00:00:12 John Daub: Hey everybody, so this is the Sanja Matsuri (Three Shrine Festival), or a little bit outside of the area of it. This is one of Tokyo's big three Shinto festivals, the other being the Kanda Matsuri and the Sensoji Matsuri [?]. This one is the rowdiest of them all and I'm kind of a little bit away starting here because I'm not sure if I'm gonna have a 4G LTE signal because this festival brings in over 2 million visitors, which is just an astounding number of people who come to watch this festival. We're gonna try to go in there and take a look at it, one of the omikoshi (portable shrines) that they carry down the street. Sometimes you're gonna see people who are in certain groups that have tattoos and they are on top of the omikoshi whipping the people carrying it into shape, trying to get them to keep pushing forward despite the heat.

00:01:10 John Daub: Today is the day. It's a pretty warm, not an overly hot day. It's warm, so I'm still wearing a shirt, but yeah, I could feel summer coming probably in a couple of weeks. We're gonna get to some really hot weather and then the rain is gonna come down. But before that we have this, the Sanja Matsuri. If you listen, you can kind of start to hear the music as we get a little bit closer to where the festival is taking place.

00:01:36 John Daub: Now, this is just a little bit left of Kaminarimon (Thunder Gate). And here, on the left side, as we get closer, you can see one of the taiko drums. I kind of like starting a little bit outside of the festival. I'm not sure how this signal is going to hold. So bear with me if the signal does cut out or end, I'll try my best to keep going. So this is one of the taiko drums. It's very cool. It's on wheels. I think this is just for display. And we have a very small omikoshi over here.

00:02:25 John Daub: The back streets from Kuramae Station all the way to Asakusa, really interesting because you'll see a lot of the participants. They're taking breaks, sitting in the side alleys, eating or relaxing or staying out of the sun for a little bit. This is a small omikoshi. Very nice. You're gonna see some much bigger ones. There's a little bit of a wind coming in. And now on the main street, which is closed down. This is the main street that goes through Asakusa. It's very rarely closed down. It's pretty neat to see. People walking freely today. But this festival takes place from May 18th to May 20th. Every, well, I guess it depends on the year. But this year, 2018, from May 18th to May 20th. So today is the last day.

00:03:20 John Daub: And from the main street here, if I swing the camera to the right, you can see on the top, overlooking Asakusa is the Tokyo Skytree. 634 meters high, I believe. It's the highest free-standing tower in the world right now. I don't, ask me in five years, probably not anymore. But it's still pretty impressive. And now you can start to hear some of the banging and flutes. This street normally very crowded with traffic, cars, buses, taxis rolling by. And today it's closed down.

00:04:11 John Daub: All right, let's make our way towards Sensoji Temple. If I keep walking straight, you'll be able to see Kaminarimon in about 30 seconds. But right there, this building on the side that looks really like a designer building, not this one that's gold, but the one right here. That's the Asakusa Tourist Information Center. And they have a lot of English speakers in there. It's also a place where on a hot day, you can go in there to get out of the sun, get out of the humidity in the summer or in the winter to warm up. It's a pretty neat building.

00:05:33 John Daub: It's cool to walk down the side of the street like this. I have no idea if the signal is going to hold. I'm not as confident as maybe you are. If we've got 720p right now, I don't know if we're ever going to be able to hold it. But the closer I get to Sensoji Temple, the more the vibe picks up. The energy of festivals is just amazing. I haven't even had my morning coffee yet and I'm starting to feel a buzz. But we're live from Asakusa. And right in the middle of the street over there is a portable shrine being carried in front of Sensoji.

00:06:24 John Daub: So let me see if I can get a good view for you. Maybe the signal will clear up in a different location. We got some festival dogs here. All right, here they come. This is a smaller one. Now, these things are not light. They're pretty heavy, even the small ones. It doesn't require as many people to carry the small ones, but the big ones, whoa, they are like solid metal and wood. Very, very heavy. Some even say solid gold. I'm not sure about that, but you can hear them chanting to build up some motivation to keep going.

00:08:28 John Daub: All right, let's see what else we can find. This is fun. Now that I'm where there's a lot of people. I can start to feel the vibe, the energy of a festival. And on the right there, you can see Kaminarimon. This is Thunder Gate. They call it in English. The only people who say that are tourists, but that's okay. And check it out. The lantern has been raised so to allow the omikoshi to go through. Wow. Do you see that? Only during the festival time do they ever do this. And I didn't know that it was retractable like that. Very cool. Usually this is extended all the way down, but today they've pushed it up and it allows the extra space for the portable shrines to come through.

00:09:31 John Daub: And right now I'm in the middle of the intersection and there's a lot of people with selfie sticks taking shots of this performance going on. Pretty cool. Feel the beat. Makes you want to dance. Yeah. I wish I was in this festival today. I'm just a spectator today. I like being in a good festival. This is a good one. This is the look at, it is a very unique view. And ordinarily the lantern at Kaminarimon, which is the gate where I'm at, is down. And today it's up. So let's go underneath it. I want to get a better view because you almost never see it like this.

00:10:47 John Daub: Yeah. Panasonic, right. Matsushita Denki is the sponsor of this lantern and it's way up there. This is unique. And you can see the oni standing strong at the gate. Honestly, I don't see the lantern usually down like this. It's just for this festival that it's up like that. So this is a pretty unique sight. If you've been to Tokyo to Asakusa before, that is pretty cool. Now we're in a very crowded area. This is Nakamise-dori (inner approach street). Lots of shops. It's got the plastic around it. So it's got that nice 1960s vibe to it. But it's still pretty cool. You can find a lot of stuff if you want gifts and presents and things like this.

00:11:50 John Daub: I will walk through there against my better judgment. If we can, if you smash that like button and we get the 200 likes, I will walk through there for you. Right now, I'm hesitant because I just don't want to do it because I might lose the signal. But if you're curious, smash the like button. Support these live streams. Asakusa Nakamise shopping street. And here's a little bit of the map and the history of Asakusa. And while you start smashing that like button, I will read the history of Asakusa for you.

00:12:25 John Daub: Asakusa has prospered as a town surrounding Sensoji Temple for more than 1,300 years. In 628, a statue of the Asakusa Kannon, the Goddess of Mercy, was found in the Sumida River in a net. This became the principal image of the temple. In the Kamakura period, 1192 to 1333, the shogun's military leaders were deeply devoted to the cult of Kannon. And under their patronage, Sensoji became a full-scale Buddhist temple. However, it was the Tokugawa period, 1603 to 1868, when Edo, old Tokyo, became the nation's capital. And the leaders established Sensoji as their prayer hall. From that point, the temple became a place of worship for the common people and attained great splendor, exerting an enormous influence on Edo culture. Still today, with Sensoji being the oldest temple in Tokyo, Asakusa attracts many visitors from across the nation and worldwide. And this area of downtown Tokyo is called Shitamachi (downtown/low town).

00:13:36 John Daub: So there you have it. There's the history. Oh, we've got to 180 likes. Very, very, very short of our goal. Should I walk through the... Oh, look, we lost a like. Somebody liked it just because and then they retracted their like. I've never seen that before. Just they retracted their like like we retracted this lantern. All right, we're close enough. I'm going to do a walkthrough here. And we're going to try to go to Sensoji Temple. Out of my better judgment says that this is really, really not a good idea. There's a lot of street food here as well. So I might pick something up. This is famous baked sweets. One for 60 yen. But no eating while walking, they said. That's actually a cultural rule not to walk and eat in Japan. You can see there's lots of souvenirs on this street. Things probably tourists would buy.

00:15:22 John Daub: So, yeah, this has a very long history. And I believe that the Kannon was found in the Sumida River around the year 700. I put a link in the description if you want to know more about this festival. My friends at TokyoCheapo.com have an article about this festival. And there's also Wikipedia, which is actually not that bad of information. There's a lot of good stuff. The reason why I don't like walking down the street is because it's like it really is just a traffic jam of humans. The side alleys off of that main street just so much better and there's a lot more food too and the food is usually cheaper.

00:16:43 John Daub: Ah, here's the Asakusa Kagetsuro branch shop. That's where I did the melon pan episode in the beginning of Only in Japan. Yuki-san is the owner and he's a really nice guy and he makes some good melon pan. Kanae Daub is actually today with some of her friends having lunch in Omotesando. And I have a lot of work to do editing wise but I thought I would just step out here for about 30 minutes and show you some of this. Alright, we're back. Oh these tabi socks are pretty cool. This one has like ramen on it. It's a little bit strange. Alright, we're almost at Sensoji temple.

00:17:49 John Daub: Oh, that's freaky. Anybody want a wig? This one's three thousand dollars and the one above it is one thousand five hundred dollars. That's a lot for a wig. Alright, so we're almost there. Sorry about the quality. I know that it's just going to get worse, I think. Maybe it'll get better as I enter into the center of it. But I'm among thousands of people. Tens of thousands. Hundreds of thousands of people. Because this festival draws two million people. But the music is really neat. You're surrounded by festival and music. And lots of little omikoshi that are being carried through the neighborhoods playing music.

00:19:05 John Daub: There's a shop that sells, I think, not real swords. Or are they? It's hard to tell. But this is right off of Nakamise-dori. Lots and lots of swords. The problem with this is if you try to carry it back, you need to have the proper documentation. Because the government of Japan, if it is a real sword, will give you a lot of trouble. They won't let you take it out of the country either because they could be historical importance. The prices are pretty reasonable. Like $1,000. And if the price is too cheap or reasonable, you know it's not real. Because there's no way that a sword is going to be that cheap. The swords cost like $10,000. Real ones. Because they take months and months to make.

00:20:17 John Daub: Lunch is on me for you and your wife. Thank you. We are going to use that tonight because I'm going to buy her some dinner. Can I use it for dinner instead of lunch? Because she's eating lunch now. But I'm going to take her out. Thank you, my friend. That's awesome. Oh, what? I was supposed to meet you tomorrow. Yes, but I was here today. Yeah, here you are. We're actually live streaming. Hello. Yes, I know. You tracked me down for the live stream. Yes. That's crazy. My friend Richard will be waiting with you tomorrow. Okay. And I could actually, yeah. So I'm actually here with another friend, but he's going to do his own thing. Okay. So it's just great. It's nice to meet you. Nice to meet you, too.

00:20:43 Dimitri: You know what? Here's the funny here. I'm going to tell you a funny story now.

00:20:46 John Daub: Okay. So remember you were in Manhattan doing that live stream in Union Square.

00:20:51 Dimitri: I was actually eating ramen at Ivan Ramen.

00:20:52 John Daub: You were not. I was eating Ivan Ramen up in Midtown. Crazy. And at the same time, you were live streaming. And I didn't know because I didn't follow you on Facebook at the time. So you didn't know about the event? That's right. I didn't know about the event. And I was saying, well, you know what? Maybe I'll wait until I come to Japan to actually meet you. So yeah. Cool. Well, nice to meet you. And yeah, I'm going to be working tomorrow in the Ueno area. So we were supposed to meet then. But it's better now because I'm not actually sure how much time I have tomorrow. I'll be filming with the crew. Right. Because I messaged you and said maybe after like 29, 2130. So that's great that you knew about this festival. Of course. I mean, how could you be in Tokyo?

00:21:37 Dimitri: Well, actually, I'll tell you this much. I forgot. I honestly, I was staying at a hostel here. And it said in the front that there was going to be a festival this weekend. And ironically, today is my birthday.

00:21:47 John Daub: Oh, happy birthday. Hey. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah. So 30 today. 30. That's right. And I leave on Wednesday to go home back to New York. So it's been a pleasure. So yeah.

00:22:04 John Daub: And by the way, I have this like Yokai Watch cup. There's a little ice thing. Okay. That's like 300 yen. I had a chocolate banana. I had some yakisoba. Got a cool down. It's getting hot, isn't it? Oh, yeah. Actually, it's cooler than yesterday. That's why I'm wearing a jacket. Yeah, it's not. It is a little bit cooler than yesterday. The spring weather is really hard to predict.

00:22:27 John Daub: Now we're actually starting to enter. I know that the signal is going to be awful. How this signal is pretty bad. I mean, I was able to follow you. So. Oh, that's good. Right now, we are literally in the middle of thousands and thousands of people. And I guarantee you the signal is going to get Minecraft. It's going. There. I said it for the first time. I'm going to go for you, John. I might not stick around here too long because Minecraft is fun to watch for like ten seconds. And then it gets really boring. I'm staying up very late to watch. Yeah. Wow. If this wasn't Minecraft, it'd be really cool. Every, you know, tell you what you're missing. It's something that everybody has to do. It's like my first. This is actually my first matsuri. And I tell you that I'm very impressed.

00:23:35 John Daub: Well, there's an energy to the festivals in Japan. There's something that they feel. I haven't had my morning coffee. I was telling everybody. And yet I'm feeling a buzz from just being among all the people here. Very energetic. Yeah. Oh, he's got a stick to the dude up there. Yeah. Selfie stick. But the thing is, though, he's doing hard work. Because he doesn't have a total. Yeah. He is. All right. Yeah. Frankfurt. Yakisoba. Croquette. Goodie. All looks pretty good. Frankfurt. That's interesting. They have hot dogs. And it's not like corn dog. It's just a regular Frankfurt or hot dog here. Frankfurt sausage. Yeah. They're just hot dogs. They're usually pretty good. I mean, they're about four dollars. So Frankfurt sausages they call it. Yeah. So I know that the quality might not be bad.

00:24:46 John Daub: Stick with us. Or just if you're watching this on playback, just forward through it until we get the quality back. But I'm going to jet over to the side after I go in and just take a look at Sensoji. So now we've gone underneath the main gate to enter into the temple area. And filming is OK here, by the way. Pictures and filming. Yeah. I would have been filming and a lot of problems. Just don't use the tripod. Yeah. So that's a big sandal. Do you see that? You know, I actually saw somebody left the sandal like in the middle of the street. Taking it right there. Somebody's very happy about the omikuji that he received, which is a fortune telling slip.

00:25:46 John Daub: Now we're in the middle of Asakusa Sensoji during the festival now. Typically on the start day, which would have been on Friday afternoon or Saturday in the morning, when the omikuji come out, this is just lined. And it's such an amazing scene that it looks like the thumbnail for this stream and the thumbnail for it was taken up here, up on the steps. And if you get lucky, you can find a place up there on the steps when the festival starts and get an amazing picture of thousands and thousands of people just rocking it while the omikoshi makes its way through. Live streaming is not a perfect time. It's exactly all right. I think we're back on. But they moved the incense sticks, the location of it from the center and they moved it to the side to let the mass amount of people and the omikoshi make their way through the temple area.

00:26:49 John Daub: I'm not sure that the quality is still probably pretty bad, but I thought maybe we would take a look up on the steps and then get out of here. But the people are waving the smoke towards them to cleanse themselves. So let me, I'm going to cleanse you guys. If you're looking and watching this because I'm actually here. Yeah, look, he's getting a good cleansing. I'm going to cleanse you guys. Oh, all right. You're cleansed all over the world now. Cleansed. All right. I'm cleansing you. There you go. So the smoke is amazing. Yeah, it is. It is a pretty nice scented smoke. So now all of you, the 360 people who are watching are cleansed.

00:27:26 John Daub: Now we can go in. Yeah, let's go. So we're now joined by Dimitri from New York, who's visiting until Wednesday. I've been here for a couple of weeks. I actually went down to Fukuoka. And today's his 30th birthday. So happy birthday, Dimitri. We're going up now the steps. And right away, it cools off because we're now outside of the sun. And now from the top of the steps, I'm going to look back and show you what the scene. This is where the thumbnail was taken. It's pretty cool looking down back through the shrine, through the temple. This is a temple, Sensoji. And looking back through the temple towards the opening and just the thousands and thousands of people that are here.

00:28:24 John Daub: And I'm sure you can see the people that are here for this. On the right side is also the five-story pagoda, which was under construction or renewal for a couple of years. Finally, they've taken away all of the construction stuff. And now it's clear and beautiful. So we're live now from Sensoji. And yeah, it's an awesome day. Absolutely. It's great. Yeah. So up here. You can also see that lantern. Yeah. And this is where this one was not retracted. But it's really interesting for me to see it being up because you don't see that very often. It's just if you want to see it go. Yep. Rewind back to the beginning of this during the playback. If you're joining us late. That's where I cleansed you all down there, which is very neat.

00:29:15 John Daub: And you could try and wash your hands underneath there. That's where Sensoji's purification area is for washing your hands. I wouldn't drink the water, though. But some people do, the hardcore people. And you can pray here and I'm not going to film this too much. But what you do is you have to wait in line to pray in the middle and you throw in five yen. You get there as much as you want. But five yen is the recommended thing. And then you do the prayer, which is I think it's bow twice, clap twice, bow, clap, try to make your prayer and then bow once. And then leave. So I sometimes make a mistake, but or do what the person next to you is doing. Unless they're watching you to see what you do, then that's a different problem. But happens often. You have a foreigner watching a foreigner. Yeah, a foreigner watching a foreigner. Then you both do it wrong.

00:30:18 John Daub: All right. And now we're inside of Sensoji Temple. And it really is beautiful. To the right. You can buy omamori (protective charms). They go between, I don't know, 500 yen to 1000 yen. And each one has a special purpose. For example, if you want to protect yourself or you want to get a good score on an exam, there's one for students that they buy and it helps them get a good score on their exam. So, you know, it is superstitious, but I always get one that protects me from harm or one for driving. If you're going on a long trip, you can get one to protect your car or you can get one if you're going abroad. And that's the one I usually get. And you give them to the people that you care about, too. So you can buy one and give it to your wife, which maybe I will do. Or you buy one that you give it to your family or your friends that are close to you. It's a really neat thing to do. And it's actually a good souvenir as well.

00:31:16 John Daub: This is the inside of the temple. It's gold. It's beautiful. You can pray outside where I was showing you about a minute ago. Or you can do it right here. Oh, yeah. Like 30 feet. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Well, got right there. I got it. That's normal. That's crazy. And New Year's, you can't get to the front. So people will start tossing money. And it's the most amazing sight you'll see, just coins being tossed from like five meters away. Yeah. A rain of money. As people throw their 5 yen coins or 500 yen coins to give their offering before they make their prayer. There's another guy. Another guy did it. Yeah. Yep. He's throwing it from like 10 feet away. Yeah. It can get a little bit dangerous. But people do it.

00:32:03 John Daub: All right, we're gonna make our way to the side now. Sure, I wanted to see some of the omikoshi make their way into the temple area. But right now until 8 p.m. all of the omikoshi, the portable shrines are out making their way around the neighborhoods. Yeah, so they're being held. If you come in the morning before they start over to this wall. Over to this side of the temple. This is where the yakuza come to take pictures and you'll see them come and this is where I was told by one of the shinto priests here. They told me if I go around to this neighborhood this is where you're gonna catch some really great shots and they kind of show off their tattoos in this area. But right now.

00:32:55 Dimitri: Right now there are this. Dimitri. Dimitri. Yeah, he was like Marco says who is this guy?

00:33:00 John Daub: Dimitri is actually, I know you from Patreon more. But he's been watching the live streams and he's visiting Japan for right and I've been watching his videos now for about two three years already and you know and since I was coming here to Japan I was thinking well might as well try to message John. Yeah, and you know what I got a notification on my Gmail saying oh, he's doing a live stream here. And yeah, I'm here. It said the location, right? Yeah, very awesome now in the live streams that I check in with the location where I'm at before I do it. Yeah, all right there now that's a corn dog. All an American dog. Yeah, this one has cheese in it too. Apparently it says cheese hot dog. Yes, very nice, but I'm coming this way also because they're putting on a performance. It looks like kabuki. I wouldn't, I don't know it looks like noh theater instead of kabuki theater, but. It's kabuki. No is usually they're just reading it and it's kind of boring, but it's more traditional with kabuki is. Yeah, this looks more like kabuki. That's pretty cool.

00:34:11 John Daub: I could try to get in here. This is where the headquarters of the shrine. This is where all of the staff. This is the office of Sensoji back here. All right, let's try to get to the front. So it's telling a story. I don't know what that story is but the title of it is right there. Probably something about the devil. That's pretty cool. So it looks like some kind of battle going on between two devils. Two oni. Yeah, demons, I should say. I like how they play the music right there. Yeah. So you can feel the beat. It's pretty cool. They only... Oh, right there. Impressive. Standing in front of us with a mask and costume. And just the way his face is frozen in that pose is very creepy. Very ominous looking oni. Yeah. It would be better if we knew what the story was about. It's a noh stage. Dengaku or something like that from Genji something [?]. Thank you very much for the information.

00:37:05 John Daub: You know, I think the great thing about the live streams is that we do have this interaction and a lot of people watching are more informed than me. I usually like to have somebody who is a master of the topic with me to help explain things. But when I go out walkabout, it's just me and you and the people watching. And you are all an asset to watch and give information to everybody else. Please jump in. Or you do like I did and watch the stream and try to find John. Yeah, that's awesome. He's got the best view in the house. Here comes another.

00:38:23 John Daub: So we're getting reports that the signal's bad, so I'm going to back away from here. And try to find some other things. Thank you Jim for that information. Letting me know that we've gone Minecraft. So it's a signal for me to get the heck out of there. And find a better place. Alright, so hopefully the signal starts to improve after a little bit walking outside of a crowded area. I am a little bit hungry. Are you hungry? Get them super chats so John can buy some food. Well, we'll see what happens. We'll see what we can find.

00:39:12 John Daub: This one's got a really long line. This is suji kori [?]. This is some kind of meat. It looks like okonomiyaki, but what they've done is they've taken the suji, which is like a beef tendon, and they put that on top of the okonomiyaki. This is massive. Just imagine the smells. The smells are amazing, everybody. I've never seen anything like that. I'm actually very tempted to wait in line to try this one. It says it's from Osaka. Osaka Minami. That's a long line, though.

00:40:10 John Daub: Alright, let's see what else we can find. I'm going to walk through here. And as we're walking, we're getting away from where all the people are. So hopefully the signal will start to get better. I've seen these at festivals, too. A lot of kids have been getting these lightbulb drinks. And they glow with the drinks inside. There's some takoyaki. I've seen some blood packs [?]. There's actually wild blood packs on the other side there. That looks like some really good chicken. Oh, yeah. The New York vendors have got to step up their game, I think. Oh, yeah. They have a dirty water dog. You've got to have this stuff. Yeah. Oh, this is the Hiroshima okonomiyaki. That looks really good, too. This is Hiroshima's okonomiyaki. And I was just with Kevin last week eating Osaka okonomiyaki.

00:41:08 John Daub: And the funny thing was, you weren't killed the same day I was. I couldn't find you. This is mochi, dango. Yeah. These are the yaki dango. And you can get different flavors. Anko, seaweed. There's mitarashi. And yeah, shoyu, which is just soy taste. Oh, butter jaga. So I'm doing a walkthrough to see if there's anything I want. But I also want to clear up the... They're putting corn on the potato. And you also have to realize for the folks out there, there might be many different stands selling the same thing, but they make it differently. Like, for example, there's a yakisoba at the other end that just serves plain yakisoba. But the one over there has an egg on it, too. So you have to deal with that. Even though many different vendors might be selling the same thing, they prepare it differently. Yeah. Oh, you can hear the sound of frying going on over here. This is gyutan or beef tongue on a stick. Nice. Oh, there's some yakisoba. Here's what you're talking about. Yakisoba with an egg on top. That looks...

00:42:26 John Daub: Oh, yeah. You had the food. You have food already. Oh, man. And this sausage looks pretty funky. Check it out. Wow. You ever see anything like that? No, never in my life. What the heck? It's like the cheese is inside of it. It's like cheese filled. It's a juicy... I've never seen a sausage like that. I'm really... What is that? It's 600 yen. Hold on. Let me see. This is a frank. Oh, thank you. From Chushu [?]. Juicy na... I'm just going to try one because we got some good super chats. We'll try one of these. Of course, when the crate says fresh food, you got to do it. Yeah. Got 1,000 yen for you right here. Let's try some of this. And we had some funds come into the super chats for money. Looks good. It looks good. It looks good! It looks good, right? Is that cheese? What did you put in there? What's in there? It's the fat. Oh, the fat. So, it's juicy, right?

00:44:22 John Daub: Yeah, it smells really good. I wonder how long YouTube's gonna take to get smell-o-vision. Spend like three thousand dollars just to come here just to have this. Oh you see I guess they come frozen and then they thaw them in the water there. Wow. All right, bear with us. We're almost getting out of this tent in a second. Wow. Whoa juicy da. All right, let me come out in the middle here, I don't know if you can see this it's really long it's really powerful. This stick could ward off demons on just its own. Yeah, we're trying to get to it we're trying to get the signal a little bit better how's it looking everybody. Follow the sausage. We're following the sausage. And everybody in front of me is now making way for the sausage procession. As I find a place to eat it and then get a better signal.

00:45:48 John Daub: It's some people staring at me. This is not good. Is it still Minecraft? We got some bad some signal problems going on. Moonflower reports still bad. It's curved. Even in Minecraft it's curved. Sorry, I'm tempted to just start eating now because it smells too good. But fighting to get this but check it out. You can't really all right. I'm gonna try this curved sausage oh man. No cheese. Oh no cheese. What is it this fat? Oh, it's like fatty. Yeah. Basically I just subtracted two years off my life.

00:47:03 John Daub: Oh, look at it. Check it out. I'm not gonna give the demon some sausage AJ Johnson says all right. I'll try okay. Actually, he might be offended by it. It now looks like a spike. The sausage looks more like a spike now. Excuse me demon. Honey, I have some sausage for you. He's inside the store the demon's inside the store. I have the demon with the sausage. For everyone who is telling me to stab the demon with the sausage. That's a real man inside there and there's cops all over the place. It was a good try by the Internet I'm not gonna stab the demon with my sausage. That's hilarious that that even came up but because it doesn't look like imaginations. That's what it is. The closer I get to the end of the sausage, the more it looks like a weapon of mass destruction. Oh, man. Every time I take a bite, just the fat is popping out of it. Wow. It should be illegal. That's why I love Japan. It's all fat dripping down.

00:50:15 John Daub: I did not stab the demon with the sausage while we were offline. What I did was I tried to find a place where I could stream again. And now I think we're a little bit outside of the area where maybe the signal is a little bit clearer. The demon did not curse the stream, or did he? I don't know. It's hard to know for sure. What I do know is there's an omikoshi making its way towards us, and that's pretty cool. These guys look tough. So does this sausage. Oh, they're turning. They're turning. Yeah. This guy's into it. Well, he's boogieing. Look at that. He's really boogieing.

00:52:23 John Daub: Yes, it's legal to drink outside in Japan. Just grab a beer at a vending machine and walk around with it. That's cool. But it's up to you to be responsible and not do anything bad as a result of your drinking. Which sometimes is hard for Western tourists. But in Japan, most people get shy after they drink. When I was in college, most people got violent when they drank. More fights started from there. All right, so there you go. There you have it. I'm going to call this a day. This is really fun. So the first thing I do is get rid of this weapon of mass destruction. The sausage is gone. It's inside of me. But what's left is something that could be used for self-defense should the demon ever charge me, which I don't think is going to happen. And my fingers are extremely oily. The chef was right. It was all fat. So I'm going to get something to drink to wash this all down.

00:53:21 John Daub: Dimitri was saying... Thank you for tracking me down and finding me. Well, like I said, you know, Patreon subscribers, you get the advance notice. Oh, right. Yeah, that's right. So remember that, folks. That's right. I always give the Patreon supporters an advance notice. So thank you. So thank you for seeing... I would shake your hand, my friend, but I don't think you want to... We'll do this. All right. A little elbow bump. Elbow bumping, yeah. All right. Cheers, man. Maybe I'll catch up with you tomorrow. Sounds good. Good. Yeah. You're staying in the Ueno area, right? Like right here. Oh, your hotel's right here. Whoa. All right. Me too. All right. Happy birthday. Thank you.

00:54:06 John Daub: Ah, this is Dimitri. Dimitri. Oh, James. James. Cool. Yeah. Very nice. Wow. Thank you. Very good. Thank you, sir. Thank you. All right. Take care. There's like fat dripping off the screen. For me to touch it. Yes. Yes. We got it. We got it. Thank you. We really need to be careful. Yeah. All right. Thank you. Be very careful. Thank you, sir. Everyone thinks you guys are special, but. Yeah. Perfect. No? We're not special. But? We're not special. No, no, no. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Sure. You guys are not special. Only. Yeah. We're just normal people. Perfect. Yeah. Normal people. Normal people. Normal people like you. I was just kidding. You don't mind. No. I don't mind. No, not at all. This is a festival. This is a festival. Of course.

00:55:03 Passerby: Oh, my favorite joke is, grab it.

00:55:10 John Daub: Yeah. Whoa, that's a good joke, my man. Yeah, you guys can't understand. Oh, you don't understand. Me, 40. 40. 40? Oh, 44 years old. Oh, 44 years old? Today is his birthday. 30 years old. His birthday today. Yeah. Yeah. Do you have a birthday dance? So, you're a dragon year born. Born in the year of the dragon. So, I can feel it. Can you do a, oh, really? Can you do a dragon dance? This is actually probably not so good. Probably not, yeah. OK. OK, all right. Yeah. All right. Thanks, my friend. All right. So, OK. OK. Yeah. Oh, you guys gave. Dreadies. Dreadies. Zipster, dreadies. We're good. All right. Deep mood. Nice. Zipster. Mm-hmm. Me, hungry. Yes. 44? 44. 40 and 30. Yes, right. Good. What is your month? My month is February. And then May. I am an Aquarius. An Aquarius. Like the drink. OK. Yay. All right. Take care, my friend. Take care, my friend. Fist bump. You rock. Thank you. Stay cool. 1, 2, 3. Yeah, yeah, yeah. 5, 6, 7. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So you're going to roost, man. OK. See you next season. Yes. See you next season. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Just be bothering always. All right. Nice. Thank you. Nice. Thank you, guys. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Thank you, guys. Thank you. Thank you, guys. Thank you very much. Thank you.

00:56:50 John Daub: That was very interesting. See what happens in the live stream? That's what it is. It's like, I got dragged in. Wait. Can you see him coming back? I really did have a weapon of mass destruction. Should it have gone wrong? I had a skewer, an oily skewer. The oil would make it go quicker. I don't know. No, it would slip away like a snake. We would never have done that, internet, just so you would know. But once again, Dimitri, thank you very much. I'm going back home. This has been a really fun live stream. I'm sorry about the Minecraft quality for some of the bits, but we did clear it up little by little. And if you are in Tokyo today, I highly recommend you make it out. This festival will keep going until 8 PM. Yeah. And that's when it climaxes. And I guess it's around dinner time that things get pretty crazy. But this is a festival, a big festival for pride for this area. Asakusa was just a traditional area of Tokyo. And yeah, I'm just glad to have been a spectator this year. But next year, I might participate because, yeah, before I started this, people were giving me their business cards and saying, come and join us. And I said, all right. I'll give you mine.

00:58:27 John Daub: And everybody I'm talking about, the omikoshi will make its way down these streets too. Like right now, just like right now, making its way down the street in front of Burger King. Yes, there is an omikoshi in front of the Burger King. Something that Burger King probably is drooling over itself. All that gold. Can you buy a burger with an omikoshi? That would be just wrong. That's right. Go down every street. Richard recommends that I go down every street. Richard, I neither have the bandwidth nor the clean hands to do something so crazy. I'm dripping. Come and experience this for yourself, folks. I am dripping with fat and oil from this. I have like oil all over my hands too. Yeah, it's pretty nasty. Yeah. We get some nasty hands. All right. Then nothing. Good luck finding a trash can. You got to take it home. So I'm going home with oily hands. All right. So this is it from Asakusa, everybody. Thanks for joining me on this live stream. I really appreciate it. Click that like button. And if you want to support the channel like Dimitri here, go to Patreon and definitely I put all of the live stream notifications, the advance notice there for Patreon supporters because I love them. Okay. All right. Goodbye, everybody. See everybody. Take care. Have a great day. Check out. Thanks, Jim, for moderating and Nosh. And check out this omikoshi for the last 20 seconds as we rock the streets of Asakusa for your pleasure and mine because it's pretty pleasurable.