00:00:06 John Daub: That right there is Tokyo Tower, illuminated at midnight. You can see how red it is right there, right in the middle of the river. So I thought I would get out of the house and come out here for a snack. It's pretty creepy out here. This here is the Sumida River. Not many people are out here. And if you look over there, there's a Denny's, which is pretty cool. That Denny's has a really good view. It's kind of like a 360-shaped Denny's.

00:00:49 John Daub: I have an umbrella just in case it really starts raining hard. But it is pretty neat to see Tokyo Tower. Can you see it? Right there. That's Tokyo Tower. I didn't know it was illuminated after midnight. I guess it is. I'm not going to that Denny's. I'm telling you right now. But listening to the cars. The sound of the cars speeding by with the rain on the ground is really reminiscent of the hitchhiking trip that I did last year. It's just loud. It reminds me of being surrounded by traffic, road traffic all the time. The noise is multiplied by 10 when the streets are wet. But as I said, the rainy season is just about upon us.

00:01:35 John Daub: Let's just take a quick look at the Denny's right here. Denny's in Japan is completely different than Denny's in the United States because at first glance you think, oh. And by the way, it's backwards because the YouTube app is not flipping it. The iPhone naturally does this, but there's something with the app that's not flipping the livestream. So I'm sorry about the reverse Denny's. But Denny's in Japan has a Japanese menu. And they sell food to Japanese, not to Americans, which means they don't have an all-day breakfast. Although, there is waffles on the menu, which is something. It's not pancakes. It's not a Grand Slam breakfast. However, you know, Denny's is still my mother's favorite restaurant when she comes to Japan. And it's quite funny when I say, hey, mom, what do you want to eat? And she says, Denny's. You know, bowl of ramen might be good, mom. Some sushi, perhaps. But Denny's, they have a really good kiwi drink. That's why she likes it. They have this very natural kiwi drink, and it helps her power up. I guess get over the jet lag.

00:02:43 John Daub: But this area behind me is Kachidoki Bridge. And this area is called Kachidoki. And the reason why there's a lot of trucks, I don't know if you guys can wrap your head around this. But if you do a Google search on where I am right now, right there is Tsukiji Market. So this is what I learned, okay? And I'm going to tell you guys why I haven't done a midnight snack run in a while. Then I'm going to get on to it. So if you go to Instagram, you'll see. I posted a picture on Instagram stories. My wife made oyakodon (chicken and egg rice bowl). O-Y-A-K-O-D-O-N. Oyakodon is eggs with chicken. It's like where the baby meets the mother. It was a lot of food. And since we've moved in together, I've been eating really, really well. I'm not hungry at midnight at all. So it's very hard to do a midnight run when you're not hungry. That defies the purpose of the midnight run. I usually did it because I was really hungry. And now that, you know, I'm getting a lot of really good food. And I want to try to cook more for her.

00:04:05 John Daub: But tonight is a special night. So I've decided to go on the midnight run. It's not to Denny's. Although that might be on the menu in the future. Because Denny's is open 24 hours. And that's open right now. Now, Tsukiji is right over there. All these trucks are coming. They're coming from Tsukiji Market. And they're probably heading back to the highway. One of the highways is over here at Odaiba. And it takes you straight through the city without having to go through the center of it. It's the same highway that runs past Tokyo Disneyland. So a lot of these trucks might be going to Chiba. Or they might be going towards Yokohama. Actually, Haneda Airport, for example. This is the thruway going there. So there's a lot of traffic. It is really cool to see Tokyo Tower. Look at the light around it. It's very ominous. Look at it. Do you see it's turned the light and the clouds around it just all red. And Tokyo Tower is this like international orange-red glow. It's slightly cool. It's just cool to see Tokyo Tower just making everything around it a little orange.

00:05:09 John Daub: And I'm hoping that my selection for tonight's midnight snack does not make me orange. Because I don't know if I could film in there. In fact, I know that you probably shouldn't. So I probably won't go and film in there. But I'm going to go in there and buy some ramen ice cream. Now, I don't know. I didn't search this. I didn't plan this. All I know is that I saw on the label ramen and ice cream and caramel. If you put the pieces together that I just said, you get something that's probably going to make me look orange. Like what I just showed you in the distance. However, it must be tried. Somebody must try this. So we have the 7-Eleven Ramen Midnight Snack Run Ice Cream. Not in that order. It's midnight. My brain can be somewhat fried. I've never streamed in this area before. And I live in the center of Tokyo now. The past midnight live streams have been in my old neighborhood, which was very suburban Tokyo. At night it's quiet. There's no cars. Here, there's cars everywhere. So it's pretty amazing to walk around Chuo-ku (Chuo Ward), which is one of the 23 wards of Tokyo that I live in now.

00:06:33 John Daub: I'm right now working on editing a video. And that's why I'm still up. When you live a YouTuber's lifestyle, I'll tell you something. When you edit the videos, you're editing quite a lot. And there is no outing. Mostly less than half hours, really, of this. Ever. Now, this 7-Eleven has a funny story to it, OK? So bear with me. I'm gonna try to get away from the allowed street a little bit. Everybody, you guys know it's 12:30 in the morning. It's AM Sri Lanka time. Not PM, AM. OK. Everybody knows that, in the United States, Blockbuster went out of business like 10 years ago. They couldn't rent DVDs out anymore because everyone was streaming online. They were getting the DVDs from Netflix. However in Japan this company called Tsutaya still rents DVDs. They still rent a lot of stuff in there but DVDs is one of the biggest sellers. And in Japan although it's an extremely high-tech country they still also have problems adjusting to the new technology although a lot of the new technology comes from Japan. Japan still uses fax machines for example okay. Japan still uses DVD players.

00:07:53 John Daub: I had old guys that I was making content for. I was the content creator and they were the client. They asked me—this goes back—I'll thank you John and by the way John thanks for pushing me to do these midnight runs. I'm not hungry at all and I'm still doing this because I promised John like a week ago that I would go out here and do a midnight run and I said it's gonna be a lot quicker than now but it's Tsutaya then now. Now my client asked me to make a copy of the content on VHS on VHS and this was just a couple of years ago. We're still talking like after 2010 and he asked could you make the content on VHS so we could watch it. I said VHS. I didn't want to embarrass the guy in the meeting but it was after the meeting I turned to my partner and I asked her in Japanese this is everyone's Japanese here so what is going on why did this guy just actually ask for a copy in VHS and how the heck do I even put the content onto a VHS and I don't even have a recorder for that. And she goes we'll take care of it because our company happens to have a VHS recorder because some clients are in their 50s and 60s and they have a huge VHS collection and they still want the content in VHS. And did the Tsutaya right there it rents DVDs but it also rents VHS and you'll find a couple of VHS still available in DVD rental shops. It's really weird. Just Japanese have a hard time changing to new technology. I'm just saying fax machines that's all. Google it it's there.

00:09:25 John Daub: Alright let's get to it. I feel a little bit uncomfortable taking you in there with the camera so I'm just gonna leave the camera right here and just go in and buy it okay. I'm gonna show you how safe Japan is. I'm just gonna leave the camera here I'll be right back alright. I don't want to if somebody takes this camera just ask for his name and take a screenshot and then I will find this man okay and send it to me so somebody tries to take this camera you send it to me okay. This guy's screen I'm turning the light on so you can get good screenshot of him anybody who comes out and tries to take this camera you screenshot him okay. I'm right back don't go anywhere.

00:11:04 John Daub: All right this is gonna get really exciting it's I know it's backwards here let me turn it around because I'm not doing it justice with the way that the iPhone camera is. Gosh I really have I'm really open that YouTube fixes this app now. It says here Baby Star Ramen on Ice what the heck is going on here Baby Star on Ice. I don't know if you've ever seen this before it's pretty bizarre and says here it's butter caramel taste okay butter caramel. I've never you can see the ramen you see the ramen on there here's what it looks like the packaging he does look like he's having a good time I can't complain. Baby Star Ramen on Ice. I've never heard of ramen ice cream it looks like ice cream it's in an ice cream looking pack it's got to be good right.

00:12:07 John Daub: We're gonna give this a shot and I have the light on I'm gonna turn this camera around and we're gonna eat this thing on this snack runs you guys having fun. I love these midnight snack runs you guys having fun I'm just having so much fun despite the rain I'm telling you I've been cooped up all day editing the videos thank you everyone for the super chats I really appreciate it it's been a long time I haven't seen the livestream crew for a long time so I don't want to. I think the last one was like five or six days ago. Alright, here we go. You have any questions? Let me let me know and I'll stop the camera because this is science now. This is being done for science.

00:13:04 John Daub: Ramen ice cream, what the heck is this? This is so wrong. It's so right. I open it. Oh, whoa. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. No, no, did you just see that? Do you know I didn't you did not just see that that is that is that. I open it up. This is ice cream. What the heck is this? Okay, what? What why? I've seen chocolate topping. I've seen like little baby stars. I've seen all sorts of things that you can put on top of ice cream ramen and this looks like the freeze-dried cup of noodle ramen. This is not one of the things I've ever seen on an ice cream before. But I'm gonna give this a try because I mean how bad can it be? Okay, I bet you it's so bad it's good. Or maybe it's so good it's bad. Does that work? I can't it's hard. I should have microwaved it for like 30 seconds. This is really hard.

00:14:23 John Daub: There is ice cream underneath there, but okay. I'm gonna up up up up up up up up up up up up. All right, we're gonna give this give this a try. This is pretty bizarre. No, no. No, it's gross. Oh. No. Oh, man. All right. I just got turned away from my face because this is worse than I never I didn't think I thought you know this being Japan it would be good. It's it tastes like ramen. I was expecting part of my problem is that I was expecting this to be sweet and instead it was super salty. And there was no sweetness to it. I don't know. I'm guessing this is vanilla ice cream. It's not even salty the ice cream. It's just regular vanilla. It's these did all I had was when you saw the bite that I took it was pretty much just all ramen.

00:15:39 John Daub: We're gonna try this. All right part two. Much better. It's getting better. Mmm, that's a lot better. That one just wasn't I wasn't expecting the salting just the ramen. I was expecting something sweet but yeah, you know what? This is one of the pregnant women's cravings. This is a pregnant woman food. It's like ketchup and pickles and honey or something. When the saltiness of the freeze-dried ramen hits the ice cream, and I guess there's some caramel in it, it's kind of good. It's just that first bite, it was too much. Get straight to the ice cream and mix it up with the ramen noodles. Because it's not good just with the noodles. You need to mix. You need to mix the noodles with the ice cream. Oh, man. Good. It's good. You have to, sometimes in life, the first bite is the worst. And it just gets better from there. The first bite, sometimes you hit rock bottom and you can't go anywhere but up. And it's going up. This is the best, the best midnight snack. You know why? It's ramen, man. And it's with ice cream.

00:18:03 John Daub: I did not expect that I would like this. I was skeptical from the beginning. When I saw this and I decided to make this livestream, I was pretty skeptical from the beginning and now... I'm sorry it's reversed. Oh, man. That's what it looks like on the other side. You gotta do the spoon dance with your ramen ice cream. Oh, very weird stuff. I've never ever had anything like this. It does get better. It's like vanilla caramel ice cream. Alright. Then there's this weird ramen saltiness to it. And they did not change the taste of the ramen. It's ramen. It's the crunchy ramen snack that kids like that's salty. It's that snack. And it's caramel vanilla ice cream. And it's good. But, you know, I'm not sure. I think it was a dollar fifty for this.

00:20:16 John Daub: It was about three years ago in an Only in Japan main channel episode that I went to Daioh Wasabi Farm. I don't know if you guys have seen this episode. But this episode, I went out to Nagano. And I called them up two weeks in advance to schedule an exclusive look inside of the wasabi fields. And the guy's like, come on, bring it on. And he gave me an ice cream cone. It was a wasabi ice cream cone. And then he goes like this. You know what? Look. And this guy, Kaguya-san [?], I think was his name. He goes, you know what would really make this ice cream better? I'm like, no, what? And he goes, bloop, bloop, bloop. And he took raw wasabi that he had grated and just stuck it right on the side of the vanilla ice cream cone. At first, I'm like, dude, you're crazy. And he was. Because the guy is like a wasabi farmer. He actually eats the stuff all the time. But on a scale of 1 to 10 on spiciness, on wasabiness, it was like a 10. Like 11. These things go to 11. I mean, it was pretty spicy. But it was good. And you get after you get the wasabi fumes out, it gives you a really refreshing feeling. Like you've cleaned out your whole system. And that really makes the ice cream experience better. And he also put wasabi in the beer. You know? And that was really interesting taste too.

00:21:39 John Daub: So I'm gonna take a couple more bites of this for those of you who are joining us late. I've been at it for about 22 minutes. This is the Ramen on Ice. Ice cream. Butter Caramel. From Baby Star. And Baby Star is the company that makes these little ramen snacks that kids like in packs. And what they've done is put the ramen in the ice cream. And how crazy is that? Oh, man. This is like going back into kindergarten for a lot of people. No, now you got it. Look at it. Check it out. It is totally the ice cream has melted. Now you can see it fused with the ramen. This is where it's at, okay? That's what I'm talking about. I've actually this stuff is growing on me. I gotta tell you. At first, I was I did not think I was gonna like this. I'm kind of liking it. I'm liking it too much. This is wrong. I think this is as far as this livestream goes. I have about three bites left and I might wanna just eat that and enjoy it by myself. And use this as relaxation time.

00:23:13 John Daub: So, this area is called Kachidoki. It's a place where you can eat ramen. This is part of Chuo-ku. Kachidoki is famous for the bridge. It's famous for that Denny's. It's famous for being across from Tsukiji Market. And Tsukiji Market is gonna be here in central Tokyo for, I think, until the end of the summer or the beginning of fall. I think it's around October, November that Tsukiji Market's gonna move to Toyosu. And Toyosu is another area of Tokyo that's one or two stops away from here, actually. Toyosu's a pretty neat place. The market has had some controversy and some problems on that location. It was contaminated ground and they had to decontaminate it. And now it's decontaminated. And now they're gonna move there. They're gradually moving there. And then Tsukiji we're not sure what's gonna happen with Tsukiji. But the mayor's name is Koike-san. She's the governor. Because Tokyo is a state. And if you saw the Aogashima video, you know Tokyo's a pretty big state. She was honest enough to say that the market could not move there until it was decontaminated. So good for her. And we will see that that market I will cover the move of the Tsukiji Market. So definitely subscribe to the Only in Japan Go channel.

00:24:32 John Daub: Tomorrow I'm gonna do another livestream. Because I was off for a few days. Got a lot of ideas to show you that is happening around the city. The city is changing fast right now. We've gone in from for the Olympics coming in 2020. Which is two years away. We started to go from moving to this to moving to this. Everything is moving at a faster pace here in the city of Tokyo. That means that all of these things are gonna be coming like boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. And I am so happy that we have this Only in Japan Go channel. Because I cannot cover all this stuff on the main channel. It would be impossible. It's just moving too fast. Tomorrow I'm taking you to a unique location that was in the news recently. I'm not gonna spoil it. But I think it's gonna be pretty neat to see where this construction is at. There's just so much construction happening in the city of Tokyo. Each construction site is history. Because after 2020 there's gonna be a structure there. And right now there's not much of anything there. So it's pretty interesting right now at this moment in time to take a look at what these places look like now.

00:25:42 John Daub: I'm somebody if you've been watching these streams and you've been watching the Only in Japan channel. I really love history. I love the traditional side of Japan. I love protecting history. I love trying to preserve that feeling from years and years ago that we lose here in Japan. And I think through the show if I could document some of that. And we can kind of preserve that memory for us. That's a pretty cool feeling for me as a YouTuber and a creator. Tomorrow. I'll show you what this place is all about. But it has to do with trains. And if you didn't see the stream that I did at Yurakucho about a week ago. With the two trains flying at me. That's one of my favorite streams. Because I felt this is something that you can do for free on the train platform. Where you feel like really exhilarated. When you have two trains passing you at a high speed. On the platform. It's like standing between two trains. And you're looking at the end of the road for you. But they go right past the platform. And anybody can go and do it. And it's sort of a weird rush that you get from that. That was about a week ago.

00:27:03 John Daub: Thank you very much for joining me. I'm going to cut loose now. Sorry it's backwards. It's the YouTube app. It's not flipping it anymore. This is Ramen on Ice. It's an ice cream. Highly recommend it. If you find it at the 7-Eleven. Get one. The first bite is gross. The second bite gets better. And by the third bite when it's melted and kind of mixed all together. That saltiness. With that edge of the saltiness. And that really bizarre ramen taste that should not be in there. And you know it should not be in there. Just mixes so well with the cream. And the salt with the caramel. The sweet and the salt. It mixes really, really well. And I think that it's I think there's a reason why they made this. And why it's a success story.

00:27:56 John Daub: But I you know I haven't eaten in my time in Japan. I haven't really eaten anything that was so bad that grossed me out. I mean to the point where I threw it up. There's the 7-Eleven. So I'm going to walk home back across the bridge. I'm not going to tell you where I live. But it's pretty cool to be living downtown in Tokyo. I've gotten some good suggestions. Some good gems of places to go. Some 24-hour bakery. I've gotten a lot of suggestions from the Patreon supporters. That have been sending me direct messages on places that I should cover for the Midnight Food Run. So if you've got an idea, definitely send it to me. Denny's is one right there because they're open 24 hours. And they're pretty open to filming at the table. Just as long as you don't bother other people. There's also a couple of bars. I'd like to show you Tsukishima which is down the street. Tsukishima is famous for okonomiyaki (savory cabbage pancake) and monjayaki (runny savory pancake) in Tokyo. Which is a very good food. But monjayaki, if you've ever seen it, does not look good. If you've been joining me on Instagram, you'll see that I've filmed some of the monjayaki making the other day. And it was pretty it looks nasty but tastes good. It's like melting cheese and then just scraping it off of a heater. That's what monjayaki tastes like. It's like melting cheese and you get that really burned taste, you know, of the cheese. Crispiness. It's so good. Monjayaki. It's like you have to be a kid to have discovered something like monjayaki. Because you're not allowed to play with your food. But whoever made this played with their food so much that they discovered monjayaki. So I highly recommend coming down to this area. And you know, just over there, they're building the Olympic Village.

00:30:02 John Daub: So I'm gonna turn the camera around and say goodbye to. In fact, if we get 300 likes on this, I might do a I love ramen dance for you as we say goodbye. I don't know if I'm gonna really do it. But we're not gonna get 300 likes anyways. But big thumbs up. I hope you're enjoying the Only in Japan Go channel. I'm gonna continue with this more until the 21st of June. And then I'm gonna be going to Bali on honeymoon. And I'll probably do some livestreams over in Bali. That's in Indonesia for some people who don't know where Bali is. Oh my gosh, you got the 300 too fast. I gotta do that dance again, don't I? But we're going to Bali for the honeymoon. And I'll try to do some livestreams there. But before we go, I'm gonna try to get in as much of Tokyo during the rainy season as I can to give you an idea. From the 10th of June around starts the rainy season. And it's gonna be like this for a while. And that makes visiting Tokyo a little bit tougher. But that doesn't mean it's worse because it also means that the flowers come out and the green is more greener. It's greener. And Hokkaido is probably the best destination to go in June. Because Furano, which is a place in the north in Hokkaido, is just completely loaded in lavender flowers. It's one of the most beautiful, best smelling places on the entire earth.

00:31:21 John Daub: Alright, I'm getting red scorpions getting upset. I better dance. So, I'm gonna do the ramen dance before I leave you guys. The 7-Eleven ramen ice cream dance. Don't ask me why. And if you've got kids, you know why. I don't have to say why. Ramen ice cream. It's getting better. It's really getting better. Alright, I'm turning the camera around. You guys can look at the last 20 seconds. Just stare at the ice cream. Because that's what I would do. Just stare at it.