00:00:11 John Daub: English speaker with occasional Japanese place names, food terms, and cultural words. This is the history of Akihabara back here. I've done several live streams here, so there's no reason to do more of it once again. There are parts usually they come in these yellow crates and they'll put the cheapest stuff right here in the front. What we got here: lots of wires and things like this, night vision goggles—that's kind of interesting. I think some of these things have been out here so long that the sun has bleached the colors out a little bit. You know, that's good stuff. I can smell pizza, like Western foods. These back alleys also have a lot of restaurants: here is a curry rice shop, Pear Stage which is a live bar, there's a convenience store and a kebab place on the left side there. That's it—otaku (geek/enthusiast), I mean people who are here for consuming maid cafes and things like that.

00:03:23 John Daub: You know, I'm not sure if I'm gonna be able to get a lot of people to come in here, but there's one right there on the left. They don't have a lot of time to do stuff, so they want to eat—not for deliciousness, well they want something delicious and fast, and kebabs are the answer for a lot of people. So the secret garage is straight ahead. It took us three minutes and 40 seconds to get there. All right, you can see there's no sign, they're not advertising it—it's secret and you have to just walk by it and then you stop in your tracks and go "what?" Oh, here's a t-shirt shop that sells weird t-shirts. I don't even know what a lot of this stuff is: "Welcome Hell," like what? "Konoha Gay"? What? I don't even know what this means. "White Blood." All right, some weird stuff here, but we're not here for the weird t-shirts. We're here for right here. And if Scotty is watching, that he knows exactly where I am. I've come back here because I kind of want to take some video for his channel to help him out if I can. And also look at this weird hat that just says "Kill"—what? I don't know, they forgot the "Bill." Kill Bill, right? I don't know. Weird.

00:04:44 John Daub: We're gonna go in here until we get kicked out or we find something interesting. Just take a look at this really unique kind of garage sale. I'm gonna put the wide-angle lens on the other side and then we'll be able to get a better view. Well then, second—hang in there guys. All right, I think we're good. Lost the gimbal—sorry, shaken not stirred is not the way you wanted your order. All right, we got the gimbal action. Okay, here we go. So I've got this down now. I'm on wide-angle, so we're gonna go inside this garage sale and check it out. Are you ready to go deep into where no man has gone before—or where a lot of men are going right now? We start off with a bunch of these speakers here. These are about $28 and these are about $18. It's just such an eclectic mix, like laptop parts, things. There's an old DVD player, a portable one that was in style about 30 years ago. That's like $30, $35, $40 each. Wow, iPhone cases. Drill bits. What's this? I don't know. I'm not sure what this is. Everybody loves LED lights. Oh wow, look, everyone seems to be over here like a horde of zombies.

00:07:02 John Daub: Let's see if we can find here. So down here. Oh, this is where Scotty found the camera. Wow, these are like camera lenses. Each one of these camera lenses is $2.50—like $2 or $3. This is a—what is this? A zoom lens, 28 to 200. I've never seen this before. I don't know what kind of camera that would go onto. Here's a macro 28 to 80. It looks like a kit lens of some sort. It's interesting. Here's some straps. You know, you just never know what you're gonna find here. What is this? Oh, what are these? These are roller skates? Silver Fox roller skates? What? Oh, these are for cameras. Just a bunch of camera cases. Oh, and they just put it all together in a set. That's probably a good idea. You can get rid of a lot of stuff in one package. Whoa, look at that. Like what? Are these still good? Oh, this takes film. These are all 300 yen or $2.75. Wow, tripods never go bad. You guys seen this before? Flash on and off. That's a film camera. It's interesting.

00:09:20 John Daub: And here's some, but the sensors are showing—is that, that's not good. Oh, these are DSLRs. So it's the mirror is protecting the sensor, I guess. Oh, these aren't DSLRs—these are film cameras. Oh, this looks like the one that I have. Is this—this is a Canon. I have an old Nikon, but it's pretty neat. These are all $3, two to $3. All right, here's some keyboards. These are 100 yen or 75, 80 cents maybe, depending on the exchange rate. They work pretty good. That's like less than a dollar—and they work. Well, I don't know, but you have to have—these aren't USB keyboards, that's for sure. All right, got a super chat from Gretchen. Hey Gretchen. One person's junk is another person's treasure. Very true. What is this? This is $8, about eight or $9. It's a Victor. It's a JVC. It looks like it works. These are mini cassettes—sorry, do you remember? MiniDiscs, I think they were called. Yeah, these are the tech when I first got here in like the mid-nineties. And this takes three CDs. Now CD lasers don't last a long time, so I'm not sure if it plays back. Maybe that's why it's so cheap, but it's pretty cool to see. And some old, old laptops. This one is about $13.50. The keys look like they move. It doesn't seem to turn on. I guess you get to charge the battery. But these are good for like props and things like this. If you need a prop for production, maybe.

00:11:27 John Daub: And if you've lost your remote control, there you go—you can get remote controls. These are a dollar as well. This is so cool. All right, check this out here. Just everyone is shopping. So this area also has—you know, Scotty found a camera here. I'm not gonna tell you what kind of camera it was, but I think he's gonna put that in the episode. But I came in here to get some B-roll for him. So let's go over there and see what everyone's checking out. These are like hard disks. So these are old, old camera batteries. It's about two or $3 each. Cell phone batteries. I guess you can format these hard drives. Oh, and these are old, old battery chargers. That's interesting. I'm gonna go check this out. What else they got down here? It's kind of tight back here. Check it out. So on this side here, they have lots of other camera stuff. Hold on. Maybe I can get in here. Check these out. These are pocket WiFi routers. I wonder if they still work. These are like a couple hundred yen.

00:14:04 John Daub: Back here. So they have stuff like this, which is really useful for me. This case here is about $4.50. And it's made of metal. And these things are usually like a hundred bucks or more. So you can get this for $4.50—that's really a pretty good deal. And here's some other cases. These are old school camera cases. Wow. $1.50? Do you think this is worth $1.50? Whoa. They really made stuff well back then. I don't know how old this is, but it's not young. This one's even cheaper. Check it out. Petri—like Petri dish. Looks like a lunchbox. Whoa, check it out. So you can put your lenses in here and your camera up here. This is an awesome camera bag. And it's hard, so it's very protective. Look at that. And they have the little stands so you don't get it wet. This is 85 cents—100 yen. Oh, this one's just open. Oh wow. This has cushioning here, and smells really good. It's really moldy, though. I don't know if I'd want to put my camera in there. But I'm sure you can clean it out. You just have to put some love into it. And they have other cases here as well.

00:15:56 John Daub: Oh, it does work. Wow, that's like $30 for that, though. So there's a bunch of stuff here. I don't know if I'm into it. Oh, these are cases for laptops. Interesting. So I don't see what we had last time. I guess every time it's just different stuff. If you're ever looking for a wire, you can get... I get tons of wires like these in my studio, in my room where I do the editing. But you can get lots of these wires, things that come with these adapters, AC adapters. You could definitely use these for other stuff. Here's miniature camera cases. It's really cool to see. Just maybe you strike gold. Oh, these are adapters. These are a dollar. And then sometimes you'll find just overrun parts that they found in a garage or they found upstairs in a... Oh, these are stickers. Headphones. They probably took the headphones from airplanes or something and just recycled these. I don't know. They look like the airplane headphones, but you get the whole bunch of them for a dollar. And then down here, more remote controls. Oh, and selfie sticks. This is pretty cool. Joystick. That's weird. And these are old. It looks like iPhone 30-pin iPhone wires. And these, I don't know what this is. This is like LED lights in them or something. I guess you can put that in through something. Maybe a cord or something. It's interesting.

00:17:58 John Daub: It's really like these lenses were a pretty good deal. And I just don't know if you can ever use these. Oh, I mean, the camera was on. Oh, they're looking at cameras there. These are the digital cameras down there. I was looking at this thing. Check this out. These are all hand-held Canon. It's $2.80, 300 yen about. It's crazy. Oh, these are all laptop batteries. And these are useful because they don't make them anymore. You know if you're looking for something particular, you never know if you're gonna find it there. iPhone chargers. These are four dollars and fifty cents about—that's pretty cool. And then sometimes just these things that are kind of newer. This looks like a pretty good Lowepro—Lowepro is a very famous maker. How much is this? So they've got a bunch of them here. Sometimes you have to ask the staff, but you don't know who the staff is. Oh, it says here up here on the cardboard. Oh wow, that's cheap. It's about twelve, thirteen dollars. The Lowepro case is ten dollars and these tripods are pretty cheap too. Check it out. That's worth twelve bucks. I just don't need it. So there you go.

00:19:56 John Daub: That's sort of what this garage is. I put a link in the description if you want to try to find this place. I mean, it's kind of worth it if you're in Akihabara—just stop on by. But it's only open on the weekends. There are other stuff here. It seems like just like a garage sale. That's a hundred yen for that. He said they do sell clothes. They sell just a bit, I guess—if it's in here it's on sale. Wow. Interesting, that's pretty interesting. Wait a second. There's one more thing here: snowboards. Really? That's pretty cool—six bucks, five bucks, I don't know. It's pretty much just a garage sale. And if you look at it from this point of view, you can see there's not too much to it, but it's sort of secret. There's no signs for it—something that you just find when you walk by and you have to be in Akihabara for it. And if you're not in Akihabara, you can watch the stream and then you're just sort of part of it. But everybody makes a stop here just to see what they got every weekend because it's just things that they're cleaning out from electronic stores, closed out electronic stores, things from the 1980s, 1990s you'll find here. One of these lights for a hundred yen—that's really cheap. These are LED Christmas lights. These are great for Christmas—one of these for a hundred yen, like 80 cents, 90 cents.

00:21:53 John Daub: I'm in the market for a new car. I'm not sure if I want to pay $75 for this though. It is a classic though. I don't think that that kid is a kid anymore. What do you think? I think this guy might be a full-grown adult by now—the toilet trainer. One of maybe not as proud of moments as he sits in his office building at age 25 going, "I never thought that this would come back and haunt me." Sorry, buddy. There you are. All right, I'm gonna walk backwards from here so you get an idea of how random this is. And this is Akihabara in a nutshell: a lot of these old buildings. This and it is really an old building—check it out. It's just... That's Akihabara. There's a lot of new stuff to it, but really when you get off of the Main Street and go in the alleys you'll find tons of places like this. And this is what makes Akihabara—kind of give it that personality in my opinion. Yeah, I'm gonna take you out right now onto the Main Street again, and I'm gonna get out of here.

00:23:03 John Daub: I'm editing another video for the channel—one on Kyoto dining experience. It's gonna be a lot of fun. That should be out next week. But I just released—if you want to go check it out—the Ogasawara video is up. I worked really hard on that one, so I hope you enjoy it. That's an island. That's Tokyo, but it's... There's the Gachapon Kaikan (capsule toy machine building) by the way. It's Tokyo, but it's a thousand kilometers away. Wow, it's crowded on the weekends. Just take a quick look. What do they got? Love it. Sesame Street characters hats for your cats. You gotta love it. It's the randomness that we all search for. So the garage is right behind the Gachapon Kaikan, and if you've been here before you know exactly where it is. Now we're back on Chuo Dori (Central Avenue). I didn't see anything that I really wanted there in the garage sale, but I might go back in there just to film a little bit more for Scotty's channel. And I'm gonna go check out the place that we went to in Saitama—see if the owner will allow me to at least snap a picture of him for his episode. That'd be really nice to have for him. But if you come here on the weekend, you too can be walking the streets of Akihabara just like this.

00:24:53 John Daub: It's closed down for shopping purposes, and I think just for safety. I think it was about ten years ago there was an accident where some sick guy plowed into people and then he jumped out with a weapon and started hurting people. I think he—was one of the biggest tragedies, it was the biggest tragedy in this area. It's nice to see them closed down and have security here now because a lot of people after that did not want to come to Akihabara. Just seemed a little bit too dangerous. Take off the wide-angle lens. There you go. This is the place where they blast Legend of Zelda music outside. Also, by the way guys, I don't see it. Hold on a second. I heard that YouTube fixed the mirroring problem—they didn't do that. I wonder if I get a lens that'll do that though. YouTube still has the mirroring problem on the app. That's a shame. I'm just gonna walk over here with some figures. They do have lucky bags here and then I like to sit here when I'm here just to absorb some of the music. I'll be humming this tune now for the rest of the day.

00:26:42 John Daub: All right, folks, that's all I got you. You've all seen this before and there's the security that I was talking about. Do you see? There's an officer. He goes back and forth pretty much enforcing the three laws that I showed you starting off this live stream: no performances, no cars or bicycles—you can't ride your bicycle through here, you have to get off the bike and walk it, and no selling. But you can take group shots. So if you want to come with your buddies and take a picture on Chuo Dori, I highly recommend it. It's a nice place. Oh, I think he's asking if he said he could take the picture for them. Oh wow, that's so nice. So he's actually going around cleaning the street and he's taking a picture for the tourists. That's really nice. I like that. There's a omotenashi—that's the spirit of omotenashi (hospitality) in Japan. Everybody here is your guest and make sure that they get a good shot. And it's gonna be a lot better standing than taking it from that low position anyways. That's really nice. That's nice to see.

00:28:17 John Daub: I'm not a big fan of these owl cafes, but they are here. See that? I was a little shy. Oh there he is. Hello, owl. Everybody wants to live out that Harry Potter dream. The problem with these owl cafes is that they don't have a lot of space to spread their wings and sometimes there are too many owls in there. But it's nice to see—it's nice for kids. What's wrong with the gimbal? Oh I took off the—there you go. This is the Don Quixote. Surprised the owls won't fly away—the owls are on a, they have a something around their wrist, their claw—they can't fly away. This here guys is the entrance to the secret alley shrine. And if you want to go to the secret alley shrine, you go between here and we're gonna do that right now. Why not? We got 5% battery. Alright, they're just gonna—good, do it. Okay, ready. It's open again by the way. It's between the street off of Chuo Dori just like here, so you can walk through here. It's actually this is a street—it's all clean now. Been repaired. Oh it's still pretty tight, it's pretty tight, but you can walk through here. It is a street and it's open—it was closed for construction and now it's back open again.

00:30:16 John Daub: And in the corner the secret shrine is still available for view—just for those of you I just happen to be here. So there you go: brand new gate, new stairs. Um, the—that those aren't new and the shrine itself is not new—it was just being stored and this is not new, this was still here the whole time, the torii (shrine gate). But it's nice and clean so you'll still be able to find it. So it's back again—come and enjoy. It's easier to come through the exit than it is to go through the entrance. This is the exit—just go around and come from the backside and it's easier to see. You can see the entrance that we talked about. Oh there's the exit—this is the entrance. Let's go. The secret shrine is right there. And uh this is the exit which could be the entrance—you don't have to go, you can do either or. The ancient secret shrine—this is the way, this is the way you should probably come. Then there it is right there. All right, yeah thanks for the thumbs up.

00:31:22 John Daub: Thanks for watching everybody. We've done this for 30 minutes and I've shown you everything that I wanted to show you. Um, have a good day, a good weekend—it's already Sunday afternoon. I'm going to go see Mr. Seiichi um and have dinner at Kanae's house for Sunday dinner. I think Mr. Seiichi might be there to play a little bit, do a little bit of karaoke. This is kind of cool—so these are 24-hour figure vending machines. So you can get some figures—they're about $30 to $40 each. It's a software machine converted into figures. Wow, hey oh—they really change it up here. So if you get a prize inside you get a certificate to get a PlayStation 4 Pro. I didn't know that—slightly creepy. Just slightly creepy. I don't know, would you want that on your bed? Probably I don't know—just saying. All right guys, there's the Halloween spirit right in front of me so I will see you next time in another live stream. Thanks for joining me. Um I hope you have a good day and a good weekend everybody.

00:33:05 John Daub: Do you see that? She put the fly in front of her face because she didn't want to be filmed. I wasn't really filming her anyways. Film the maids on the streets—although why the maids on the streets in Japan, you still have privacy rights. So even though you're in the streets and it's public, it doesn't mean you have the right to film somebody. So just because they're a maid on the street doesn't mean they're in public domain. If they don't want their picture taken or published then they have the right to say no. In Japan in the United States is different—in Japan there's privacy laws, you have to respect that. Don't gorilla shoot people's faces and then put it on YouTube—you'll get in big trouble or you might not, but just know it's not supposed to do it. All right that's all I got from Akihabara for the fourth time. Last 20 seconds walking down central Chuo Dori on the weekend. See you next time everybody.