00:00:00 John Daub: Welcome to Roppongi. It's raining outside. It's absolutely the worst possible time to do a live stream because when I started it, it wasn't raining at all and now it's really starting to come down, so this is going to be a short one. But I thought I would just share with you anyways. It's a little bit of the nightlife here in Roppongi on a Friday night. It's a pretty exciting place. You can see lots of people around here.

00:00:27 John Daub: Sorry, the last live stream kind of was DOA. Did not activate. It's starting to come down. You can see my jacket's getting soaking wet. It was not raining 10 minutes ago when I decided to start this live stream. Foolish me. I thought that we would be able to do it but it looks like this live stream is going to be cut short because we're going to get rained out just like a baseball game. There's not much I can do about it. I don't even have an umbrella and I kind of want to go home.

00:01:03 John Daub: Hey, how's it going? I'm seeing everybody's starting to come over to the last live stream. I'm really sorry. I apologize. The other live stream was activated and then shut down and then I couldn't get back onto it. So apologies for those that are following me, finding me late as I've already started. There's the famous Roppongi sign above the highway over the intersection and Mori Tower where YouTube's headquarters used to be. They're moving to Shibuya, I believe.

00:01:32 John Daub: And the rain's coming down more and more and I'm going to have to find a way to get inside. But this is Friday night in Roppongi and you'd think it'd be a lot more active, more crowded and it's just not. I'm going to make this light. This is a very, very short live stream and I'm actually getting cold. Summer was officially over like a few days ago when the weather turned cold really quickly. Now it's autumn. It feels like autumn but it didn't last that long. Last week. That's why I got a jacket. First time all year.

00:02:11 John Daub: How's the weather? Wet. You can see the rain really coming down here on the road. But we're going to walk a little bit through here so you get an idea of what Roppongi is like on the weekends. Right now you can see it's pretty crowded. It's like this every Friday. There's a lot of security which makes me feel safe. But there's a lot of people. A lot of them are already drunk. The last train is usually a little bit more crowded, usually around 11:40. So that's when the stations get the most crowded. And then after that time you're trapped here until morning.

00:02:46 John Daub: So we're just going to do a quick walk around this area at night. I think I've done it before but it's not always the safest thing to do when you are walking around with a camera. There's a lot of rugby fans out here. I've noticed. But there's no rugby matches tonight. That's tomorrow and Sunday. I used to—the first club I ever went to was down this alley, a place called Lexington Queen which went out of business 20 years ago.

00:03:36 John Daub: Whoa, that's a big chunk of meat right there. I'm getting really cold. I started this and it wasn't raining 10 minutes ago. For those that are joining us right now, the weather was a lot better but I'm gonna cross the street here and then just call it a night. We're gonna call this the midnight snack runaway. All right, there's something that I want to introduce to you. It's really important. It's not that big piece of meat on my shoulder but for the 340 people watching right now, a supporter of mine, a viewer, had sent me some information on this kid here. His name is Bryant, hashtag Sac Ninja, and he's seven years old and he has to do open heart surgery. I don't know the story too much, I just know that this kid's really brave.

00:05:17 John Daub: So I'm going to send him right now—after I kind of go into cover here—I'm gonna send him this postcard. This is going to you, Bryant. His address is right here and if you want to send him a postcard too, go right ahead. I gave him the Tokyo Olympics mascot and Bryant Mordean Oya, PO Box 1386, Salida, California, 95368 USA. This is a postcard that I'm sending him and I wrote him an encouraging message. Keep fighting. Love from Japan. And he's seven years old and he wants to be a ninja.

00:05:55 John Daub: So I'm going to put this right now. Here's the address one more time. Definitely send him a postcard and give him a shout out from Only in Japan. This is going right now from Roppongi in the post office to you, going to California from that post box here. Just a shout out to him. He actually had a Make-A-Wish campaign. Here he is right here. Bryant, here you are. You are in Japan right now. There's Tokyo Tower right there in the center of the screen. So there's Sac Ninja. He was five years old then. He's seven now. And he has some love from the channel to a viewer on the other side of the world.

00:06:42 John Daub: Yeah, guys, take a screenshot of the address. But I wanted to do that. I wanted to do that on the air tonight. It's getting really cold. It'd be pretty cool if Bryant gets postcards from all around the world. That'd be pretty cool. Oh, there's the old Hard Rock Cafe. See that in the center of the screen right there. You see the rain coming down, don't you? Oh, this is the famous bowl of udon (noodles). See that? There's the udon in there. And they have these massive bowls of udon. There's a curry udon.

00:07:37 John Daub: Oh, man. This place is always crowded, but there's apparently seats right now. That's really rare. So we're going to cross the street and walk back to Roppongi Station and then John is out of here. These guys are very vocal. They're not speaking Japanese or English. People from all over the world are in Roppongi because it's very close to a lot of the embassies. So this is the nightlife for expats. It used to be. But I think a lot of expats that live here in Japan, they're not going to be able to get out of here. So they're going to have to go to Roppongi Station. It's just not the same as it was 20 years ago.

00:08:29 John Daub: Man, I wish they had some hot taiyaki (fish-shaped waffle). If they do, if I do see something on the street, I'm going to get it. We have one bar to go. Either that or I'm going to go home. Kanae's making a hot cup of tea, please. Hot cup of tea. Oh, that's a cute animated emoji. I like that. All right. So let's walk back over towards the station. The rain's really, really coming down, guys. It makes the streets look pretty because the reflections off of the wet streets. But if you look back this way, you can see Tokyo Tower is in the middle of the screen. Do you see that? And that's really nice, too.

00:09:30 John Daub: This could be snow. Oh, Daniel, thank you. Warmth money. So I like that. We had a postcard sent out to the Sac Ninja, California. There's another post box. I could have done it from here. And just a week ago, it was shorts weather and it was pretty humid and it completely just died and turned cold. That's really, really dumb. And the police will get them if they see you. Don't do that. Karina Palma, thank you. Hot cup of coffee. A cup of tea. I'm mostly worried about the gimbal. This is a new Osmo 3 and I don't want to get it too much more wet.

00:10:51 John Daub: But okay, there's a club right there. I'm just not a club guy. I don't get excited for that. I get excited for Kanae going to see a movie or something. But I guess when you get married, you don't have to go out anymore, huh? That door's pretty cool. Look at the line of people. What's with this club? These guys are saying some not nice stuff. I don't know if the audio picked up what they were saying. I'm kind of hoping that they didn't. Oh, geez. Really? Are there many of those people in the area? The answer would be maybe. I don't think they promote themselves. They kind of hide in the shadows. But they could be.

00:12:07 John Daub: I am hungry. I could eat a kebab maybe. I could but I'm freezing. I'm divided between going home and staying out and eating more. But I think if the weather turns good, this is a really good place to eat. The temperature has really dropped as well. Here's the iconic sign. It's iconic because when you come to Roppongi to the main intersection, you see that right in the middle there. The lights dancing off of it. It's really bright. All right, you know what? I'm going to take you guys a little bit further.

00:12:43 John Daub: This is a big meeting point for me. This area. A lot of people meet here in front of Almond. But Almond has moved over here. Right there. It used to be there. We don't do that anymore. And to be honest, I don't come to this area on a Friday night much. That's why this is pretty special. I don't really come to Roppongi on Friday nights anymore. Carlos telling me to fight. Carlo, you got it, buddy. We're going to fight this out. I'm going to get to the Oedo Line the long way. Either I could go underground or I could just fight it out and go the long way. I think we're going to do the long way. Because that's what that dancing bear would do. Embrace the rain. I would love to embrace it. It is getting a little nipply.

00:14:03 John Daub: Actually, there's some takoyaki (octopus balls) over here. So let's see if I can get some takoyaki over here. Maybe across the street. If you go this way, this will take you to Shibuya eventually. Underneath the tracks, it'll take you to the Kill Bill restaurant. Gonpachi (Gonpachi), inspired Tarantino for the layout for the Kill Bill 2 fight scene with all the swords. That restaurant exists here. It's called Gonpachi and you can go to Nishiazabu and make a reservation. It's a little overpriced for the food you get, but it's pretty good. You can't complain because the quality is good. You could do worse, a lot worse.

00:14:58 John Daub: Does it look like Blade Runner? I don't know. So you've got the iPhone 11 Pro, which looks really good. The colors are popping. That's so cool. I'm casting live from Roppongi on a Friday night in the rain. Oh, look, just some sweet gyoza (gyoza in soup). You see that shop on the left side? That's sweet gyoza. You can see the billboard up there looking at it right there, too. Above. That looks really good. I guess you could actually order this outside. Ah, it's so cold. And here's some Gindaco. Gindaco is takoyaki.

00:16:26 John Daub: Should I get one for Kanae? It's like really late for her. Let's get some Gindaco. Pizza takoyaki. This is a pizza takoyaki. I've never had this before in my life. Pizza takoyaki. What? I just wanted pizza. But when you put the two together, you get this. Hi, how are you? I'm good. All right. Well, we got something. I'm freezing. All right, let's try and see if we can get some shelter at Midtown. So, Roppongi Midtown is just straight ahead a little ways. And then maybe we can find some cover.

00:18:51 John Daub: No, I don't have an umbrella. Yes, I wish I had one. Yes, I do own one at my home. No, I don't want to buy one because I have a dozen of them at home. Yes, I'll survive. Yes, I'm cold. No, I'm not going to eat it right this very second because I know better and I know that it's going to burn my mouth. Yes, I want to find some cover. No, I don't want to stay out here all night. I'm not, I actually don't even see the stream. I'm just answering my own questions on what I would. That's a nice color pink. Very vibrant pink.

00:19:30 John Daub: Green light, red light, green light. Ow, ow, ow. Okay, go, go, go. The rain is really coming. It's coming in my face. The overhang for the subway. Our viewers, Laura and her son Kobe, we're going to be here and they're not here. So, Kobe and Laura, if you're watching this, I'm looking for you. And there's a takoyaki with your name on it. I'm going to save that takoyaki for you. Laura, Kobe, I'm at Tokyo Midtown. I'm here. You can come and find me. And I will save the takoyaki. It's cold. This is really cold.

00:20:42 John Daub: I'm going to eat this takoyaki right here. That's pretty cool. They got tables out here. It was meant for eating takoyaki or what. But we're going to do the unboxing right now. There's Roppongi Midtown. It's a pretty nice building. The Fuji Xerox building is right there. Really nice. They gave you a little Tabasco sauce with this. Oh, that's nice. We can use that. All right, guys. We're going to go to the next place. This is interesting. This is a pizza takoyaki. I've never had anything like this before. Pizza takoyaki. I've had takoyaki. I've had pizza, but I've never seen them together.

00:21:58 John Daub: So we're going to try this because it just seemed like a smart thing to do at the time. Itadakimasu (let's eat). All right. It smells like bacon. They put bacon on this. Just bacon on takoyaki. That's really interesting. Takoyaki. Would I order this again? No. But it's really interesting taste. We discovered something new. Pizza takoyaki from Gindaco. Available now at participating stores near you. Do you have a Gindaco near you? That's bacon on there. Like B-A-C-O-N. Not baking in an oven bacon. I still prefer the old school Osaka takoyaki.

00:23:18 John Daub: But let's put some of that Tabasco sauce on there. Why would—Tabasco on takoyaki. It's crazy, right? Tabasco on takoyaki. Bacon, cheese, takoyaki. Who came up with this? Seriously. That Tabasco is really good. It has another place in your mouth. Pleasantly surprised. Well done, Gindaco. You've discovered a new flavor that I've never had before ever. Look at the cheese on there. Whoa. Kanae, do you want some? Are you watching, Kanae? Kanae's not watching. Oh, the rain is starting to go away. It's still really, really chilly.

00:24:55 John Daub: Nobody... Mr. Das isn't here. I can get away with not drinking anything in a stream if Mr. Das isn't here. Oh, yeah. How good are your chopstick skills? I find it pretty good. The rain's starting to go away a little bit. The wind has died down. It was a little bit windy. Oh, man. That was good. Did I need to eat that? Not really. My diet starts tomorrow.

00:25:58 John Daub: All right, guys. This is Tokyo Midtown right here. You see that? Boom. Starting to warm up a little bit from the takoyaki. I have a takoyaki warm going on inside my body. Tokyo Midtown is a shopping mall that they built. I wish the YouTube app guys would allow me to go to the super zoom. There's a super wide-angle lens that would totally blow you away. But I can't do that yet. But I think they're working on it. It's a beautiful area for shopping. But on the other side, they have some of the best Christmas lights in the city. And it's a great place to just stroll. A lot of open space here. But for me, this is also the entrance to the subway.

00:26:47 John Daub: Some great museums in this area. Yeah. The lens looks like it's not too wet. Let's see some of the restaurants that they have here in Roppongi Midtown. Oh, look at that teppanyaki (iron griddle grill) steak. Kisente. It looks very good. Presto is encouraging me. Hal Yamashita. That looks pretty good. That fusion cuisine. Look what happened to that fish. I bet you when they caught it, they never knew that they'd be part of the Nirvana New York menu. Nice. And Harbs. That was in one of the first Only in Japan episodes. Harbs. Cherry Blossom Cake was, I believe, the fourth or the fifth episode of Only in Japan. We introduced their delicious Cherry Blossom Cake.

00:27:45 John Daub: And this is Pizzeria e Trattoria Napule. Brick oven pizza. Kanae loves that. Kanae always goes, let's get one and share it. And then she eats it all. We need to get two and not share it. Or share half and half. Works out better that way. Oh, macarons. Oh, they look good. Nice. Oh, that looks like a good one. It's like a wonderful oyakodon (chicken and egg rice bowl). It's egg and chicken mixed. Oyakodon is the best on a bed of rice. I love it. Oh, man.

00:28:23 John Daub: And this is Roppongi Station. You can see here. Roppongi Midtown is right here. It's closest to the Oedo Line. And Hibiya Line is over here. It's very hard to connect. So you can do it underground, but it's sometimes from the exit that you take, you have to go overground and get underground. You cannot get to the Oedo Line from this area. You have to walk all the way to the intersection to get to the Oedo Line. That's one of the things that troubled me. This is Roppongi Hills and Roppongi Midtown. And this is the street that we walked today with all of the bars and the crazy people and everybody drinking a lot. You can see this side of the town. This side of the intersection is a lot tamer.

00:29:08 John Daub: It's getting really cold again. The wind has picked up. Oh, so we're going to come back here on another weekend when it's not raining, I think. And do perhaps another live stream. But, yeah, just a shout out to Sac Ninja. Bryant, your postcard has been sent. If you'd like to send a postcard, one of our viewers, he's seven years old and he's having open heart surgery. And he's so brave. So I want to send him some love from Japan because he wants to be a ninja and he loves Japan. So we sent him a postcard about 20 minutes ago. Go back and take a look at it. I put in Bryant's address. His parents said OK to it. You can send a postcard or a letter to him to encourage him.

00:29:56 John Daub: Again, if you search on Google Sac Ninja, S-A-C-N-I-N-J-A, you'll see his Make-A-Wish video where the city let him be a ninja for the day. And he got to kick the butt of a criminal and help a police officer with a bank robbery. And things like this. It's a really moving video. When he was five years old and he's now seven years old and he has to go through a lot of stuff. And I'm just really happy to send him a postcard and maybe I'll do it again next month to encourage him to keep on fighting because ninjas got to fight. Actually, ninjas don't fight. Ninjas run away.

00:30:43 John Daub: Just so you know that. Sac Ninja, if you're watching. Ninjas actually don't fight. They do everything by stealth. They throw the shuriken (throwing star) like this and then they run away. They don't stick around to fight. Just so you know all this stuff in the movies is all completely wrong. But I don't want to burst your bubble. Just saying I'm a stickler for details. Ninjas are not samurai. They don't want to get into a fight and they're not that strong. They kind of just run away. So just saying, Sac Ninja, I actually hope I did not just destroy your dream. Maybe a Lone Ranger is better. Lone Ranger fires pistols and stuff. Maybe Batman. I don't know. Actually, technically they're not really that powerful. They look cool, I guess. They just hide.

00:31:38 John Daub: You and the West have been fed a bunch of lies about ninjas. You think ninjas are all tough and they kill people. They do, but they don't fight. They just run away. The idea is to avoid fighting. Yeah, so if you like ninjas or you don't like ninjas, click the like button right now because I'm cold and I want to go home. So that's it. Oh, there's some great clubs in this way. I remember now down these streets there's a couple of really good clubs that I haven't been to in 10 years because I don't go clubbing anymore. Ninjas basically spy. Exactly.

00:32:22 John Daub: Okay, we're going to go the way to eat beef so bad. And I'm just going to break this thing down now. So just take it off. The live stream is better. Let me know in the comments below. This midnight snack run has been rained out but there'll be another one soon, I think. Oh, Friday night feels good to be going home. I've never been one to stay out late. Work on the next report. Oh, new main channel episode coming. Driving in Japan should be out this weekend.

00:33:43 John Daub: Here are the ticket prices for the Oedo Line. Everything is about 220 yen and then it goes all the way up to 380 yen to the ends. Oedo Line has four lines and that's the line I'm gonna get on. Pizza sushi's next, you know. Sushi. I cannot believe they had pizza takoyaki. That's amazing. I put my ICOCA card in here. That's my Suica (IC card). This is how I'm getting home. You guys are coming home with me.

00:34:48 John Daub: That's nice. Let's throw this in. In Japan we can recycle newspapers, magazines, cans, bottles, plastic and then other trash and the station will actually sort through it. That's not the best job to have in the world. The restrooms in the subway stations are pretty darn clean. What's the weirdest fusion food that you've ever seen in Japan? I'd have to say—people can't hear. It's the water has gotten into the microphone. Hold up. How's that? Sorry, the microphone is—when the water gets into the microphone it's hard to hear.

00:35:54 John Daub: All right, we're going now down into the deepest subway station in the entire world. That's—I just made that up. This is one of the deepest stations in Tokyo. I think it is the deepest. It's like 100 meters deep maybe. I'm not sure. All I know is this is really deep. Okay, I don't want to make up data because I get in trouble. People yell at me. This is what it's like to go home at Roppongi Station after eating takoyaki. I am now simulating how to go back home after eating takoyaki.

00:37:45 John Daub: You're not gonna make it. Run, run, run. You're never gonna make it. You're not gonna make it. Lady, you're not gonna make it. Did you make it? She didn't make it. I told you. And there goes the Oedo Line. I knew it. For many people that's the last train. For me I have a couple more. All right, this has been a really cold night. Thanks everybody for joining me on this live stream. I wanted to eat more food but the rain came down and spoiled our fun. But that doesn't mean we won't have more fun later on.

00:38:29 John Daub: So I think I'll be doing some live streams tomorrow. It's Saturday, it's the weekend. So we got a couple of things that we can introduce to you tomorrow and the next day. Let's just call this a warm-up then, shall we? Hopefully doesn't rain tomorrow. If it does, I'll have to find something more creative to bring you from Tokyo. And I'm looking forward to traveling outside of the city again because every time we go to a different area of Japan we get a chance to see something new and I want to bring you something new other than one of Tokyo's deepest train stations right now, which is true story. It's pretty deep.

00:39:03 John Daub: When is the next train? How long do you have to wait? For me, oh, we have to wait for seven minutes. Can you guys stick with me for seven minutes? There's some things I can show you here while we have some time to kill. Do you see this here? This is on every single train station and this is a guide to all of the stations and the cars on each train. And for those of you who don't take subways often, what you have here is the station name Roppongi. And when you get in here, pick the car near the exit where you're going to be getting off. So it tells you which car you should get on.

00:39:46 John Daub: Let's say I wanted to get off in Shinjuku and I wanted to ride the JR train. JR is right here, so it's best for me to get on right now in cars 3. And there'd be an escalator right here and car one would have an elevator. So I would go to the front of the car here and then at Shinjuku when I get off the elevator is right there. And it tells you all of the stations. It tells you where the bathrooms are as well. So if you really gotta go right now, go to car number three. When you get to your station at Ichigaya you're going to be able to get to the toilet a lot quicker. And, you know, nighttime on a Friday night that means something to some people.

00:40:19 John Daub: Oh, it's really cool. It looks like takoyaki. Grill takoyaki. Roppongi Station is kind of curved like that but you can see it is really deep. Look at all the escalators it takes to get down here. Here's the ticket booth. You come in, come down to the S, you come down and then got to go down escalator and escalator and escalator to get—escalator and then escalator again. Just depends on if you get lost or not. And there's a Tokyo subway route map if you haven't seen it before. Oedo Line is like the Yamanote Line of the subways. That's the one I'm on right now. It doesn't go like a perfect circle but it'll go around the city.

00:41:07 John Daub: And that means if you get on here about an hour later you're going to be back here again. But it's not as much fun of a ride as—it's not as much fun of a ride as a subway line because you can't see anything on the subway. This train never goes above ground and it's one of the newest subway lines because it was made in 2000, I believe. One of the latest to open. The Fukutoshin Line is a little bit newer. That's this one here, the brown one. That one opened up maybe five years ago. Yeah, that opened up about five years ago, the Fukutoshin Line. Sorry, Fukutoshin. So that's the newest line here that connects Shibuya with Ikebukuro but the Oedo Line is also pretty new in terms of the other lines. 2000.

00:42:06 John Daub: This is a rule I never follow: do not rush. But I highly recommend that you don't rush here. And then for me I'm going to be getting off in the middle of the train so I'm going to go down here. Yeah, that Kill Bill restaurant is Gonpachi, which is about a 10 minute walk from Roppongi Station. It's a nice walk. I've done it before and I'll do it again. The subway is coming. We're about five minutes away. Well, there's the subway mascot. Hey, look like a watermelon. Look at that. Don't rush. Look how short he is. He can't even see the train coming.

00:42:57 John Daub: Do you need to speak Japanese to be able to travel around Japan? I don't think so. Tokyo is pretty easy to get around just [with] English. And a lot of the people watching here have traveled to Japan and can tell you it's very easy to get around the city of Tokyo with just English. I think you might be intimidated to go into some of the restaurants but it is so worth it to just explore and get out of your comfort zone and to try some new things and to try restaurants and things that you don't know.

00:43:36 John Daub: I kind of want to bring you more of that in the live streams. Show you things that you wouldn't normally want to try. You can see the phone I'm using right now. The stuff that you wouldn't want to try and maybe that'll help ease you into trying it. So also if you're watching this, click the subscribe button and I will take you to some of those places that make tourists feel uncomfortable because they're so Japanese. But if I can show you and ease you into it and introduce you to some of the foods maybe it'll be really useful, I think, to watch that. So I'll try it out.

00:44:14 John Daub: So the Google Analytics says that 85% of the people who watch are not subscribed to Only in Japan Go. So please subscribe, make sure the bell is on always and you will be rewarded with an amazing amount of information like a man eating pizza takoyaki in a rainstorm. Wasn't even a storm. A man who exaggerates and then apologizes for that exaggeration in a very polite way. It's more like what I do. You'll get a lot of that. A lot of food exploring. You'll get live streams if you subscribe. You'll get live streams of me and my wife walking around while I tease her and she doesn't understand what it means and then people get angry. You'll see that and then I'll apologize in a Japanese way and then we'll eat food and then it's like it never happened. That's what happens. That's why you subscribe. You want more of that.

00:45:08 John Daub: Okay, here it comes, the train. And then we're gonna say goodbye because I want to live stream on the train unless we get to like 500 likes and maybe I might live stream on the train. But we'll never get to 500 likes by that. I heard it comes. This is one of the thinnest trains too. It'll announce that the train is coming but now it's over. All right guys, see we didn't even come close to 500 likes. See you guys have a good day, good night wherever you are in the world. Thanks for keeping me company at the end.