00:00:05 John Daub: Hello everybody, welcome to Dotonbori. It's beautiful. Look at the reflection of all of the neon lights—now LED really—in the Dotonbori River here in Osaka. How you doing? It's time now for a midnight snack run. I just finished up a really nice street food episode with Kevin Reilly. He's gone home. We ate a lot of takoyaki (octopus balls). I'll be honest, I'm not really hungry but I'm in Osaka right now and I think it's time for a midnight snack.

00:00:44 John Daub: I think food is a good way for you to learn about a culture. And so are these drums because Osaka is a pretty vibrant place. Let's give them some money here. Awesome.

00:01:11 John Daub: So down here is Dotonbori. I'm going to eat a little bit of this stuff here to take you around the back entrance, okay? Because if we go over here to the right, there's a couple of things I want to show you. Osaka is such a colorful, vibrant area around Namba—Namba that's the center. Umeda is where Osaka Station is, that's on the other side of the city. At the center of the city anyways, Osaka is a pretty big city. That is the Dotonbori sign, which is on the other side of the tourist area. And I say that because it wasn't always a tourist area.

00:01:43 John Daub: It's funny to think of Dotonbori, it's funny to think of Osaka as a tourist city because everybody would go through Tokyo, they would see Kyoto, but now everyone's also coming to Dotonbori. And I was really surprised at how many tourists we had here. Hey Marty, how you doing? I see Jim is here as well, how you doing guys? Yes, I promised a midnight snack run and a midnight snack run is what you're gonna get. Probably takoyaki. I don't know if there's anything really different than what I just did with the other people, but I'm gonna do a little bit of a live stream. This is what you subscribe for.

00:02:18 John Daub: A lot of people were saying they didn't get the notifications. Merry Christmas to everybody. We got a live stream in all of the time zones today. I did a live stream on the shinkansen (bullet train) trip up here with an ekiben (station bento) unboxing. I did one with Kevin a few hours ago and I'm doing one right now, which will probably last for about 30 minutes. But you're going to see a big difference between the way Dotonbori was with Kevin and I about two hours ago and the way Dotonbori is now. A lot of the shops are shut down.

00:02:50 John Daub: Dotonbori now—this area, which is an entertainment area historically going back all the way to the Edo period, Meiji era, way back 100, 150 years ago—this was an entertainment district, maybe even longer than that, where a lot of theaters were and people would come here to be entertained. And now they do as well, but it's more tourists though. I think the price of rent has gone sky high, even for locals. This is the area they used to call the Blade Runner area with lots of really cool big lights that just look like the future—very square, very symmetrical, which I think is the way the future sort of looked.

00:03:39 John Daub: And this is Ebisubashi (Ebisu Bridge), which is the bridge. We're coming from the other direction now, and over to the left here you can see the bright lights. It really is like the Shibuya Hachiko scramble of Osaka. I would say Dotonbori Ebisubashi is one of the most famous bridges in Japan. And on the left side you have the Glico man, which has changed shape. We started the live stream with Kevin here, so we're not going to spend a lot of time here. I'm going to walk around and take you this way a little bit, but I'm also going to take you away from Dotonbori because that's what we walk down.

00:04:23 John Daub: Let me just show you before we walk over in that direction a little bit of Dotonbori after hours. If you were to go straight through here, the Ebisubashi-suji (Ebisu Bridge street), this will take you to Namba Station, I believe. So Osaka, when you kind of walk around, you start to discover it really quickly and learn the ins and outs. This shotengai (covered shopping arcade) has a load of shops that are pretty neat to explore, but a lot of these shops down here are very, very touristy. We took you in the last live stream down an alley towards Moss Man, which is a shrine to a deity that's covered in moss that people pray to, and that was super cool. And that alley is on the right side of Dotonbori just a little bit down this way, about 100 meters, 75 meters to the right.

00:05:06 John Daub: At night when the shops close, they'll put their trash onto Dotonbori in the middle and the trash trucks come here very early in the morning, I would say around 7 a.m. to pick everything up before the crows take over and just devour stuff. That's what the yellow nets are for—it's to keep the crows from going crazy. And if you look up because Dotonbori is very much a vertical part of the city, you will see loads and loads of signs. Many of them, I don't know if it maybe was crazier back then, but there were areas where they just kept on going and going. This side was connecting to this side, but a lot of the businesses on this side have gone out of business from the past and chain shops have come in a little bit, and that has caused some changes with the neighborhood.

00:06:02 John Daub: So Mark Tudor's here, how you doing Mark? Hey, greetings from Atlanta, have a late night beer—you got that right. I mean it's been a long day. And Ryan Farrell's here, merry Christmas, have something on me, I really appreciate it guys. Merry Christmas to everybody as I stand in front of a mound of garbage. But this is the side of Dotonbori that we don't see. The yellow net here is to keep the crows away so they don't go plowing into food. And before the nets were here, the streets were a disaster. Shibuya I remember just had loads—if the trash trucks didn't get there in time, it would be a big problem.

00:06:36 John Daub: Right now I believe the gyoza (dumplings) might be discounted and everyone is getting the last bit of gyoza—we had that. So what I'm going to do is swoop around Dotonbori really quickly and then get some takoyaki from the other shop that's still open. So we're just going to get some takoyaki. The Tombrilla is closed down pretty much. Here's the famous Zuboraya—we're walking right underneath it. It looks like a nebuta (festival float) or a blimp, a fish zeppelin. Pretty cool.

00:07:26 John Daub: No, Kanae doesn't always travel with me. She's spending time with her family. Here's a shop with plastic models—look at that. I know that they make plastic models also in this area of Japan. This one has wow, like pizza—like this one has a lot of pizza. They're like square pizza, looks like toaster oven pizza. That's pretty cool. And of course because there's tourists, they also have gachapon (capsule toy) machines here. In the last live stream I think both Kevin and I were surprised—I don't want to say disappointed but we were surprised. Look at this—these crab legs are 50, you get—they're not actually this size, this is larger than real life.

00:08:09 John Daub: Of course that's larger than a hand, but in Osaka you go over the top and they did go over the top with this tower of crab legs. Depending how you look at it, a cruel dastardly reminder that they were chopped limbs from a crab—really delicious crab legs. Just depends on how you see things. Here come the restaurants bringing out the trash. All the shops seem to close. People who have been maybe boozing a little bit are starting to make their way home to the last train—it's 11 p.m., a little bit after that. We're going to go on a midnight—this is the alley that I was telling you about. You can tell from the chochin (paper lanterns) here and there's very little people. You can take a look—we went down there with Kevin in the last live stream about 60 meters into that.

00:09:00 John Daub: As you can see, the street has really taken on a different vibe to it. Hey Fry, thank you. Let's go guys, let's go get a snack, huh? So this one place, Kreoru—Kreoru was an amazing takoyaki. They're at the end of it, they're selling their last stock and I was really happy. They're a really nice group of people. They're most of them are from China now that are working out in the front because the staff can't speak any English. I mean, the staff has to speak English and before they couldn't speak much English, so they brought in workers from China who are trilingual, who can speak to the Chinese tourists and to the Western tourists.

00:09:44 John Daub: This is Kinryu Ramen (Golden Dragon Ramen) with the big dragon there. This is a chain in Osaka but the most important thing is that they're not just a small group. Memorable one is this one right on the corner and they're serving really big hot bowls of ramen. Why did I say big? They're serving bowls of ramen. It's famous also because you can sit on little tatami (mat) seats outside. It's kind of a neat "hey I'm in Japan" kind of moment. And Kevin and I started our street food episode here. The first street food episode that I did many many years ago at Kinryu Ramen.

00:10:27 John Daub: We're going to make our way to the other takoyaki place that's still open. There's that cow on a stick—it's crazy. And we're walking back towards here. And I'm going to curve over back towards the shotengai that walks towards Shinsaibashi. This is the place that we had a beer, which is closed down now after midnight. And I do like this side—this is where we ended the last live stream. And we're going to pick up a pretty nice Don Quixote. The Ferris wheel has stopped though—so it's kind of a weird Ferris wheel. I've never ridden on it, but if Kanae and I do come, we'll be making a stop at that Ferris wheel for sure. The Nebuta Takoyaki—oh look, there's a line. People know about this. This is no longer a secret place. This is a one-for-the-road takoyaki kind of a place.

00:11:17 John Daub: This is like a nebuta octopus made out of paper—I think it's more like plastic now to survive rain, but very Japanese style to it. Let's see how long it takes to get some takoyaki. Takoyaki. You can go down the basement there to get some cash out for the end of the night. Oh, they got like Corona and beers on ice—they definitely know what tourists want. So these are 500 yen. Oh okay, the line starts here for it. Even the welcome mat is tako (octopus).

00:12:24 John Daub: So why is takoyaki famous here in Osaka? It's because this area is very famous for octopus down in Akashi, which is a town not too far away, southwest of Kobe. They have very, very famous octopus. So of course the biggest city in the area is Osaka and they sell a lot of it. As you can tell, the octopus is sort of almost like a deity here—worship the octopus. I think this takoyaki might take a while. See, they're working pretty hard on it. So we're going to have to wait a little while. It's one coin, which is 500 yen—so that makes it pretty easy. I think most meals should be one coin like snacks. If you get any more than a 500 yen coin, then you're not going to sell as many of them. So based on just quantity, 500 yen is the way to go because it's just slap down a coin.

00:13:40 John Daub: So we're going to be walking this way towards Ebisubashi on the other side there and then make our way down the shotengai towards Shinsaibashi. So if you've never been to Shinsaibashi and you're going, I want to go to Shinsaibashi, you might want to. Brown sauce is usually Worcestershire sauce, I believe—I'm not sure. But shoyu (soy sauce) sauce is the most famous at the shop. Well, the good thing is that they have it at all. All right guys, here we go—500 yen for takoyaki. That's pretty reasonable. Hey look at the set—you save 100 yen. So I'm putting this away and I'm going for the set because there's a midnight snack run—so you go for the set, right? That's awesome. So there you go. Hey guys, I appreciate it—you guys bought me this. Much love. Here's a takoyaki beer set.

00:15:09 John Daub: Here's a takoyaki beer set. Shoyu. Yes. Green onions are fine. Yes. All right. Number one—that's what I ordered, but with a beer. Yes. Wow—it's nice and warm here. Choose your weapon. Oh that's my beer—actually that's our beer since you're sharing it with me. Oh thank you. Wait, how am I going to carry this with the takoyaki? Okay. I'm pinning it to my body. I have this here—it's going to body pin it. Okay. Here it comes. Oh my word. Oh my—I'm just going to sit next to the trash can. Oh my.

00:16:53 John Daub: This is a reason why people were waiting in line. Check it out guys—that is really beautiful. That's really really beautiful. Look at the way that it's glistening with the heat. That's the katsuobushi (dried bonito flakes), we call it. You see that? It's a beautiful beautiful beautiful thing. But I'm hesitating to eat this because you all know what happens when you put takoyaki in your mouth without preparing for it. That's what the beer is for actually, because without the beer it would be a disaster for me—and for you. Because no one wants to see me in this kind of a situation. We're going to have to wait until the takoyaki cools down—it's not going to be pretty. I've done this—this is not my first time at this rodeo. Every time I fall off the horse and hit my mouth like on hot coals—there's something about it. You just get so excited and you put the first one in your mouth. You know what's going to happen but you still do it every time. And then in the morning you're peeling off the layers of skin—I'm serious. It's been an awful awful awful experience sometimes.

00:18:20 John Daub: All right, so let's—I'm just going to take a screenshot of this and wait. And... All right we're back. I wanted to come here to this position so I could see if my tripod also would not fall off the bridge. This is where I'm going to put it—I figured that this is better than sitting. So if I put the tripod here I'm okay—this is a better position than before. Sorry I had to leave for a little bit—we're back. So kanpai (cheers) to everybody. This is much much much better than down there. I just wanted to change it up a little bit. This is the takoyaki right here—it's like a little boat and I like that. You can eat this with chopsticks—or if you don't want to waste all that chopsticks, you can get like one of these hairpin looking things. Usually they have them there and you can stab it and pull it up like this and they hang like this. It's not pretty but it works. Hmm—skewers I guess they're called. Oh man—it's so good. These are a little bit runny almost like cheese. I've let it cool a little bit—it's just dangerous when they're runny like this. Just make sure if they are runny that they're cooked enough that you don't get sick the next day. We don't want anybody to get sick from takoyaki.

00:20:12 John Daub: Takoyaki Dotonbori—yeah that's as far as I'm going to go with that song. So that's what takoyaki looks like—it's kind of nasty right? Hey mom, I'm eating takoyaki—look. You know she's not really proud. But takoyaki should be one of the things that you eat when you come to Japan. You got to have a list—before you come to Japan do your homework, make a list of the foods that you want to eat. Do it because it'll make your trip so much better. Food is the gateway to Japanese culture—true.

00:20:57 John Daub: Okay I don't mind this. So they put the shoga (ginger) outside on the side, not inside of the takoyaki—it's unique. I like that, that's different. It might even be better that way—no I still like it inside. Takoyaki is a pretty simple recipe—it's just batter with octopus inside of it and then they put a little bit of like tenkasu (tempura scraps) inside for volume and body. Then they put some mayonnaise on top of it after it's been turned and properly cooked. Yeah—they put some negi (green onions), some katsuobushi bonito flakes that dance in the heat and some mayonnaise. And they serve it sometimes with a topping—it's so good. It's a cheap snack—I'm good, good with the beer.

00:22:20 John Daub: The Dotonbori River is really pretty and I like it at midnight—all the tourists are gone, it's just more relaxed now. There's a Don Quixote on the right side. Stick with us because I'm going to cut out that 10 minutes of waiting in line and we're going to walk back past the Don Quixote, down the shotengai towards Shinsaibashi for a little bit. There's a lot of restaurants in this area open 24 hours. Don Quixote might be one of the shops open 24 hours—it's like a convenience store down here because tourists are always coming in and buying stuff. It doesn't matter if it's morning or night—they're here, they're gonna buy it.

00:23:48 John Daub: I know it's gonna be hot, I eat it anyway. If you've ever been to Osaka before, while I'm eating why don't you share your experience—what are some of the places do you think you have to go, do? What is your top ten? You can also write in where you're watching from because that's always fun. Today we met half the people from the Philippines—that was pretty cool because everybody from the Philippines is so friendly, has big smiles and so happy. Makes me feel happy when you meet people that are happy. Right—that's good advice, rip open your takoyaki when you get it and it takes the heat out of it a little bit—should've thought of that. Hey Dan Zain—I didn't see this here. Osaka wiki waka—who are more friendly, Tokyo a two seconds? Osaka—happy new year. Big for omen John—wolf wolf wolf, another decade of greatness for you today. Thank you thank you thank you thank you. I dedicate this takoyaki in the name of Dan—not hot at all, warm, perfect. It's finished—thanks everybody, that was a great snack.

00:25:16 John Daub: Um we're gonna walk now to the other side—Ireland, wow, Singapore, Seattle, Central Florida. We met somebody from Seattle just a little while ago. Metal pond from the cow licking statue is closed—it's a real shame. Everything is pretty much closed on the main Dotonbori street, which is probably for the best. But I'm going to tell you something—I'm going to go there tomorrow because I'm staying in this area tonight. So I'm going to go there tomorrow before I get back onto the shinkansen. It's Christmas Eve—Kanae wants me to come home, she's with her family tonight. And I had to make a trip here to film this episode, a street food episode with Kevin tonight at night, and that's why I'm here. And I also wanted to research and I was meeting a company that I might film at next year quickly before the holiday hits. So that was nice—it was nice to come down here today and it was nice to see Kevin too. I always like coming down to Osaka.

00:26:42 John Daub: This is Kevin Reilly—what are some of the other foods to eat in Osaka, where should I start? Kushikatsu (skewers), okonomiyaki (savory pancake), ramen—they have some pretty good ramen although they're not really famous for it. Udon is really good here. There's the tsukune (tofu topping) that's really really famous here in Osaka. Gosh, anything that's fried—the kanidoraku (crab chain) is very very famous here. Osaka has a lot of confections and snacks that you can find in Don Quixote that are very special. The takoyaki sauce is also very famous here—it's a little bit sweeter I think, but you'll find snacks and confections made out of that sauce as well. And mayonnaise—mayonnaise is also very very famous here in Osaka. Whatever you eat, just top it with mayonnaise. Karaage (fried chicken) is very very famous down in Kyushu, but they make good karaage here as well. But chicken is more famous down in Kyushu, so is beef. Kyushu is famous for food, but Japan's the kitchen—so if Osaka is the kitchen then Kyushu is like the farm. Kyushu and Shikoku probably.

00:28:04 John Daub: Oh that's nice, I appreciate you guys buying that for me—I'm really stoked. I should be tired—I've had jet lag for the last week, it's been awful coming back from Europe. So it's nice to be over it—I'm gonna sleep well tonight, I don't have to wake up early. Okay, done to all of you. Yeah, feeling the Christmas spirit—the holidays, I love the holidays.

00:29:06 John Daub: I'm so sorry—the moment I walked in front I heard the click. Look, if you're gonna take a picture, push click—don't sit there and pose and everyone's focusing and doing all this. Snap it—you can snap like three of them then pick one or just do HDR and that takes pictures really well of all of them. Look at this Don Quixote spilling out onto the river here—they have the KitKat bags over there, green tea, pretty. That's pretty colorful. I mean Don Quixote has found a way to make it—and it's hard to find anything in there but that makes it fun, that means you stay in there a lot longer. Just a shout out to our moderator Nosh—look at that, kinako (soy flour) sakura kinako KitKats. Just wanted to shout that out—boom, looks good, it's really good. All right, the Dotonbori is on the other side there—we're gonna walk towards Shinsaibashi.

00:30:18 John Daub: You could smell the yakiniku (grilled meat)—here's the entrance to the Ferris wheel, it's on the riverside here. How much is it? One person for a normal ride is 600 yen and if you have the Osaka Amazing Pass it's 500, or a virtual reality VR ticket is 1600—I don't know what that's for, it makes me curious. So there's a discotheque—does anyone call it that? There's a discotheque out here, blinky lights. This one's called Giraffe so I guess people are waiting to go into the discotheque. And then this one's called G3 and I guess I'm not really interested in bars and clubs—it's like too loud. But it's neat that they've done here—they have really nice deck that you can walk along between there and Ebisubashi. And these are sort of new but I guess it's about 10, 12 years maybe, but they've been redone—that makes it a fun area to come. Used to be a lot of local kids who come here and hit on each other—this is the place to pick up guys and girls if you're single. But it's all changed now—maybe on the weekends or late at night when all the tourists go home.

00:32:09 John Daub: Oh look there's a kitty cat—that kitty cat has a nest like a bird. What? Hey look at the zombies trying to get it—this could be an episode of The Walking Dead. Hey leave the cat alone—the cat is not a happy cat. Wow wow, what's he eating? A bird's nest? Kind of creepy. It's me—someone thought that was the cat. All right I tricked you, I tricked the internet. Yeah I think it's pretty neat—I showed you this street, it was really really crowded and right now there aren't that many people like before. But you could walk down this shotengai for a very very very long time. Hey Shane good evening, thank you for the stack—snack money. I might put that towards the ekiben because I've had a bazillion takoyaki and my stomach is already sticking out more—look at that bag of trash, shame. But I'm gonna dedicate the ekiben to Shane—thanks for that brother.

00:34:22 John Daub: And to Danny my friend in Canada—by the way I didn't give him a shout out, he gave me a super chat. Kanai just sent me a text saying good night—so goodnight to Kanai, yes to me chit-chat. Oh she heard me—send me another text, yes to me. Hey Phase Life, hey long time no see. Wow you know what I'm doing? I'm just kind of doing a midnight snack run. I've had a takoyaki and a beer—they gave me a hundred yen discount for getting both at the same time and I'm just kind of having fun—you know, usual night out. After hours walking down in a local area, Osaka towards Shinsaibashi for the next five or ten minutes. But I wanted to show you this side of Osaka—this walk away will take you from Dotonbori actually all the way from Namba Station if you walked all the way from the other side. There's another shotengai—just keep going straight past Ebisubashi and it'll take you to Shinsaibashi. You can do that either inside the shotengai or outside along the main street. But there's a load of restaurants and ramen shops down these alleys on the left and right. So you can walk down the shotengai for a block or two and then take a left or right and explore some of the alleys. But it's amazing the amount of trash on the left and right of the shotengai—look at this cute little doggie, it's a Santa doggy. Kawaii (cute)! Merry Christmas America.

00:36:34 John Daub: Go to Kuro-kun 5656 on Instagram. Yeah yeah—email okay, go to new meter. Many many people with oh wow—yeah look at that, yeah go to cone as many to my—that she is. Yeah wow—if you okay take picture. Oh yeah oh really okay let's take a picture with Kuro-kun—how are you? Oh yeah. Okay. Okay. Yeah this is in the ground. Yeah, Kuro-kun 5656. Kuro-kun, good luck! Merry Christmas! Ah kawaii! Arigato (thank you)! So you can see this picture that he just took on the Kuro-kun Instagram. There you go, go check it out. 3, 2, 1, OK. There it is! How cool is that? Ah yoroshiku (nice to meet you)! Ah that's nice—it's so easy to make friends in Osaka. Everybody is kind of unique in little ways. And Kuro-kun—Kuro (black) is a very famous name for a dog. Shiro (white) as well is a very good name—Hachiko of course. Yeah I think Kuro-kun might be a little sleepy though—Kuro-kun's a little sleepy.

00:38:24 John Daub: So Faye that's what I'm doing—I'm hanging out with Kuro-kun. There you go. Are there any halal restaurants? I was gonna go and do a halal restaurant ramen shop in Tokyo, but my friend who's Muslim couldn't go with me because it would be weird if I went and didn't know what I was eating, didn't know the meanings behind it. So I'm gonna go as soon as I can find somebody to go with me. I had some people in November to go but we just didn't work out—so I'm gonna try again. I don't know if they have any halal restaurants because I'm not Muslim and I don't eat halal cuisine—although I do eat it if it's available because it's food, it's good. I like all food except for a couple of things. Hoya (sea squirt) is probably the food I like the least—hoya tastes like poison. Hoya is sea squirt that they eat in places like Aomori up in the north in Tohoku—hoya is nasty. But even though it's not on my top list, I'll still eat it because it's food. I guess I haven't had a good one yet.

00:40:05 John Daub: Alright so it's pretty quiet down these side streets. So what we're gonna do is take a turn here—I don't think that I'm gonna go all the way to Shinsaibashi. Sorry we've gone fishing—Luke's Lobsters, that's a Maine lobster chain right? Lobster rolls—they're everywhere now. Sanrio Gallery? There's a lot of chain shops here—this has changed. I know there were chain shops here before but I didn't know it's really really coming with non-Japanese chain shops. I guess it's something with the Olympics—I've just seen over the last couple of years. Look at that—Calbee. Calbee is the makers of the potato chips here in Japan and they make them fresh for you. Yeah Calbee makes it fresh. Thank you! Alright! Thank you very much—so kind. So even in the middle of Osaka at midnight it's pretty safe out here—I don't think I'm worried too much about my safety. Maybe I should be, but as I said before I have radar where if something happens I'm pretty good at running really fast and screaming like a girl—instantly. If you scream like a girl and you start crying and run really fast people will typically not chase you—seems like too much trouble. So defense mechanism.

00:42:20 John Daub: Interesting—what? She's got like a candy cane bazooka—it's awesome. That should be the thumbnail right there—have like a big cake firing out the other side, knocking over these three. I'm serious—she's got a candy cane bazooka and she's firing at these three dudes. It's weird. Honestly this is weird too—what? Welcome to the Pokemon Center Osaka DX—um yeah there you go, looks pretty fun. Did not know that—and a Pokemon Center here too. Okay Pokemon is everywhere. But of course—what? There's even a Shake Shack here—they're everywhere too. What? I thought they were only in Tokyo—now they've moved their sights over here to Osaka and more countries than just Japan and America as well. I don't know—the last time I ate here was in Tokyo, I ate Shake Shack, I got sick.

00:43:45 John Daub: All right so we did it—obviously because it says right there, Shinsaibashi Station is right there. So you can take this shotengai and I'm going to wrap around, go this way, show you a little bit of Shinsaibashi and then I think it was a pretty good live stream—midnight snack run and I don't even have to wake up early tomorrow. Couple of hostesses—are they going to work or leaving work? It's hard to tell—coming back from the office or what? They're going to the office—hard to tell. All right here's Shinsaibashi everybody. This is, I believe across the street is the first Apple store in Osaka that made big news here because like having the first Starbucks which came in 1999 I believe at the Hep Five building. Oh this is the hotel—I believe was it Clinton or Bush stayed in this hotel when he came for a summit here in Osaka like a couple decades ago. Yeah—it's pretty popular. But right now you can see the streets are deserted and typically Osaka is a very quiet town outside of the entertainment districts.

00:45:14 John Daub: David Kimura you made it—just as I was about to end, David. All right—we've got the David 10, we've got to go on for a little bit longer. All right David—extended live stream for David because I don't want David to be here and then I just end, that's awful. We love David—David's like part of our family. So David we're going to extend this just for you. And to be honest I got to walk back this way anyway—so it's like why not just keep it going? I was literally getting up to an hour—although like a third of it is me waiting in line for takoyaki. But yeah I got to walk back this way anyway—so let's take a little look at Shinsaibashi. It's a really big highway—by the way Osaka has some extremely wide roads, wide avenues. If you compare it to Tokyo, Osaka wins hands down. Chuo Dori is very large but a lot of Tokyo's roads in the center there—at least that one that goes through Ginza—used to be a river. They dried up the river for the 1964 Olympics and turned it into a highway—it's one of the most interesting roads in Tokyo. But Chuo Avenue is quite wide but nothing like this—this is just super wide. And I think across the street over here is Amerikamura (America Village).

00:46:46 John Daub: Yeah there it is—do you see Amerikamura? I'm not going there—used to be a tough town but you could see up there the Statue of Liberty. Do you see that? That's Amerikamura. And I believe Homer Simpson came when he came to Japan—I think he went to Amerikamura because he was homesick and I don't think he got what he was looking for. Amerikamura is interesting—they had some shops that used to be like in the 1990s, 1980s. There was a fascination with American culture and jeans and denim and cowboys and the freedom, the aloha feeling—NBA and sports and NFL and stuff like that. That was all over there and restaurants—they had some cheeseburgers, they had some American chains down there that took advantage of America Village. Mura means village in Japanese—yeah it's not quite the same but it also was kind of slightly dangerous because freedom has a price, it has a price of danger. And it was, I don't know, but they always said there were like gangs that would hang out in Amerikamura—just you go to Amerikamura, watch yourself over there. I don't know—people would say that to me. But I think it's all right now. There's that Apple store that everybody was talking about—I don't go there.

00:48:15 John Daub: Don't mind—that's cute. Look at that—very shiny nose. What are the deer looking at? That's deer skin shoes—that's nasty. Dude what? Suburbia skinned some reindeer, put it on a pedestal and then garnished with reindeer around it—that's awful. I don't know—what message are you sending? You have deer looking at leather—I don't know, the world's gone mad. It's weird—let's put some cute reindeers with anime eyes. Look at that—they have anime eyes. These are products made with reindeer—it's hard to tell but I don't know, it just doesn't. That's a creepy reindeer—you creepy. I don't know—I'm just getting the wrong message. I used to go—I've eaten at this ramen shop 20 years ago when I first came here. I don't remember it being called Kamakura—I think the chain has changed hands. But I've eaten at this ramen shop 20 years ago at least at this location. And you can see here's the menu—do you have a nice set? This is the recommended set number one—it's ramen with roast pork and a soft-boiled seasoned egg, fried dumplings and a draft beer for 1600 yen. This is one with kimchi pickles—it's pretty good. I think it's a fun experience to go and eat here during the day—it's usually quite busy. But right now looks like it's pretty relaxed—it was good ramen but I haven't eaten here in 20 years so I can't say. Oh they got karaage set—look at that. I don't remember if it was Kamakura 20 years ago though—I think they had round windows when I ate at that location. It's next to the Doc Martens in case you want to—there's the Doc Martens next to Doc Martens.

00:50:43 John Daub: Oh that is that a food challenge? A lot of gyoza—it looks like a food challenge to me. Smells good at this shop—that's not halal, I'll tell you right now. Someone asked me for halal—this ain't no halal. But it looks pretty good—this is handmade gyoza, that looks really really good. You can see it's like Chinese but it's not—it's like a Japanese Chinese theme, I don't know, like a fusion looks like to me. Hey everybody welcome back—just refreshed your browser. There's Kuro again—he's on the prowl. Christmas at Shinsaibashi has never been more colorful. Thank you Kuro—I have made Kuro's Instagram page.

00:51:50 John Daub: Well skateboarders—don't they attack people in the gangster movies? They come in on motorbikes and stuff—awesome. Whoa that guy just flipped—that guy flipped. It's very cool. Hey—yes YouTube. I'm a guy walking with a stick talking to a stick walking down a busy intersection in the middle of the night—you're going to get people saying hi. In New York you just get people punching you—when it's Christmas you're going to hear people say hi. I love Japan—God I love Japan.

00:52:51 John Daub: All right David Kimura because you're joining us David—I'm taking you back to Dotonbori because I'm just happy that David is here. And I'm going to buy something for Kanae as well on the way back—of course it's Christmas Eve. I've already gotten her her Christmas present—she's already asleep so she's not watching this. But we already got her her Christmas present—so she can't open it though until Christmas morning. Wait I put one of the presents under the tree and I'm not there—and it's in a bag. I know—should she? I know that Kanae like took a peek—Kanai do not. If you're watching this do not look at the present at the Christmas tree. Yay—Kanai don't look at your present under the tree because I'm not there. I'm going to have to hide the presents from now on—and thus it starts. We start hiding presents from one another—it's a trust problem, trust issues.

00:53:57 John Daub: Oh what's that? That looks like a Christmas miracle—let's go down this alleyway. All right it is a Christmas miracle—just to the right here. Kanai? I found another present for you—yay. What do you think? Think she'd like that? All right let's move on. I'm dreaming of a naughty Christmas—it's a midnight in the highlands. I'll be back later with a credit card number. Oh ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho.

00:55:00 John Daub: All right David—no more monkey business. I'm taking you now to a happy ending because all live streams should end happily and merrily especially during the holiday. This David is the homebody—this is the big Glico man on the Dotonbori River where all of the bright lights are. David this is going to be awesome. All right—I hopefully they didn't turn the lights all off. But this is the big intersection—that's the big supersized TV in front of us that people 20 years ago used to go oh my gosh. If you're really interested in Blade Runner you can live inside a Blade Runner by going to Dotonbori—it's the future right here. Now we're in the future and it's not as great—now the future is over. Well we're now in the future and it's just normal. Oh no David—no they turned off the Glico man. Oh why would they do that? I guess at midnight they turn off the Glico man—so the Glico man stopped running. No—oh it's still pretty bright but just not the same. Big big apologies—I really thought—I don't understand why they would turn them off. But I'm glad they turned them off—this actually is an LED TV behind him now and they'll move the TV so it looks like he's traveling all around the world.

00:56:34 John Daub: Osaka is not as clean as Tokyo—I don't know, there's a lot—it's an issue. But in the morning it'll all be clean because even though it's a little bit messy and this area actually has a lot of tourists so probably the mess comes from the tourists. This bridge used to be completely packed—you would not see this empty at night. Usually it's like people in their 20s all hitting on each other looking for dates and stuff. But today it's pretty empty—just us. David merry Christmas—merry Christmas. Wait David wait wait—does that mean I got to keep going? What? What? Okay good morning—what did I do? Okay all right—I can do that. Do that. This is the Dotonbori River from the other side—these are some nightclubs that we walked by about 30, 35 minutes ago before I took you to Shinsaibashi area. It's nice—I like this area, I like the bright lights of it all—it's infectious kind of, it makes you want to stick around a little bit longer.

00:58:02 John Daub: But do note that not a lot of locals come here anymore—it's not the same because it's a little bit more crowded, there's too many tourists. It's not as much fun for local people to come here—it's like Shibuya. Local people go to work and then they go—they leave but they don't go there on the weekends to hang out. And Dotonbori is kind of like that now. But like I was talking with Kevin in the last live stream—you want to check that out? Our street food run—we met a lot of people, a lot of viewers, it's pretty fun. And Kevin told me 20 years ago he would come here quite often and it was just people where people would come and hang out—it was a meeting place. And now it's not the same anymore—people go to other places, locals don't come here. It's just not the shops that we were looking for anymore—it's changed. That's not a bad thing—it's just the evolution of a city and tourism to Japan used to be very very very low and now it's very very very high. And that's a big big change—and the result of the increased tourism is this, you know like it's just become more busy, more beautiful maybe, cleaner, but it's also in a way touristy. And a lot of chains have come in to cater to that—and that's fine, it's just different, a little different.

00:59:27 John Daub: All right you know what? I'll take you—let me show you the Dotonbori. But now and then I'm going to call it a night because I'm sleepy—it's like past midnight now, I can't keep this going forever. Phone's going to die—phone batteries don't last forever. One of the things that Kevin—I remember when Kevin and I saw that Osaka had won the 2025 World Expo and that was a big deal in 1970 and now it's back again. And they have the statue on the Dotonbori which is pretty cool—the 2025 Expo. I believe that it's going to really really be fun and you're going to see the future—2025 is a good marker for the future. All right I got to go this way anyways—this is Dotonbori. 2025 is going to be a big marker for the future—a lot of new tech is going to come, it's going to be the start of the new decade. But I want to tell you this—2025 is going to be the middle of the decade and at this World Expo we're really going to see the evolution of it. And also I believe it around this time—the new Chuo Shinkansen. I believe it's going to be—you'll see some real progress with that. It's the evolution of the shinkansen—the Chuo Shinkansen will be coming from Tokyo to Osaka going inland into the mountains a little bit and it's going to be twice as fast as the shinkansen—can you believe that? Twice as fast as the shinkansen. That shop still open—that's hardcore, the gyoza shop—hardcore workers. I'm telling you respect to the people who serve us in the world in the middle of the night—big respect.

01:01:22 John Daub: David this is what you missed but you're watching it live now—so it's just a different vibe, different people. The tourists are gone, the locals are coming back. Even Family Mart has gachapon machines outside of it—tourists, I don't know, it's a little bit much. Merry Christmas—walk around with a camera on a stick and everyone will wave at you. Wow. Sushi-Zanmai Shacho is wearing a Christmas hat—a lot of people said that looked like Mike Chen when we were there, it's kind of funny. Hey Nick Reese—thank you Nick. And Bradshaw Studio—hello to all from Bradshaw Studio. Nice to see you guys. This is a pretty cool scene—to see that hand jutting out of there holding a big big piece of sushi. This building—something will be built here later on this year. But until then you have this really wicked view of the hand of sushi and the Don Quixote with Ebisu Ferris wheel—it's kind of neat. You're not going to see this much longer because they're going to build something there really soon—Dotonbori will not stay like this for long. So just stay here for a second—and we're done.

01:03:20 John Daub: Kevin told me that there's many women of the night walking around and they might talk to me if I do something after midnight—so I hope they don't talk to me. Women of the night—not interested in what you have. Look at the vending machine—oh they have ramen here, that looks really good. So the one on the top left is usually the most popular—shoyu ramen. So salt ramen—shio (salt). And people are still slurping their noodles—let's get some midnight ramen. Kan ramen? Kan ramen—it keeps it simple. Do you see this vending machine? Four choices—look how simple that is. 600 yen, 900 yen—simple. I love it—Kan ramen never ever ever change, keep life simple.

01:04:26 John Daub: Hey Simon Osborne—wish you and Kanai merry Christmas. Thank you for all the streams and videos—you're very very welcome. It's been an amazing year—I'm so happy that I could share this with you. I'm just really happy to have this platform and live stream with you. Over the holidays I'm going to be finishing up the emoji—so those that support will get access to weird emoji. I want to make the chat a little bit more fun and then if we can add some emoji in here like some weird ones. Right now actually all right before I leave we have a Discord server. If you join our Discord server which is free we have an emoji contest right now and I'm going to be picking some of the best emoji from that contest. And even if you don't want to design any emoji you should go in there and check some of the ones they've made—there's a really bad one of me. Somebody gave me a wedgie in the first episode like really yanked up that fundoshi (traditional loincloth). Fundoshi is the Japanese thong that they use—the sumo, not the sumo wrestlers but when you do some festivals it looks like you're just in a thong. That's a fundoshi—it's funny because the word FUN is the first three letters of fundoshi and there's nothing fun about it. But anyways somebody made an emoji of me from the first episode when I was getting the fundoshi with a super wedgie—and that was pretty, I don't know how I felt about that but you can check it out. It's in the Discord server and it's free—I'm sure one of the moderators will put the link in there. I believe we have 30 Nitro boosts so discord.gg/onlyinjapan.

01:06:08 John Daub: And then I'll take you to the Discord server—I highly recommend it because it's 24/7 Only in Japan. You ever have any questions you don't have to ask me—there's like 500 people on there all the time that are crazy about and know Japan really well. So it's kind of like my dream come true to have a community of nice people like you—and they're here and there. So the community is more than that. Just a quick look back at here—thanks so much for watching. This is Dotonbori in the middle of the night—thanks for joining me on this midnight snack run all of you. Thank you to David for making us go 30 minutes longer now than I wanted—that's okay, I had to come back this way anyways. Dotonbori at night—it's not as beautiful as during the day but they'll clean up the trash tomorrow. Tomorrow's trash day—merry Christmas everybody. Tomorrow's Christmas Eve for us—I'll be doing some more live streams, don't worry. I'll be doing one more from Osaka, maybe one from Kyoto on the way because I go to Kyoto. And I might get the shinkansen from Kyoto to go back and then I'm going to see you guys in the next video. And then maybe I take a break on Christmas Day—our Daimyo supporters on Patreon. And we have two Daimyo places and we have seven or eight postcards left on Patreon. Our Daimyo this month I sent them a food challenge—I sent them a matcha KitKat. One of them is like a ridiculously priced luxury KitKat and the other one was the cheapest matcha KitKat. So I gave them two matcha KitKats to compare, make a video about it and introduce which one is better and if the luxury one is really worth it. So I gave them that chance to make a video about it and we have about four or five of the Daimyo supporters that ate the luxury KitKat and the cheap KitKat and then compared it—so it's going to be pretty fun on Christmas Day. I'm going to do a comparison as well—so thanks to everybody there.

01:07:59 John Daub: We're back where we started because this is exactly where I started. So everybody the last 20 seconds is at the takoyaki place that I waited for like 20 minutes for a 900 yen takoyaki set which is pretty good—you can watch in the playback. Hit the subscribe button and the like button—if you like midnight snack runs encourage me. If you do not hit the like button I might not do them again—I'll probably do it again but sure helps if you click the like button. There it is—that's where we started sort of. Merry Christmas everybody—happy holidays everyone around the world. It's now Christmas Eve in Tokyo, in Osaka—and more live streams tomorrow as I make my way back to Tokyo to see my wife who's waiting for me. Good night.