00:00:00 John Daub: Hey everybody, I'm in front of the Olympic Stadium. You can see it right behind me. I just wanted to go over something that's been on my mind ever since Tokyo was awarded the Summer Olympics back in 2015. The first thing that went through my mind was, yeah, we got the Olympics. And then the second thought was, do they know that it's in the summer here in Japan? I'm just waiting for them to schedule it. But is it going to be in July and August? Or is it going to be later on? Maybe early fall? I wasn't really sure. And when they announced that they were going to hold the opening ceremony at the end of July, I just started losing it and started laughing because I don't know if these organizers really thought this through.

00:58:00 John Daub: Because historically, here we go, I brought some graphics for you. This is the 1964 Olympics, one of my favorite designs. Absolutely. And then the 2020 Olympics, the logo here, which I also think is extremely beautiful. It's a really well done pattern. Better than the first design that they came up with. There was kind of a dispute with possible plagiarism. So that was one of the big debacles with the 2020 Olympics. The first one was, I believe it was the stadium and then the logo. The stadium also had some big problems when it first started because nobody liked the design. And the cost. The overruns were expected to be like billions of dollars and take way too much time. And in the end, I hated the design. I really didn't like the design. In the end, they found Kengo Kuma, a really talented architect who makes things designed in a Japanese way, using natural stuff. And this is what you got right now.

01:59:00 John Daub: Now, the title is, is this Tokyo 2020 Olympics' biggest mistake? And the reason why I'm actually live streaming is because, for the last couple of weeks, I have been suffering in the Tokyo heat. It is hot. And just the other day, my friend Peter von Gomm and I, we went to a department store to live stream on what the coolest area of Tokyo might be. Which is like hanging out in front of the department stores and leeching off of their air conditioning. It's actually like 5 to 10 degrees cooler in Shinjuku than in other cities because of that.

02:37:00 John Daub: Alright, here's a poster of the 1964 Olympics. One of my favorites. You see the guy, he's holding the torch, right? And then you look down, and you see October 10th to 24th. The Summer Olympic Games in 1964 were held October 10th to 24th. Do you see that everybody? This is proof. This is one of, this is the fourth Olympic poster that came out. There were several of them. This is the fourth one. It's one of the only ones that had the date. Not many of the posters have the dates on it. So, I'm establishing a point here. Why do you think the 1964 Tokyo Olympics were held in October and not in July and August and September?

03:26:00 John Daub: Well, they weren't held in September because that's typhoon season. You can't hold the Olympics during typhoon season because, first of all, it's quite dangerous. Japan always gets hit with a couple of typhoons. It's too unpredictable. And the typhoons are definitely coming in September. It's like you can count on typhoon season to be typhoon season. Alright? You can't hold it in July and August. And the reason why was because the 1960 Olympics held in Rome. It was so hot that the organizers, they said, you know what? It's just too hot. We are going to hold this in October. And I believe they did it. They held it in October in Tokyo '64 because they knew better. Our fathers knew better. You know, the generation before, my generation, maybe two generations ago for some of you. They knew. If you've lived through Tokyo summer, you know, although there's people from Iraq and the desert and Arizona and people going, wow, it's really, we got 100 degree weather. We're in the 40 degree Celsius. We're from the outback. Yeah, it's hot. But you know what? Tokyo summer is so hot. You breathe. And it's like breathing soup. You can't even really catch your breath because the air is so thick from the humidity. It's really a lot.

05:00:00 John Daub: And I think that there's going to be some big trouble in the 2020 Olympics because the organizers have started to put the Olympic Games, I think it was July 27th to August 10th. And those are, that's the center of summer and the hottest period, right at the end of the rainy season and right at the period where it's sunny every day. But the temperatures are so high. The temperature is so hot that, you know, I was laughing when they said that they're going to do it then because I knew exactly when they held the 1964 Olympics. They held it in October. And if you read Wikipedia, which might not be the best source of information, but if you read Wikipedia, it'll tell you why they held it in October. They held it in October to avoid the Japanese summer.

05:39:00 John Daub: And here we are in two years time. Here's the Olympic stadium right here. It's being built. They don't even have on the maps in front of the stadium. They don't even have the stadium built there. It's like right there. And there's nothing here. There's the baseball stadium for the Swallows, which is a baseball team here. So they're just right across the way. I'm still kind of laughing. Like did you, do you, the Olympic, the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Committee have any idea what it's going to be like? Have you planned for this? Not only did you make a mistake with so many things. I'm just touching my head. Like who, who, who organized this?

06:22:00 John Daub: Alright. We've established that's going to be really hot. Now I'm going to, I'm going to jump in here because it is really hot. What do you guys think is going to be the biggest problem of the Tokyo 2020 Olympics? Knowing now what you know, that it's going to be 35 to 40 degrees Celsius, which is like near a hundred degrees and the humidity is going to be record high. Breathing is going to be like breathing in soup. It's so thick. You're going to have not only the summer traffic. I think of all of the travelers that are here in Tokyo has never been more crowded than now. You're also going to have the international media. I think they said 12,000 athletes and there's going to be dignitaries and international leaders from all around the world. Lots of policemen. That means double the security, triple the security. The city is either, you know, it's going to be so crowded. People are going to be in hotels. The hotels are going to be completely packed and the only way that you can, you're going to have to go to the venues and you're not going to be able to go back to your hotel. That means you're going to be out the entire day in the heat.

07:19:00 John Daub: Now the city of Tokyo, you guys get consoled with me because I kind of, I've been laughing about this for a couple of years, but you're going to have to have like hydration centers everywhere so people don't get dehydrated because you're sweating more than you think you are. I mean a lot of people, they're always commenting on my sweaty shirts in the Only in Japan series when I got like, I can't control that. Literally there's nothing I can do about it because you walk outside. You just start sweating. It's like a sauna out here. Literally, it really is like a sauna. I got to wear black t-shirts now just so I don't have marks on my shirt. I would like to see so many things done to prevent people from having heat stroke and dehydration because I can already sense and you know what? I'm pretty sure that they got people thinking about this, but I just don't see. I went to the Tokyo 2020 Olympics office in Toranomon Hills and it's still a work in progress. There wasn't really anybody in there. You can't really go in there and talk to people.

08:17:00 John Daub: But if I could say something, I could tell you, you're going to need more than just volunteers. You're going to need like more vending machines. You're going to need like water refill stations. Forget about handing out bottled water. Have water refill stations where people can refill the bottles that they already have. People don't have to pay for it because I don't want to see anybody get hurt. You literally cannot be outside in Tokyo walking around in the heat minutes before you really start to get tired. They have words for this in Japanese like natsubate (heat exhaustion). You feel like super tired because of the heat and it just drowns you. There's really not much that you can do about it other than drink and stay as cool as possible.

09:02:00 John Daub: You can see here I'm right in the corner. I'm taking you around the stadium everybody so you can get a look at the progress that they've done. Now, I know that Tokyo is a really, really have this very much organized, but I'm just lost on why they decided to make it in the middle of the summer. Was it a financial decision? Was it a decision because of the sponsors? Now they say that the Tokyo games are going to be the most profitable. Beijing had 1.2 billion dollars of sponsorships and they say that the Tokyo games will have 1.3 billion dollars worth of sponsorship which is more than the Beijing one which is crazy. Is that going to happen? Probably because in the summer time you can get a lot more people. People coming. So I guess that means more money for sponsors but I don't know. I think that they're crazy for holding it in the middle of the summer and not in October. I just kind of assumed that they would do it but I was holding my breath. Don't do it. They did it.

10:07:00 John Daub: So now that my rant is over, write in the comments and leave me a message. What do you think? And if you want to see more of the Tokyo Olympic venues, click the like button and if we can get a couple hundred likes, I might take you to some of the other venues. So you get to look around and see what they're building, what the progress is like right now. We're coming up to the two year mark meaning at the end of July, it'll be two years until the launch of the games and I'm super stoked. I'm super excited. There's never been a more exciting vibe in the city of Tokyo than right now. It's just the entire world has their eyes on this place and it feels really good. And you know, I get a lot of confidence in the city of Tokyo. The construction and the buildings and the way that they're improving the infrastructure. I kind of have very little doubt that they're going to be able to make this the best Olympic Games ever. But still, guys, it's hot. And if you have any idea, if you've ever visited Tokyo in the summer, leave a comment below and just confirm what I'm saying. It's like incredibly crazy hot here. You can't control the sweat. My phone overheated the other day doing a live stream. The phone just stopped.

11:30:00 John Daub: Now, I'll take your questions. It is really hot out here. A little bit of wind. Tons of construction going on as I walk around the stadium to go back to the station, which is Kokuritsu-Kyōgijō (National Stadium station). And I'll put a link for a map so you could see down into the Olympic Stadium. I believe Google Earth has nice views looking down to the stadium. Tons of construction. I wonder what this is going to be. This is opposite of the Olympic Stadium, maybe a media center. You get good views looking into the stadium from up there in that hotel. And before that, the Rugby World Cup is going to be here in 2019. So they were hoping to do some ceremonies here in the stadium, but they won't be able to do it because the stadium won't be finished.

12:40:00 John Daub: It's super hot. Check it out. So right now it's 33 degrees. That's not that hot. It's actually cooler today than it's been. But it gets up to 40 degrees. 40 with humidity. I can't put enough adjectives in here to make you feel it.

13:26:00 John Daub: We're back. I have some overheating problems with the smartphone. So we're walking around the stadium. Give you kind of an idea of what it's like right now. Just lots of walls, construction. Not really a lot of good views. The construction around it is taken away some of the viewpoints that I had, like on the steps of the gymnasium. There's a little gap between that you can see through. They're pretty protective of me getting a view in there. Several construction companies are involved in the making of the stadium.

14:14:00 John Daub: So from this street, you get a nice view looking over at the stadium. And I guess you can see it. It's starting to take shape over there. Do you see that? Let's go over to that side. I think we can see a little bit more of the structure over there. So I'm going to walk across the street and then see if we can get a better view from on this side. There's a baseball game going on. So the stadium is expected to be finished. I believe they said sometime by the end of next year. But I bet they have a lot of little things to do with it before it's completely done. And I have no doubt that Japan will finish the stadium and all the venues on time. If you haven't seen the design of the stadium, I'm going to put a link up here and you can check out the video I did on 2020 Olympics back in February when they were announcing the mascots and stuff. Yeah, look, they have part of the stadium finished on the corner there.

15:34:00 John Daub: Cold packs for the phone. I'm going to need more than cold packs. I'm not going to be streaming that long. You can hear there is some sort of event going on. Now the baseball stadium is right next to the main stadium. So it could be that. Yeah, this is pretty cool. You can see up here now. You can see the stadium. They have finished what looks like part of the stadium and it's absolutely beautiful. Check that out. Oh man, they did a great job. You starting to see some of the wood paneling on the top there? Do you see it? This looks wonderful. And that's what I wanted to get, like a really natural looking field of the stadium. Something that was very Japanese in design. And if you've ever looked at the design, the architect's name is Kengo Kuma. And I've gotten a chance to meet him before. Super nice guy. If you get a chance to look at his designs, he's created some of the Starbucks and they've made it really, I don't know, like out of wood, like really unique designs that kind of give you that Japanese aesthetic to it. And you can starting to see it right now with the stadium. It's really beautiful. Check that out. They've made a lot of progress since the last time I was here in February. I mean, I've been here for a while. I was in January. Shape is beautiful.

17:09:00 John Daub: Now, it is kind of hard to walk around. I actually want to cross the street and I can't do that this way. So I got to go back the way I came and jaywalk a little bit. There's not a lot of traffic on the road, but still you don't want to cross the street, but there's nowhere to cross the street. So just hold on a second. I'm going to answer some of your questions in about a minute. Let me just cross the street. Make sure look left, right and left again. Haha. It is so hot. Alright you have any questions go ahead and ask me I'm gonna bring this around back to the exit and then we're gonna end the live stream thanks so much for joining me guys this is great see you once again it's hard to see with the wall there but it's pretty cool you're starting to see the natural wood colors and the white poles they're just two years away from the opening ceremony I love it you could also leave in the comments what did you think of the first stadium design it looked like a big space helmet and I wasn't a big fan of it I said this is the the Olympic Games in Tokyo it should have sort of a Japanese aesthetic to the stadium and this one is so much better oh I did I mean that city it might be good somewhere else not in Japan it cost them a billion dollars to redo the stadium just to fix the mistakes I didn't like that part okay.

19:18:00 John Daub: All right so from here you can kind of get a better view you can hear in the background the cicada or the summer insects that just scream in all the parks alright here's the back end of it I'm gonna cross the street again and then we're gonna take another look from a distance the closest subway station to the National Stadium is Kokuritsu-Kyōgijō (National Stadium station). It's so bright and it's located on the Oedo Line (loop subway line around the city kind of like a purple reddish color). Wow they've done a lot of progress on this so they'll have the upper part of the stadium finished probably by the end of this year they've gotten up here on the top it looks like it's about 20-25% finished up on the top there are thousands of workers working on the top of the stadium on this project even on a hot day like this which line it's the Oedo Line O-E-D-O line it's two stops from Shinjuku I believe two stops from Roppongi it's between Roppongi and Shinjuku on the Oedo Line haha I'm drenched I'm drenched I don't know you can't really see because I'm wearing a black shirt I should have worn a gray shirt I'm drenched I gotta find a vending machine get some water.

21:26:00 John Daub: Yeah you know just to reiterate and put this live stream to an end yeah the Tokyo Olympics is gonna be the hottest ever and my biggest fear is people getting hurt or through dehydration or heatstroke because it you don't know and in the distance you can see you can see Shinjuku in the distance everybody do you see that that's Shinjuku so this national stadium is very close to Shinjuku. it's located on where the 1964 Olympic Stadium was and I thought they should have just renovated that to be honest with you I could you could have called it the recycled Olympics and you would have had the world's respect for that but Japan wants this is you know and I understand Japan's thinking about this too you have to take a look at this I'll probably do another live stream as we get closer on the importance of the 1964 Olympics to Tokyo now Tokyo had been completely flattened from World War two the bombings of 1945 in March was the worst in the history of war literally Tokyo was flattened there's almost nothing left and it took years and years to rebuild it and it was back in the 1960s when they were awarded the Olympics there was a huge push to modernize Tokyo and it was the Olympics that set up the success for the bubble era.

22:58:00 John Daub: Tokyo had a lot of success. It had the newest infrastructure it had the newest of everything at the time and the highway system around Tokyo was much more efficient than it was in the past and more subway lines came in the Shinkansen made its debut in 1964 the year of the Olympics so all this really high-powered technology came about as a result of the Olympics so after the great Tohoku earthquake in 2011 there was a kind of like a desire I think for a lot of people to have that sort of push again to revitalize the city and the country and you could feel it right now in the city but that's the importance of the 1964 Olympics and I guess you can start to sort of feel that in the city these days there's sort of a like a modernization and a revitalization of the city that might have been lost because Japan suffered from a lot of deflation a lot of economic problems the 1990s and the 2000s when I first came to Japan it was 145 yen to the dollar a few years ago it was 70 yen to the dollar so the currency has fluctuated that's not a big indicator of the economy but Tokyo Japan has has been like economies been pretty stagnant so people are looking at at this is sort of a like an injection like a beat like a vitamin b12 shot then boom just give them a little push for the economy I'm feeling it you know I'm really feeling it so this this road will take you straight towards Shinjuku you can see the Docomo Tower one of the famous sites from Shinjuku Gyoen National Garden so it's a beautiful building and then right across the way is the National Stadium and there's the entrance to the subway on the Oedo Line. Oedo Line is represented by the letter E because Oedo Edo is the name of the old capital.

25:14:00 John Daub: So there you have it. I really don't have much to say other than I just think that the organizers are insane. The 1964 Olympics for those of you who are joining us right now the 1964 Olympics was held in October. I got the poster right here. This is one of my favorite posters. It was held October 10 to October 24th the 1964 Olympics alright they're holding the 2020 Olympics in the middle of the summer and the reason why the 1964 Olympics was held in October was because of the heat. I'm guessing that Tokyo Olympic Committee realizes it and they have solutions. I'm guessing. I'm hoping I should say but you know usually Japan does an amazing job of finding solutions to problems I just want people to realize that it is a problem. You're gonna be hot.

26:17:00 John Daub: Alright everybody so thanks for joining me on this live stream I'm gonna cross the street and go to the subway station I'm gonna give the last 20 seconds from the subway station looking back at the stadium because I think I got a lot of respect Kengo Kuma the architect of this project and I have a lot of respect for the 2020 organizing committee I think that they're gonna have solutions for these potential problems. Like, having not enough hotel rooms and, I wouldn't want you to have enough hotels for the LA tri-fleo programs I believe you know Airbnb will come back Airbnb 2.0 because there are laws in June that kind of made Airbnb more difficult to manage. I think they're gonna have solutions to all these and everything's gonna be just fine. There's enough time two years is an eternity. But in Japan we take smaller steps and we're very cautious with the steps that we take here. Again, we try to avoid any risk and that's the thing right now we should try to be trying to avoid risk and finding solutions to helping the millions that are gonna be here for the Olympics with heat and avoiding the heat stroke. It's gonna be it's gonna be a big problem.

27:33:00 John Daub: Oh, and there's a question about tickets. Kengo Kuma. I got a chance working with one of the project Kengo Kuma has done so many projects. He's done some amazing projects in Japan and France as well and Europe all over the world. He's done a lot of amazing stuff. He's a very talented person. I'm hoping to interview him and talk about his stadium too because I've met him before I have his business card I'm gonna get in touch with him and see if we can do something to talk about the amazing design and not just the design but what was the thought going into this? How did we get? From where we were to where we are now. How does design come about? I mean, I see the mock-ups of it and I absolutely love it.

28:18:00 John Daub: Tickets if all of you are thinking right now I'm gonna be able to get tickets really easily when the tickets go on sale you're gonna have to be here physically in Japan to get them the average cost of the tickets is seven thousand seven hundred yen some of them as low as four thousand yen, but the opening ceremony the tickets start about thirty thousand yen, which is like two hundred and fifty to three hundred dollars. They're making kids tickets available for two thousand twenty yen. And if you want to get the tickets from abroad the best way to do that would be to be here in Japan or get it through a tour travel agency or a tour group which you're probably gonna tack on money because they're gonna you have to physically be here to pick up the tickets. This is what the information I'm getting in from checking the news sources here in Japan. The tickets should be going on sale not too long from now on a site called Pia. They're the ones who are in charge of selling it at over forty thousand locations around the city. There's gonna be a lot of tickets and probably there's gonna be enough of the tickets for everybody. I don't think that the venues are all gonna be sold out. But if you do come here for the Olympics, you're probably gonna be able to find a ticket for something just maybe not the popular sports that you're thinking about. And it's hot. That's all I can say right now. I get the sun on my face and I'm absolutely broiling.

29:48:00 John Daub: You know, but we're gonna see we're gonna see some of these things we're gonna see some of these challenges being addressed. And yeah, international media talk about this. Okay, Japan organizing committee talk about this. It is too hot for you not to be talking about this and coming up with solutions. Talk about the summer heat having the Olympics and millions and millions of people in the center of the city. You get not only the tourist crowd coming from all around the world to be tourists here in Tokyo. You have the international media the international athletes the international dignitaries and all the world leaders with all of their security and all of their entourage you got too many people in the city with too hot too much temperature. And I don't hear any solutions. There's not enough housing. I don't know how it's gonna flow the construction I guess when it's finished is gonna make things a lot easier. It's gonna ease some of the congestion. But right now I just do not see it Tokyo Olympic Committee in the international press start asking this question. Why was the 1964 Olympics held in October? And why is the 2020 Olympics being held in July and do you the international media have any idea? How hot it is and if you don't come to Japan come to Japan give me a call I will gladly give you a tour around and show you how hot it is and bring some water. You're gonna need it.

31:04:00 John Daub: Alright, everybody 20 seconds. Take a look at the last views of this amazing stadium. I'm so thankful that the Olympics this year in Tokyo and I can say one thing stay cool everybody. Bye from the Olympic Stadium.