00:00:08 John Daub: Greetings everybody! Welcome to Ameyoko Market. I'm here for a purpose. We're going to be eating some of the best takoyaki in the city. Now, I'm having some technical difficulties with this gimbal. This is the Zhiyun Smooth Q and it's sort of died on me so it might tilt a little bit left and right. But she's holding up as strong as she can. I featured this in a main channel episode just yesterday that went online.

00:00:33 John Daub: If you want to see that, check the link up on the top there. You get the whole story and some more takoyaki. But right now, live, yeah, we get to eat this in a long format. You get to see the market and also get a chance to ask me some questions. I'm glad that you enjoyed the episode. Now, to get to the takoyaki place, it's not very hard. You just come from Okachimachi Station or the subway which is the Oedo line or the JR Yamanote line.

00:01:02 John Daub: Then when you get to the Kaisen-don restaurant, do you see right here? This is where I ate the kaisendon (seafood rice bowl) in the episode. Actually, there's a space right there. I could eat that if I wanted to. But this is the one that I ordered. It's still the same price, ¥750. But I'm going over there and this is where you see crowds of people waiting and they're all waiting for the takoyaki.

00:01:31 John Daub: So that means I'm going to be waiting in line now too. Uh oh, that's a problem. So we're going to be waiting a little bit. Actually, this is a really long line. This is like 10 minutes long. I guess just do it. They make the takoyaki pretty fast but the problem is though when they sell out, it takes a while to get back into the front.

00:02:10 John Daub: The market hasn't changed since I was here last time which was about a few weeks ago. But on the weekdays, especially on a cloudy day like today where it looks like it could rain, it's not very crowded here and this is the best time to come to Ameyoko Market on a weekday. It's the best time to go just about anywhere on a weekday when you don't have a lot of people around. I want to thank the people who gave Super Chats before. I think it was David and I'll give you guys a shout out a little bit later on but there it is.

00:02:47 John Daub: Hi. Nice to meet you, Alex. Welcome to Japan. Thank you very much. See you. Thank you.

00:02:53 Alex: Today for 15 minutes I see your post.

00:02:57 John Daub: Okay. Whoa. Welcome. Are you getting some takoyaki?

00:03:02 Alex: Maybe. The line is long. It's very long. It's hard to find this. I go this way. Yeah.

00:03:11 John Daub: Tell me how long you're here in Japan for?

00:03:14 Alex: Saturday, I landed. I'm this week to Sunday in Tokyo and then Osaka.

00:03:21 John Daub: Okay, so for about a week. That's not enough time.

00:03:25 Alex: Yes, but next year is another year. This is my first time. But you like it enough to come back? Yes, it's great. It's a little bit English. That's alright, you're doing fine. I look for the food and it's great. The food? Ramen, metsudon (pork rice bowl), company.

00:03:49 John Daub: What? On your week that's here, what have you seen that you can recommend to people?

00:03:58 Alex: Convenience stores are a lot of fun.

00:03:59 John Daub: I remember my first time going to a Lawson's and I was just shocked at how good the food was and the variety. So in Germany it's not like that.

00:04:06 Alex: No, we have not something special. Sandwiches, not great. It's coming but it's only a small corner. And it's not good. It's not like the supermarket on the counter. It's not something...

00:04:24 John Daub: Oh yeah, careful. So I want to thank Mr. Swastik and Gavin for the super chats here. I appreciate it guys. We're in line now to get the takoyaki but you can see right there. I want to tell you a little more. Oh, thank you very much. What's your name again?

00:04:41 Alex: Alex.

00:04:41 John Daub: Alex, nice to meet you Alex. Thanks for coming to say hi. I see your videos sometimes. Yeah. It's great. Did you want to get a picture or something? There you go. All right guys, screenshot that. Thanks, Alex. Thank you very much. Have a nice day. Yeah, have a good trip. Thank you very much. Awesome.

00:05:00 John Daub: I like it when people come and say hi, especially when you're waiting in line and there's not much else you can do. Now the gimbal is not doing too much. What you've missed is the beginning because we haven't started really. I'm still waiting in line to get my takoyaki but I'm going to get four of them. I'm going to get three of them. Or maybe I'll get six. I don't know. It's a tough call.

00:05:22 John Daub: But what I like about this place is that you can add your own toppings. You can add as much as you like or as little as you like. For me, it's as much because I like the toppings. I like the toppings a lot. Now the prices are very reasonable at this place. What makes this to me the most popular or the best takoyaki, it's not just the price, it's the volume. They're very big if you compare it. And the prices start at a ridiculous 200 yen which is like $1.85 for just four of them.

00:05:56 John Daub: And then they go up for every two that you add, just add 100 yen which just makes sense. I wish Apple could do that with its memory. The RAM in it. They go from 64 then into 256 and then 512 and the price is like quadruple. It's ridiculous. Takoyaki is just simple and good. But this is next door. This is the kaisendon that I introduced in the show and I'm getting closer and closer and I'm watching them make it now. Check it out.

00:06:32 John Daub: So this is going to take a little bit of time. They just started a new batch so we could be here for a little while. Thanks for keeping me company. The lines are long. Now when I made this episode and I was here in the morning when they first started and the takoyaki line was very short. I think there was like two people. And now I've come here at around a little bit after 1pm on a weekday. But it's always, always crowded here.

00:07:03 John Daub: Thank you Jason for that. Appreciate that Mr. Jason Woodley. That's going to pay for a new gimbal which I'm going to be buying today probably at Yodobashi Camera. I got to go back to the electronics store. Again the sign in English you can see it very clearly. Big takoyaki. Key word is big right there. Because if you compare it to other takoyaki, the size is much, much better.

00:07:33 John Daub: And I just noticed that the other takoyaki shops they kind of skimp on the size of the octopus. You can tell. Because when you see this one. When you see this one. It's just so big. It's so delicious. If you can't taste the octopus in it. It's not really takoyaki. If you can't see that big piece of octopus. Is it really takoyaki? It's akoyaki. You can't afford the T and the A because there's not enough tako (octopus) in it.

00:08:09 John Daub: Now tako. I got some stories about takoyaki. Alright. I could keep you guys occupied with stories from 20 years of living here. One of them was that in 1998 when I came here to live in Japan. I lived in a city called Nagoya. There's an area of Nagoya called Fujigaoka. And Fujigaoka had a test store for Taco Bell.

00:08:31 John Daub: Taco Bell now is already established in Japan. There's maybe 10 or 15 restaurants here in Tokyo and Osaka. Just the cities. But in 1998 nobody knew what Taco Bell was. And tako means octopus. Taco also means the Mexican taco. Right? Which is what Taco Bell is. So people would go in there looking for takoyaki. But they'd get tacos. And it was very confusing to customers back in 1998.

00:08:54 John Daub: So the Taco Bell test store went out of business. And I was very upset. Because I was in my 20s and Taco Bell was just really good. And cheap. Now Taco Bell is not that cheap in Japan. But hey Gavin. This is going towards the gimbal. Thanks buddy. If I give. I guess I can name the gimbal. From all the contributions. So right now I'm calling the gimbal Gavin.

00:09:18 John Daub: But yeah. The test stores. A lot of foreign chains had test stores in Japan. And a lot of them went out of business. Because they didn't know how to market the foreign food. Or the foreign products. Cinnabon was also in Japan. About 18 years ago. In Nagoya. But Cinnabon also went out of business. They had a test store in the Mitsukoshi. In the center of Nagoya.

00:09:39 John Daub: Nagoya is like the Midwest for Japan. The Midwest being Ohio. Which is like. It's not the east coast. It's not the west coast. Nagoya is not Tokyo. It's not Osaka. It's the perfect place to test market stuff. Because it's got the taste of both places. So test stores would often start up in Nagoya. Alright guys. We're getting closer. So there's my takoyaki story for you.

00:10:01 John Daub: The gimbal does not have a lot of power to tilt. I have to tilt it manually. Sometimes it goes off the axis. There's just one of the axis is broken I think. He could be moving a lot faster. There's a lot of hungry people here. Those look done. I would eat it even if it wasn't. Well that's how you get sick. When you eat stuff that's undercooked. But I'm so hungry. I could eat just the batter.

00:10:34 John Daub: Now I introduced in the show. All of the condiments are right here. This is what makes this place really special. The mega bottles of sauce and that seaweed sprinkle. Do you see the seaweed sprinkle right there? And then there's the bonito flakes. The shredded bonito flakes in there which is really good. We say in Japanese katsuobushi (dried bonito flakes). Alright cool. I think I'm almost there.

00:11:04 John Daub: Guys this is your super chats. Hard at work. Thank you very much for paying. I'm going to get 6 of them but this is all paid for by you guys so I appreciate it very much for the support. Right next door to this place is the crazy cheese stick. You see it right there? And I debated when I was going to start this episode. I debated whether or not to go there or here so next time I'm going to go there.

00:11:33 John Daub: Because I seriously had a... After editing the video all the way to 4 am yesterday. That's the video that I released on this. I'm seriously hungry for takoyaki from having to look at it while editing it for days. So Lord Chiron. Lord Chiron from Canada. I see that's Canadian. I'll top up the gimbal fun. Whoa. And make sure you try recalibrating first. Thank you Lord. This is going directly. So my gimbal is now called Lord Chiron. Which is probably the coolest name for a gimbal.

00:12:10 John Daub: Yeah, it's important to calibrate them. But the mobile gimbals, you just have to get the weight right. I have a wide angle lens on this one. So on the other side I have 5, 10 yen coins to help counterbalance the wide angle lens. We're getting really close. I can feel it. I can smell it. I can taste it in my mouth. He's got four. He's moving as fast as he can.

00:12:44 John Daub: I like the fact that they have two fixing tables. As well. There's one on the left and one on the right. And there's no seats, no places to sit. You got to eat it while you stand. You eat it fast. And this is where the dilemma is. If you eat it too fast, you completely burn your mouth and it hurts. Now this takoyaki stand I'm seeing is part of the kaisen-don. So the two shops are kind of connected. You see there's the kaisen-don. It's in the news. That's what I introduced before. I introduced the takoyaki in the video. I'm talking about the main channel video that I just put online.

00:13:24 John Daub: Konnichiwa. Rokko onegaishimasu (six please). Arigato gozaimasu (thank you). So that's one that he hasn't made yet. And the other ones on the right side are done. And so you can see kind of like how it's all put together right now. So the music has gotten a little bit royalty free, kind of not music. So I'm going to talk over like this until we get it done.

00:14:01 John Daub: Now he's turning the balls. I think those ones over there on the right side are done, but I'm going to have to wait until I can try to get my six here and then I can move away from this music because the speaker's right next to the phone right now, which makes me very, very difficult to produce this episode, but we're going to be okay. I think first he's got to make sure that those balls don't burn before he serves me my six. So we do get a very good chance. So take a very good, good close look at how he makes them before he dishes out the six that are going to be coming to me.

00:14:28 John Daub: I'm going to go directly to the station and top this up with tons of sauce because the sauce I think is so delicious. It's got kind of a, I think the sauce might even have caffeine in it because every time that I eat too much of the sauce, I get really hyperactive, maybe kind of like right now to try to keep this music, um, to talk over the music, to try to, you know, make it a little bit usable later on because I know that this rap, this kind of rap music is definitely going to be copyright protected on YouTube.

00:15:03 John Daub: Just the other day. Um, when I was filming here, uh, over on the other side, that really delicious stringy mozzarella cheese was something that I maybe should have gone for because I don't have music over there, but actually this is ends up being a lot cheaper than the takoyaki because, uh, the takoyaki is actually a lot cheaper. Over there it's 480 yen or about $4.50. For one potato mozzarella cheese stick. And here you get six of them for $4. And I think this probably is the better deal.

00:15:33 John Daub: So they're on the left side or undone ones. And on the right side, these are finished and these are ready. And these are going to be so piping hot. I don't know if I'm going to be able to, to wait. This is the problem. Every time I eat takoyaki guys, I burn the top of my mouth so much so that the skin starts just peeling off and it ruins what I eat. Oh, oh, he lost one. Okay. There he goes. Boom guys, check it out. Do not do these not look really, really good. And we're, we're going to now make these look a lot better.

00:16:16 John Daub: So take a chopstick. That's how we do it. We use our mouth. If you don't have more than one hand and now you get to top it up with any toppings that you want. So I'm going to go first to the sauce. Okay. This is. This is like two kilograms of sauce. This is ridiculous. Oh yeah. That's that's enough. You don't want to waste it. You don't want to put too much on there.

00:16:48 John Daub: So now I have here the mayonnaise. You know what? I do mayonnaise last. Let's go with, let's go with the seaweed. There's no real, there's no real way that you have to order this. You just put in what you like. If you're from Osaka, you probably have your way to do it. And I'm going to go with, with the. Okay. I'm going to go with the katsuobushi, the fish flakes. I don't need too many of them, but when they're hot, you can see that they kind of dance. You see them dancing. It's not to the music. It's actually to the heat of the takoyaki. They will dance like that, which makes it pretty cool.

00:17:26 John Daub: And then the last thing, especially if you're from Osaka, you're going to want to put mayonnaise on it and I don't need to put a lot on it. In fact, that's, that's probably a little bit more. Okay. There you go. That's enough. And that's the biggest mayonnaise bottle. This is Costco size everybody. And now I'm going to move away from the music a little bit. It's going to make it difficult to eat. Um, yeah. Where do I eat this? If it's not over there. All right. I'll just, I'll just fight it out here. Okay. I got to put it down somewhere.

00:17:58 John Daub: Now the biggest mistake that I make is I eat these too quickly and the result is that I burned the roof of my mouth. So what I'm going to do is I'm going to open this up just a little bit. Okay. Look at the steam coming out of this thing. Whoa. Look, it's just piping hot. This is why I burn my mouth every time. And it seems like they got a really good size piece of octopus on this one. Check it out. This looks really good.

00:18:27 John Daub: I like it that the fact that you can see it, I've had takoyaki where you can't even see, uh, you know what? I think one way to make it cooler is to put more sauce inside of the hole I just made. That seems like something smart to do, right? I don't know. So let's, let's give this one a try. Okay. I'm going to put a little bit of mayonnaise on it. Just a little bit. Put it in the hole that I made. Control yourself. There's a lot of people here.

00:19:30 John Daub: Let me just like recover. The good thing was it wasn't as hot as the one that I ate in the, in the main channel episode. You really do have to, you really do have to spread it out a little bit. All right, there we go. There's a piece of, you can see the tentacles. For all you tentacle lovers out there. Okay, here we go. Did I give it enough time? What do you guys think? Like it's still steaming. Oh man. I'm going to lose the skin. I'm going to lose the skin, aren't I? All right, let's do this. Give me some private time. This will cool it down. Oh man. That was really hot. I'm going to lose that skin.

00:20:46 John Daub: Hey, Mr. Swastik. Thank you. I think I'm, I wish there was a vending machine around here. I'm going to go get some of that. I should have bought it in advance, but I was, because I was late to the live stream, I was really fighting to get in there. The Japanese mayonnaise is interesting. Let me talk about that while this cools down. I could blow on it. Okay, hold on. It's a little bit better. Still steaming hot. All right, let's get the third one down. Oh, it's getting better. It's getting better. It's still really hot.

00:21:52 John Daub: So I had a question. I had a question about the mayonnaise. The Japanese mayonnaise is really different. This is, you don't have to refrigerate it. It's made by Ajinomoto, which makes MSG and other umami. They invented umami as well. It's a fifth taste. So this mayonnaise is really good. Kewpie is the other one that makes really good mayonnaise, but it's different. It's not as creamy and you don't have to refrigerate the Japanese mayonnaise. All right, let's go. Let's go for number four. Japanese mayonnaise just tastes better. I don't know. I like it, but maybe it's because I've been here half my life, but I just like it better. Here we go.

00:22:51 John Daub: We lost the gimbal. We lost the gimbal, guys. Bite it out, gimbal. All right. Bite it out, gimbal. All right. I got two more to go. Now we're at perfect temperature. I can down these real fast. It takes five minutes before they really cool off. Gimbal is fully charged. I charge it all night. I don't know why. This one's for all you guys. I figured extra mayonnaise because we're talking about mayonnaise. You're beautiful, little guy. You are beautiful.

00:23:53 John Daub: And you're going to a place that's kind of dark and filled with hydrochloric acid or whatever's in my stomach. But don't worry. You're going to stay warm down there. You came to me hot, and I'm going to keep you warm internally now. The gimbal wants to eat too. I think the gimbal is sensing that this is the last one. It wants the takoyaki. Hang on there, gimbal. Hang on there for the last one. Here we go. Bye.

00:24:37 Ron: Excuse me. What's your channel?

00:24:38 John Daub: Only in Japan.

00:24:40 Ron: Only in Japan. Oh, only in Japan. I thought you were going to go back. Oh, your name is only in Japan.

00:24:47 John Daub: Yeah, that's the name of the channel. Oh, you're going to go back. Do you live here?

00:24:49 Ron: I live here.

00:24:49 John Daub: Oh, right. Okay. Yeah. We have a... I like to subscribe and do whatever.

00:24:55 Ron: Oh, awesome. Yeah. Do you live here?

00:24:58 John Daub: No, I live for like two weeks.

00:25:00 Ron: Oh. Okay. Yeah, if I miss Japan, I just watch your channel. Yeah.

00:25:04 John Daub: If you miss Japan, watch only in Japan, right? This is the way it works. This is a live streaming channel, and this is a... Oh, favorite. And this one is the main channel. Yeah. Oh, you got two channels? Yeah. This is the main one. Yeah. And a live streaming one, but... Oh, this one, yeah. We're live right now. What's your name?

00:25:23 Ron: Ron.

00:25:24 John Daub: Ron. Nice to meet you, Ron. Where are you from?

00:25:27 Ron: New Zealand.

00:25:28 John Daub: All right. Yeah, yeah. You're here for a long time?

00:25:31 Ron: Two weeks.

00:25:32 John Daub: Oh, two weeks. Yeah. That's pretty good. I was here like three days ago. Okay. Oh, so you're new here. Yeah. I can't speak Japanese, so...

00:25:38 Ron: Oh, you can't. No, I can't.

00:25:41 John Daub: Oh, that's all right. Do you find it hard to get around speaking... Not speaking Japanese? No, I just go like... Oh, okay. Yeah. So you can manage. Yeah. People are really friendly, so I don't think you would have any trouble. A lot of people have anxiety about coming here. But adventure means anxiety. Adventure means risk. That's right. So... Oh, good to see you, man. Yeah. Nice to meet you, Ron. See you around. Have a good trip. Yeah.

00:26:12 John Daub: That's Ron. All right. Before I leave, I'm hoping the gimbal hangs in there a little bit, because I just want... And I only got about three hours of sleep, guys. I do look like... I do look sick, because I'm so sleepy. That's why I put extra sauce on there. But I just want to give you a quick look at Ameyoko on a day like this. All right. I'm going to turn the... I'm going to turn the... Hey, Gretchen's in the house. I'm turning the wide-angle lens the other way, so you can get a... Oh, there's the bad guy. I showed him or his colleague in the video the other day. Thanks, Gretchen. Yeah, Ron's a pretty cool guy. He doesn't speak Japanese, and he just kind of used hand gestures, he said.

00:27:01 John Daub: So this was the black market in World War II. This is where during the American occupation between 1945 and 1952, people were here selling goods. A lot of them came from the GIs. So...

00:27:16 Karen: Hello. Hi.

00:27:19 John Daub: Hi. We're from Israel. Yeah, we're from Israel. New Zealand? Israel. Israel. Oh, wow. Wow. You've been in Japan real quick?

00:27:26 Karen: Not yet. This is live?

00:27:30 John Daub: We are live right now. Hi. How are you guys? There's 730 people watching. Oh, wow. It's hard to see. Hi. So tell me about your trip. How long have you been here?

00:27:40 Karen: We've been like a week in Osaka and for three days in Tokyo. Okay. Yeah. And we're soon going to Kyoto and back to Israel.

00:27:51 John Daub: Wow. Do you want to go back?

00:27:52 Karen: No. No. You're welcome to Israel. We're going to visit you. We're going to make you a fun trip. Really? Yeah. There's really good food in Israel. Okay. Yeah, a lot of culture. Falafel, shawarma. Yeah, shawarma. Real shawarma. Not like here. This is... Oh, yeah. This is not... I can't curse. It's like live, right? It's not good here. Yeah. Well, it's just Japan. I mean, come on. It's better than nothing. No? Maybe not. I don't know. No. Don't... Nothing is better. No. Nothing is better. That's it.

00:28:26 John Daub: Send me a message. I will. You will. I will. I'm going next year. I'm going to try to go visit as many places as I can. Say hi to everybody. Okay. So, I'm Karen. This is Alice. And we'll see you in Israel. Karen, Alice. See you in Israel. See you in Israel. See you on the other side. Have a good trip. Bye.

00:28:42 John Daub: That was pretty cool. Yeah, one of my friends, hey. One of my friends that lives near me is from Israel. And he's been trying to get me to go to Israel as well. So, it'd be pretty neat to go with him and then go meet them and other people that watch the channel. It's really cool because I'm always amazed at how many people around the world watch this show. And I guess since I just put the main channel episode on, I just put the video online, I guess people come into the market because they saw it. I don't know.

00:29:18 John Daub: I want to walk to the end of the street and take you to my friend who puts all the chocolate in the bag. You see how loud they are? Okay. That's cheap jewelry. Half price. Half price. Whoa. That looks pretty good. Wow. I don't need a watch. I don't wear jewelry. I have one piece of jewelry. That's it. That's enough for me. I'm going to go to Israel. Bye. Bye. Take care! Bye. Bye. I got back to MLM. Have a good day. Bye. See you later! Bye. You guys Best Sisters club!

00:30:17 John Daub: That's one time. You know this club? It is in the Afo yams. That's the three-part program. How do you play there? That's not the Marou. The filmed here. And you can see there are a lot of visitors from Taiwan that come to visit Ameyoko Market. And I guess this is like a slice of home maybe. I don't know. But like if I see a good hot dog stand, I might actually stop to eat the hot dog. Whoa! Hey guys, there's where I ate the oyster and the sake for 500 yen. You can see it hasn't really changed much. Oh, is that the same guy who poured the sake? I can tell him that the video is online. Hold on. That's always polite. Konnichiwa. Only in Japan. Yoroshiku onegaishimasu (nice to meet you). Nani? Only in Japan. Mishi moteru tomo? Mishi moteru tomo. Motemasuka? Aru tomo. Hai. Yoroshiku onegai shimasu. Jondo. Arigatou gozaimasu (thank you very much). He's in the video, so it's polite.

00:31:51 John Daub: Oh, they got strawberries here. Oh, the gimbal is really having a tough time. Now, again, these street restaurants on the left and the right, they're new. About 10, 15 years ago when I first came to the market, and I made a show here in 2008 for NHK. I spent five days here filming that show for NHK, and they didn't have these kinds of street stands. Not here on the main street. These were owned by businesses selling dried fruit. And those businesses, they just couldn't compete anymore. They couldn't make money. So they sold the businesses out, and then you got places like this. Like izakaya (Japanese pub) selling the meat, probably from the market at discounted prices.

00:32:33 John Daub: You're so close to the supply chain, you don't really have to go to the supermarket or anything. You get everything right in the market. So it makes sense to sell cheap products right here in the market. And there's so much foot traffic. All right. We're almost there. I love the background sounds here. Hey, Urze. Thank you. Hello, John. Arriving in Japan in a couple of days. Kudos for your channel. Thank you, Urze. I appreciate it very much.

00:33:13 John Daub: You can see all the tourists also like to stay in this area. You get tons of suitcases. And the moderator, Nosh Abroad, he told me he comes here all the time. And when he is here, he usually buys too many gifts. And this is where you would come to buy like a second suitcase or something because they sell them real cheap here. In fact, everything, if you need a bag or a shirt or a jacket, come here. You need socks, you come here. This is the best. This is where locals also come if they want to buy stuff.

00:33:42 John Daub: Here you can see like a secondhand yukata (light kimono). These are some Japanese things, some Japanese T-shirts that you got there, which is pretty cool. You see that? These are all like dirt cheap. And dirt is not free, though. Like not free here. But it's all dirt cheap. And this seaweed store has been here for at least 25 years. At least 25 years. Because I remember when I came here for NHK. They said they were in business for, I don't know, 15 years or more. And that was 10 years ago. So it's nice to see a lot of the businesses are still purring along, doing well.

00:34:24 John Daub: But most of them were like this. They were dry foods being sold right out of the box. And they would make their money that way. And this wasn't here before. This is kind of like a touristy shop. You can buy T-shirts and things like that. Just kind of need to know. Oh, there he is. Okay. He's next. He's up there. He's across from the game center. Oh, there's always a line. Check it out. Everything is 1000 yen. Here we go. Maybe the boss is not here. The boss is not here. I'm going to tell him. Just give his worker my business card and tell him that the episode is online. Oh, there he is. Oh, hello.

00:35:22 New York Shop Owner: I filmed here last month. I remember. He's from New York. Yes, yes, yes. I uploaded a video on YouTube yesterday. Oh, hello. Hello. This is also... One more time. Thank you. I'm from New York. Oh, New York. Yes. Last week? Yes. Oh, a daughter. A daughter. How are you? I'm good. Oh, that's good. I'm going home in December. December. Manhattan, right? Manhattan. Oh, cool. I'll come back. See you. I'll be waiting. Bye-bye. See you tomorrow. See you tomorrow.

00:36:03 John Daub: I love that. I love that. I met him the first time when I came here with NHK in 2008 and made the Ameyoko episode. I was here for five days and we filmed him for NHK, but he's just one of the nicest, friendliest guys and so easy to talk to. All the YouTubers that do street food episodes here, they don't know about him. They don't know about... This is one of the most famous shops on this street. And yeah, you kind of have to introduce the... Right. The kind of royalty... And pay your respects to the royalty of the street and he's one of... I would say just because he added a really original idea.

00:36:42 John Daub: All the products that he sells all in that bag, it's about more than double the price of what you're paying in terms of the retail value. So, probably have about... You pay ¥1,000 and you probably have about ¥2,000, over ¥2,000 worth of goods. Sometimes ¥2,500 depends on this, but in his mind because he's been doing this for many, many years. He knows exactly how much he's putting in each bag. He's been doing this for 35 years so the guy's a master. But you gotta stop there. And if you're really nice, he might put one extra box in there. If you watch the video, I think he put, he slipped in one extra. I love New York. His daughter lives in New York.

00:37:26 John Daub: So if you're a New Yorker, definitely come here and say hi because he goes to New York all the time to go say hi to his daughter. How do I know that? I know him now. We're like friends. And that's the best thing about this area. After you, yeah you gotta kiss the ring. That's right, Alan. You have to kiss the ring and show your respect to people that have been doing something for a long time. I think that that's just polite to do that and yeah, it's something we think about. But this street and this area of Japan is my favorite. Not just because my wife is actually from this area. Of Tokyo. She's from Asakusa. And this is like a 10 minute walk to her house to here and her father calls this his playground or backyard.

00:38:17 John Daub: But the people here are so much easier to talk to. There's so much cooler. Shibuya is just loaded and loaded with lots of people. There are lots of people here but the culture of this market, especially for people over the age of 50, is this really close communication and working with people. You know. Face to face communication. And that's not something that you get a lot in Shinjuku which is a salary man town or Shimbashi or Shibuya or Ebisu. These areas. It's different down there. Up here, it's still the way it was in the Showa era which is like 50, 60, 70 years ago. And that's what makes, for me, this area of Tokyo really, really special. It's just cool.

00:39:00 John Daub: And over there, you can see. Uh. That's Ueno Station. So we walked the full hundred meters from the front in this episode to the back. And if you keep going straight, there are the stairways that will take you to Ueno Park, to the museums. And if you make a left, you're at the zoo. Ueno Zoo where you can see the panda. But you need to make a reservation to see the panda. It's very, very popular. Jennifer and I went and we didn't, uh, no. Actually I saw Jennifer yesterday for everybody who asks about Jennifer all the time. Jennifer is doing well. That's cool.

00:39:34 John Daub: That wasn't a bird. That was the water from the sign. Jennifer's doing well. She's been super busy and I was so happy to get a chance to see her just for coffee. We didn't do a live stream or anything. But yeah, I've known her for a decade. It's really neat to look back. I met her on NHK. We were doing a show on Tokyo Tower. And I spent five days with her just sitting around waiting for us to shoot. And that's how I know Jennifer. She invited me to go on to a TV show with her. And as a panelist. She does a lot of Japanese TV. And when I did that with her and then we became really, really good friends after that shoot. And we always talk ever since.

00:40:15 John Daub: You know, it's important when you're an expat to have a base of good friends that are going to stay here for more than a year. Because most of my foreign friends are gone. I'm like the last survivor of the group of people that came here to Japan. And, uh, yeah. In 1998. I was in Japan. I came in with a group of maybe 20 people. And they're all gone. Like I'm the last one. By like... And the last one left, I don't know, like 15 years ago. People don't usually stick around Japan for very long, which is a shame. Alright, instead of going this way. And this is where I shot the ending shot. This is where the two roads divide. I'm gonna go through this alley and take you to the other side a little bit. Because Ameyoko... Ameyoko is about alleys. Alright? And this is kind of... Eerily quiet now. This is another city.

00:41:15 John Daub: It's a place where you can get mugged for carrying around a $1,000 smartphone on a broken gimbal. Wow, check out that alley. This looks like Hong Kong or something. Between the buildings. On this side, there are pachinko (pinball) shops and a lot of secondhand or outdated, like last year's model, sports stores. London Sports is like an out-of-date sports store. So, if you go off of Ameyoko, you'll see that it really gets a little bit quieter. More a traditional type of restaurants where you can walk into the shop. Usually the doors are wide open, so it still feels like a stand, but it's more of a sit-down kind of a place.

00:41:58 John Daub: So, if you really want to sit down and relax, probably want to get off of the main street. If you're a tourist, you probably want to be on the main street so you can see all the bustling going by, all the busyness. But here... I guess you... You know... I think my wife's father prefers to go off of the main street and sit down in some of the places on the left. Right now, we're between the Yamanote and the Keihin-Tohoku line. Oh man, the gimbal's really struggling. Let me get in front of these people.

00:42:42 John Daub: They have probably the best food. That shop right there with the green tarp. Kind of remember it. That's where I ended the NHK show in 2008. They've been here forever. They have probably the best motsuyaki (offal grill). Street food. Like izakaya food in there. And it's always crowded. After about 5pm... Or 5 or 6pm, the chairs get a little bit more out into the street. I think the laws get a little bit laxer, more relaxed after that time. And by the way, while I'm here... There's another stretchy cheese chain over there. The same cheese company that's over there is over here. But there's no people. So if you want to avoid the crowds, you probably want to go over there.

00:43:33 John Daub: You can hear the Yamanote line ahead of us. Just for the record, I'm sad to say that that shop closed on the right side is the kakigori (shaved ice) shop which is now closed down. It's a taiyaki (fish-shaped waffle) place. It was closed yesterday and it's closed again today. I don't know if it's going to be open again. Maybe it'll open from October 1st. But it's closed right now and that's kind of sad. So if you want to get that kakigori, the Kyoto Uji kinako milk kakigori, you're going to have to wait until maybe later on in the fall. But this is one of my favorite views. You have the Yamanote line going above and then you have the stands. And at night, right now it's still like it's 2pm. But at night, this is just filled with people.

00:44:24 John Daub: They're out relaxing after work, getting a cheap drink or cheap eats. After about 5 or 6, it starts to get pretty good. There's a really good Thai restaurant inside of there. A lot of food. And this Hamachan, Hamachan is one of my favorite tempura places. If you like tempura, it's super super cheap and so good. And you can get a mountain of it. I've taken Kanae here a couple of times. I've taken some of my other friends. That are here. They're YouTubers here. And they loved it. Hello. One sec.

00:45:00 Australian Teacher: I just wanted to say it's very nice to meet you. Oh nice to meet you too. I'm from Australia. I'm a Japanese teacher. Oh okay. And I show your videos to my class students all the time. Oh hey you want to say hi? Is it okay? Yeah. Hello from Australia. I'm from the Gold Coast and I watch Jeff's videos all the time and show them to my students. We've been to so many places already that you've recommended so thank you so much.

00:45:20 John Daub: Awesome. Very good. Where do you teach?

00:45:22 Australian Teacher: I teach in Australia actually. We bring our students over on a Japan trip. Oh. Yeah. Where are they? We've got a couple here. These aren't my Japanese students though. Oh hey. And the rest are over at... Students! Gaming Arcade. Oh that's where they are. You know it starts at 100 yen for games and stuff. Yes. It's pretty good. You gotta go through that real quick I think. Yeah. Oh I've never been to 100 yen. Is this your first time here? This is my first time out of the country yeah. Whoa! Second time. Second time? Yeah. Is Tasmania considered out of the country? I haven't been to there either but I've been to a couple of places. Yeah sort of. Probably would be.

00:46:05 John Daub: What has been the one thing that's really been mind blowing about coming to Japan? Mind blowing about coming to Japan?

00:46:08 Australian Teacher: Budget. The budget. Ah. Oh yeah. The price of everything. Everything is so cheap here. Yeah. Most of the food is so cheap. Yeah. Wait wait. You said cheap? Not expensive? Yeah a lot of things are really cheap. For Australians. Yeah. Like food? Wow. Like 500 yen and you can get like a full meal. This would cost like 5 bucks in Australia. We find the difference yeah quite a lot.

00:46:29 John Daub: That's something people gotta realize. You can live cheaply in Japan. It's not as expensive right? Especially here in this market. It's pretty cheap. Well great. Small world. Yeah small world. It's good to see you. All the best. Keep creating those awesome videos. Thank you very much. Thank you. See you Jeff. Bye bye. See you guys. Bye bye. Bye bye.

00:46:50 John Daub: That's so cool whenever you get to see people who watch the show. I like that because that's a good teacher. They study Japanese in Australia and then you bring them on a trip to Japan and you bring them to a place like this. That's smart. That's a good teacher. Like if you're just gonna hang around. He went to Akihabara and then he came here. This is where you can see the difference in the city's culture. If you just go to Shibuya and you go to Shinjuku. That's a totally different culture. Totally different kind of culture than right here in Ueno, the upper north side of the city.

00:47:24 John Daub: You have the Yanaka Ginza area. The Yanaka area which is a throwback from the Showa era. You really feel like it was 50 years ago and here you can see that things are modernizing but remnants of the black market history is still very much apparent. Check that out. There's some armor. Wow. That's kind of cool. It's even freakier with the lights like that. A little Darth Vader armor. Again there's maybe one of the stores Nosh might have brought his suitcase in. Big big discounts. You can get a decent bag for like $10 or less at places like this.

00:48:04 John Daub: The one thing that hasn't changed is if you do come to Ameyoko Market don't miss out on going inside of here underneath the tracks. There are loads and loads of things to see. You might not buy anything like jewelry and stuff but it's nice to go in there. And on the other side in the basement there's an international supermarket. This is one of the supermarkets as an expat. Someone who's living here for a long time. It's one of the places that I could find a lot of rare hard to find items for cooking. I think they had Pop-Tarts. I'm not eating Pop-Tarts as much. Sorry Nosh. I still have a couple of your Pop-Tarts Nosh. He brought some from the US for me but I used to be able to buy Pop-Tarts down there.

00:48:45 John Daub: When I filmed the NHK show here a lady had bought Skippy peanut butter because she could get the Skippy peanut butter down in the basement. So it's a very international market driven market with a black market history and that makes this place pretty cool because I was talking to the old guys and they I'm going to turn the camera on so you can check it out. There's a lot of hip hop shops on this side. I was talking to the organization here the kyokai (association) and they told me that they're very proud of the fact that they this is one of the sports stores I said with stuff that's out of date. Like last year's model. It's highly discounted.

00:49:25 John Daub: They're very proud of their black market past and the face to face communication and the friendly style. The vendors love that here and I don't think that they're going to ever change and I think that that's part of this area's DNA. That's what makes it special to me anyways. I don't I don't know about you guys. For me it's pretty special. It's pretty cool to see underneath the railroad tracks here. Yeah. There's a lot of people. There's a lot of shops that aren't chains like Foot Monkey. Foot Monkey. I don't think with a name like that they're going to be able to compete but they are with ABC Mart. You see ABC Mart is the nation's biggest shoe store. That's like ABC Mart's like the Athlete's Foot of the US you know. But Foot Monkey. Yeah. They're pretty local. Yeah. It's pretty local. Foot Monkey. It's a name you don't forget. ABC Mart's a name you don't forget. You don't forget either.

00:50:36 John Daub: So we're walking now towards Okachimachi Station. It's about 400 meters. All right. This is interesting. Do you see people? This is a new shop. But when a shop opens up it's it becomes popular because it's new. Everyone goes there to try it and then it gets on TV and once it gets on TV tons and tons of people come and this is a ramen shop. Ramen is not really famous in this neighborhood but that doesn't mean it can't be because it's always reinventing itself. This neighborhood sort of especially with a lot of immigrants coming in. But this is interesting. I just see a ramen shop opened up here.

00:51:17 John Daub: AZN Mega Xer. My sister leaves tonight as an exchange student for six months in Tokyo. I told her to watch your videos. Thanks. Hopefully she'll meet you and say hi. That'd be pretty cool. Yeah. I'm going to try to do a meet up next month and yeah I think if we get a lot of people to come to meet up and you're living here in Tokyo it might be cool to be able to make friends. You know it's kind of when you do exchange students. Whoa. Hold on a second. I'll get right back to you. That's new too. Check out how clean and modern looking and LED lights and stuff. That's not something that's normal for this market. It's stylishly coolishly clean. That looks expensive though. I don't think that you can't be that clean and be cheap. Or can you? It's a little bit pricier. Kaisen Ichiba. It looks like a chain. If the store looks too clean it can't be cheap. It's too clean.

00:52:16 John Daub: Yeah. But what I was saying is if your sister comes to the meet up she might be able to meet new people because if you do exchange students or you live abroad as an expat especially my first year I'm talking from experience I had friends that were in my bubble or circle and I never really left there. And now as this being my job I'm leaving my comfort zone or my bubble all the time but when you first come here and you meet new people it opens new doors and that might be pretty cool. So yeah I'll try to do a meet up and yeah more than welcome. She's more than welcome. There's some lockers here. There's an ATM a 7-Eleven ATM which takes foreign cards which is pretty neat to see. Coin lockers are even the coin lockers are cheaper than Tokyo Station. This place is bargain.

00:53:00 John Daub: This is a new shoe stop. This used to be it had like a Chinese name to it. But now they've changed it. Renamed it and rebranded to Tokyo shoes. It's a good name. I'm surprised it wasn't taken. Usually when you read when you name a business you have to search to see if somebody else has the same name and Tokyo shoes seems like a name that might have been taken. Oh there's London sports. Looks a little bit different than the London that I know. But London sports has been a part of Okachimachi for decades. Hey Bear thank you. Just got home from our seven day Tokyo trip. I'm in the Komagome area. Oh it's a good place. I'm sad that I didn't get to meet you. I saw Mikey Chen from Strictly Dumpling instead in Akihabara two nights ago.

00:53:56 John Daub: I know. I told Mikey to come here. I met with him three or four nights ago in Shibuya and he asked me places to go and film and I gave him about five suggestions. Yeah I saw Mikey from Strictly Dumplings. We had coffee for like two hours and talked for a long time. Nice nice guy. He was with his, with I guess one of his staff or people working with him. Kelly who's really really nice. So there's a good synergy between us. We got along pretty good and talked YouTube stuff. That was pretty cool. But yeah I think we might be doing something together next week. I'll have to give him a call actually and schedule a sushi place or something. I'm not sure what we're going to do. But there might be some overlapping with the show. It's pretty cool. I'm glad that he's going to be here for a while. So I'm glad that you get a chance to meet with Mikey with Strictly Dumplings.

00:54:52 John Daub: That's about it. This is Okachimachi Station. This is where we end the live stream. And up there is one of the older signs. But this is new. Actually this sign was replaced maybe about five years ago. It's starting to look old. This is Okachimachi Station, Station Front. And I'm going to take you underneath the JR tracks to the entrance of Okachimachi to end the live stream. You can hear the trains rolling by overhead. It's a pretty good adventure. I had fun. I got to eat a lot of takoyaki. And I think we just funded a new gimbal. So thanks everybody for that.

00:55:35 John Daub: Oh you can see into the street. Hold on a second. Let these people pass. Check it out. From this plastic window you can see inside there. And there's lots of throwback shops that have been there for decades selling jewelry, makeup. You know like goods that were really difficult to get during World War II. You could get them here. Makeup was one of the things. You just couldn't buy in Japan after the war. They didn't have resources to make them. So you'd come to this market. This market was everything back in 1945, 46, 47. And you can kind of see that in the picture. The picture that I put online is a Creative Commons picture from 1946. And you can see how crowded it is. It's taken right here from this Uniqlo. I took some video from the top floor of Uniqlo there. So you can see it in aerial view of the market. And you can see the pictures of the 1946 one that I put in the video of this street. And it was completely packed on a weekday in 1946. This is a weekday. It's not as packed because there's people selling things all over the city these days.

00:56:46 John Daub: So there you have it. Ameyoko in a nutshell. One hour here. Mitsubishi colors brought me back. It's pretty cool the retro sign. Do you guys know what this means? Ameyoko. Ame means candy in Japanese. And Ame also stands for America. Because this is where all the goods from America were sold after the World War II. During the American occupation of Tokyo for seven years. I love histories. Guys, hit the like button if you like this kind of content. If you have any questions, you have 30 seconds to ask me. And if you want to write in, where are you from? Where are you watching from? It's always neat to see all the places that make this show international. We're reaching the entire globe with this livestream. And that makes me really happy to see people watching from like every single continent. We had someone from Bhutan watching last time. Which is like it blew my mind.

00:57:52 John Daub: Cousin Vinny, are you prepared for the typhoon going to Japan? Vinny, I didn't even know there's a typhoon coming to Japan. I literally was housed in my apartment editing the video. I have so many things that I have to update other people about projects going on. I just bunkered myself in and was working on this video forever. I don't even know that there's a typhoon coming. But I guess I'm ready. I don't know how to get more ready. We got some peace people. Yeah. That's pretty cool. They like to be on the TV. They're looking back now. I saw you looking back. I saw you looking back. So, um, yeah, that's about it. I don't, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh. I saw you. I saw you. That was funny. All right, we got here.

00:58:39 John Daub: Indonesia, Las Vegas. Aloha from Kona. Kona coffee town. Anderson, South Carolina. Tampa, Florida. Los Angeles is in the house. Boris says Earth, of course. No one say that eighth planet though. Sacramento, typhoon. That's mine. New Zealand, Toronto, Mexico. North Korea, really, Ted. Indonesia, Pusheen, Texas. Brazil. John, when you sell hats and T-shirts only in Japan? I think by before the end of the year. Probably at the end of fall. Before Christmas. Awesome T-shirts. San Juan, Puerto Rico. Hey, Idaho. KL, Malaysia, not Mars. Hollywood. Nebraska, Shimane. Whoa. India, solar system. That's out there. Texas, New Zealand. Thanks, guys. Wow, this is coming in real fast. Brisbane, Manchester, Cheyenne, Wyoming. Cool. Earth, Uranus. I said that. Nobody else made me excited. So there you go.

00:59:40 John Daub: Thanks for watching this live stream. I appreciate the questions and helping me find a new gimbal, which I'm going straight to go and get at the Yodobashi Camera. And yeah, there you go. Have a good day. Enjoy some shoes. Hey, these are Asics for 20 bucks. What? I'm going to get a new pair of shoes. Really? Those are Adidas. Really? Bye, guys.