00:00:02 John Daub: Alright, so we're live. This is along the Sumida River. I thought I would bring you on a run with me. This is a new area along the river—they just opened this up. So I can actually run all the way, I don't know, like 20-25 kilometers straight towards Kitasenju. Hey everybody. I'm going to give this a minute before I start. I kind of didn't really plan to do this live episode, but since I was going to do a midnight snack run.

00:00:50 John Daub: I came out to this point and wanted to start the live stream here because this is a brand new area that opened up about a month ago. Alright, so let's start this live stream for real now. Take two. Action. So there you go—in the distance is the Tokyo Skytree. And yeah, it's midnight. It's hard to focus when it's dark. Well, this is the Sumida River, and I'm John. Behind me is the Tokyo Skytree, and I thought I'd bring you with me on a night run.

00:01:32 John Daub: You can see over there—there's also another runner. Tokyo is very safe, even in the middle of the night. People are running and putting in the work, exercising. Because in the summer, it's just so hot, and the only time you can really go out running is like this time, or early, early in the morning, like 5 or 6. Around 9 a.m., it just gets so hot. This area was just newly opened—not too far. You can see beautiful bridges, and there's a police boat here. Up here is a police station that they've opened up.

00:02:09 John Daub: I come running here quite often along the river. I used to run in the Edogawa ward—the Edogawa River has no traffic lights, no intersections, nothing. For like 100 kilometers, you can just keep running. That's like 80 miles without anything to block your way. And then out here, welcome to the city. On the left side of the screen, you see the Tokyo Skytree, and then you see the Tokyo Highway, which just wraps around the entire city. Because in 1964, when they built these, it was the only place they could do it really quickly without skirting all of the laws.

00:03:00 John Daub: I actually do have my Suica card, so if we do find some vending machines or something, I will be able to buy some drinks. But there's a couple of things on the river that I'm interested in that I thought you might like. And I'm going to run with you starting from this point. This is what it's like when I go running every day. You can see on the left side, that's part of the Tokyo Highway system crossing the Sumida River. I have my light with me. I hope this inspires some people to go running.

00:04:01 John Daub: Now, I can eat on the street—I can get a lot of food for the shows because I'm always out running and trying to burn it off and stay in shape even at midnight. Some people think I'm crazy. That's all right. One of the things that I've noticed in Tokyo that's really sad is that gradually as the technology changes, the neon lights are kind of dying out. You don't really see a lot of neon lights anymore. All along the highway—because millions of people drive it—there used to be a lot more advertisements. The only neon lights I see are right there in front of us. So I'm going to run up there and give you a quick look at some of the neon lights. Asia was really famous for having some really outstanding neon lights.

00:05:20 John Daub: Here we are. I'm going to show you these two neon lights, and there's a couple down here—some more up there. I'm kind of in between where Asakusa is and Hamacho and Ryogoku, where the sumo wrestlers wrestle, just across the river over there. This is one of these good old neon lights that we don't see a lot of anymore. We got a couple up here—this one looks like two chili peppers, right? But it's really Hamanaka. Tetsukimi [?]. Ami Ito. Interesting. It's so washed out. But all along the riverside, it used to be so beautiful—we had a lot of these neon lights, and now there's not much of anything. What you get are things like TV screens advertising stuff.

00:06:48 John Daub: So whenever I see a neon light, I'm kind of attracted to it to take pictures because this was part of the culture—you'd just see them everywhere in front of the train stations, and now they're kind of dying out. I think it's because of the invention of LED and the power needed. Although I thought neon lights are pretty inexpensive. But I always hope that kind of lighting style... I stepped in something. You know, the Sumida River sometimes overflows, and last week when I went running here, there were jellyfish along the trail. You had to watch where you step because some of these jellyfish might sting you or you could slip on them.

00:07:54 John Daub: You can see this along the river—you also get these paintings that show the history of Tokyo. This is what this area looked like about 150 years ago. As I run along the river, you get a lot of these paintings, this art that you probably wouldn't see as a tourist because you don't come down here to go running. But they're all along the wall of the Tokyo riverside. This part of the city is very famous—this is where Nihonbashi (Japan Bridge) is. Nihonbashi is the most historic bridge in Japan. Lots of really beautiful art. That looks like two women with a quilt.

00:09:09 John Daub: Here's some more of the bridge—it's part of Nihonbashi, and you can see the bridge is really beautiful. Why am I running this late? Because this is the only time it's cool enough. In fact, there's lots of people running on the river right now—it's just too hot in the daytime. So you got to run when you can. Yeah, this is ukiyo-e (traditional woodblock prints), some traditional ukiyo-e enlarged and painted onto the side of the riverbanks. Oh, you can hear the bosozoku (loud biker gangs), the punks on the motorbikes. This is a guy selling sensu (hand fans) to people in the heat to keep them cool.

00:10:39 John Daub: So this here is the Chuo Ward's Nihonbashi Elementary School from the year Heisei 21, which was about nine years ago, and the school kids have painted on the wall here. We got like frogs, lots and lots of frogs. So this is kind of like Japanese graffiti. I'm right now running—it's midnight. I ran from here—this is the Sumida River. There's an advertisement for Bulgari yogurt. I guess people in Bulgaria make the best yogurts. I'll show you a couple more of these paintings here and then we'll sit down and have a little chat. It's nice and cool outside.

00:11:42 John Daub: Check this out—this is a beautiful mural from a ukiyo-e print. There's a cherry blossom. This looks Edo period near Meiji Restoration—it looks like a Western-style building. This is the Tokyo Meisho (Famous Places of Tokyo), the Mitsui Meiji [?]. The Meiji period is around late 1860s, early 1900s. There's a guy, a porter carrying goods across Nihonbashi. And absolutely no graffiti—it's really safe to be out here. Oh, that's leading up to the Imperial Palace, I believe.

00:13:06 John Daub: This is the Chuo Ward, the central ward of Tokyo's elementary school—this is the Tsukiji Elementary School. Nine years ago, they drew these—elementary school students drawing, probably with their parents. Some of them look like zombies, which is kind of creeping me out since it's midnight. But this is some of the art you'll see along the riverside. There's absolutely no graffiti at all. And above me is the Tokyo Highway. Let's see what else we could find. This looks like the temple in Tsukiji during the Meiji period—or Kyobashi near Tokyo Station.

00:15:00 John Daub: They're doing some construction here—this is where I dropped my iPhone 6 Plus and cracked the screen. Now they have all these wood structures like unfinished houses at midnight—it's kinda dangerous. Above me is the Tokyo Highway. There's one more painting I wanted to show you before I go somewhere else. This is what my friend Joseph does—he runs the Tokyo Marathon livestreaming like this, answering people's questions while he's running. This is the Chuo Ward Gymnasium.

00:16:26 John Daub: So this area is a little bit brighter, and you gotta watch where you step here. But it's a lot brighter out here than it looks through the camera. There's some more Meiji-era paintings on the sidewalk. It's like a little slice of life in Japan at this era. Tokyo 48 Gezaki-bashi-yori [?], Chuo Ward Kyobashi. So along the river—there were only a couple of places where you could cross the Sumida River, by ferry. They didn't have any bridges—you had to go by ferry to get to the other side. Ferry drivers made a pretty good living.

00:17:52 John Daub: It's kind of neat to see life represented on murals along the river in a place that would be highly graffitied if it was any other country. But here in Japan it's pretty safe to go running at night. I run quite often between 10 p.m. and midnight in Tokyo in the summer because it's just too hot to run during the day. There's some more ukiyo-e. This is Nihonbashi, the Bridge of Japan. Up there you can see Mt. Fuji—so this is ukiyo-e of Nihonbashi. I put the wide-angle lens on so you can get a better view.

00:19:32 John Daub: It's absolutely beautiful, and there are dozens of these. As you get closer to Ryogoku, which is where the sumo wrestling stadium is, you get images of sumo through history along the riverbanks. This one is a scene from Nihonbashi—traditionally it was a huge commerce point connecting the two sides of Tokyo. Now over Nihonbashi there's a highway that goes across it and obscures the beauty of the bridge. It's actually a controversial issue—should they redo Nihonbashi before the Olympics? I'm in favor of it. This is the very famous ukiyo-e print of Nihonbashi—a lot of you might have seen this before on postcards.

00:21:08 John Daub: These are people carrying goods across Nihonbashi. In the corner, you can see they're taking a break—they were in pretty good shape back then. Here in the corner looks like there's a dog—or two dogs, one coming to sniff the other. The artist's name and stamp is on there—it says Nihonbashi, the Tokaido (Eastern Sea Road), the 53 stations. The Tokaido was the route that started right here in Nihonbashi—there were 52 or 53 stops along the highway. I rode my bicycle from Nihonbashi all the way to Kyoto in 2005, to Gion. The Tokaido goes all the way down to Osaka—the merchants lived in Osaka, the government was here in Tokyo.

00:22:44 John Daub: Now there were a lot of samurai along that road, so crime was not as much as you would think because the samurai would just chop off your head if you did any crime. Life was pretty tough back then. You're brave as a night runner—I'm terrified of the dark, but my imagination would run wild. I've been running here for a long, long time, and this is not a spot like underneath the highways that you probably would want to be in any other city except Tokyo. Anyways, if something does happen, we're live—so somebody please call 110, the police. Not 911 but 119 for emergencies. You know, Peter von Gomm and I did the space boat back in March—six months ago. Time's really flying. I think I'm going to do another space boat feature and see if I can get permission to go inside the cockpit.

00:24:01 John Daub: Right now it is really late, so obviously there are no boats except for police boats—I saw one police boat patrol the Sumida River. On the left side of your screen is Tokyo Harbor. Now that I have a driver's license, I'm going to be taking you on the Tokyo Highway sometime in the next 30 days—that's a promise. Even though it is after midnight, there is lots of traffic—there are people out here, and there's no problem at all. You're talking to somebody who traveled around the country with a cardboard sign—I'm not afraid of the dark. Although we're under a bridge right now—this looks like where there could be homeless. Oh, there's another runner—got to do the runner's nod.

00:25:28 John Daub: Now this is a pretty neat area too—along a lot of the riversides here in Tokyo, you're going to find places of recreation because it's one of the only places where they can have extra space. Does anybody know what this is before I tell you? This is a place where dogs and cats can play—but apparently they're all out right now. You'll find places like this all along the riverbanks. There's one for small dogs and one for big dogs. The rules: if your dog does a doo-doo, clean it up. It's closed right now—hours are from 7 a.m. to 8:30 p.m. There's a lock on it. So there's people who maintain the river—they're always taking care of it. I guess they call them kōban (police boxes) staff, rent-a-cops always here locking gates.

00:28:00 John Daub: I usually make friends with all the transient life along the riverside, so I know exactly what's going on. People who live out here know exactly what's happening because they're here all the time. But it's pretty neat to be running out here on the riverside. Once again, a lot of the signs look like this—they're not neon lights anymore. I kind of miss the neon lights. You know, Shibuya's Hachiko used to have all of these neon lights—it was really bright. But now they've changed it over to more TVs, more banners with paintings and lights on it. It's not quite the same. My first experience 20 years ago was in front of the train station in Okayama—I was blown away, like Times Square.

00:29:51 John Daub: Nowadays we don't have as much of that—people saving energy or something. It's kind of a shame. Here's another example—anyone who's gone to Osaka's Glico Man at Ebisubashi in Dotonbori. This is along the highway so people driving can see it—it's just a TV. I'd love to see this if it was a neon light. No YouTuber's gonna show you this stuff. By the way, I did see your message on Patreon, Mr. Bricks—thank you. I appreciate you reminding me that your name is not actually Bloody Bricks. But I really appreciate the support. I wanna actually start to run home because I'm still editing video. Here's some boats down here—these are emergency boats so if somebody falls into the river, they can quickly get to them.

00:31:54 John Daub: It's the police—Tokyo Rescue with a dog mascot. Dogs are not the best swimmers—they should have put Aquaman. 119 is the Japanese emergency number, not 911. Even the Coast Guard in Japan has a mascot. This is made out of tile—it's pretty neat. They put it with tiles to look like the local area. I like it. Man, if this was New York, some people would have taken these out. We have a geisha in tiles—no other YouTuber will bring you riverside tiles at midnight. Come on, click that like button because this is insane. They've really gone the extra mile to bring out her eyes in cracked tiles. It really is pretty—these kinds of things look better at night with a bright light shined on it.

00:34:52 John Daub: They got a guy ferrying passengers along the river—that's part of the history of the Sumida River in tiles. This looks like the street—an intersection where people are doing something. That so much looks like a zombie, doesn't it? That's a zombie pose. That's another geisha scene. See you're out of the tiles tonight, Peter von Gomm—it's a midnight tile run. Sometimes you just go out here and see if something works. I live in Michigan and John made me hate Ann Arbor—no, don't hate Ann Arbor, just hate it between September and November when Ohio State plays up there. I'm actually really glad that I came out here with the light because we walk past stuff every day and don't really appreciate it.

00:37:15 John Daub: It's moments like this where you can stop and take a look at your surroundings. Hey, idea for the postcard—Faye, yes. By the way, the postcards are on the way—yours is in the mail. It was either the oiran (courtesans) and geisha or the Aomori Nebuta Festival, but I put it in the mail today. If you guys want a postcard, go to Patreon until around the 15th. This month looks really good—even Kanae Daub said, wow, these are really good. The typhoon has gone—it skirted past here yesterday. In the distance, you can see Odaiba, which is the island like Manhattan. One of the prerequisites for moving apartments in April was that I had to live near the riverside—I had to live near water.

00:39:21 John Daub: One of the things that worried me most moving from the East Coast to the Midwest was being so far from the ocean—I'd never been away from it that long. Since then, if I live anywhere, I try to live somewhere where there's water. Guess what? Japan is an island—we have water and beaches everywhere. There's good things with that and bad, as we saw in March 2011. But that's stuff that happens once in a millennium. You have a lot of people eating lunch—they bring bentos out here and sit on the park benches overlooking the river. And if you can tell, there's no trash cans—people clean up after themselves. And there's no homeless people sleeping here.

00:40:31 John Daub: Goku's asking about me driving—I rented a car last week but cancelled it. I was going to do a live stream in the car—Shingo was going to go with me. We're going to try something next week before I go to Singapore. By the way, shout out—I'm doing a meetup in Singapore next weekend, not this one coming up. It'll be really nice to see people watching the show down there—I did one in Malaysia already in Kuala Lumpur. Kanae Daub, my wife, is coming with me. Typically a midnight snack run includes me just running to the convenience store, but this time I was actually running. Michigan is on my list of top 1000 places to visit.

00:42:11 John Daub: Now this, when I go running every time, these kind of bridges creep me out the most—you got to go through here, watch your head, underneath the highway. They're doing some construction—it's kind of creepy. Hold your breath. Watch out for trolls. There's no zombies—although there are two people sitting at the table over there. Zombies don't typically sit. Why am I whispering? Maybe I believe the hype. Walk quickly—just keep walking. They're not chasing me. Zombies don't run that fast—although if it's the 28 Days Later zombies that run real fast or the I Am Legend zombies, those are kind of scary.

00:43:58 John Daub: Now we're coming up to another overpass—the Tokyo Highway system is just so crazy looking. We're at midnight here on the Sumida River in central Tokyo. It's very quiet—we do have crickets. It smells like the sea—I've never tasted the Sumida River, but it could be salt water. It's got a river smell, like the East River in summer or the Hudson. There's another runner—that wasn't a zombie, Peter von Gomm. There is a terrifying ghost story I can tell you—there's a place in the city that's seriously creepy for hundreds of years since the Tokugawa period. It's a samurai ghost story that's impacted the way the city is constructed so they don't build there. My wife said don't go there—her father knows the history and said tell him not to because if something bad happens, it could be the ghost.

00:47:32 John Daub: I did see a ghost once—I'm not joking. The first place I lived was across the street from Okazaki Castle, where Tokugawa Ieyasu was born—50 meters away. Every night after a couple weeks, the tap would go on full blast. I'd wake up, turn it off, thought it was an earthquake or bad spigot. Landlord said nothing wrong. Then one night, I woke up and saw the outline of a woman crying—just there, faint, sad, then gone. I didn't move. After that, I never saw the ghost again, and the water never came on. True story—that was 1998, my first year in Japan, in the fall. I believe she was turning on the water to symbolize crying, trying to communicate she was sad.

00:52:05 John Daub: So do I believe in ghosts? You're darn right I do—I know there's presence and you can feel it. That's why I'm reluctant to show you this other ghost story not too far from here. She better have stopped because of the water bill—I turned it off pretty quickly. It was usually between 2 to 3 a.m. That's when I realized Japan has such a long history—you can't compare it to the US. Now I'm crossing the street to go home. This is where I'm going to end the live stream with Sukiya's curry rice—24-hour. Oh, I could do a midnight food run right here. Maybe not tonight.

00:58:16 John Daub: This live stream had absolutely zero meaning other than a couple people out for a run—I got in 5K before I stopped to tell ghost stories and show paintings. No cars in Tokyo—that's creepy. Midnight food run—I will do a food run, and think I'm going to take Kanae Daub with me. Tokyo 28 Days Later—those are the zombies I'm scared of. Anyway, thanks for listening to my stories and sharing a midnight walk. This live stream is brought to you by Bloody Bricks—thank you for the super chats. I just wanted to take you out tonight to see what it was like. Tomorrow I'm going to be doing another live stream—I have a really nice idea. One of them is a traditional Japanese candy called ami no iwe (candy art), which is super interesting—it's dying out because no young people are taking over.

01:01:05 John Daub: So thank you very much for joining me on this midnight run. I'll see you tomorrow, same time, same bad channel. Good night. Bye.