00:00:02 John Daub: Hello everybody, greetings from Iidabashi Station. Iidabashi is where most people will start their adventures to Kagurazaka. As you can see, the Yurakucho Line, Oedo Line, Tozai Line, they all come here, the Namboku Line, exit B4b, and then you're here. It's a very short walk to get to the main street. Kagurazaka means God, music, slope. You're gonna see all three of those in this live stream.

00:00:38 John Daub: The great thing about this place is there are so many hidden alleys in this neighborhood. There's so many little corners to this place. It makes it a fascinating area to wander around in. And I probably will be coming back in another live stream, maybe with Kanae. It's a romantic place. It's a place where you can spend half a day completely getting lost or just enjoying the cafe culture here. Let's go for a walk. That's what we're here for. I'm just gonna start by going through some alleys.

00:01:08 John Daub: But if you do go around this way, you'll see the giant gyoza that I ate a few years ago. I think every YouTuber has done that food challenge. Here's a map just to give you an overview of the area. There's Korakuen Park and Tokyo Dome. So it's not that far away from Tokyo Dome. We're right here. Yeah, we're gonna go through this area. So this alley and then you can see it right here, Kagurazaka Dori. Dori means street. So this road, we're gonna walk up and after that, we're going to go into some of the alleys there and really explore this area.

00:01:40 John Daub: You can see Sotobori, the road here. So Kagurazaka was on the edge of Edo Castle, the moat. So it's a place that always had a very significant and aristocratic neighborhood for centuries. And of course, you can see a Starbucks right there. Don't get a Starbucks. Let's go to something a little bit better. Not that it's bad. It's just that, you know, you're in Kagurazaka. You want to go get something really good.

00:02:11 John Daub: We're gonna start by going through these alleys here. Welcome, everybody. If this is your first live stream, please do subscribe. I'm gonna get a quick water actually. Look at this. American water. Crystal Geyser. Ah. All right. Gotta get one of those. Right off the bat. All right. Who wants to push the button? Crystal Geyser water in Japan. All right. Follow these students. Let's turn around the check. Is that really a YouTuber? Yes.

00:03:05 John Daub: Stay hydrated on a walking tour. So I wanted to come and do this neighborhood because to be honest, I don't know a lot about it. So I'm exploring it. This is not my first time by any means, but it's been a while. It's a really nice warm day for November 2nd. As you can see, it's the alleys that really have the personality. But we're going to go take a look at the main street. But I don't want you to stick to the main street by any means. Because it's the alleys here that you have to explore.

00:03:51 John Daub: There's a Sega World in the alley right there. I mean, it's like a super hidden Sega World. And then there's a French cafe right there. This is because of all the expats. Once we get to the Kagurazaka area, you can see that the vending machines have to take on kind of a different color. Hide themselves a little bit. They're camouflaged. Iidabashi doesn't have the same reputation. But Kagurazaka! This is a place where you'll still find, in Tokyo, traditional geisha houses with ryotei (high-end Japanese restaurants). Ryotei are where you'll be entertained by geisha. And you'll have kaiseki-ryori (multi-course Japanese cuisine). You can find that here.

00:04:36 John Daub: Now, at the end of this alley, you can see that there's a lot of people walking down this street. This is Kagurazaka's main avenue here. We'll cross the street. Boom. As I said, this Kagurazaka means God, music, slope. There's the slope right there. And there's a really nice flower shop on the corner as well. At the entrance of the street, you will see that it is a major intersection. And a lot of the tourists will be coming from the universities. There's lots of universities in this area. Sophia University is not too far away. All right, let's climb this slope. See what we can find. Hit some of these alleys. Explore. Live. And if you're in Tokyo, you can come and try to find me. Good luck. I'm on the move. There's a map in the description as well.

00:05:52 John Daub: Now Kagurazaka has a very vibrant... I think they call it Little Paris. So it's a vibrant French community here. You're going to find some of the city's best French food in this neighborhood, but it's that dedication to food in general which makes it a good place to eat. Some of the best restaurants in Kanto, the area that Tokyo is in, are right here in Kagurazaka. Here's a sushi place for 75 yen a sushi, which is about 70 cents. Little sushi bar. Looks like some pretty good nigiri sushi right there. Comes with a miso soup for $8. Sometimes they close this street, which makes it really nice for walking around. Already I'm winded. It's a slope.

00:07:08 John Daub: Let's go across the street here. All right. Sometimes on the road, you're going to find little historical markers. Kagurazaka. There's the kanji, God, music, slope. And then here's a little picture of what it used to look like. As I told you at the beginning of this, this was on the edge of Edo Castle a couple hundred years ago. This has always been a very vibrant area of the city. And today looks like this. I love the trees here. Kind of a blend of nature. Even though the chain restaurants look really good. The entrance to the Royal Host. Little classier than most places. Little classier than other Royal Hosts.

00:08:05 John Daub: So we can find... There are a load of temples and shrines as well in this area. We might get a chance to take a look at one. But we're going to get off of this main street in a little bit. Start to jump into some of the alleys. That's what's really impressive with this place. The alleys. Alley hunting. Talking about alleys, not girls named Alley. So I'm right there. Ryan, get something on me. Thanks Ryan, because you know what? They got some street food here. So we're going to check that out. I'm saving it for maybe another 10 minutes in. Let's make our way around. I think that they serve raw ham and pork. Slightly creepy that they put Babe with a helmet on there. But I guess they're trying to say it's fresh. It's one of my favorite movies, Babe. I'm still a little bit upset that Braveheart beat Babe in 1995 for the Academy Awards.

00:09:27 John Daub: All right, we're at the top of the slope here. You can see there's just some more restaurants. There's another sushi restaurant here. We're getting deeper and deeper into Kagurazaka. So I think you're going to see bakeries starting to pop up like the one right in front of us. This is Kanaya Hotel Bakery from Nikko and they have a branch here since 1873. So it looks like they got some good offerings including the Royal bread, which looks so buttery and they have some other fine offerings like this apple mille-feuille. Japanese bakeries are pretty good. It's usually a lot softer and Europeans who eat at Japanese bakeries are sometimes disappointed because it's just too soft.

00:10:28 John Daub: All right, we're going to... I'm going to flip the camera to the right now and you're going to see what I'm talking about with the alleys here. A lot more narrow. No cars going through here. People can walk. Looks festive. Let's walk a little bit forward. And then we're going to come back here and take a right that red sign up there says Kagurazaka. That guy's starting to learn kanji. Oh my, could smell the matcha green tea roasting. It's that acidic you see it right there. This is a green tea roaster. They're roasting it on the street. You can smell the acidic sweetness. It stings the nose in a pleasant way. It's like here in Ningyocho have a tradition of making Japanese roasted matcha. And it's amazing.

00:11:27 John Daub: Let's take a close look at this. Here's a roaster. Hojicha (roasted green tea). Oh man. And the green tea is being roasted and then slowly starts to filter into here where they'll sell it fresh. Ah man, it looks really nice. But the smell is smells a big part of it. You cannot ignore this. Look at that. He's got him in bags right here. How much is a bag? 100 grams is 540 yen, but it goes up the list to a thousand. What's the difference? Just quality. Looks like a really nice hojicha shop. That's such a pleasant smell. Once again, you cannot smell it through the screen. So it's a reason for you to come here in person.

00:12:38 John Daub: So there's a shrine on the right side here, which is really nice. But if we turn this way, there's another alley. Look at the alleys. They're beautiful. Look at the trees down there. Loads and loads of restaurants. These very stylish restaurants. Not many of them are right on the main street. Most of them are hidden in the alleys. Sugidama (cedar ball sign for sake). So that place looks like it has very good traditional Japanese food and it looks like a Japanese bistro. Doesn't it? You can get a really affordable Japanese lunch in here. The lunch opens up on Monday to Friday at 11:30.

00:13:50 John Daub: Let's keep going. They have a bakery up here called Paul. Here's more cafes. Cafe Veloce is a chain in Japan. But you know what? They've really classed this up. If they look like the McDonald's of cafes in Tokyo. But this one, to compete, they've really made it look nice. That's kind of freaky. Spicy tacos hot dog. So they have put like Doritos on a hot dog. Not sure if I would buy it but it looks interesting. Some pretty nice sets. David Kimura. You got it buddy. Power on snack and beer fund. I will be partaking in that very shortly. And here's their offerings here. It looks great. Ultra John. This place looks really good to check it out.

00:15:02 John Daub: Look at that. That's a breaded pork cutlet set and you would put like a sauce on top of it like a Worcestershire sauce. It's so good. And here's some a different cut of this hire tonkatsu (premium pork cutlet). Oh man. I love breaded pork cutlet. Very good. Shop's not crowded at all. Here it is. This is a very famous Parisian bakery here in Japan. And this is one of the few places that Europeans are like, oh, this is so wonderful. I'm not sure. It's what accent that is but it gets really rave reviews. If you just do some window shopping, you can see here. It's pricey but the croissants are the real deal. It's $2 for croissant, 250 for a scone. Here's a croissant almond. Whoa 350, 67 yen about $3.50 for that. The apple pie looks great.

00:16:10 John Daub: So they do a pretty good job with that here in Japan and it's hard crust and it's very hard to find this in Japanese bakeries. The hard crusted bread. Hardly outside soft on the inside. Me likey. Me be back. But Kanae and I have eaten in here a few times. You can take a look here. It's a very nice place. Very stylish great for a date. Kanae and I ate at that window a few years ago. I should put that picture of her on Instagram. She doesn't like it, but it's one of my favorite pictures. There's some confection shops. There's a Japanese confection shop where they have looks like they have a delicious looking dorayaki (pancake sandwich with sweet filling). And the one next door looks like a pretty nice and that could be a chain. This is a Kagurazaka dorayaki. Maybe let's see if we can try that. I like dorayaki. But the thing is the pancakes with these look different. There's something special about the pancake. Maybe they put some kuri (chestnuts) which you can see right there. That's right now in season.

00:17:12 John Daub: And if your Patreon supporter, I'm going to be sending chestnut KitKats to all of our daimyo supporters. Chestnut KitKats just came out. So pretty excited about that. You tons of street food here. All right, let's see if we get a dorayaki. There's some chestnut rice. Check it out. I'm going to try it. I have a dorayaki right here. $2.50. Dorayaki. Make guys you my hi. That's it. Hi. This is so nice. Oh. I got you guys a dorayaki. Oh, now you made that the total pancake key and we should raise me. Yeah. It's a dorayaki and I got to do that. Hi, I got to do that. So just a little different to me. My eyes see something different. He sees something different to this guy. That reminds me of Austin Powers Goldmember.

00:18:59 John Daub: Alright folks, I really need a coffee to go with this. But I think we just can eat it. What do you think? So this is it. This is $2.50. A little pricey for dorayaki. But it's a Kagurazaka dorayaki. Only found here. The best way to see what exactly is different is to taste it. Folks, I'm going to be driving towards 500 likes for this to eat more street food. I'm not even hungry and I'm going to eat more because I love you. So pay that forward. As I open this dorayaki with one hand. Alright, here we go. There it is. It's coming out. Oh, okay. It's very nice. Sticky, a little bit sticky. There's the red bean paste in the middle. Smells nice. Once I opened it, the smell comes out and hits you well. So let's try it, huh?

00:20:13 John Daub: Oh, that's true. It's good. That's really good. The dorayaki. Sometimes if you the cheaper ones the pancake part of it will be too dry. It's dorayaki not meaning dry. But this pancake is moist. I like that. It has an ingredient in it that's keeping the moisture in it. And that is really good. So I love it. You can see the red bean paste in there. Subuan (smooth red bean paste). You have to be a big fan of red bean paste. I think it grows on you. The more you eat it, the more you like it. It's a subtle sweetness. A natural sweetness to it. So if you're used to eating super sweet stuff you might not like it. But it grows on you. It's just a different kind of a sweetness.

00:21:15 John Daub: Straight food. What do we have here? Looks like karaage (fried chicken). Some nice looking karaage there. Alright, we'll be back. We'll be back. That's pretty good. Pretty good. Alright, let's go back around and wrap down these alleys, yeah? Wrap around the neighborhood. We're just getting warmed up. I get a feeling this is gonna last an hour. It's a nice traditional shop selling handicrafts. Take a quick look-see. Engi-mono (picture scrolls). Cheers. Alright, let's go back down. In the middle of a crowd here. Back out and reset. Hey, Kyle Boggs here. Buy something good to eat and drink. You got it. We're just getting warmed up, Kyle.

00:22:47 John Daub: Ah, there's another little mini cafe. Just a little... Looks like a little pop-up cafe. Easy to walk past this and not even notice it. But it's a nice little cafe. Smells like cheese. Really good. Sweet cheese. Eh, is that so? I've never seen this before. What? That's so cool. Alright, so there you go. There's Kagurazaka-dori. Now it's time to get off the main street which was a delicious experience. Mr. Colombo. Thanks to John and the Mods for the great vibes. John, get something tasty. You got it. You got it. If you continue to go up here take a look at the sign. There's a subway for Kagurazaka actually. So you can get here by subway directly. I always come by Iidabashi Station just the way I kind of get around. Because there's five subway lines that connect with Iidabashi including JR. So it's just the most convenient.

00:24:06 John Daub: Woah. I love that dorayaki, man. When you find a good dorayaki place you go back again and again and again. So we're gonna cross the street here. Um, I don't often go this far deep into Kagurazaka. So let's just take a little bit more, yeah? We got a lot of alleys to explore. So we're gonna be back here because I gotta come this way to go back home. Wait for the light. It's a blue light. Japanese lights are... They call them blue. I think if you've watched this you've noticed me saying that. But in Japan it's the Tozai Line. Yeah, Kagurazaka is on the Tozai Line subway line. You know that. The red. It's red for stop, yellow for slow down, and blue for go. Because colorblind people can see blue better than green. However, it's like a blue-green mix. But in Japanese we call it aoiro, ao which is blue. It's weird. It was weird when Kanae said oh, the light is blue. I said, what are you talking about? She goes, oh, you mean green. Because in English you have to say green. But in Japanese we say blue.

00:25:27 John Daub: Really nice little teeny shop. Yep. There's tons of them. This is where things get really stylish up here after you go through the intersection. The road gets a little bit narrower. The buildings are a little bit less... You start to hear some someone's blasting like kind of Europeanish music. Maybe. I don't know. Again for those joining us this is called like Little Paris. They call this street and you can see here's one place that's quite famous. You can go in here and get a glass of cheap wine, I was told. At Il Gusto Dolce Vita. And there you go. There's the prices right there. Shall we get one? Wine. Aca wine is $3. Shall we get one? What do you think? I was hoping for a coffee. Why wouldn't they? I don't know, Nosh. But I think I will get a wine. So thank you for the super chats, guys. I do put it to good use.

00:26:49 John Daub: Oh, and they got like snacks too. Check this out. Gnocchi. Gnocchi, I always called them, but that's gnocchi. And arancini. This looks Italian. Very nice. Street food. Aca wine, please. Cold and normal. Oh, normal. Which one is the most popular? The same. The same? Then cold, please. That's a lot. Wow. Amazing. Here. Here. We'll start with this one. Japanese style. Wow. It's a Japanese style. Wow. That's Japanese style. They fill it to the rim. That's right. It's a wine, but it's Japanese style. Right. If that's all you need, it's here. It's like a cappuccino. It's a wine. This is dangerous. Not just because they filled it to the rim, but because it was like to the rim and just about to spill and you have to drink it like this. I did not know that. Kanpai, everybody. It's Chilean wine.

00:29:05 John Daub: Beko Ortiz writes, you get what you pay for, which is probably a headache. Probably a headache. But you know, when in Kagurazaka. Wine might be the better option. Let's see what else they got here as I walk around with a drink, which I probably shouldn't be doing, but the stream must go on. One pack for these dango (skewered rice dumplings). Check out the dango here. That looks like it's a sweet soy based sauce on top of them and they've been yakied, like grilled a little bit. You can see the brown on top of that dango. So there's some consistency to it. There's a nori seaweed on top of that dango. And then there's some red bean paste on another one. And there's a dango stuffed animal. Do you see the dango plushies? I think they're famous for dango. Konnichiwa. It's a very nice shop. I liked the little mascot. All right. Shall we go down alley hunting? It's a little teeny, a little teeny shop.

00:30:14 John Daub: So this is more wine than I bargained for. I thought it'd be like a thimble size. We did not get a thimble size. This restaurant is quite famous and I might try to bring Kanae here, but the problem is duck is in the title. And she does not like duck. These little teeny stylish bistros are, you're going to find them all over Kagurazaka. It's part of that French connection. Great movie by the way. Even the second one, Gene Hackman, that you'll find all over the city. Look at that. I mean, it just doesn't, this does not feel or seem like Japan to me. These little shops, like something that could be in a small French town. But Lamb Dung Tokyo is a bistro that's been highly recommended to me. You can see that they're cooking something special on the inside. The chefs really go into town in there, but I'll have to come back here with Kanae. They have duck though. I guess she can eat the lamb. I'll eat the duck. It's a pretty stylish looking place. It smells great hanging out by the door.

00:31:36 John Daub: So the lunchtime is still, so it's open now. It opens at two and it stays open until almost midnight. You can get a full duck. Kanae is not going to like that. Full duck for 6,800 yen, which is pretty reasonable. And you can get a lamb rump for 1,800 yen, but I'll probably go for the rack. Or maybe the shoulder. I don't know. It's hard to say. Look, I still got a lot of wine. How am I going to drink this? Is anybody coming to help me with the wine problem? Quiet alleys. Here's another cafe. Again, an alley. I'm going to pan around slowly. And here's a small Italian bistro. The buildings here are usually two stories, two or three. You're not allowed to build much bigger than that. And the neighborhood has some rules, which I think is pretty good. It's important to have rules.

00:32:52 John Daub: I might have left some of that wine. It's a lot of wine. Look at the trees. Jed caught me. Look how much I drank. It's all right. Okay. Look at that. This is one of the reasons why you walk around and get lost. Just get away from everything the guidebook tells you. Just start walking down the streets and get lost. It's pretty neat to see everyday life in Japan on this side of the street. Above you can see all of the power lines. They don't put anything underground in Japan. Everything is above ground because of the earthquakes. So when there are earthquakes, these shake back and forth. That's the one thing that you can hear. As the power lines are above you shaking. That's what I remember with the big one in 2011. Just the power lines were always swaying from all the aftershocks.

00:34:15 John Daub: Some more alleys here. That kid's trucking. Let's get out of the way. Hayakata (hurry up). And there's the main street back there. But we're going to keep on going on the alley. You can see a slice of life. I love how people leave the trees outside too. No crows. No crows right now. Today was trash day too. All right. Let's go take a look at this park. Just going to do a quick pan through here. All right. A lot of families today. Just kind of relaxing on the weekend here. Loads of trees in this neighborhood. Families fathers are home for the weekend. Mothers taking care of the family on a nice sunny day like today. We'll be out here. Raph. Why not give plants some wine? They may grow faster. I don't know. Really? They'll grow happier. They'll grow happier. Alright, just a little bit. It's maybe a little bit too much. I did not expect... Alright, we'll come back and see if these trees will grow a little bit stronger. Okay, that's all. Just a little bit. I still got enough.

00:36:12 John Daub: That's a different kind of stream, Derek. Derek Jumper writes in here, I love this stream. Watching while I'm breaking work. Alright, a little Tokyo action going on here. Alright, let's go take a look back down on the main street. We're going to go to some more alleys. We'll go through some more alleys in this live stream. We've got another 30 minutes to go. He's looking at me. Alright, let's go this way. I was looking at him and I made a face and he just started to smile. Look at this little teeny shop right off of the main street in an alley. Looks like someone's garage sale. Some neat things here. Look at the basket on that bicycle. It's interesting.

00:37:23 John Daub: Just some random stuff. How you doing? Look at that. They're making pastries back there. There's no customers here. Oh, this smells so good. Should I try to get something from here? What do they got? Looks like they got oh, like meat and cheese and things like that. Oh, it looks really good. It's fascinating. Not a person here. Tori Tenka is what it's called. Tori Tenka. Just in the alley here. Pretty interesting. Alright. I gotta get rid of this wine. This is more than I bargained for. Alright, let's do this. 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. Who said that before? You get what you pay for. $3. Oh, oh, oh.

00:38:57 John Daub: That's a pretty neat little um restaurant. There. Let's take this, check this out. Oh, it's hardcore, man. That was hardcore. Alright, check it out. It's got a little teeny window on it. Up here is the name of it. What do you can, can you guys see it? The letters are too small, but I could see myself, Kanae and I sitting there and having a really good meal. But that's what I'm telling you with this neighborhood. It's filled with these little bistros that are in the neighborhood. Excuse me. Check out this little bakery as well. Fromagere Alpage. Cheese. A little cheesery. Let's see what they got on offer. I've never seen a lot of these cheeses before. It's like a real mix of cheeses. Only in Kagurazaka. Seriously.

00:40:19 John Daub: Alright, let's get back to the main street, get some street food. Wow. What is this? What? It's just here on the street. Udman's keiki. Woodman's cake. What is Woodman's cake? Now I'm curious. I gotta find out what's Woodman's cake now. There's a gorilla in the street, sitting on a chair. I guess we've answered it right there. Woodman's cake is right there. Alright, now I gotta investigate a little bit. Woodman's cake. Look what they've done. They got me interested and now I walked backwards. I'm checking out this place. What is a Woodman's cake? It looks like a roll cake. It's a Woodman's cake. It's a Kagurazaka roll. Can I just get one piece? Let's see if I can get one piece. Get some change. It smells so good. You have no idea how good it smells. It's cake season.

00:41:50 John Daub: So I hurt my knee. I haven't been running or exercising, so I'm getting amazingly out of shape. I say amazingly because it's very unusual for me not to go running. It's been almost a month now. And I'm afraid I'm gonna get sick. I'm afraid to eat these cakes, but it's live stream. We must do it. Alright, let's go on and see. Alright, you guys ready for some adventure? Let's go. Let's just go and find out what's inside in here. Konnichiwa. Looks good. Model cake. Oh, this looks interesting. Kurimonaka (chestnut monaka). One piece, please. Is this enough? Yes, it's good. Is that okay? I'm gonna eat it now. It's 360 yen. Thank you. It smells so good. Thank you. It smells so good. I love supporting local businesses, even if it's just like buying something small.

00:43:20 John Daub: This is a chestnut cake. Little girl's not happy. Chestnut cake. Let's try this here. Get some chuhai (canned cocktail). I don't know why. American gene. American gene. I don't know if I want to get me boozing. I'm gonna get myself in some trouble here. Chuhai. That stuff is like 8%. Alright, let's open this up here. It looks pretty good. You can see, I guess it's chocolate. We'll find out. It's a monaka (wafer cake). Kuri means chestnut in Japanese. Chocolate kurimonaka. Let's try this. I can one-hand it, I believe. No, I can't. See in Japan, do you see this here? They perforated it, so it's very easy to open it. All of the things in Japan have perforation or places where you can open it easily. I love that about this country.

00:44:21 John Daub: There we go. I was able to open it up. I don't want to drop it. I've been known to drop it. Oh, okay. Check it out. So let me get the, alright, here we go. So you could see the chocolate on here and it's in like some kind of a shell. It's hard, but it's shaped like a kuri. It looks like a chestnut, doesn't it? Interesting. Let's try it. Perforated beer bottles. No, they're called cans. You just. I saw it. I saw that. All right, let's give it a try. The kuri monaka cake. Whoa, that's what I'm talking about. That is so rich chocolate cream inside this thing. It's got some texture on the outside of it. Little springy, like a little mochi mochi going on in there. Oh my, that was, this was $3 and 50 cents for this one little cake. And it is so rich. I'm going to be tasting this for the rest of the day. This is worth it.

00:45:43 John Daub: Okay. Let's try the chestnut inside. Look, you see that chestnut? Boom. Chocolatey, rich, creamy, cakey chestnut. That was awesome. I highly liked it. Woodman's cake. I'm glad I went back. Supermarket. Little Mermaid. I think this is a Danish bakery. And this is up here where you'll see where Kagurazaka Station is. Yeah. Kagurazaka Station is up here. Chopin. That is a French cafe right there. Does not look like Japan, except for the vending machine on the left side. Whoa, that was good. I'm still tasting it. All right. Let's go up a little bit more, and then we're going to work our way down through some more alleys. This is once again, Kagurazaka Street, the main street going through here. Again, it's like you could spend a good few hours here just kind of walking around. I'm walking through what we call in Tokyo, Little Paris.

00:47:21 John Daub: People are lining up for something. What are they lining up for? Let's investigate. All right. Looks like there's some pretty good shabu-shabu. Looks like some shabu-shabu. Chinese bar. Is that it? Fan Fun. Let's find out. Only one way. Find out. Got to go investigate. Oh, wow. All right. So this is what everyone's here for. It's a pastry shop. Dessert. I'm going to go check it out. They have some nice desserts. And Telerikota. Completely butchered it. I'm not getting in line. I hate lines. But who likes lines? But I'll tell you this. It looks like it's very popular and they have very few seats. And if you do come here, this might be a place to put on your map. All right. I'm glad I checked it out. Oh, they had some eclairs. Oh, they had mille-feuille as well. Both of my love handles are pulling me the wrong way. My body's going this way. My love handles are going the other way. Why? Gravity.

00:48:52 John Daub: I'm going to be grabbing something sweet for Kanae. You can bet your life on it. But don't do that. I will. Don't have to bet anything. All right. Right there, you can see the station. There's Kagurazaka Station right in the middle of your screen. That's the exit. So if you do ride a bicycle, you can go downhill all the way to where we started this live stream. It's called Iidabashi Station. That's what we're going to do. We're going to walk back now towards. Oh, check it out. She's getting her hair done. Kanae got a haircut and they cut it way too short. And last night she's like, do you like my hair? And of course, the answer is yes. Of course, the answer is yes. And then she didn't believe me. She goes, are you sure? I don't believe you. And I said, oh, yes. Oh, yes. It's pretty short, but she can't. It's so short. She can't tie it up when she dances now. So it flops around for the next month. So she's not too happy.

00:49:51 John Daub: So nobody, everyone, if Kanae does a live stream with us tomorrow, everyone compliment her hair. You heard it here first. Compliment her hair. She looks beautiful. All right. Saying that publicly. I'm going to get in trouble. I have deep trouble. Why don't even say anything. You open up a can of worms. They all come out. Thankfully, they travel very slow. So I can maybe put that back in the can. I don't know what that expression means. Yeah. I think it's something like frogs or grasshoppers or something that's hard to get back in the can worms that understand it looks like ginger. It's like an organic fruit stand power on. You know, I'm live streaming with the 11 Pro right now. It's 11 Pro on a Osmo Mobile 3. We got nothing but the best here. When we go live streaming, we pick the best of the best and we can thank Nasha Broad for providing us with this. She's pushing me a little bit to get this new iPhone because the color, the HDR on it and the wideness of it is so much better. Now we can't use that third lens on the other side. I can't go super wide yet. I can't go wider than this, but we will be in the future.

00:51:21 John Daub: Oh, look, they got some sushi here. You can pick up some sushi on the street and go to the park. That's a great idea. It's 20% off right now. Get some sushi. Go to the park. Get a glass of wine and enjoy. All right, you got it. It's gone into the beer fund. Went from tech to beer. I like that. I like that. Oh, there's a hundred yen store here. That's not Daiso either. So they probably have different stuff. Let's see what they got here. So they got some Crocs, some cheap sandals. This could be useful. Get a dollar chair and you can sit anywhere you want. Even on the subway. You'll have a place to sit if you have one of these little chairs. Look at that. That looks like a pretty good deal. I like the fact that that chair has a back to it and no, I'm not getting Kanae plastic flowers.

00:52:35 John Daub: Oh, oh, I must not forget this. I must not forget that. Let's cross the street quickly before we get hit by a car. I must not forget that. This statue is Kobo-chan. You guys know Kobo-chan? Look, he's got a little trick or treat bag. How cute is that? Check our traits. Smell my fate. Give me something good to eat, master. Is Kobo the little rascal? It was a manga, I believe, back in the 1980s. It's before my time. But manga history people probably would know about this one. They dress him up just like the peeing boy in Hamamatsu Station. They dress him up in different clothes from now and then. And right now he's got a Halloween costume on and he looks really beautiful. Yeah. He's cute, isn't he? Yeah, he is. He's a little bit like a different country. I'm American. Do you live here? Yes. Oh, that's a good place. Yes, it is. I've been to New York. Oh, really? Yes, on a ship. Oh, you went on a ship. How many days did it take? A week. Wow. 103 days. Amazing, 103 days.

00:54:00 John Daub: I want to go to San Francisco by boat! The Met! The Met! That's great! Do you have any recommendations? I'm introducing it to foreigners right now. When I come to Kagurazaka, I don't go this way, but that way. It's a small place. There's a shrine here. Did you go to the shrine? No, I didn't. Straight right. Straight right and turn right. The shrine. Is it big? You climb the stairs. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. That was nice. So she's been to America, and I'm very happy to meet somebody. She went to America by boat. 103 days it took. Crazy. So I have postcards for Taylor Mack. Taylor and Nick. Nick in the USA. So these guys are going to you. Taylor, that's yours because you've been on the postcard club for a while. There you go. Off to places on the other side. Kobo-chan is very popular. Alright bye Kobo-chan. We are going to that shrine now that she recommended. Because now that she recommended it, when a local recommends something, you should go, right? So let's go do this.

00:55:49 John Daub: Alright, we're getting close to the one hour mark as well. She said it's a big shrine. I've been there before. I'm surprised that I didn't put this on my list of places to go. But it's alright. We're going to go up here right now. I'm high tailing it. The last time I was here, and this part was from Tokyo Eye, like 8 years ago. And then I didn't, I don't often come up this way to the street. But I came here for Tokyo Eye 8 years ago to eat ramen. There's a famous ramen shop on the top here too. By the way, for the last 3 days, the reason why there wasn't a live stream was because I was filming for Tokyo Eye. So the, one of the directors that I've worked with for over 10 years, he called me up and said, we know you're quite busy with Only in Japan, but would you like to be in an episode of Tokyo Eye again for NHK? And I said sure! Because he said to take a break, and when you're a reporter, you don't have to really think about all the production stuff. You just have to talk in front of the camera. So it was kind of a nice little, it was a job, but it was also like a day off for me. Took 3 days to film. Wednesday, Thursday, Friday.

00:57:25 John Daub: Alright, oh very cool. Excuse me. I'm still getting over a cold. This is the last part of it. So, John and Mods, can we get longer than an hour today? We absolutely can. I've gone like 3 hours before. Alright, there you go. This is exit 1A of Kagurazaka Station. So you can see how far it is now. Because we've walked from Iidabashi to Kagurazaka Station. It's not that far. It takes you about 15 minutes to walk between the two of them. Here's a map just to get your bearings. So we're up here on the slope. And we've walked all the way starting from I guess we started from here. Walked across. And we've come all the way up the street. There's that park that we walked into. It was called Shirogane Park. Really beautiful, relaxing place. And she said if we go straight and to the right, there's a shrine. So guess what? I think this is what she was talking about. Akagi Jinja (shrine).

00:58:15 John Daub: So let's go to Akagi Jinja right now. And pay our respects. Because we've been having a pretty good day. So gotta go on the back side here. Let's do it. Oh, that looks good. Original set, they call it. With toast and jam. So that's a pretty old little cafe. Right by the station. Check it out. Let's take two steps in. That looks like it's been here since the Showa era. Alright, I'm not going in there. I'm not going in there because that's... I'm gonna eat toast and jam in the basement. The signal's gonna die out. The last day is the World Cup. By the way. Today's the finals. I think it was England and South Africa. The Rugby World Cup finals. So the nice lady who spent 103 days on a cruise ship and went to my home country and spent some time in New York in the Metropolitan Museum told me to come this way. And I'm very happy because now we're gonna have a cultural experience together. Here's the Kagurazaka Station exit 1B now. So now you know we're all in. Both of those exits are. Let's go back and do this. It's another French cafe. Oh yeah!

00:59:51 John Daub: Scratchy Panda. Thanks for bringing that up. Scratchy Panda. So, my friend Dan from a channel called What's Inside he just last night uploaded a video to his What's Inside family channel which I love because it's a little bit more casual. And we just do fun stuff on that channel. I think it's the second or third time I've been on it. So, we Dan, who's such a great friend. We love him so much. He got three tickets to the Rugby World Cup Japan vs. South Africa. Just like on a whim because he had some free time. He said, what do you guys want to do? I said, I don't know. There's a Rugby World Cup. We can go to the fan zone. He goes, no, no. Let's go to the stadium. So he bought three tickets and we went. And he put that on his family channel. And I bet you one of the moderators I don't think you can share the link but What's Inside family. And if you go there, the video is on the top. I thought it was a lot of fun. We had a ton of fun and wait until the end of the video because we do high five with 150 of the staff members. Very interesting.

01:00:56 John Daub: We want to show some respect because we're inside of a shrine. That's a torii gate, the red torii gate. And you want to show respect. You don't want to be too loud. So I'm going to tone down my voice from here on out and just be very respectful. Okay. It's a pretty big shrine. I like this. It branches off left and right. So let's go here to the left. My first reaction would be to go up and take a look here but I'm going to fight that and go this way. These are where people will write their ema (wish plaques) or wishes on these things. I don't know if I should show them or not. But you'll write something and put it here and then it will come true. I hope it comes true for everybody. This is a beautiful shrine. Look at it. This looks pretty modern down here, the base of it. Doesn't it? Very dark gray color. Not so it sticks out. It'll stay clean like this. For a while and above it is the shrine. I've never seen anything like it. Very beautiful. And here on the side is a little teeny shrine. There's three small torii gates and because I'm filming we're not going to go inside. I can show you a little bit of it. It's pretty cute. Cute little shrine. Check it out.

01:02:55 John Daub: I'm going to be making my way back to the main street. We're well past one hour and I'm going to eat some street food. But click that like button and encourage me more. I need your encouragement. I really do. From here, from this shrine, you can see there's more slopes. Tokyo has a lot of hills especially in this area. This is Shinjuku ward. There's a nice view going all the way towards Shinjuku the city part of it. See the rooftops. They're doing a community like button. If you want me to keep going I need some gasoline. I can see the lights going up right now. Thanks everybody. This is a great part of the city. Kanae is cooking something at her father's house tonight. I'm going to go over there at 7pm and we're going to have dinner with her family. So for the next couple of hours I'm going to be going back home to edit videos and of course do a live stream. It's nice. It's autumn. You can feel autumn. This tree is if you come to visit this in a couple of weeks all these trees are going to be so beautiful. They're going to have a lot of color to it. We call that koyo (autumn leaves).

01:04:42 John Daub: Alright, let's walk up a little bit. When you walk in a shrine never walk down the center of it. That's reserved for kami-sama or the gods. Always walk to the left or the right when you enter. Don't stay down the center. Kanae gets angry if I do. For good reason. Wow, this is a beautiful shrine. Looks very new. Clean. And in the back here is a cafe. That would be really cool. Sit here with a coffee and then get that spirit with you, right? I'm going to try to do that this month too. A lot of questions have been coming in and I might stop and do some question and answer. I do them for Patreon supporters twice a month but it would be nice to sit back and answer some of the questions because next year there's a lot of people who want to come to Japan and see the city for the Olympics as well. I have a lot of answers actually. I've been asking questions myself to people and we might do something like that in the next couple of weeks. Answer some of the questions that you have. I think it's been about five months since the last Q&A.

01:06:23 John Daub: Our Discord community too is growing so fast. The reason I wanted to do the Discord is because if you are traveling to Japan and you have questions on the road you can go in our Discord community and the more members we have the more we'll be able to help each other out because everybody in there has a deep interest for Japan and knows as much about traveling around the country as I do because they've done it several times. I think it's when we help each other out we make our trips so much more meaningful including oh look there's some cafes this way including meeting up so if you're a solo traveler Discord might be a place where you can catch up with another supporter, another community member. We've been down the street let's go down this alley here instead so we're going to start from here and then make our way back down towards yeah make our way back down towards Iidabashi station through the alleys and see what we can find yeah Discord is free. I know some we have some levels for Patreon supporters which they get as a perk it's a smaller community but we have a general channel and lots of groups like Japanese language, culture, food as well, categories inside of the Discord server that are free anybody can go in there and talk there are some community rules because we want to keep it friendly in there but we've had no problems really we have about 10 really amazing moderators that are helping to keep it keep things oh it's so beautiful look at these alleys.

01:08:17 John Daub: There's that Chinese bar Fan Fun and a yakitori (grilled chicken skewer) bar. I love yakitori they wrote it in English too Rouge wine and yakitori you know I can get behind that idea that's a pretty good idea wine and yakitori leave the beer at home open a bottle of wine again the vending machines here are typically darker in color to fit in with the neighborhood I like that so instead of it being white and bright it's brown with wood paneling around it excuse me this one fits in with this izakaya (pub) looks like a beautiful restaurant very traditional Japanese colors earth tones they got a teishokuya (set meal restaurant) I love teishoku (set meal) oh I love teishoku Kanae if you're watching we're coming back here this is a onikuya-san (butcher shop) this has a butcher shop that has these look at that it looks like a tonkatsu breaded pork cutlet on rice with miso soup nice little set that's wonderful beautifully done inside of a very traditional looking restaurant 1000 yen or less than 10 dollars for that I think that is a bargain no sauce katsu I love this they put some like a sweet salty soy thick sauce it's got some sweetness to it on top of it I love sauce katsu chicken katsu don pork sauté chicken sauté looks really good this one is a pork teishoku and a shrimp fry teishoku teishoku is a platter where everything is on one I love teishoku if you get a choice between McDonald's and teishoku you eat teishoku teishoku alright you guys got that teishoku is the ultimate lunch I love it I would love to make that as a main channel episode as well.

01:10:50 John Daub: Cute little poodle she got a sweater on she was being given water from the hose beautiful alley alright we walked down here from the park so let's just go past the park now and keep going down the alley I think we're going to discover something pretty nice I don't know just got a feeling Kagurazaka is I think it's there's a boom going on for this area I think has to do a lot with the history going on here the connection with history it was an aristocratic neighborhood in the Edo period because it was right outside of the gates of Edo castle and after that during the Meiji era when more foreign influence came into the city of Tokyo this became the French quarters and now it's considered Little Paris because of the amount of French cafes and just actually cafes and bakeries and French food here it's amazing this also led to a boom in traditional restaurants and it's one of the places where you'll still find geisha houses and little teeny doggies kawaii and barber shops here's another fruit cheese place I showed you this before so we came down here like 40, 30 minutes ago and going back to the main street alright let's hightail it towards the other shop and get some get something for the road back some street food or something you guys deserve a little bit of food man I would love a piece of cheese a little bit of wine I hammered that wine that looks really good too look at that sign right here on the corner this is a senbei (rice cracker) has a really sweet baking smell the smell of sweet soy sauce grilling really nice oh this is the dango shop I'm not hankering for a dango oh there's a wine shop walk quickly the dangerous place dangerous you guys are dangerous that wine was dangerous memories of 30 minutes ago alright get out of here I do not want another glass of that to the brim to the rim bottle of wine dangerous dangerous dangerous more booze danger escape.

01:14:21 John Daub: If you're just tuning in now 30 minutes ago they gave me a plastic cup of wine just fill it they filled it to that point where the water is just over the rim of it but it's not spilling out my mouth was like this I cannot drink that how dare you do that to me and they said you cannot just pick it up you have to put your mouth to the lip of the cup and start like drinking it and then after you drank it down maybe a centimeter you could pick it up and start to drink it I know it's the weekend and all that but I don't want to get plastered I'm gonna walk home I want to be a responsible citizen of the city of Tokyo and not be one of those guys laying on the street wake up in the morning Kanae dragging me home you irresponsible husband how dare you she's in the bike lane good girl you're supposed to ride your bike on the left and the right of on the left and the right of the street not on the sidewalk because there have been too many incidents in Tokyo recently where bicycles have hit pedestrians and you just simply should not be riding your bicycle especially in a crowded place like this on the sidewalks that's why the city of Tokyo has been and I went over this in the video when I was going down the bridge people were riding on the shoulders but I told everybody many many times legally you have to be on the side of the road with a bicycle now in places that aren't crowded they let you go and even the police themselves ride on the sidewalks which you're not supposed to do but I'm telling you if you do ride a bicycle you might want to stick to the roads because it's just simply faster and it's the right thing to do.

01:16:31 John Daub: Alright we've got some Christmas cards here let's just take a quick look do they have the sushi card Japan has some pretty cool Christmas cards sometimes maybe they do here's one this is my favorite Christmas card check it out it's Santa Claus at a sushi bar how cute is that I know it's a little bit early but if you're in Tokyo and you want to buy that Christmas card I just showed you buy it now because they sell out every year by the middle of November oh my gosh do you see that egg no why you do this to me every time I thought I escaped and you put a beautiful egg in the middle of a bowl of rice with meat and egg and vegetables and be healthy how dare you you chicken this place high on my list now looks like it's a chicken restaurant so they've got a lot of chicken stuff this is an amazing oyakodon (chicken and egg rice bowl) you are on my list right now I've saved you and put you in this camera here I'll be back this place is amazing looking how dare you do that at the end it's evil very very bad restaurant here's the Paul Cafe you can see how high class it is if I go with if I go with Kanae to Paul I always drop like $20 on bakery and a coffee you can't not because it's just so good we're going down the street that we went down about 45 minutes ago but I'm heading back now to the station I'm on the prowl for some street food one more for the road.

01:19:02 John Daub: That's the biggest piece of sushi in the world I think that's a normal sized hand imagine maybe Lebron James can one fist it now the sun is starting to set the good thing about doing a live stream for more than an hour is that you'll see over the course of the time the lighting will start to change we're back here at the roasted green tea shop the smell that comes out onto the street is extraordinary for those that are joining us now all 1000 strong it's extraordinary smell it smells so good this is called hojicha you can see the hojicha is roasting how long does it take? 6 minutes 6 minutes about 4-5 minutes 5 minutes 4-5 minutes? that's fast! the taste changes is it strong? it's not strong it smells better it's low in caffeine oh you're low in caffeine? I didn't know that at night and even before I go to sleep I can drink it without any irritation. Oh, that's great. I can't sleep after drinking coffee. Then I'll have hojicha. Thank you. I'll come back. Thank you. The taste is richer. It's just that the smell is different. It's better maybe. So it's like a good night green tea. Hojicha.

01:21:36 John Daub: If you look at the degrees of green tea-ness, the color chart, hojicha is at the end. It's more of a brown because it's been roasted. But the smell of it, when he put it in there, he roasted it for about 4-5 minutes only. And just as a natural process, it'll start to make its way out and come out of the funnel into the place. And he packages it. And he brings it up. And they sell a lot of it. So that might be something that you want to take back. I think if it's packaged up, it's okay. Especially if it's been roasted. It's not raw vegetable. But green tea has been dried, so it's harder. But a roasted tea, I think that might be more... I don't know. Tea is a hard thing for customs and immigration. I don't know how you deal with that. Coffee's been roasted. Look at this little bakery. Kagurazaka Foods Garden. It's a pretty little stand. They have little snacks and jams. Some chestnuts. Very nice. And you can see the slope. Kagurazaka means God, slope, and music. We heard some music up there. We're seeing the slope now. And we went to a shrine, so we saw some God. Some spirits. It's a nice little cafe. Where's the street food? It smells like garlic here.

01:23:46 John Daub: Do you guys brush three times a day? Just a reminder. Brush after every meal. I want you to stay happy and healthy wherever you are in the world. Alright, we're just about back to Iidabashi Station. So I think coming back is a little bit faster. You get a better idea of what this neighborhood is all about. What it's like here. I love it here. This is a kimono shop. These look like used kimonos. The price is too cheap. That's $250 for the obi (kimono sash). A silk obi is very, very expensive. So these look like they could be secondhand. If you do want to look on the website, that's their website. Tansuya.jp. They're going to get some traffic. But it looks like women's kimonos. Which are in fashion now. And in the fall, when the weather has cooled down, the humidity is gone. Kimonos, you'll see more women wearing them on the streets. Especially the older ladies that like the style around town. You do it in a kimono. You get some kimono purses. Check that out. It's pretty. That's a nice thing to have if you're going to buy a gift for somebody. A kimono purse. You can buy all sorts of things made from the kimono material. Make amazing gifts. One of my favorite gifts that I received. I used to teach English to children. And one of the most amazing gifts that I got from a parent was a handmade doll made from kimono. Check out these pictures. Yeah. A handmade doll made from kimono material. It was a doll of a rabbit. And I still have that. It's back home in my parent's house. But it's a really precious. Look at these sake glasses as well. It's a really precious gift that I received. Sorry about the construction. Look at that Mount Fuji sake glass. How cool is that? These things, a set of two is $80. About.

01:26:00 John Daub: What do they got over here? Let's see here. Kuriko. Meaning chestnut. Oh, it's dorayaki. Dun dun dun. Everybody loves dorayaki. And there's kuri inside of it. There's a lot of chestnut. I hate a lot of chestnut. Do I wait in line for one? I guess so. I don't see anything else. There's ice cream. And then there's this. I don't. This is taiyaki (fish-shaped waffle), guys. Taiyaki. T-A-I-Y-A-K-I. And inside you can get all different kinds of ingredients. They have premium cream. They also have satsuma imo (sweet potato), which is a potato. And then they have chestnut an (red bean paste). I'm kind of in the hankering for a kiwami kobu an. That's more expensive. But this might take a while. Looks like there's a really long line. I don't know. Which one would you get? They have custard. Like a premium cream. A creamy potato. And they have a red bean paste. Which one do you like? Which one should I get? We get the JC writes in custard. We've got some change here. So I get to buy one. Looks like custard. JC is the only one. Custard, custard. Look at everyone likes custard. Leopold says potato. Potato and custard. Sudaru, how dare you? Double. One for each love handle. There's no way I can eat two. And then the premium one. It's a hard one. Custard, please. Colette. I've got to go with Colette because she said so politely. Just custard, please. You've got to respect someone with manners. I have very little manners sometimes. You've got to remember to be mannerful.

01:28:10 John Daub: So in Japan, what we do. I'm going to tell you something that we all do here in Japan. All right. This is a little local knowledge. So it's 160 yen. So I'm going to give them 210 yen. So I get back. Hold on. I give back one coin. So if I give them 210 yen, they're going to give me back 50 yen. So I minimize the coins I receive. This is what we do in Japan. 160 yen. Get 210. You get back 50 yen coin. She's making it right now. Now, I'm getting custard. It just seems overwhelmingly it's a custard day. They got Camembert. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Thank you. Excuse me. Thank you. They don't have custard cream. They do. One custard cream. One. They had Camembert cheese. What? They gave me a stamp card. They said come back and when you fill this up you get a free one. So, we gotta come back here more. Like I told you, if you give 210 yen, get rid of three coins, you get one coin back. So I got a 50 yen coin. Locals will do that. They're only charging 8% tax. They're supposed to charge 10, by the way. I'm not gonna hold them to it. They do what they wanna do. All the better for me. I just saved 2%. Although I think the price is still gonna be 160. They have to eat the cost, basically.

01:31:48 John Daub: Alright, let's try this here. This is taiyaki. This is custard because like the Internet overwhelmingly said custard. It is hot. It is so hot. The heat is piping out of the bag right now. There's steam involved, people. And whenever there's steam involved, it's a good thing. Check it out in there. It's something to hold it in your hand. So you don't burn it. I don't wanna drop it on the street. Oh, this is beautiful. I like the crust around it. Do you see that? There's an overflow of crust so that's gonna be a little bit crunchy. There she goes, swimming down the street of Kagurazaka. I love the paper too. It has a nice texture to it. This is premium cream they wrote here. So we still got some premium materials. Do you guys go head first or tail first? What do you think? Head first or tail first? 10% for eating in. Tail. Techfan2 writes in tail. So Sudato writes in head. Head or tails? I'm like flipping a fish. Heads or tails? Head. Okay, here we go. Head first. That's really good custard cream. Oh my. A little bit of vanilla going on with that. Oh, that's really good. They did a good job with that. So this is this shop right here. You can sit outside and eat it as well. Again, it's like $1.50. Costs nothing.

01:33:38 John Daub: An hour and a half in this livestream? Alright, I'm gonna take you out of the corner and I'm gonna show you the giant gyoza. That's where we're gonna end this livestream. If you'd like to see that, click the like button. I'm gonna ask for likes one more time. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you shop for your delicious, creamy taiyaki. I'm gonna come back after the livestream and get something for Kanae. Maybe that Woodman cake. Woodman cake. Now, you shouldn't be walking around and eating. But street food is somewhat okay. Typically Japanese don't do it. But I'm not gonna say not to do it. Just be really careful. The reason why you don't eat and walk is it usually makes the places dirty. That's why they don't do it. If you're eating away from an area, away from the trash cans, you'll get crumbs all over the place and it just creates a dirty area. Oh, look at that! Just little vanilla beans in it. Do you see that? I guess that's what the premium they were talking about. That's vanilla beans in there. Oh man. It's a really crunchy and mochi soft pancake batter with cream in there. This is not healthy. Which is why it's so good.

01:35:25 John Daub: Oh, okay. Right there on the road here, they're selling these different kinds of Kit Kats. That right there, that brown one, is hojicha. That was the tea that was roasting. That green tea that was roasting. You can get that as a flavor for Kit Kat now. It's like a really roasted green tea Kit Kat taste. Interesting. So, that's available for a limited time. I'm not shaking you as I chomp on this thing and talk with my mouth full. Don't do that. Don't imitate what you see on YouTube. Oh, Moss Burger! What do you got these days, Moss Burger? This is a shrimp tempura shrimp burger. Whoa, Moss Burger, you have outdone yourself. That looks awesome. A tempura shrimp burger by Moss Burger. Price, $4. Very interesting. Alright, I'm going now to I'm going now to Iidabashi Station via the via the big gyoza shop. You guys ready for it?

01:37:21 John Daub: I became really friendly with the manager, but a lot of YouTubers have gone in there and he's not as friendly anymore I heard. He's still, I think he's still a nice guy, but he doesn't do interviews anymore after the one that I did, and he's, and if you're a YouTuber, sometimes he tries to make you pay, even if you finish it, but Oh, he's closed today. So good. Alright. I'm going to tell you some insights and good stories now. Stories I should not be telling the internet. I'm going to tell you anyways. I came here in 2015 or 2016, and the Tokyo Monster Gyoza Challenge it has, I think it's like 4 million views on it. This is the shop that this is the shop that I ate at. It's Kagurazaka Jumbo Gyoza Honpo. It's a Chinese restaurant, Chinese cuisine. They have these menus here, but on the bottom are the food challenges, and there she is in the middle. I remember walking by here the first time like 15 years ago, and it was massive.

01:38:48 John Daub: The first challenge that they have is the 100 Gyoza. This also costs 9,600 yen, or about $90. The second food challenge here is the Jumbo Gyoza. This is the most popular. It doesn't quite look like this, but it's pretty close. Please remember, if you do want to come and eat this, you have to call the shop and reserve two days in advance. Excuse me. That means you have to come to the shop personally. If you're a food challenger, please remember you have to come to the shop personally two days in advance and pay for it. If you eat it all, you get the cash returned to you. They want the money up front because it takes a long time to prepare. It's massive though. That's my hand. It's like still some distance away. The next food challenge is this jumbo fried rice. It's about $55 for that. It's pretty big. Again, if you eat that, you don't get your money back. Only for the gyoza, I think. And then that's the ramen challenge. You have to eat three bowls of it. The jumbo gyoza is the only one you have to order in advance. The other ones they can make in the shop. Please order first dish per person when you share the jumbo gyoza with friends.

01:40:10 John Daub: I asked the owner why he does it. In the video, I explain why that challenge exists. This is a universal city town. It's sort of just this Instagram-able thing that students can share with each other. Of course, the owner saw more into this and he created it into a food challenge. If you eat it, it's supposed to be free. Again, you want to confirm when you pay for it to make sure that that's still the case. Reserve a time if you're a YouTuber because you should not be filming when it's crowded because the owner wants to protect the anonymity of his guests. He has a lot of repeaters. If they feel uncomfortable, they'll stop going to the shop. You have to think about him. He does not need the business anymore. He's been on YouTube hundreds of times. He doesn't need you to come in. He does it because he's a nice guy. This area here, I got sick and I believe part of the gyoza may have ended up in this corner here. The trees look... Is that where the yellow part of the tree is? The trees look like they survived it. Thankfully. It's not a pleasant story, but I thought I'd share some inside information that I shouldn't have shared. It's pretty gross.

01:42:20 John Daub: Do you see the koi? The Japanese koi right there? They use that for earthquakes. The reason why that's there on that sign is because koi were used in the Edo period in most as an early warning system of earthquakes because they could sense the earthquake before. They could sense a disturbance and they would go crazy and that was the early warning system for earthquakes. Now they're on the signs now. When people see the koi like that, they know it's an earthquake warning. Some interesting information. The koi are pretty valuable, not just because they're pretty, but because they're early earthquake warning systems. Earthquake barometers. Jason. Exactly. So there you go. We're back at Iidabashi Station. I'm going to go to the entrance near the Starbucks where we started. So go and watch the playback of this. It's pretty interesting. I think Kagurazaka is definitely a place. Again, here is Iidabashi Station. Five train lines, subway lines, including JR stop here for subway and JR. And then Kagurazaka Station is way down on the other side here up the street.

01:43:00 John Daub: Either or, but this street and the alleys around it are so beautiful. So many neat little cafes and it's a place where you can kind of see. There's even more history that I didn't introduce to you. Things that you'll find. But the more you wander, the more you get off the beaten track, the more you're going to discover how deep the culture of the Japanese culture goes in Japan. It's not in Harajuku and Shibuya and in Shinjuku. You have to come into the little neighborhoods like in Setagaya, deep into near Kawasaki and up near Tsukishima and Shibamata. Those areas have a lot more culture to it than where all the tourists are usually in the middle with Harajuku and stuff. That's a neat modern culture. It's places like this that I like to go to even more because you can relax and you can get better food and there's less tourists and you can get, I don't know, people a little bit friendly around here too. People a little bit friendlier. Like the lady who took a cruise around the world and showed us where the shrine was. You have a lot of experiences like that.

01:44:06 John Daub: So, click that like button. Leave a comment below. In fact, right now you can write in where you're from if you'd like to. It's always fun to see in the livestream where you're watching from. Leave a comment below. Give me some ideas. Where would you like me to go to next? Shimokitazawa which is a town of live concerts and popular music and underground bands and things like this. That's high on my list to go to for Tokyo walking tours. Let me know what your thoughts are because I listen to them and I like to take this camera with me and take you with me on the other side. So I always appreciate the support, guys. Other than that, Kanae and I will be going tomorrow to Kawagoe for a day trip outside of Tokyo and we're taking you with us in a livestream. So, definitely subscribe. Make sure the notification bell is on always. And