00:03 John Daub: Welcome to Tokyo Station! Here comes a Nozomi that I'll be riding to go to Kyoto today. This is a fitting start, the arrival of my vehicle to get to the Imperial City of the past. Hey everybody, I'm at Tokyo Station and this time I'm just going to get an ekiben (station bento box) and show you nothing special. I've done a couple of these already, but it's always a lot of fun to take a trip together. This train has now just arrived. Hey James, thank you so much!

00:37 John Daub: The last train... They leave every 10-20 minutes, Shinkansen going towards Kyoto. This is the Nozomi. I always ride the Nozomi. If you have a JR rail pass, you can only take the Hikari. These guys are going to be cleaning the train. One of the cool things about coming early is that you get to see them service a train that's coming from the other way. Now this train had come from, I believe, Hiroshima or Hakata. And now these guys in the blue and pink over there are going to get in there and quickly clean the train.

01:05 John Daub: Check it out. They're fast. They're professionally trained. And they're wearing cute uniforms. Also, I got some time so I might go get an ekiben, which is a box lunch. And there's a couple of them in the store down the street. I'm going to Osaka to film the nightlife, to get some b-roll, some stuff that I didn't get the first time through. So it's going to be exciting to go to Kyoto just for a day. And just see if I can do it. I've never done it this late in the day. I'm leaving kind of late.

01:48 John Daub: There's the Shinkansen leaving right now. I've never left this late before. Usually I leave in the morning. This is afternoon. This is 11:50 train towards Kyoto. But every time you ride the Shinkansen, it's just so much fun. I think for me, the fun part is the pre-boarding. Like this time. Where I'm either running for the train. Oh, you know what? I'm going to go get the bento now. It takes about 30 seconds for them to clean the train.

02:28 John Daub: Well, you know what? Hold on a second. I think I can get the bento afterwards. Yeah. Let's wait and get the train and then we'll do it. Check it out. They're now turning the seats around. And they're doing a really rapid job of cleaning it. You can't actually see it. Okay. There's the one guy. He's turning it around. You see? It's pretty cool to see. He's basically resetting the train for everybody.

03:05 John Daub: So what do you want to eat? You're coming with me on this trip. So what do you guys want to eat? Yeah. It is pretty cool that the trains turn the seats around really quickly for everybody. The staff clean the train extremely fast. And they're quite famous for that. It's fascinating to see the process behind the scenes of how the Shinkansen runs so smoothly. As soon as I can get onto the train, then I'm going to go and get a bento. If I have time. I believe I will.

03:55 John Daub: I'm the kind of person that likes to run from A to B. Why walk when you can run? I think that was in a movie once. Forrest Gump? Alright. We're going to go to the front of the train as well. And take a look at the beautiful Nozomi N700. But first we have to board to sit down.

04:20 John Daub: A lot of people have asked me, do you need reserved tickets or non-reserved tickets? Which one is better? I'm going to tell you right now. If you're at the origin of the Shinkansen, let's say Tokyo, for example, the train starts here. So the non-reserved makes a lot of sense. Because if you have reserved tickets, usually the windows, the left and the right side of the train will be booked. But if you have a non-reserved, because the train originates here, you're almost always going to get a seat. Or if the train before has a really long line, wait for the next train after that and you'll be able to get a seat.

04:54 John Daub: Usually you want to sit on the right side if you want to see Mount Fuji. And you're not going to see it every time. Today is kind of cloudy. Check it out. It had been raining for a couple of days, but it's kind of cloudy. There's some blue sky up there in Tokyo. So I'm hoping that in an hour or so, by the time we get to Mount Fuji and Shizuoka, we will have blue sky and be able to see Mount Fuji.

05:22 John Daub: I take the Shinkansen a lot for the job. But do you need to take the Shinkansen? Let me answer that right now. No. It's actually cheaper to fly for most places. It's cooler if you have a JR rail pass, but it's cheaper to fly. Meaning there's budget airlines from Haneda and Narita that will fly to Kagoshima and Hokkaido for less than $100. And if you take the train there, it's sometimes double or even triple the cost to do that. So I would say flying should be something that you want to... If your time is short, you should consider flying.

05:58 John Daub: Now, Renz3, who is one of the viewers, the guy loves the Shinkansen. He's had, I think, dozens of JR passes. And I learned from him the flexibility of having it. So it's a really good thing to have. But it's also kind of pricey. And unless you're using it every day or using it a lot, it's hard to see the value of that over flying for long-haul trips. Or just short hops. I think you can go to... The cheapest way to get to Osaka from Tokyo is night bus. But that's a night bus. The next day you're going to be wiped out. The next is flying, believe it or not. You can fly there for $50 these days. So it's just easy just to hop on a plane.

06:44 John Daub: You have to go through check-in and security. But it's still faster than... The Shinkansen in some ways. Because the Shinkansen goes to Shin-Osaka, not to Osaka Station. And you got to go to Itami, which is the airport for Osaka, not Kansai. And that's a little bit faster maybe than Kansai. Alright, looks like we're getting closer to being done.

07:16 John Daub: Let me take you to the front of the train. So you can just see that. It's always really cool. Everyone's waiting to get on a train. Check it out, there's the pilot. You call them pilots or captains? I'm kind of confused about that. You got to go way down here to get a good view. It's just beautiful, isn't it? I can just sit here and take this all day. Just take it in. And on the right side we have another Shinkansen, which is the next one leaving. God, look at the lines on her. It's just such a stunning work of achievement. These trains.

08:08 John Daub: Those bells always scare me. It's like, am I going to be missing the train? Why are they ringing those bells? This train is actually departing. But I don't think it's going to go anywhere. And then there's a Tokyo sign. You can see we are in Tokyo.

08:44 John Daub: So Kyoto is going to be interesting. I'm going to be filming Kiyomizudera there a little bit. And that area of the city. Then I'm going to be doing a shoot to reshoot some b-roll. Then I'm coming back home. It's like in and out. And probably in about two and a half hours I will go live again. Like probably 90% chance I'll be live again in two and a half hours or so. To show you the Kyoto Kiyomizudera temple. And it'll be like a complete tour of Kiyomizudera that I'm going to do with you live. So you might not want to miss that one. That's going to be in about two and a half hours from now. Just depends on how fast I can get to Kiyomizudera. Because Shinkansen takes a little bit over two hours to get to Kyoto. So I'll start this live stream on the train. And then you guys can subscribe to it. Or click the reminder button. So you get the notification 30 minutes before it starts.

09:39 John Daub: There's already a really long line. And you can see I'm at the front of the line. That's why I took the next Shinkansen. So if you don't take the first one, take the second one. If the line is this long, you probably just want to wait 20 minutes for the next one. That's the flexibility of having a juseki (non-reserved seat). Juseki meaning non-reserved. And you can take cars 1, 2, and 3 for that. Cars 4 until 16 is all reserved. And in Japan, people like to reserve stuff. They like to make sure that they have it. But if you're willing to fight for your seat, then you're going to do just fine with non-reserved.

10:25 John Daub: If you have a JR Rail Pass, you're limited to Hikari trains. The Hikari, we would say in Japanese. Hikari means light. Oh, here comes one now. Check it out. Man, it's so smooth. And if you love trains, then you're going to love just sitting on the platform. And just watching them. I actually made a live stream about a month and a half ago. Showing for $1.25 or about 150 yen. You can get a platform ticket. And just come here on the Shinkansen platform. You can't go anywhere. But you can sit here on the platform and just take pictures. It's meant to see your friends off or to greet people. So once they get off the train. But with that platform ticket, you can go and see the train. And it's pretty cool. And you can do that if you're in Osaka. You can go and see the Hello Kitty train. Because that's running now for another month or so.

11:38 John Daub: Alright, the staff has finished cleaning it looks like. The pink ladies are going. When you see the pink ladies go, that means it's time to get on the train. Look at her. She's confirming all of the trains that she cleaned. And then she's walking away. A lot of respect for the ladies who clean the Shinkansen train. And the guys too. They work really hard at it to make sure that we have an immaculate train when we get in there. And I believe we will. The one reason why I think you want to fight to get the window seat. Is because there's an electrical outlet. Some of the newer trains have them on each seat. But it's the window seats that have access to it. And I'm going to be using my computer so I want that electrical outlet. I will fight for that electrical outlet.

12:32 John Daub: Yeah, I'm hungry for a seat. I'm waiting for the door to open. I want to buy the bento. But I don't know if I'm going to have time to go to buy the bento. This is a practice in patience. There's the kanji for juseki, which means non-reserved seat. This is turned into an episode of the platform waiting game. There's the N700 written on the side. Woohoo. We're in. Open sesame. Awesome. Bring it on. I pick you seat number lucky seven. Yes. Boom. There you go. Stay here. I'm getting a bento. Don't move. Alright. I'm going to get a bento real fast. No risk. No reward.

13:53 John Daub: How do I get out of here? No risk. No reward. What? This is all risk. I don't see any reward. What am I doing? Where's the bento shop? Oh, I don't see it. Okay. We're just going to get a sandwich. Alright. Just get a sandwich. Whoa. This is kind of cool. Chicken katsu. Alright. Just take what you can get. And then a sandwich. This looks healthy.

15:06 John Daub: That's a lot of change. It's going to weigh me down. I'm going to run back. Alright. We totally can do this. Let's go. Let's jump. We did it. We totally did that. Rocking it. Okay. We totally had it. Time too. We totally had time. Alright, let's see what I got. That was fun. It's all about running. All aboard JR baby. Putting the tripod on.

16:30 John Daub: You guys need some legs. Alright, hold on a second. Essential. I'll get coffee from the coffee lady. I basically just picked it up. I had no vision. I just grabbed what was in front of me. This is a ham katsu mix sandwich. So it's a mixed ham cutlet sandwich. This one is interesting. This is a chicken katsu onigiri. About $2 and $2.25. And it gives you a wet napkin. Very nice lady. The ride to Kyoto is a little bit over two hours.

17:50 John Daub: Now we're going to be pulling out of Tokyo. Goodbye Tokyo. Hello Kyoto in two hours. Don't bother anybody. People can talk to their friends if you're on the Shinkansen. Just as long as you don't make a lot of noise, you're fine. Goodbye Tokyo. Next stop, Shinagawa. Yeah, right now I'm streaming on my iPhone 7 Plus. I haven't started streaming on my iPhone XS yet. I'm still wondering if I should quit SoftBank. That's the problem. I believe we're going to go, there's a big camera and the Yurakucho station area. You can see all the people on the platform as we roll through the city on the way to Shinagawa. Not all the trains stop at Shinagawa actually. But I'm going to be ending this livestream as soon as we arrive at Shinagawa.

19:02 John Daub: I like the music. I think we're going to see Tokyo Tower in a second. There's the Parliament building. We just passed it in the distance. We're going to see Tokyo Tower between the buildings. It's always kind of cool. There's Shimbashi. It should be the next station. It's always nice to say goodbye to Tokyo Tower. Goodbye Tokyo. Alright, this is I think where we start to see Tokyo Tower. There it is. Did you see it? I saw the antenna. There's usually one clean shot, right? Can you see it between the buildings? Right there. Yeah. There she is. It's Tokyo rolling by from the Shinkansen. Here goes another Shinkansen.

21:02 John Daub: Before we end, do you guys have any questions about the Shinkansen? About life? The pursuit of happiness? I'm getting ready some money I can get. How much is a cup of coffee on the Shinkansen, huh? Do you guys know how much is a cup of coffee? We're going to find out right now on a livestream. That's what we do here. Find answers. Answer questions. People are saying 200 yen. I'm going to ask that lady. There's no hot coffee yet. She just has a trolley. I think someone's writing in 300 yen. I'm going to ask that lady. She's writing in 250 yen exactly. Alright. Yeah, I'm on my way to Kyoto. I don't want to bother too many passengers, but I'm going to be there and do a livestream in about two hours from Kiyomizudera. So you might want to check that out and stay tuned to the Only in Japan Go channel as we go, you know, somewhere to Kyoto. Say goodbye to Tokyo because we won't see you again until tonight. Yep, it's just a day trip to Kyoto. Alright, bye everybody.

22:33 John Daub: She didn't have any coffee. She had pet bottles and snacks. I guess the coffee will come later. But yeah, thanks everybody for watching and I will see you on the other side. Kyoto. If you're in Kyoto, I guess I could see a Kyoto station in two hours. Central exit.