm: And then this Tough guy.

00:06:10 John Daub: Is he paying rent? Are these guys paying rent? Oh, I didn't even notice this. I like that. You really?

00:06:17 Peter von Gomm: He's been drinking.

00:06:18 John Daub: This your cult? Oh, tough man.

00:06:22 Peter von Gomm: Tough man. Refresh. We'll be cracking this open shortly.

00:06:26 John Daub: Really? Really?

00:06:28 Peter von Gomm: John's the one that needs this now that he's buried and common knowledge.

00:06:35 John Daub: All right, so. But this episode, this episode, that's not Billy Joel. Look, this episode is about rent, dude. This episode's about rent. Are they paying rent? No, no, they're not paying rent because this is a mural and they're not real people. We are real people. We pay rent. And this episode is about paying rent. And I just moved into a new apartment. Peter has lived in other areas around Japan as well. Right. I've moved. This is my 17th or 18th move in the last 20 years. Yeah, I've moved 17 and 18 times, all in Japan. Because of my last job, I would. I would move every three to six months. So I moved a lot over the years. I've been living in the same apartment for 13 years, but before that job, I've been on the move a lot. And I think we can talk about.

00:07:31 Peter von Gomm: As with some other fugitives that I know, I'm still looking for the one-armed man. No, that's not. That's not him. Oh, there she is. Wait, no, that's the no head woman. Sorry, have you seen the one-armed man? No, no comment. She can't comment. She can't comment. I don't know. So what we can, what we can do in this is to take your questions and look at, look at, at the live stream, because this is a live stream, and answer some of them about the rent. But we're also going about our experiences on, on how much we've paid and why we paid that and even why we live in the areas that we live right now. Why don't you start where? Where? So where. What's your exact address so we can go and stalk you? Okay,

00:08:21 Peter von Gomm: it's 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 Southwest Tokyo Avenue.

00:08:26 John Daub: All right, that sounds made up to me.

00:08:28 Peter von Gomm: Sorry. No, I'm honest. I'm open to visitors.

00:08:32 John Daub: How much do you pay rent?

00:08:33 Peter von Gomm: I don't pay rent.

00:08:34 John Daub: You don't pay rent?

00:08:36 Peter von Gomm: Well, I built a house, so. But I can tell you what, I paid rent at my place a couple places.

00:08:44 John Daub: Wait, so you have to pay taxes? What are some of the costs associated with, with owning a house here?

00:08:49 Peter von Gomm: Well, of course you have property tax and we have. Well, if you have a mortgage, of course, if you're if you're. If you got a loan to build a house or to buy a house, you have a mortgage.

00:09:02 John Daub: How much is your property taxes? I don't. Can I ask that?

00:09:06 Peter von Gomm: I don't know. You can, but I don't have to answer it.

00:09:08 John Daub: It's true. You don't have to answer it.

00:09:10 Peter von Gomm: Oh, here we go. Look at this.

00:09:12 John Daub: Okay, this is something. Now, do they pay rent?

00:09:18 Peter von Gomm: Look it up there. Show them up, up, up, up.

00:09:20 John Daub: Oh, wow. The rent goes higher and higher, right? The higher you go in the building. Oh, she hit her head. Oh, she's going inside the magical box. What's the rent in that thing? Or is she a prisoner? You don't have to pay rent if you're a prisoner.

00:09:38 Peter von Gomm: Is that. Is that a Pandora wearing a kimono?

00:09:42 John Daub: I think so.

00:09:43 Peter von Gomm: Just went into her box. Okay.

00:09:47 John Daub: Random stuff you find on the streets of Tokyo. So the. Peter owns a house now. This is what we've come up with. Peter owns a house now and he doesn't pay any rent. I pay rent. The last apartment that I lived in, I paid 100,000 yen per month, which is a thousand dollars about more or less. And what did I get with that? I got two rooms and a living dining, kitchen area about somewhere between 55 and 60 square meters. I got a balcony on the sixth floor. One of the reasons I. And this neighborhood was about 30 minutes away from the center of Tokyo, so it's a little bit outside of the center. But I was only about 15 seconds from the train station, which is huge. So I would be able to just run outside my door and would be able to sit on a train within a minute. Just sort of cuts down. I would put my clothes on first. For those of you who don't know, Ginza on the weekends and during holidays is traffic free.

00:10:53 Peter von Gomm: It's called Walking Heaven.

00:10:55 John Daub: It's called Walking Heaven. Peter made that up just now. Seriously. It's called. Okay, and that's the Wako Building. Wako Department store in Mitsukoshi. This intersection right here. Ginza Yonchime is considered the most expensive property in the world. And there you can see up there is where the new Sony Head building is, along with Nissan. And they usually have a really killer car right on the ground floor.

00:11:24 Peter von Gomm: The engineers sculpting a model car so that, you know, they have the. The Styrofoam and they're in there shaving away and creating. Really? Yeah. I didn't know that. Let's go.

00:11:33 John Daub: Let's go take a look real quick. So As I said in the apartment tour. So we've both done apartment tours. You can see Peter's apartment tour. I'm gonna put a link right up here. And you can see what. What his house looks like. And I did an apartment tour on my own about, what, two days ago. So you can see what. What I was. I was getting for what I was paying, which was a thousand bucks a month. It's a concept car. No. This is awesome. Look at those people. They got. They got seats or they got like. I could pay like 2 years rent with that car. I bet. Maybe more. Way more. I could just buy the house with that car. Right? You buy the whole building. Look at that thing. She's a beaut.

00:12:22 Peter von Gomm: It's a Nissan Concept 2020.

00:12:26 John Daub: Concept 2020 Grant Gran Turismo. What'd you say? So this doesn't exist, but that orange one, that orange GT or something. Right. I played video games with that kind of car. Very cool.

00:12:47 Peter von Gomm: Yeah, I love that color. I had an old Volkswagen.

00:12:52 John Daub: Yeah. Nice.

00:12:59 Peter von Gomm: So John was saying Ginza is. The Real estate here is incredibly expensive. I don't know if it's the most in the world anymore, but what else would be Dubai, maybe? I don't know.

00:13:12 John Daub: I. Dubai is all. It was all desert. You know, it's not.

00:13:15 Peter von Gomm: Hong Kong is pretty expensive as well.

00:13:17 John Daub: If you're from Dubai. Hong Kong is pretty. Yeah, that's true. Hong Kong's pretty expensive as well. But Tokyo is a place of diminishing space, essentially. I. I don't know. I've always. I've always heard that. That this was like 100, like a million dollars per square meter for 10 centimeters. I think now I'm exaggerating just to be like. For like 1cm is a million dollars. I heard centimeters. Like, that big.

00:13:45 Peter von Gomm: Yeah, they know how big a centimeter is, but you're way off calculations. But we'll just let that pass. More importantly is the fact that Ginza is, if not the most. It is one of the most expensive places for real estate in the world.

00:13:59 John Daub: Yeah.

00:14:00 Peter von Gomm: So we don't live in Ginza. However, there are apartments in the area. Not too far, just a couple blocks over.

00:14:07 John Daub: A few blocks outside, I can walk to my new apartment. From to here? Yeah.

00:14:12 Peter von Gomm: And how long. How many minutes does it take?

00:14:14 John Daub: 30 minutes.

00:14:16 Peter von Gomm: That's not bad.

00:14:17 John Daub: It takes you 30 minutes to walk here and. Yeah, it's sort of. But by train. It would take me 30 minutes in my last place. But now I can walk.

00:14:26 Peter von Gomm: Walk.

00:14:26 John Daub: But I'd be here in the same amount of time. It's. It's five minutes on the subway. So,

00:14:34 Peter von Gomm: in your new place, how are you liking the new neighborhood? Have you met your neighbors?

00:14:38 John Daub: I did. When you move in a new Japanese apartment, you want to meet the people above you, below you, to the left, to the right. There's nobody to my right, so just to the people next door to the left. And.

00:14:49 Peter von Gomm: And did you bring a gift?

00:14:50 John Daub: I did.

00:14:50 Peter von Gomm: What'd you bring?

00:14:51 John Daub: Some snacks. Little cakes.

00:14:54 Peter von Gomm: Japanese type stuff. That the Japanese palette would be accepted.

00:14:58 John Daub: Yeah.

00:14:58 Peter von Gomm: Acceptable.

00:14:59 John Daub: It was good stuff. And essentially we said hello. She was. She was really nice. And look at that. Look at that cute little. Cute little doggie.

00:15:11 Peter von Gomm: Take a look.

00:15:16 John Daub: Wow, he's a genius. Peter, he looks like you. That could be you. That's a dog version of Peter. Oh, it's a university student, according to the owner. All right.

00:15:42 Peter von Gomm: He's in Universe University. He's a university student.

00:15:44 John Daub: Yeah.

00:15:45 Peter von Gomm: And this. This young lady here is a high school. Oh, so those are the kids. One's in college, one's in high school.

00:15:52 John Daub: Wow. And they're pushing a little card here. Oh, cute. Hello. She's Yamadas. Yamada, Bean.

00:16:08 Peter von Gomm: And Chris.

00:16:09 John Daub: Oh. Oh, that's so cute. I wonder if they're paying rent. Kawaii. So there you go. Typical day, walking through Ginza with Peter. Stuff happens. That's right. Listen to Nosh and Jim. Smash that, like, button. Smash it. And Peter will go and. And give those dogs a lick. If you get 200 likes, they will. Peter will lick that dog.

00:16:56 Peter von Gomm: I'll give this. I'll give this dog a kick if you smash those lights.

00:17:00 John Daub: No, no, you go lick the dog.

00:17:01 Peter von Gomm: No one's not.

00:17:02 John Daub: Why not? Look, they're doing it. They're doing it. They're liking it.

00:17:07 Peter von Gomm: All right, here's the. This is the Uniqlo flagship shop here in Ginza.

00:17:12 John Daub: Oh, I introduced this before. Yeah, I remember when Uniqlo was putting this in. It was really, really expensive. It took a long time for them to build this too. I remember when this was being put in. There you go. That's the. The tall. The biggest Uniqlo in the world. Once again, only in Ginza. Hey, guys.

00:17:36 Peter von Gomm: Well, this is still relatively cold. I want to open it.

00:17:40 John Daub: All right, while we talk about rent, my tough man.

00:17:43 Peter von Gomm: What is it, tough man? Refresh.

00:17:45 John Daub: Mr. Potter writes, Peter von God Notice me. What would you do in that situation? If someone asks to be noticed, what

00:17:51 Peter von Gomm: do you do, Mr. Potter? Did you watch my. My last video? If you watched my last video in its entirety, that answers your question. How about this goofball? Did you watch the video? There was a shout out to you too. You didn't watch it, did you?

00:18:07 John Daub: Sorry. I will now. Thank you very much. Boyen Vlogs out of Japan. Thank you very much. Glad I didn't miss you. I am going back to sleep. What? Don't go back to sleep. And Mr. Potter, we're gonna go buy a beer on Mr. Potter. Okay, thank you.

00:18:25 Peter von Gomm: Yeah. Watch the. I was. I got an Award from YouTube.

00:18:30 John Daub: Oh, that one. You did not shout out at me. What did you.

00:18:33 Peter von Gomm: Yes, I did.

00:18:36 John Daub: No, you know what? All right, all right, all right. It took you so darn long to just get to the point on that video. I turned it off.

00:18:45 Peter von Gomm: There.

00:18:45 John Daub: Okay, see, just like it's taking us forever to get to the point on rent.

00:18:49 Peter von Gomm: People with mentality of yours. Miss, Miss. All the jewels in the friggin video.

00:18:54 John Daub: We're supposed to put the Jew.

00:18:55 Peter von Gomm: Look, the jewels are strung throughout. Watch it.

00:18:58 John Daub: People my age, we have very short attention spans. The millennials. We Millennials. Wait. It's so funny about that. We have very short attention spans. If you do not make the beginning interesting and you tease us, but you teased us too long. If you tease us, we just go away.

00:19:15 Peter von Gomm: You do not speak for the majority of my generation. Diaper. Go change your diaper and watch it when you go home in its entirety.

00:19:24 John Daub: I don't have any kids yet, so. Rent.

00:19:31 Peter von Gomm: Oh, here's another. Here's another construction site. Look at the decibels.

00:19:34 John Daub: Why do they, why do they do that, Peter? Why do they add the decibel meter?

00:19:40 Peter von Gomm: Well, because they want, they want to show the, the, the how loud it is. How loud the construction is in, in this area. I think they have a limit. And there's the, the community or the committee. The building committee designates a maximum decibel level and they have to maintain that.

00:20:01 John Daub: Okay.

00:20:03 Peter von Gomm: To the neighbors who might be complaining about noise. No, look, look, it's 69 decibels.

00:20:07 John Daub: Let's get back to the point here. The rent prices and neighborhoods. As we've already established, Ginza is an extremely expensive place. There are apartments here. They're very, very expensive. They're very, very hidden. But most is off its bases. If you go this way, you go to an island called. Well, you get to Tsukiji. Tsukiji's got a lot of apartment buildings. Higashi Ginza have buildings. The price is for two rooms and a kitchen is about. They start at about $1,300. And this probably is on lower floors, very little sunlight, but you get a little bit of space. The apartments go all the way up to about 3 to $4,000 for a flat, which is about the same space at 2LDK.

00:20:50 Peter von Gomm: In which area?

00:20:51 John Daub: In Higashi Ginza. This area.

00:20:54 Peter von Gomm: So like, like any place. Location, location, location. So the rents are going to be more expensive the more convenient area you're in.

00:21:03 John Daub: Right.

00:21:04 Peter von Gomm: Okay. However, the. It's a bit of a misnomer about Tokyo being the world's most expensive city. Well, guess what, folks? It's not.

00:21:15 John Daub: It's about location. Tokyo is a huge city, okay?

00:21:17 Peter von Gomm: But you can come here as a tourist, or you can live here and eat great food, great restaurants for way less than you would in New York City or even Portland, where I'm from.

00:21:28 John Daub: You're talking about living costs now?

00:21:30 Peter von Gomm: Yeah, well, even as a tourist coming here. So it's not. It's not. It's not crazy expensive. New York City apartments are way more expensive than Tokyo for the amount of space that you get.

00:21:41 John Daub: Usually old rundown buildings as well. Yeah.

00:21:44 Peter von Gomm: So I wouldn't trade it for anything. I think we get a good deal for. For our places here.

00:21:49 John Daub: So. But. Yeah, but it's less space you get here in Tokyo, so you are paying for what you get, essentially.

00:21:54 Peter von Gomm: But they're masters of space planning, so you can. You can have a smaller place, but it doesn't feel like it's that small because everything is compact and it's. It's made to utilize all of the space properly.

00:22:10 John Daub: Behind us is Ginza Yonshime. We've been walking for a couple hundred meters now, and that's one of the most expensive intersections. If we walk this way, we get to a neighborhood called Shinbashi. In Shinbashi, the rent prices go down quite a lot because it's not as trendy. It's an older neighborhood. It does have. It's near the Yamanote Line. The Yamanote Line being a very prestigious place to live. If you live along the Yamanote Line, which is the Central Line, the train line that goes around the city. Japan Rail. The price. The price is. How is that, by the way?

00:22:40 Peter von Gomm: It's quite good.

00:22:41 John Daub: Okay, make it quick. Do your plug.

00:22:44 Peter von Gomm: Tough man. Refresh.

00:22:46 John Daub: Okay, so the train prices are very. The rent prices are a lot higher along the Yamanote Line because it's a prestigious line. It means that you live in the center of the city. Ideally, you want to live inside of the Yamanote Line. If you're one of these location snobs to say, I've got your dad just in front of inside of the Yamanote line, which is where the emperor lives, which probably has the most prime real estate in the entire city. Right. So location really matters. The Yamanote line is sort of a litmus of prestige for address. Now, I talked with a Japanese guy about 13 years ago who had an apartment in a place called Camiedo. C A M. C A M I E D O. If you're looking in Roman letters, Camiedo, it's like Turtle Place. And this was four stops away from the Yamanote line. And I said, how do you like your new place? Because it's all right. I said, all right. What do you mean? This is a pretty nice place. And you're, you're like almost in the center. Well, I, I, I'm. It's not a really trendy place because. Because it's more than three stops away from the Yamanote line. Like, it's already been decided with some of the location snobs here in Tokyo that if you live three stops away from the Yamanote line, then you're living too far and you're not successful. Meaning success is kind of based on your address. So you want to live in Chuoku Minato Ku, Kotoku, maybe Taitoku, which is where Asakusa and Ueno are located. And. And what's Ikebakuro? That's not Nerimaku, that's Toshimaku. So these are the. And Shinjuku Ku and Shibuyaku. And these Kus are in the center. And they encompass Kitaku. Yeah, Kitaku a little bit. Hey, nice people. So those encompass the center of the city, and those are the most desirable places to live. And that also means that demand is higher, and that means the rent prices are higher as a result.

00:24:44 Peter von Gomm: As with any place.

00:24:45 John Daub: Yeah, as with any place.

00:24:47 Peter von Gomm: But you know, back to what you were saying about how maybe in New York apartments are bigger.

00:24:52 John Daub: Yeah.

00:24:52 Peter von Gomm: Price is more. Possibly. Yes. But one thing I've learned, one of my takeaways from, from moving to Japan is, you know, everybody has this dream of having a big house with 18 rooms and you don't have. It's, it's crazy. It's absolutely crazy. I would never, ever want something like that. You would never use the space.

00:25:12 John Daub: I would clean it, you know.

00:25:13 Peter von Gomm: Exactly. That's my.

00:25:14 John Daub: Yes. Small apartments are easy to clean. You just go like this with your hand once.

00:25:17 Peter von Gomm: Right.

00:25:18 John Daub: And you've cleaned your once.

00:25:19 Peter von Gomm: A Tony Mat, a bunch of stuff. Except for John, you saw that post from yesterday, all that crap.

00:25:24 John Daub: That was Instagram. Is Instagram.

00:25:25 Peter von Gomm: Yeah, it was post. Yeah, Instagram post.

00:25:28 John Daub: He didn't know how to do an Instagram story. I just taught him. But anyways, hey, what it would have for friends for.

00:25:35 Peter von Gomm: I love you like a sister, John.

00:25:39 John Daub: All right, so we've established now that the center of Japan is. Of Tokyo is the most desirable place to live. Rent prices are high because they're in higher demand. Is it a desirable place to really live though? I mean, what are the advantages of living besides prestige of living in the center of Tokyo? Well,

00:25:59 Peter von Gomm: if you hate riding a morning train, if you have a job that requires you to get to the office at the same time every day, like a 9:00 clock start or whatever, 9:30 is pretty common. Then you got to deal with long or crowded trains and perhaps a long ride. And who wants to be on a crowded train in the summer?

00:26:17 John Daub: Especially not I. No.

00:26:21 Peter von Gomm: So being close to where you work is critical.

00:26:25 John Daub: Yeah.

00:26:26 Peter von Gomm: If you don't want to be on public transport in. In a very potentially stressful situation. I still get when people come on, they start pushing onto the train.

00:26:36 John Daub: You like edgy?

00:26:37 Peter von Gomm: No, I get really edgy, man.

00:26:39 John Daub: It's like you get to know your neighbors though, you know, you beep, stop pushing me.

00:26:44 Peter von Gomm: And you do not swear occasionally. Yeah. Pushed really hard.

00:26:50 John Daub: Yeah, that's true. The morning rush hour in Tokyo is so bad that it's almost better to just walk to work. The problem is that. All right, so the problem is that it's more expensive, but you save on transportation costs as well, which is a couple hundred bucks a month. I can now ride a bicycle just about anywhere in the city. So that sort of will cut down about 2 to $300 on transportation cost. Just because I can walk or ride a bicycle. Yeah, it's like an eight minute bicycle, bicycle ride from my house to Ginza. So sort of a big deal now.

00:27:21 Peter von Gomm: You ever shopped at Looney?

00:27:23 John Daub: No. What's great about Looney?

00:27:26 Peter von Gomm: Let's go find out.

00:27:30 John Daub: All right. Peter does not know the concept of staying on topic. That's okay. So we've established the center of the Yamanote line. Now there's. There's a place called Shitamachi, which is the northern part of Tokyo. Now Shitamachi is the apartment rent is a little bit less because it's an older town. Shitamachi rents I'd say about 30% lower than if you want to live down in Shibuya. Living down in Shibuya or the Yoyogi area. One of the higher places of rents to live. Right.

00:28:02 Peter von Gomm: So Looney is all for ladies.

00:28:04 John Daub: So you found that out. I think the mannequins gave the story away, which is why I stayed in position. But you shop at ladies shops every now and then, don't you? You do. What are you wearing? Is that the the from that episode? The. The black man underwear. Wearing today's ladies underwear. We did. We really don't know. And don't. Don't care.

00:28:25 Peter von Gomm: Makes you think I'm wearing any underwear at all.

00:28:27 John Daub: Commando. I see. Cronus Viper. Thank you very much for the wedding gift. I appreciate that. This is now we're going on two weeks. Peter was the emcee of the wedding party. Did a pretty good job. I'll say it to your face. I'll spray it. You did a good job with it. Despite trying to roast me.

00:28:49 Peter von Gomm: I did roast you pretty well.

00:28:50 John Daub: A little bit.

00:28:51 Peter von Gomm: And people have been asking me to upload that. But I want to wait until you wait.

00:28:55 John Daub: You filmed it?

00:28:55 Peter von Gomm: Yeah, I filmed it.

00:28:56 John Daub: Okay. Joji filmed it.

00:28:58 Peter von Gomm: It's one of the greatest roasts of all time.

00:29:00 John Daub: Whoa. The wind is getting strong. Hold on. I'm going to Louie for a second. Let's go this side.

00:29:07 Peter von Gomm: So.

00:29:07 John Daub: Thank you, Kronos. I appreciate that. Thank you. The. The. To get back on the topic though, Peter. Rent.

00:29:14 Peter von Gomm: Yeah.

00:29:14 John Daub: And neighborhoods. What is the most desired neighborhood to live in Tokyo?

00:29:20 Peter von Gomm: You can't say that.

00:29:22 John Daub: It's all.

00:29:22 Peter von Gomm: It's case by case. Depends on the person.

00:29:24 John Daub: Well, they actually have a ranking. It was Kichijoji.

00:29:27 Peter von Gomm: I wouldn't want to live in Kichijoji. Personally. I wouldn't want to live.

00:29:31 John Daub: Kichijoji is on the Chua line. This is a line from Shinjuku. Going away from the sea. It's considered the most desirable place to live. Not. Not because. Not because of the location. I don't know. There's a park near there. And that's where the. Yeah.

00:29:48 Peter von Gomm: What?

00:29:48 John Daub: What is yeah. Inokashira Park. And that's where the Ghibli Museum is located at the next station. I don't that that makes it the desire for terrible place to live. But it's.

00:29:57 Peter von Gomm: It's kind of a bohemian.

00:29:59 John Daub: Yes.

00:29:59 Peter von Gomm: There's a bohemian feel. The people living there. Lots of young people. It's similar to Shimokitazawa.

00:30:04 John Daub: Yes.

00:30:04 Peter von Gomm: On the Odaku Line.

00:30:06 John Daub: Yes.

00:30:07 Peter von Gomm: So similar. Similar vibe. It's bigger than Shimokitazawa. Kichijoji.

00:30:13 John Daub: Yeah.

00:30:13 Peter von Gomm: And not. Not difficult to access, but it's not. It's not for me. So it depends on the person, what the type of conveniences they want and train access, etc. Etc. So maybe I can answer the question with why I chose where I live.

00:30:31 John Daub: What? 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. Main Tokyo Street.

00:30:34 Peter von Gomm: Tokyo Avenue.

00:30:35 John Daub: Tokyo Avenue. Sorry. Apartment you live in. You live in Shitamachi? Yeah, is the north part of Tokyo. So the rent is a little. Typically a little bit cheaper than.

00:30:47 Peter von Gomm: All right, so that's not necessarily true. Actually, somebody brought up. We won't go there.

00:30:55 John Daub: We'll.

00:30:55 Peter von Gomm: We'll keep this on top.

00:30:58 John Daub: Do not spill secrets.

00:31:00 Peter von Gomm: So the reason why we chose the area where I am is it was not far from an apartment that we had in Tokyo in an area called Bunkyoku. And we wanted to live in that general area.

00:31:17 John Daub: So Tokyo Dome is Tokyo Dome? Yeah. It's not.

00:31:19 Peter von Gomm: It's not too far from Tokyo Dome. So we searched and the prices for land, the prices for rent for apartments can drop dramatically even just one station away. So we looked just a few stations away from this apartment that we had and found some land that was. That was cheaper than the area where our apartment was. And so we, we went with that.

00:31:47 John Daub: And it's. It's. It's.

00:31:48 Peter von Gomm: It's a residential area. It doesn't have a lot of bells and whistles. There's not a lot of great restaurants, except for the.

00:31:57 John Daub: Can I mention that?

00:31:58 Peter von Gomm: No, no.

00:31:58 John Daub: Okay, I can mention that. Sorry. So this. There's.

00:32:05 Peter von Gomm: There's benefits to it. It's like I said, it's residential. There's no tall buildings, it's quiet and.

00:32:12 John Daub: But you. You. But you. But you. But it's. It's far from the station. I know that because I've walked it many times. It's like 10 minutes. Which station? Okay, you're not gonna say the station, but Chuoku Central. Central District. No, the But. No, my point is. My point is that you. You have a scooter. So the distance from the station does not really make too much of a distance most of the time. Except, you know, when we go out drinking or something, you will scoot to jobs. You scoot? Is that a word? You scoot to events. You scoot to places to meet up with your scooters. Motorcycle, bike. Scooters. Scooters.

00:33:00 Peter von Gomm: Yeah.

00:33:01 John Daub: So.

00:33:01 Peter von Gomm: So, yeah, So I. I avoid using the trains much. As much as I can. But if I know we're going to go out and drink or something, obviously I don't ride. But it's still not far anything under a 10 minute walk is acceptable. Yeah, and once you start going beyond that, then the price.

00:33:20 John Daub: Scooter Von Gom is trending now on

00:33:23 Peter von Gomm: when somebody gave me I have an electric kickboard. Somebody.

00:33:28 John Daub: Speedy.

00:33:28 Peter von Gomm: Gom.

00:33:30 John Daub: Gonzale, come here. Check this out. All right, hold on. Peter's got some something he wants to show you. All right, Peter, show us.

00:33:43 Peter von Gomm: An advertisement that I did for this company.

00:33:45 John Daub: Oh, you're the voice of this company.

00:33:47 Peter von Gomm: Festaria is a specially cut diamond. And it has they, they patented the cutting technique. And there's actually inside the diamond, there's a star shape.

00:34:00 John Daub: Oh, wow. So, so what was your commercial? How'd you do it? Can we hear your voice inside?

00:34:06 Peter von Gomm: Well, if they do it, do a search for Wish Upon a Star.

00:34:09 John Daub: Wish Upon a Star. Fester Festaria. And you'll find Peter's voice.

00:34:13 Peter von Gomm: I think you'll find the video.

00:34:15 John Daub: Can you do it or you have a non disclosure. You remember Wish Upon a Star? Yeah.

00:34:22 Peter von Gomm: You saw it?

00:34:23 John Daub: Yeah, it's, yeah, it's, that's exactly it. Festeria presents.

00:34:27 Peter von Gomm: Oh, man.

00:34:28 John Daub: You should wish upon a star. I know. I, I'm always getting, you know, third place to some. Okay, some dude.

00:34:37 Peter von Gomm: All right, can you zoom in? So the center, the very center of the cut of the diamond has a star.

00:34:44 John Daub: Oh, I see that.

00:34:45 Peter von Gomm: Can you see it?

00:34:46 John Daub: I can I wait, I want to make a wish. Hold on. All right. My wish is finished.

00:34:54 Peter von Gomm: Yeah, I know. I did the commercial for it.

00:35:08 John Daub: Wish upon a star. So Peter's now talking with the shop. Peter is famous in his little circle. In a circle. His circle is getting bigger. But he's the voice of many things. Good job, Peter.

00:35:30 Peter von Gomm: He offered to clean my rings.

00:35:33 John Daub: Seriously, why don't you do it? It's getting a little scratched up.

00:35:44 Peter von Gomm: Is anybody watching? No. Kanji. If anybody can guess what this kanji is, you get a special virtual high five.

00:35:53 John Daub: You get to hang out with with Peter in his flat, in his house.

00:35:57 Peter von Gomm: One more time, here's the kanji.

00:35:59 John Daub: Okay.

00:36:00 Peter von Gomm: From left to right, can anybody, anybody know it?

00:36:04 John Daub: No, nothing. Nothing yet. We'll wait and see. All right, Back to Rent.

00:36:11 Peter von Gomm: Well, hey, why don't we. We're our way back to Tokyo Forum. How much time are we doing on time here?

00:36:18 John Daub: We're going on 36 minutes.

00:36:19 Peter von Gomm: Okay.

00:36:19 John Daub: So we'll end in about 10 minutes. So you want to walk back or do you want to loop around?

00:36:24 Peter von Gomm: We can, there's not much down that street, but we, we can go.

00:36:28 John Daub: Actually, not that far. Some Furuyasan. Actually, we're pretty close to. Yeah, San is the name of the rent places. And usually in front of them, they'll put listings for apartments that you can rent. The prices and the size of it. That might be interesting to show the people. Shimbashi has that, don't they? I'm pretty sure they do. Possibly.

00:36:52 Peter von Gomm: Wouldn't you guys like to see some live outdoor classical music at Tokyo International Forum? That's going on right now as we speak.

00:37:03 John Daub: Oh, yeah.

00:37:04 Peter von Gomm: But I would much rather see storefronts with apartment listings.

00:37:09 John Daub: This here. What Peter doesn't know. This here is one of the most famous toy stores in Japan. Toy Park. It's a big deal. Peter doesn't know that. He wants to go listen to classical music, which I'm up for. But also, we're talking about a massive toy store here. And. And I think this is cooler. Now he's playing with with this ball. Wow. That's kind of cool. Whoa. Wow. This is cool.

00:37:57 Peter von Gomm: So the robots, soccer players. I think I'd probably get tired of this real quick.

00:38:04 John Daub: Nice. Pretty cool. Pretty cool. It'd be cool if it also clean the carpet too. Like as a vacuum cleaner. Oh, that's creepy. Sort of. It's Rikachan. What's Rikachan doing here? Rika chan is the Barbie of Japan.

00:38:26 Peter von Gomm: Swing around and show the front.

00:38:32 John Daub: Cute. Very cute. Where's Peter?

00:38:40 Peter von Gomm: Should I give her my card?

00:38:42 John Daub: Is that your type?

00:38:44 Peter von Gomm: I didn't think it was, but I think it is now.

00:38:47 John Daub: Wow. Rikachan is one of the most popular selling dolls. And inside of this toy store, which is called Toy park, they have it. And you want to show classical music? I want to show Rikachan. Okay. Give me a camera. Camera. Oh, geez. All right, go take your picture. Everybody take a screenshot with him. Peter, you gotta wait in line. Peter's being rude. You have to wait in line. While you're waiting in line, I'm gonna talk with the people. So rent prices? Yeah. If you want to live in Shibuya, Shinjuku, or one of these other central areas, you're gonna have to pay more. You're probably gonna have a lot less space. What they've done is the apartments down there, they're just smaller because they. They know that younger people want to live in that area. So they've made 1K, which is basically one room with a little kitchen unit where you can cook. Typically, they cost about a hundred thousand yen or $1,000. So by me, living 30 minutes outside of the center of the city for that same amount of rent, for $1,000 I could get a little closet in Shibuya. I'm serious about how much it is because I used to live in a place called Futako Tamagawa, which is a 10 minute train ride direct to Shibuya. $1,000 to live in front of the station. One room with a little teeny kitchenette. It was ridiculous. So that was in 2004. Peters still three deep in to waiting. Waiting to meet Rikachan. But we'll bring you Peter's meeting Rikachan live. We're gonna bring this live. When you finally meet Rikachan, it's gonna be awesome. Are you excited? You look excited. Yeah, so. So when it comes down to the prices, living in Tokyo, the Shibuya, Shinjuku, Omotesando, Harajuku, there are apartments there. You will get a smaller place. It will cost you for a thousand dollars. Get you one room. You will live there. You will live there. But it'll give you one room with a little kitchenette and very thin walls most likely. And yeah, or you can have the same thing. Live 30 minutes out and you have what I showed you a couple of days ago. Very cool experience. I think it's important for you to notice that if you want to live in a popular area, you will get less space for more money. That's like a no brainer, right? So after Peter gets his dream wish, it's her birthday. You gonna sing happy birthday with your voice of God. She should pay you then, right? He's got no comment. Peter's gonna meet Rika chan. Okay, peter. Don't scare her. Oh, Peter gets a sticker. You're gonna get a sticker, dude. Show it to us afterwards. Do you have your camera? Do you want me to take a real picture? Okay, Give me your camera. I'll take it at the same time. Just set it up. So. Okay, photo. Okay. Peter's a big fan of Rikacha. Okay, Peter. All right. Jesus. All right. Here you go. Dude. How was it? Did you feel?

00:42:48 Peter von Gomm: I'm in love.

00:42:49 John Daub: Are you slightly creepy? But I'm just saying. I'm reading the comments. I'm reading the comments. Yeah, show me the pictures. Show us the pictures that do a good job. I just wanna. I'm kind of curious.

00:43:07 Peter von Gomm: Well, as I'm walking away.

00:43:09 John Daub: No, no, no. I got more than that. I thought that was a nice shot. Is that good?

00:43:14 Peter von Gomm: Yeah. Nice. She's loving that.

00:43:17 John Daub: I know she is loving that. It's a one moment in time, ladies and gentlemen. One moment in time. One moment in Time. Okay. Yeah. Back this way. Let's go back. All right. Back to the apartment rent. Apparently we never seem to really stay on topic, but it's okay.

00:43:44 Peter von Gomm: Who says that?

00:43:45 John Daub: I say that. We're walking dead center through Ginza. On. On a holiday, they close this street down. It's called Walking Heaven. According to Peter, who. He didn't make this up. We've seen some really creepy stuff on the street. We've seen some cute stuff like a dog dressed in a high school uniform and a dog dressed as a university student. And all this because we. We came here to talk about apartments, Tokyo apartments and locations. So Kichijoji is the number one most desired place to live for Japanese. And it's good for food vloggers that like to vlog about food because it's just filled with restaurants. It's a lot of trendy places. Hipsters, as you said before, Peter, live in Kichijoji. The rent prices are very high. As a result, it's very hard to get an apartment in Kichijoji. But you can find it.

00:44:41 Peter von Gomm: It.

00:44:41 John Daub: You can find it. It just depends how much you want to pay. And when you rent houses in Japan, there's also something called reikin and shikikin. When I moved into my apartment about two weeks ago, the upfront cost was exorbitant. It was pretty big.

00:44:58 Peter von Gomm: Yeah.

00:44:58 John Daub: Yeah.

00:44:59 Peter von Gomm: Six months rent.

00:45:00 John Daub: No, it wasn't that big. They wanted. They wanted one month reiki and one. One, one month. So I. If so right now I'm paying. I'm paying 170,000 yen for rent, which is about $1500 a month.

00:45:17 Peter von Gomm: About.

00:45:17 John Daub: It's reasonable, I think. Right.

00:45:19 Peter von Gomm: You should point out that for where

00:45:21 John Daub: I am now,

00:45:23 Peter von Gomm: it's called gift money. Key money.

00:45:25 John Daub: Yeah. Reiki is called key money. Right.

00:45:27 Peter von Gomm: You don't get it back. It's a gift to the the landlord.

00:45:30 John Daub: Shiki keen is considered the deposit and you technically get that back the other.

00:45:35 Peter von Gomm: And when you renew an apartment or whatever your renew your lease, you have

00:45:42 John Daub: to pay that every two years.

00:45:43 Peter von Gomm: Every two years.

00:45:44 John Daub: I did in an Edogaw Award. It just depends on where you are. That's a sort of a Tokyo thing where you have to pay one month rent every two years for a renewal. It was a Tokyo thing. It's not. Does. It's not universally all over Japan really. I paid a 200 renewal fee. It was about two months, 20,000 yen renewal fee. In my old apartment, I renewed it six times. That's how long it was there. It was for that amount of space. It was pretty good. I could have bought that Nissan car. I could have rented it for like a day maybe. But you want to go. Go through the center to the neighborhood. You know what? I got a place. I could take you to lunch that I'm just dying to eat.

00:46:29 Peter von Gomm: Okay.

00:46:30 John Daub: I'm gonna treat Peter to this. I don't know, I guess we'll do a little Instagram picture maybe.

00:46:35 Peter von Gomm: Let me just. Let me back up for a second here. Did you guys hear that correctly? Can you repeat what you just said?

00:46:41 John Daub: I will treat you, dude. I'll treat you. But I'm. But. All right, stop it. But we're not gonna go directly to your class classical music thing, because that's what he wants to do. Just do in the corner there, dude, do it in the corner. Just walk through that door and do it. There.

00:47:04 Peter von Gomm: May be looking.

00:47:04 John Daub: You know, Kevin. Kevin and I. Kevin and I in a live stream. And at Shinsekai, we saw a dude. We walked by a dude who was peeing against the wall. He just whipped it out. I just. Peeing against the wall. It was pretty disgusting. But. But we saw it live, and I couldn't edit that out. You can't scrape that. So before we go and eat, which is not that far away from here, Peter, I just want to wrap this up here. I want to look and answer some of the questions that you might have about rent. So let's get to that and just spend a couple of minutes. Is that okay? You got two minutes, Peter.

00:47:40 Peter von Gomm: Yeah.

00:47:40 John Daub: For the people.

00:47:41 Peter von Gomm: Want me to hold it? Did you lose your button here?

00:47:43 John Daub: Yeah. Hold this for a second.

00:47:46 Peter von Gomm: Set a bionic thumb of yours.

00:47:49 John Daub: It is. It is a bionic thumb.

00:47:51 Peter von Gomm: Okay. Now this is the part of the show where things become more entertaining when I hold the stick.

00:48:00 John Daub: All right, game over. We want to keep this on topic. You've taken us way off topic and made this stream very, very cool. All right, where can we sit for a second, Peter? Right here. All right, we're going to answer your questions right here. Up, up, up, up, up, up. There we go. Peter, come on over here.

00:48:28 Peter von Gomm: I'm gonna go talk to Rika again.

00:48:30 John Daub: No, no, no. We're gonna wrap this up. This is the end of the live stream here. So we're gonna answer. Answer some of your questions here from Ginza about renting apartments in Japan and getting into the specifics. Rent, insurance. I. I typically have to pay about 20,000 yen every two years for fire, earthquake. I had a choice between three of them. One of them was the basic. The Other one was like a step up. And then there's a premium one. I just get the basic. It covers fire, earthquake and things like this. Generally utilities. So it's about 20 to 60,000 yen or 200 to 600 yen to 200 to 600 every two years. Renewable in Japan, rents and contracts are two years. So they're. It's. I don't know why. It's been like this throughout history. Right. Just a renewable two years. Utility prices. Peter,

00:49:25 Peter von Gomm: I just looked at. That's my electric bill for April. It was maybe 15,000 yen. And it fluctuates.

00:49:35 John Daub: Are you kidding me? No. Wow. Just. Just electric, I think.

00:49:39 Peter von Gomm: Just electricity? Yeah. Yeah.

00:49:41 John Daub: Well, about $150.

00:49:44 Peter von Gomm: Yeah.

00:49:45 John Daub: And.

00:49:47 Peter von Gomm: Well, yeah, I think. I think that was the electric bill. Anyhow, it's. It fluctuates of course, depending on the season. So in the dead of winter we're using a lot of heat.

00:49:57 John Daub: Heat.

00:49:58 Peter von Gomm: It's more expensive, but it's never really, really high. But you know, of course, gas and electric and water. Those are the three main.

00:50:07 John Daub: Well, you produce your own gas, right? High five on it. Why is he high five me from that? Hang on.

00:50:15 Peter von Gomm: I can't put these. My reading glasses. This a comedian right here.

00:50:22 John Daub: Utilities. In my apartment, I lived in a 2 LDK or a 2 DK, which is. Is two rooms and one room that was 12 tatami mats. Typically the electrical bill was about 3,500 yen. And I used. Yeah, and I used a lot of power editing because I had four hard drives and the monitor going all the time and sometimes a TV in the background. So typically the electric bill is between about 35 to $50 a month. I didn't use air conditioning very often because in the summer you're really hot. In the winter you're kind of cold. Just wear more sweaters. It's just sort of the way it is. So yeah, water bills were about 25 to $50 every two months. I paid the water utility. The gas bill was always less. It just depends on how much cooking you do and how much. How much. How many baths you take. Because the water is heated using gas. The gas bill was usually the same like about 30 to 30 to $35 a month. In general, my utilities, I paid about a hundred dollars a month for all of them.

00:51:23 Peter von Gomm: That's pretty good.

00:51:24 John Daub: It's not bad.

00:51:25 Peter von Gomm: Well, when you have a smaller place, an apartment, especially if you're. But you're building concrete, I'm assuming.

00:51:29 John Daub: Yeah, it was. Yes, that was concrete with mold and then mold and that Mold sucks up some of the oxygen, I think.

00:51:36 Peter von Gomm: So right. When you made your own cheese.

00:51:39 John Daub: I mean, I don't know if that's a dig at me or like, like, yes, moldy cheese.

00:51:47 Peter von Gomm: All right, so what else we got going on here?

00:51:49 John Daub: Utilities. There's a good question.

00:51:51 Peter von Gomm: Sublet subletting. That's case by case.

00:51:55 John Daub: A lot of contracts now with the Airbnb boom, a lot of the contracts now have clauses saying that you cannot use air exhaust, you cannot rent out apartments to other people because people were making money off of it. Then the landlord wants to make money off of you because he's making money off of you, basically. They don't want. Want you subletting. Yeah, Old apartments probably don't have that clause in it. But the new contracts, because you renew every two years and Airbnb has been out now in Japan for about four or five years, the new contracts now have Airbnb like clauses where it's getting more complicated. You have to be the owner of the house to do that now.

00:52:32 Peter von Gomm: Yeah. And there's other restrictions as well. Like you can only rent out an Airbnb for 180 days of the year. So anyhow, that's, that's not.

00:52:41 John Daub: The Airbnb prices in Tokyo as well are getting a lot higher because of the restrictions that the government has put onto Airbnb. A lot of them can't stay in business as long the demand is high. So the prices are also really high. My friends at what's inside, a YouTube channel rented a house for Airbnb. That was the, that they were the last tenants of that house. The owner of the house stopped renting it out and they were paying about $250 a day, which is ridiculously cheap for family to. I mean, it's like a five star hotel kind of price at the Sheraton.

00:53:15 Peter von Gomm: Well, I think a lot of people that want to experience living in a house, a Japanese style house while they're

00:53:21 John Daub: here, that's a way to do it.

00:53:22 Peter von Gomm: Fun.

00:53:23 John Daub: That's a way to do it. If you're, if you're coming as a tourist and you also get to experience the gas, the electricity, and you don't have to pay the bills, but you'll see how it runs. And yeah, that's also really interesting when it comes to neighborhoods.

00:53:36 Peter von Gomm: You can't rent my house.

00:53:37 John Daub: You can't rent his house. Why not? That's not a bad side business.

00:53:41 Peter von Gomm: Yeah, maybe whenever.

00:53:42 John Daub: Maybe one day when he's. Yeah, when, when Joji moves out, maybe. Okay. I'm Getting last. Last thing. Kichijoji is a desirable neighborhood. What are the other desirable places to live in Tokyo?

00:53:58 Peter von Gomm: That's again, that's a hard thing to.

00:54:00 John Daub: To pin for you.

00:54:01 Peter von Gomm: For me, I like where I live.

00:54:03 John Daub: I like where you live.

00:54:05 Peter von Gomm: Other places, though. I think if I was to live somewhere else, like dead center.

00:54:10 John Daub: Yeah.

00:54:10 Peter von Gomm: Like, I like Azabu Juban.

00:54:12 John Daub: Azabu Juban? Yeah. Near Roppongi.

00:54:14 Peter von Gomm: It's kind of near Roppongi, but it's not in Roppongi, which I wouldn't want to live in Roppongi.

00:54:19 John Daub: That area has a lot of the embassies, so there's a. There's a big foreign population there. Usually the foreigners who live there have some cash because the rent prices are high. It's an old neighborhood that has a lot of history as Abujaban. I like it.

00:54:32 Peter von Gomm: And Hiro as well.

00:54:33 John Daub: Like, he knows. Nice. Oh, my legs. Starting to kill me. Yeah. The squat position. All right, let's do the standing position. Ah, I have a squat. Squat Pain threshold of about five seconds. Yes. We're in our 40s.

00:54:51 Peter von Gomm: Speak for yourself.

00:54:53 John Daub: Speak for you too. That's true. This knit also where I live now, in Chuoku, as you can see, listed right here. And we're gonna wrap this up, folks. I appreciate the questions. This is Chuyo City or Chuyoku? This is Chuyo means center central. And so I now live in the central area of Tokyo. I really like this area because of the history. And the rent prices here are kind of high too. But I like the mix of having the office buildings. Because at night, all of the. Where you going? Because at night we're going. He's got to go to the rest. He's got to go to the restroom. He told me at night, all the people from the offices go home. And that means the communities are a little bit quieter, which I also like. And there's also lots of places to go out. The lunch places are filled during the day, but if you go out to dinner, they're usually not as packed here as well, because everyone wants to go home because they live out in a house in Saitama or Chiba or some of the other places around. I also like Yotsuya and Ichigaya. That's in the center inside of the Yamanoti line. Yotsuya is a nice place. There's lots of places to eat and small trendy shops. I also didn't mind Futako Tamagawa so much, but the problem was that it was snobby. I Did it's kind of a little bit far. It's 10 minutes of Shibuya on the Denin Toshi line. But just the people were snobby. A lot of celebrities lived there and I just didn't fit in because I like to talk with, with, you know, normal people. That's one of the reasons why I moved. Let's walk to the lunch place because you got to go to the. You got to go to the restroom.

00:56:32 Peter von Gomm: Well, most importantly, I think we got to let these people go.

00:56:35 John Daub: We got to let you go too. So I appreciate you watching this live stream. I hope this was somewhat helpful and entertaining. This man is always entertaining. Check out his channels.

00:56:44 Peter von Gomm: Yes, yes. Can I plug it? Can I plug it? So if you haven't subscribed to my channel, many of you have and I greatly, greatly appreciate it. Having a blast creating content. It's. Peter Von Gomm is the channel name.

00:56:58 John Daub: He just passed 5,000 subscribers thanks to you people.

00:57:03 Peter von Gomm: And I got a special award from YouTube. So please watch that video. It's the second to the most recent. But yeah, please subscribe. There's lots of, lots of variety and there's going to be a lot more coming. I, A lot of people have asked about super chats. When I do live streams, I'm waiting for YouTube to, to authorize that.

00:57:24 John Daub: I'm gonna ask somebody about that too, because it's been too long of you not getting monetized. I'm gonna look into that and help help you out, brother, please.

00:57:31 Peter von Gomm: Yeah, thank you. Appreciate that. And also, I have a Patreon account that is starting very shortly. I'm just kind of going. I'm going through some final. Do you have any support people asking me? And I'm, That's. I don't have the site up yet. I'm. I'm getting things prepared. So please stay tuned. In a very, very near future that will be ready.

00:57:51 John Daub: What are some of your rewards?

00:57:53 Peter von Gomm: Well, I don't have. I can't say yet. I can't say yet.

00:57:55 John Daub: Okay.

00:57:56 Peter von Gomm: That's what I'm, that's what I'm hammering out.

00:57:58 John Daub: I have a Patreon page and if you signed up, you can get the wedding postcard. A picture of us in the Japanese garden is going to be next month's way. Actually, I think you. Because it's May we started the next, next cycle. But if you, if you do join the postcard club, then I can, I can try to get that one to you too, because it's an. It's going to be A special one.

00:58:18 Peter von Gomm: Okay, well, thank you. So Peter von gomm channel on YouTube.

00:58:21 John Daub: Please check it out.

00:58:22 Peter von Gomm: Please subscribe. Most importantly and like the videos. Huge thank you in advance for that. Bye bye.

00:58:30 John Daub: Well, Peter and I go eat lunch. If you are interested in renting, I want to keep this all in one place. Leave a comment below. Definitely hit that like button. So I appreciate that very much. And leave a comment below about where. If you've lived in Japan. Tell me about your your experience. How much did you pay in rent? We're going to a place right here. Dude, give me one second.

00:58:52 Peter von Gomm: I want to see this shop.

00:58:53 John Daub: Okay, I'll talk to you in this while Peter goes to see that shop. Leave me your experience. Where did you live when you lived in Japan? How much pass rent did you pay? What was special about your apartment? For me, typically I like to rent a place that is within three to four minutes of the station because usually they cheese the number. They kind of skimp on the number. It's usually actually five. It's usually two or three minutes longer than the number that they give on the form. Location of the station will also determine the price. Doesn't matter even if the station is far away. If you live in front of the station, you're close to services, banks, restaurants. And the station fronts are usually quite a desirable place places to live. I live right now, one minute from my station. I made it like this. The rent was. I found a jewel of an apartment and I'm. I'm not going to show it. Do an apartment tour. I don't kind of do that stuff, but I will stream inside my apartment. I just won't give you a tour of it. If you're a Patreon supporter, you're going to get question and answers from inside my apartment anyways because I do live question and answers for people interested in coming to Japan or they have questions they want to ask me. I do that twice a month on Patreon. But the criteria for me was to find an apartment that was very close to the station. A place where I can. I had a nice enough sunlight to get in because I had a mold problem a little bit at my last apartment. Now I have more than enough sunlight. It's a steal. The apartment also has like a storage facility for stuff that I want to store for me and my wife and has a nice kitchen. It has a very nice living space. The balcony is a little bit bigger. So I'm quite happy. I'm paying four or five hundred dollars more a month. But with two of us. We kind of needed a little bit. It's just a little bit extra space and a little bit more convenient. It's closer to where my wife lives and works too, because I can kind of go anywhere else. So that was a determinant on me picking this location. But I really do like living here in Chuoku because everything is just hooked up really well. So I pay about $1,500 a month in rent, which is actually pretty good for this area. It's not one of those. Well, I'm not going to tell you if it's one of this high rise, skyscraper, mansion places. Maybe it isn't. Maybe it is. But it's enough space for us and we're very happy.

01:01:14 Peter von Gomm: I'm back.

01:01:15 John Daub: What was the cheapest apartment you lived in?

01:01:18 Peter von Gomm: The first one I lived out in Netimaku and it was. Which is about 30 minutes. About 25 minutes from Shinjuku.

01:01:27 John Daub: Yeah.

01:01:27 Peter von Gomm: And it was about 80,000 yen.

01:01:31 John Daub: That's like 700 bucks. That's pretty cheap.

01:01:33 Peter von Gomm: Yeah, it was a pretty cheap place.

01:01:35 John Daub: 700 bucks a month. The cheapest apartment I lived in was 250 a month. Wow. It was in.

01:01:43 Peter von Gomm: Imagine. How big was it like?

01:01:44 John Daub: It wasn't that.

01:01:45 Peter von Gomm: It wasn't that big standing up.

01:01:47 John Daub: The school I worked for an English school and the English school paid for the apartment complexes. But the rate that they paid just depended. There was no like set limit. That school had a crappy apartment. I was living there for just for three months. But it was 250. I found out because I asked the neighbor. It was a 1k with just a little kitchenette. $250 a month. 10 minute walk from the station. A small station with trains that like came once. Once every 30 minutes. Very inconvenient. It.

01:02:17 Peter von Gomm: What sign?

01:02:19 John Daub: Oh, I'm not taking you there.

01:02:21 Peter von Gomm: Is that we're having lunch?

01:02:23 John Daub: No, I just. I'm. The place is just right over there. It's beyond that sign.

01:02:28 Peter von Gomm: It's not on the second floor.

01:02:29 John Daub: It's not on. I'll take you there. So this is just like. You have sharp blue eyes. Dude with those sunglasses. It's not even sunny. You like thin. That. I didn't see that. That sign. Have you been there before? Seems like you know this place. That's expensive. Oh, so just for the record, a gay bar is not the same meaning as in the United States. It's usually trans. No, the people are transgender. Putting on performances. I know that because I've had clients take me out to them for fun. And it's. It's more of a show than it is a bar. It's not like the Blue Oyster Club. Blue Oyster boy from Police Academy. Just. Just want to clarify that because I was freaked out. And when he says, we're going to a gay bar, my client said that, I'm like, what? What? And it was. It was actually a lot of fun. Yeah, sure.

01:03:25 Peter von Gomm: Yeah, they're always fun.

01:03:26 John Daub: It's. It is. It is pretty fun.

01:03:28 Peter von Gomm: And on that topic, let's close with this.

01:03:30 John Daub: Sure.

01:03:32 Peter von Gomm: For those who are gay, if you're in Tokyo, I'm sure you already have done your research, but Ni Chome is the area near Shinjuku. That's the. That's the popular gay area in Tokyo. And those bars are a blast. I have gay friends and sometimes I go with them.

01:03:48 John Daub: But that. But what I'm trying to say is that you don't have to be gay

01:03:50 Peter von Gomm: to go to those places.

01:03:51 John Daub: Because it's not like a pickup place for people. Just like Roppongis is. Well, not. It has stopped being. Pick a place for everybody, buddy. Right. Roppongi was. Well, way off topic.

01:04:02 Peter von Gomm: Yeah. All right, let's just. Let's. That's a whole nother story.

01:04:06 John Daub: That's a whole nother story. All right. The place I'm taking is right up here. Sushiko. No, that's not it. So thank you very much, Peter, for sharing your experience. I got. You know, you can thank him again right now.

01:04:17 Peter von Gomm: Thank you. Yes, pleasure.

01:04:19 John Daub: Pleasure. Deborah. I saw the super chat. Thank you for joining us, Deborah. I appreciate that very much. I try to answer all the super chats that I can here. John and Peter get a snack on us. We are doing that right now, Oscar. Thank you. And Deborah, I. It's okay. If you missed us, I'm gonna do. We might do another live stream on Peter's channel. Right, Peter?

01:04:40 Peter von Gomm: Yeah, sure.

01:04:41 John Daub: Maybe.

01:04:42 Peter von Gomm: Sure.

01:04:43 John Daub: And I'll be. I'll be doing another live stream later on, so see you guys. All right, lunchtime. I'll share the last 20 seconds with this unusual intersection in Ginza or usual,

01:04:55 Peter von Gomm: and I'll invite you guys to my and Rika's wedding.