00:00:00 John Daub: Welcome to the Yamanote Line. This is platform number five, and this train has a ton of history going all the way back to the end of the 19th century. Now this is Tokyo Station. It was starting to be built in 1909, but because of the Russo-Japanese War they ran out of money, so it was completed in 1914. Yes, I am loaded with history for this. I'm really excited about it.

00:00:35 John Daub: The Yamanote Line is a big deal, and not too long from now, in just a few months, millions of people are going to be coming here for the Tokyo 2020 Olympics and riding this. Hopefully this can be a guide that helps people out. They put up here JY01—that's the number if you can't pronounce Tokyo or some of the other stations. This goes counterclockwise, but we're going to be going clockwise. There goes the Yamanote Line going counterclockwise. We're going to take it the other way. We're going to go to the front of the train, which will allow us a really nice view. So we're going next to Yurakucho (丸の内，Marunouchi), and I'm loaded with information right here. I've done my research. A ticket costs 140 yen if you want to go around—just buy for your destination one stop before or after and you can do the entire Yamanote Circle Line for like $1.30 or something. This is crazy. You see the Tokaido Line going up here, I believe.

00:01:39 John Daub: There's a lot of train lines that come through Tokyo Station, but Tokyo Station is most famous for the Shinkansen, of course. The Shinkansen is a big deal—that starts here. And I think Tokyo Station is a little bit better than Shinagawa in this respect. If you have a non-reserved ticket, you will always get a seat because this is the origin of the Tokaido Shinkansen. Tokaido Shinkansen is the one that goes towards Osaka—that's the busiest Shinkansen. Of course there's five or six other Shinkansen lines, but Tokaido is the busiest by far. Here comes the Yamanote Line. We're going to be on the train for a while, guys. I think I'm on the wrong side of the train—it's alright. But here it comes. So we're going to be looking out the back of the train now, and then we'll move to the front of the train as soon as we get to Shinagawa, because that's a pretty significant station and we can spend some time in Shinagawa Station on the way.

00:03:18 John Daub: The Yamanote Line—they have a lot of TV screens. Check it out. And the TV screens will tell you where you're going. It tells you the time as well. So between stations it's usually about two to three minutes, and it'll tell you the distance. To Yurakucho we're going 0.8 kilometers. Hey Darwe, what happens if you ride the full loop and exit at the same station? What happens is that you can't get out and you have to explain to the staff what you did. So you might want to go one stop or two stops instead—which is better that way.

00:04:07 John Daub: Alright, let's take a look here. There's a lot of construction here. In 1921, Prime Minister Hara Takashi was assassinated at the south gates of Tokyo Station. He was stabbed by a right-wing railroad switchman—which is crazy. He was the first commoner appointed to the office of Prime Minister. If you're interested in what happened, the history is pretty interesting. Next station is Yurakucho. Yurakucho is on the left. The subway station, Yurakucho station—please mind the gap. This is a Yamanote Line train bound for Shinagawa and Shibuya. The next station is Yurakucho. JY17. Doors on the left side will open. Please change here for the Hibiya subway line and the Yurakucho subway line.

00:05:15 John Daub: The Yurakucho line station was opened in 1910. It has a ridership of 164,000 for JR and 158,800 for Metro—that was in 2013. So it's pretty busy. You can catch here the Yurakucho line, the Hibiya line, and the Chiyoda line. There are gates to protect you so you don't get smashed. There it is—auto-closing doors here. Yurakucho is one of my favorite places because there's a lot of stuff to do around here. The International Forum, which is one of the venues for the Tokyo 2020 Olympics, is here. There's the Keihin-Tohoku line—it kind of competes with the Yamanote line on this side. It's going pretty fast.

00:06:33 John Daub: Next station is Shimbashi. The Shimbashi line is on the left. It's the Ginza line, Toei Asakusa line, Yurikamome line. The next station is Shimbashi. There's the Shinkansen going by. The doors on the left side will open. Please change here for the Ginza subway line, the Asakusa subway line, and the Yurikamome line. Shinbashi is a pretty old station. It actually was the original terminus in 1872 for Japan's first railway. Shinagawa station is the oldest, which we'll get to in a minute. But from here you can see Shiodome, which are these tall skyscrapers. Shiodome is a new area. And the new Shimbashi building on the other side, which is this retro-looking building—really cool.

00:07:59 John Daub: On the train right now, the Yamanote line has a very huge shape—it almost looks like a carrot. Do you see that? And right now we are starting from Tokyo and we're at Shimbashi. So you can see next is Hamamatsucho. Here's the new Shimbashi building after this train goes by. There it is—it's a very retro design to the new Shimbashi building. It's the kind of design you never forget. You'll get a pretty neat view of Tokyo Tower from here. But there's a lot of reasons why you would want to get off at Hamamatsucho—remember this station. There's Little Italy we're going by right now. Yeah, you can see Tokyo Tower right now, just a little bit between the buildings. Ah, there it was—just a flash between the buildings. Did you see it? This is where you get off for the Tokyo Monorail, which will take you to Haneda Airport. There's Tokyo Tower right there. We're going to get off and move to the front of the train now.

00:09:43 John Daub: Alright, this is Hamamatsucho. We're going to take the next train, but this station is pretty important and I'm going to take you to a place. Okay, so we're going to take the next train, but this station is pretty important. Hamamatsucho is where you'll get the monorail to go to Haneda Airport. Let's go on the Yamanote line side. And we'll also from here you can get the Oedo line, which is another circle line for the subway—it's run by Toei. Toei is the city's subway line—Metro is another one. So there's two subway lines here. There goes the Yamanote line on our right side. So Hamamatsucho station was started in 1909 for the original Yamanote line way back in the beginning of the 20th century. It has a ridership of 155,800 people in 2013, so it's a pretty busy station. But this place is pretty famous for a statue that we're going to go try and see right now.

00:11:04 John Daub: Yamanote line—you can see the Yamanote line right here. You can walk to Tokyo Tower—it takes about 15 minutes from Hamamatsucho. There's also the Hama-rikyu Gardens, which is very beautiful. You can catch some of the ferries or boats that go across Tokyo Bay from Hama-rikyu Gardens—costs about a thousand yen or so. This is also where you get the island ferries if you wanted to go to Ogasawara or take the jetfoil—you'd want to do it from here. There's a ferry port about a 10-minute walk from here towards the seaside—very cool. I love that trip—the ride to Ogasawara takes 24 hours, which is crazy. Ah, there's a Shinkansen on the left side. Here comes another Yamanote line—I'm telling you they come every three minutes or so. There's 50 Yamanote line trains in operation, so at any given time there's 50 of them, and since there's 30 stations, yeah, they're quite busy.

00:12:12 John Daub: Oh there he is—alright, I'm gonna run over there because I don't want to miss the train. Oh, he's got a kimono on—check it out. This is the little peeing statue—he's got a beautiful kimono on. And this has a tradition all the way back to the 1950s, where a dentist, I believe, in one of these buildings—his father donated this to the station. And he, you know, doing his thing in the pond, but he's got this really pretty kimono on. And every couple of months they will change his outfit—I guess it's because of the Japanese New Year. You can see he's set up for the holidays. Alright, there goes the Yamanote line the other way, and here comes our train—we're gonna be riding in the front. They just started in 2020 the new E235 series, which has the newest green front to it. The doors are faster to open and close, which means that they can get more trains on the line if they're moving quicker—instead of taking an hour, it'll take you 58 minutes. I'm excited to get in the front now—it was kind of a mistake to be in the back.

00:14:17 John Daub: This also means we'll be saying goodbye to the little peeing boy—sorry dude, we'll be back. This is our second time on a live stream with you. You see the monorail on the top of the left side going towards the airport. Oh cool—all right, we're back on the train. Not many people here. The next station is Tamachi. My information—Tamachi also was built in 1909 and yes, it has a daily ridership of 140,000 people. That's how many passengers get on the train at that spot, not how many are riding the entire line. And here comes another Yamanote line train—other Shinkansens competing with us on the left side. There's another Shinkansen.

00:15:18 John Daub: At Tamachi you can catch the Mita Line. The next station is Tamachi—doors on the left side will open. Please change for the Keihin-Tohoku Line. Their private seats in those cars—please offer your seats in those. So we're going through Tamachi Station. So when the original Tokaido Main Line passed through here, Tamachi was underwater actually—that's back in 1872, so this is all water. It's a very industrial area at that time—I think there were a lot of confection shops and electronic shops, factories. It's a good place to see the Shinkansen go by. Yeah, but it was a pretty industrial area until about the 1970s. Tamachi—you can't see too much from the platform. The next station we're going to—oh here comes another Shinkansen. They move pretty quickly too—a lot of trains, maybe a Nozomi every 10 minutes. See that on the left side—the new train station, the newest one on the Yamanote line hasn't opened yet. So I'm not sure if we're gonna go by there or through there, but it's called Takanawa Gateway.

00:17:11 John Daub: Takanawa Gateway—um, it was announced in 2014 and construction began in 2017, and it's almost completed. It's expected to be completed on March 14, 2020, which is just a couple months from now. Now there's some controversy because Takanawa Gateway was not a popular choice for the name. Takanawa was what people wanted, but the JR station master, I guess the head of the station, said this used to be the Gateway to Edo, so he wanted to put "Gateway" in there. But there's a lot of people who want to repeal that name before it launches, so we'll see what happens. But it's called Takanawa Gateway—which is pretty interesting, pretty long name too. You can see Shinagawa—it opens up here because there wasn't a station here for a very long time. Okay so this is cool—the train goes through the new station. So this is the new station we're going through, but it won't stop there until March 2020. That's cool—look how new it is. Alright, you can see Shinagawa on the left side—there a lot of tall buildings here in Shinagawa.

00:19:04 John Daub: This is Shinagawa Station—is one of Japan's oldest stations, from June 12, 1872, which is the first station in Japan. So it's a lot of people coming on here—for JR East it was 253,000 riders a day in 2000, and then in 2017 it's 379,000 daily riders. Definitely the stretch of the route—the Yamanote line is older. Oh there's a lot of people coming on here, but it's okay—in the front usually not a lot of people will come, so we should be safe. This is the holiday season in Japan, so there's not as many riders on a weekday—but thankfully it's Saturday. Alright, just one person getting on on the Saturday—so that's it. On the other side, these trains get so packed between 7 and 9 a.m.—they say it's 250% full, which means basically you have no space at all, you're just jammed in here. At 100% you can stretch out a little bit and read a newspaper. So they have JR ratings to let you know how crowded the trains are.

00:20:43 John Daub: So Shinagawa Station's significant because you can catch the Shinkansen line here, and uh in 2027—which is still kind of ways off—the Chuo Shinkansen, which is a maglev, a magnetically levitating train, which will go from Shinagawa to Nagoya in 40 minutes—which is like cut the time in half. And by 2037 the Chuo Shinkansen will be able to go in 67 minutes to Osaka—which is crazy. But that's like two decades away—the first part of the line is expected to be completed in seven years from now, which yeah, those seven years gonna blow by. The next station is Osaki. Osaki opened in 1901, so it's older than the Yamanote line. Passengers have really risen here. There's the Narita Express that goes to the airport on the left side. JY24. It's funny seeing the live comments—just hearing the names of the Yamanote line brings back memories for people who used to live here. I think someone said they had a bad date here in Osaki.

00:22:16 John Daub: So this one in 2000 had 57,000 passengers daily, and now it has 143,000—making it the 18th busiest station on JR East's network, which is just getting pretty busy. This is becoming more and more an important station on the Yamanote line. Here you can catch the Rinkai Line, which is like a monorail—Rinkai Line. The JR Saikyo Line starts here, here in the Oimachi Line, which is another line that goes towards Kanagawa—which is another area. So you can see where we are here—Shinagawa and Osaki is at the tip. So the Yamanote line makes the biggest curve here—we just completed a curve that goes around the city, and then the next station will be Gotanda after that. But in general the Yamanote line—I'll be presented with a nice circle on all the maps. This is the actual map of what it looks like going around the city like a big carrot. It's very quiet on a Saturday morning—basically on the weekdays though, you wouldn't want to live stream. It'd be too crazy.

00:24:00 John Daub: Please stand clear of the closing doors. The next stop is Gotanda—JY23. And then your numerical system. Opened in 1911, and the ridership has been about the same for JR East in 2013. Well, there's a Tokyu line, Ikegami line, which opened in 1928, and that took a little bit of pressure off of this station. The Toei Asakusa line is also available here, so you can get the subway. It's about 1.2 kilometers to the next one—it's not too far. I think we're getting there right now. Yeah, the stops between each to get from station to station on the Yamanote line—it's not very long. Hey, Happy New Year to everybody—Linda Marita's here. Please pick up something nice for Kanae-san—you got it, Linda. And Oliver—hey Happy New Year, Oliver. Have a beer on me—awesome, thanks for that. I've been wanting to do this for a very long time—to take you on the Yamanote line.

00:25:33 John Daub: Alright, from here on the platform you can see—um, this area of Tokyo between Gotanda and Ebisu—it seems more local to me, not too many big skyscrapers and businesses. There's a karaoke place at a distance, so you can tell. Each station has a jingle, and not each one is individual—independent for each station. Some of the jingles will be used at other stations, but some of them are very famous, like the one at Takadanobaba, which is for Astro Boy—which we'll get to in about 30 minutes. Again, it takes 58 minutes to complete the loop of the Yamanote line, and there's 30 stops—so it's about two to three minutes between each one. This is now it starts to get interesting—this side of the loop between Meguro. Meguro is the next stop. Meguro is an old station—it opened in 1885 and it has a daily ridership of 106,000. It gets interesting between here and Shinjuku—it's very crowded. And I'm going to try to get you on the left—on the right side to show you some of the stuff. We of course have Hachiko, which is one of the world's busiest pedestrian crossings.

00:27:12 John Daub: We're going into a tunnel here. You would change here for the Namboku line, which goes north to south—it's a subway line—and the Mita line, which also goes north to south. For the Toei and Metro—the two subway lines in Tokyo, so it's good to know those two. This is also a place where you can get one of the Midori no Madoguchi—they're called MARs—MARS. It's the world's first train reservation system, which started in 1958. So that's right—Tokyo had the world's first reservation system electronically, so that you could make reservations onto which train car and which seat that you wanted way back in 1958. And uh they have that capability here at the station—most of them have them though. These days it's called MARS. Back in 1958 they would use like master computers with a central processing unit consisting of thousands of transistors, they say. But the Midori no Madoguchi is where you would be able to make reservations for train seats—and it's good to know.

00:28:20 John Daub: Alright, Ebisu's next, and Ebisu is a pretty big deal—especially for me. This station was built in 1901. It used to be a freight terminal for the neighboring Ebisu beer factory—spelled E-B-I-S-U. But the station is Ebisu—no longer is a freight terminal for beer; that ended in 1982. Today it has 133,500 daily riders going through Ebisu. It's pretty neat—you can actually get off here and walk to Shibuya. It takes you about 25-30 minutes or so, and you get to see a lot. Daikanyama, which is a nice neighborhood, is also available—you can walk there in about 15 minutes up the hill from Ebisu. And uh you can go to the old brewery and check it out—I think you can go in there for some beer tasting, but that's a whole park area that they have not too far away from here. That's another 10-minute walk from Ebisu station. You can see the Yamanote line taking off—oh sorry, that's not the Yamanote line. Oh which one is that—this is the Shinjuku Line, I'm not sure. We'll figure it out when we get to Shibuya because the next station is Shibuya. You can hear the Ebisu music they have in the background here.

00:30:24 John Daub: Shibuya station—you can see the big skyscraper ahead of us. That's the new Shibuya station, which has been under renovation for many years—it's pretty much complete now. In fact, YouTube moved their offices there—apparently has the fastest sold-out, ridiculous. I can see why they want to have their Japan headquarters moved from Roppongi to Shibuya now. Shibuya has been a media hub for Tokyo for a long time. This station was built March 1, 1885—it was the first stop of the Shinagawa line before the Yamanote line was in existence. And of course it's famous for Hachiko—the dog was here between 1925 and 1935 waiting, and the statue commemorates Hachiko on the square. It's also famous for something you might want to look up called the Shibuya Incident in 1946, which is a gang war—so you Google Shibuya Incident, it's pretty cool. It's like a turf war between the people selling stuff in the black market. There's a lot of really cool old history in the city of Tokyo, especially after World War II—all that stuff going on as the city was rebuilding. For all of the passengers, the daily ridership for Shibuya is 1.8 million—making it pretty busy. But we're going to be going to the busiest station in about six or seven minutes.

00:32:05 John Daub: On the left side we might get a little view of Hachiko Scramble. Yeah, that's Shibuya Incident—gang war. It's pretty cool. This is maybe the busiest stretch of the Yamanote Line. With all the foreign tourists coming into the city of Tokyo, Shibuya is becoming pretty crowded. See just a little bit of the Shibuya Scramble. Yeah, that's all you get from here. Alright, next up is Harajuku. And Harajuku was built in 1906—the old station. It has about 70,800 passengers. It's not very big. But the old station, the historical old station, is set to be torn down this year. And I made a live stream about it showing you the inside and around that station about a month ago—so you might want to check that out. You can change here to the Chiyoda Line. And Omotesando is just like a five-ten minute walk away. Meiji Jingu, one of the big shrines, is also on the other side of Harajuku Station—so it's a pretty significant station. If you're a tourist, in the distance you can see Shinjuku Station, which is two stops away.

00:34:26 John Daub: This is the Yamanote Line train stop for Shinjuku and Ikenotani-dori. The next station is Harajuku—JY19. The doors on the right side will open. Please change here for the Chiyoda subway line and the Fukutoshin subway line. It's Takeshita-dori over there. That's a good question—which one of the Yamanote Line stations is the least busiest? I'd probably have to say it'd be between Ikebukuro and Ueno. And that section of the Yamanote Line is in very low traffic. But we'll take a look at that in about 10 minutes from now as we get closer to that area. But we're just getting closer to the world's busiest station—and I mean that by saying the world's busiest, and it's not even close. We'll get to that after this because the next station is Yoyogi.

00:36:09 John Daub: Yoyogi Station was built in 1906. It has about 70,000 daily passengers—which makes it the 63rd busiest station operated by JR East. You can see it curves a little bit. Sometimes I question whether or not Yoyogi Station is needed on the Yamanote Line. You can catch the Oedo Line, which is the underground circle line subway, and the Chuo Sobu Line. Sometimes it's easier to get on here rather than Shinjuku Station because it's not as crowded. But you could walk from Yoyogi Station to Shinjuku Station in like less than 10 minutes—it's a clear shot just straight from here to there. And I will often just walk it. Often between Shibuya and Shinjuku, I can walk it in like 30 minutes. So sometimes I'll just bypass the Yamanote Line and just walk it. It's a really nice walk too because it takes you through Meiji Shrine and Harajuku.

00:37:22 John Daub: Stations not too trafficked, and it's a little bit older and could maybe use a little bit of renovation. So the doors on the left side open here. So the next stop we're going to is the biggest—again for JR only, it's 751,000 riders. But with all the train lines—and there's a lot: the Toei Shinjuku line, the Oedo line, the JR Sobu line, Saikyo line, the Shonan Shinjuku line, bus stations, the Keio line, Odakyu line—these all together account for 3.64 million riders. That was in 2007—it's probably a lot higher today. And we're there. It's a pretty short ride between the two stations—you can see the platform is quite busy. The doors on the left side will open. Please change here for the Chuo line, the Shonan Shinjuku line, the Saikyo line, the Odakyu line, the Keio line, the Marunouchi subway line, the Shinjuku subway line, and the Oedo subway line. So just about everybody is getting off here. How you doing guys? We're going to bring you the entire Yamanote line—it's 58 minutes to get around it. This is a busy stretch of it between Meguro to Ikebukuro, and then it gets a lot quieter. We might even have the train to ourselves.

00:40:17 John Daub: There's the Sobu line going by—the yellow one. Shinjuku is a massive hub—just takes you everywhere to the west side of the city, out to the countryside of Tokyo, but also up to Saitama, which is a lot of suburbs—a lot of people living in that direction. Shin-Okubo is next. This station is famous because there's a lot of ethnic neighborhoods here—you'll find a lot of Asian supermarkets, really good food, a lot of people living in that direction. Japanese say this is where you get authentic Korean food, Thai food—it's really good. Shin-Okubo is an old station—not quite as old as Shinjuku. If you're interested in KitKats, right now I'm doing an Instagram giveaway for KitKats. And today I'm going to be announcing a winner who's going to be getting a bag of KitKats every day for the next week—so if you're interested, go to Instagram, follow me there. Yes, you gotta follow me—lots of information on Japan, trust me, it's worth it.

00:42:00 John Daub: Next up is Takadanobaba—it's one of the coolest names, Takadanobaba. Some people just call it Baba. This station was opened in 1910, has 201,000 riders. And the music here is pretty original—it's from Astro Boy because the series was set here. But the original station—and a lot of the stations—were burnt down in April 1945 during the World War II bombing. So much of the city was rebuilt after 1945. You can change here for the Tozai Line and the Seibu Shinjuku Line. Waseda University is not too far away, so Takadanobaba has a pretty good student vibe. The doors on the right side will open. Please change here for the Seibu Shinjuku Line and the Tozai Line. Please set your mobile phones to silent mode. Let's see if we can pick up some of the music here. Usually if you sit in the front car, nobody comes—you can see it's completely empty. Oh, they have a weird vending machine here. Let's see if we can get some of the music at Takadanobaba.

00:43:59 John Daub: About a kilometer to Meijiro, which is an old station—1885. In 2012, it had 37,700 passengers per day. And Meijiro is one of the smallest stations—it just has one exit. Not much around here. You can see it's really thinning out. So from this part, from Ikebukuro up, it really starts to thin out and gets a lot older. But there's a lot of wealthy neighborhoods in Mejiro, so it's an interesting place to stroll around. And you can't get lost—there's only one exit. So it makes it a pretty good meeting point—"I'll meet you at the exit." Which one? There's only one. But a lot of people buy the ringtones to the Yamanote line. I wanted to buy some of them, but Kanae got angry. She said, you're not paying $2 for a ringtone.

00:46:30 John Daub: Next up is the world's second busiest train station—it's Ikebukuro Station. Ikebukuro station has 2.71 million passengers—it's the second busiest in the world, which is pretty crazy, right? Japan, Tokyo has the first and the second. And it's famous for the Tobu department store—this is like department store town. Seibu department store used to be one of the world's biggest—Tobu department store. Both of them have train lines that go from here. You can also catch the Marunouchi or Fukutoshin Metro lines, the Saikyo line, Shonan-Shinjuku line, Narita Express, the Tobu Tojo line, the Seibu Ikebukuro line. So the changing drivers right now—that's interesting. So the one guy, he was a trainee, I think—so he had somebody with him. So that's Ikebukuro. There's a big tower that you can see—I believe it's for burning trash. Take a look at that. Not a lot of people today because it's a holiday.

00:48:39 John Daub: In this part of the city, the signal isn't exactly the best, but bear with me. If you're watching some playback, you might want to skip a couple of minutes—just tap the screen and refresh your browser if you're having a lag issue. This is Otsuka Station. Otsuka is pretty interesting because you can catch the Toden Arakawa line, which is a streetcar. And there aren't too many streetcars left—this is the last one in the center of Tokyo. There's the one in Setagaya—that's the Setagaya line, which is also considered a streetcar. The Arakawa line is the sole survivor of Tokyo's once extensive Toden system—Toden being a streetcar. But yeah, there's one more in Setagaya—it's kind of neat to ride the Toden. You can start to see this—we saw the Tokyo Tower before. Now you're starting to see the Tokyo Skytree in the center—you see it? It's kind of far off, but it's going to get closer and closer. But it's a neat angle to see the Skytree from. This town, Otsuka, has been growing a lot—a lot of really trendy cafes, craft beer places, things like that. Peter von Gomm introduced me to a good craft beer place here a couple of months ago.

00:50:05 John Daub: So you can see the lower buildings here—it's not as high-rise as you would think Tokyo is. This stretch of the Yamanote line is the least used, but doesn't make it bad—it just makes it interesting. Because next up—oh, there's a lot of people. It's Sugamo, which is the Grandma Harajuku. Sugamo is an old station—1903, 77,000 daily passengers. You can catch the Mita line subway line here. And Rikugien Garden is a place of interest—not just Grandma's shopping street, but Rikugien Garden is really neat, especially in the autumn because they illuminate the trees there. So at night you can go and visit and see the beautiful colors. The Grandma Harajuku is called Jizo-dori—so that might be something to note, because if you get lost, you're going to ask for Jizo-dori—J-I-Z-O-D-O-R-I. Dori means street. Ah, there's almost nobody getting on the train here. And you would change here for the Mita line. This area is not as touristy—there's not too many things to see and do for the extreme tourist. That's all between like Ebisu and Shinjuku-Ikebukuro—that's a very populated, very well-traveled part of the Yamanote line.

00:52:41 John Daub: There's 30 stations and it takes 58 minutes to get around it—I believe it's like 40, 43 or 45 kilometers. It's about a marathon. And I've actually walked this in 2006 with a buddy of mine—we walked it. It can take nine hours, but we took 12 because we stopped and had some coffee at a couple of places. They call it the Yamathon—if you do the whole thing, go around the Yamanote line tracks, about the same distance as a marathon—about 40, 44, 45 kilometers, I believe—30 stops. If you ask people, what are the stops between Ikebukuro and Ueno? Not that many people know. Komagome is the next stop. These are the ones that people forget because they don't ride it that often. Komagome is an old station—1910, burned down in World War II and the bombing is April 1945. So it's a pretty basic station right now. And you can get the Namboku line from here, which is a north-south Metro subway line. Oh, you can see the shotengai (商店街，covered shopping arcade) down here—this is a shopping street. Here comes another Yamanote line train on the right side.

00:54:44 John Daub: Next is Tabata. Tabata is older than the last four stations we went through—1896, Tabata station was completed, and the ridership is pretty light—it's 45,000 daily riders. And you can catch the Keihin-Tohoku line from here—that's the one that competes with the Yamanote line from this stretch going all the way down to Shinagawa. You can catch that here. There's not too much here in Tabata—I guess it'd be pretty neat to wander around here because of that. It's pretty local. There's a Tokyo Women's Medical University nearby. I guess it'd be considered the 98th busiest station on JR East network—and the JR East network is massive, by the way. They put a map of the JR East network on the top of the train—it's so big. I'm going to be going to the Nipporis—I say that because they're famous. There's two of them: the first is Nishinippori and the second one is Nippori.

00:57:03 John Daub: Before the gateway near Shinagawa station, Nishinippori was the newest station on the Yamanote line—that was completed in 1971. So there hasn't been a new station on the Yamanote line in 50 years—just crazy, right? It's been the same for 50 years until the Takanawa Gateway station opened. I'm excited to see what happens this year. The next station is Nishinippori—JY08. The doors on the left side will open. Please change here for the Chiyoda subway line and the Nippori-Toneri line. Nishinippori is busier than Nippori station—97,000 daily riders, 162,000 for Metro. And this is Nishinippori—you can catch the Chiyoda Metro Line, Keihin-Tohoku Line, and the Nippori-Toneri Line, which I believe the Skyliner is at Nippori Station. Skyliner is the Keisei Line that takes you to Narita Airport. Very quiet out. Alright, I'm going to show you on the roof here—that's the JR East Network. It's crazy, right? And the Yamanote Line is in the center—the green one that goes around. It's Nippori. I know, it's pretty crazy, right? It's good to memorize it. I used to live in the area 20 years ago too, and I would memorize that JR East Network map. I lived in Utsunomiya and up in Fukushima and would take the network up on the top there—it's pretty big.

00:59:31 John Daub: Nippori is very very close—it's just half a kilometer away. It's like one of the shortest legs between the two stations is here—Nishinippori and Nippori. Yeah, Deep Purple, this is the GO channel. I've had this channel for about three years—I started it when I was hitchhiking Japan in 2017. So we're getting close to making the complete circle. There's not too much more left. Let me get the map out here and show you where we are. We started here at Tokyo Station—we've gone all the way around, around that tip at Shinagawa. Then we've gone all the way up past Ikebukuro, and now we're here on this side. So we're going to be making our way to Ueno in a minute, and then that's where we get off at Tokyo. So we've pretty much completed it—58 minutes. The next station is Uguisudani—one of the hardest and most forgotten of the Yamanote Line stations. Uguisudani was completed in 1912. I would call this like Ueno's backyard—it's also easy access to get to Ueno's National Museum. So you can get off here for Ueno Park if you wanted to—I just walk in. But the name is interesting—Uguisudani refers to a valley where formerly used to be many Japanese bush warblers. Bush warblers are famous birds here in Japan called uguisu—which were found in this area, and they would make like a ho-hoke-kyo. In Japanese they would say it sounds like that, but those birds used to be all over this area. That's the name—it's kind of a weird name, Uguisudani. It's hard to remember, but the more you ride, if you live up in this area, Uguisudani is a place you just ride through. Not too many people get off, which makes it perfect if you want to get to Ueno Park on a weekend—get off here and avoid the crowds at Ueno Station because we're going next to Ueno.

01:02:30 John Daub: Next up is Ueno—of course famous for Ueno Zoo, Ueno Park. The Great Kanto Earthquake in 1923 destroyed the original station, but Ueno Station was first built in 1883. It has about close to half a million daily passengers for JR and Metro, but it's also an important terminus station because you can catch the Shinkansen—all the Shinkansens going north. That means the Akita Shinkansen, Yamagata Shinkansen, Joetsu, Hokuriku, and the Hokkaido Shinkansen—you can catch it here. But I always think it's best to catch it at Tokyo Station because it's the origin and you can always get a seat if you have non-reserved. There's a lot of trains that go through here—you have the Ginza and the Hibiya Metro lines, the subway, the Joban, Takasaki, Utsunomiya, and the Keihin-Tohoku line going through here as well. This was the site of the original Tokyo Underground Railway, which is not the Metro—it opened the first subway line here, which connected Asakusa with Ueno back in 1927. Oh, there's the network—check it out, it's really complicated looking, isn't it? In the center right there is the Yamanote line—what we're doing.

01:04:33 John Daub: There's different melodies—different stations. The ones between Ueno and Tokyo Station are quite famous, and from here we get a little bit more traveled, more touristy because Ueno Park starts. We'll take a look at the side window here—that's Ueno Park, where all the trees are in the distance. Ah, there had to be a train to block our view. This is an interesting stretch here—underneath the tracks is Okachimachi, and between Ueno and Okachimachi is Ameyoko Market. Ameyoko Market is my favorite—it's a big market in Tokyo, awesome. They sell everything, and everything is usually a lot cheaper than anywhere else. On the left side, I think we might have passed it—you see a purple building? That's Takeya Department Store. Takeya also has some of the cheapest prices in Japan, they say—they're very proud of that fact. But if you're looking for discounts and shopping and that market feel, then you want to come here to Ameyoko Market.

01:05:45 John Daub: Okachimachi is a pretty good hub—it's between Akihabara and Ueno. But Okachimachi is a place that you should remember—it's also a place where you'll get a lot of really affordable accommodations, a lot of capsule hotels here. I featured one in Only in Japan's main channel—a men's only capsule hotel, which is very interesting, a spa as well. Okachimachi is a place I come to often because if you're local, you gotta know Okachimachi—you're looking for discounts, a lot of jewelry and discount diamond salesmen are here too. There's a lot of history behind that because Ameyoko here in Okachimachi was the black market for Tokyo after World War II—this is where a lot of the goods from America were sold: chocolate, Zippo lighters, things like that, Ray-Ban glasses were sold on the market here. You don't find that too much here because you can get that stuff all in normal markets, but yeah, that's its history and its past. Of course you're gonna know where we are now—this is Akihabara. We're going into Akihabara station. The next station is Akihabara—JY03, 1890. Akihabara station was built—there's a lot of history here: the Tokyo Metro, Sobu line, the Hibiya subway line, and the Tsukuba Express line.

01:07:17 John Daub: Now I know it doesn't look like it on the map, but you can connect with the Toei Shinjuku line here if you just walk about three or four minutes—you can catch it at Iwabucho. And some people should be aware that even though it doesn't connect on the map, sometimes you can just walk it—you leave the station, you can walk to the next station in a minute or less. So having lived here for a long time, I kind of know all the little secret shortcuts. But for the Toei line, if you have a Toei Shinjuku pass for the Toei line, you can get them for 500 yen right now—which is really cheap. It doesn't stop in Akihabara, but if you go to Iwabucho you can walk here in five minutes—which is just as close. Oh there's the Laox electronics store, green shop—looks like, oh that's where the vending machine is, the sandwich vending machine. Alright, this is the station before the last station here—Kanda was built in 1919, had a daily ridership of 97,600, and it was part of the Chuo Main Line. There's a lot of interesting history here—there's a station here which is considered a phantom station. I think there's one on the London Underground, but Tokyo has one too—that phantom station is called Manseibashi—Manseibashi Station. It closed down in 1931, but it was a massive major station that had the same design as Amsterdam Central Station—like Tokyo Station did. But it was destroyed in the Great Kanto Earthquake and just sort of abandoned, and in 1931 it was closed. And I guess in the 1940s the government completely shut down that area.

01:09:40 John Daub: So now we're getting to the end here. Next station is Tokyo Station, and if you've been watching, will have completed the loop with me—how cool is that? It's about 45 kilometers, 58 minutes to get around. Once we did get off at Hamamatsucho once and uh look around—you can see the statue of the peeing boy dressed in a kimono right now for the holiday season. Sorry—58 minutes it takes to get around. It's gotten faster because the doors close quicker and technology has made the Yamanote line more efficient. I'll show you the map and we can talk a little bit about the station. Yeah, Yamanote line is interesting, and I have a little bit more to tell you about it. Yama means mountain, and note—well, te means hand, so technically the name Yamanote means mountain's hand. Yamanote line—the Yokosuka line, the Sobu line. Welcome back to Tokyo Station. Alright, we're getting off here—oh wait, I gotta go one station past. Hold on a second—I have to go one station, I can't get off here. Alright, extended—we gotta go to Yurakucho. I can't get off here—I bought, I have to get off at the next station. Oh okay, I forgot about that. Alright, so we're gonna go one more back around—so say goodbye to Tokyo Station. We're gonna go one more and then I'll tell you some history of the Yamanote line—it's only a couple of minutes.

01:11:45 John Daub: Yeah, I'm doing this on a holiday because as you can see, there's not a lot of people on the Yamanote line. But on the weekdays this is so crowded—it's just packed. Someone's saying goodbye to a family member—it is so packed on these trains. You don't want to ride the Yamanote line on a weekday between seven and nine. And if you're coming from the airport, take a taxi—just it's not worth it. Don't bring your luggage on a crowded train—you're gonna have to wait probably for two hours. So take the bus or take a taxi—it's worth it, I think. If you're tired, maybe it's ten dollars to get to your hotel from here. So a little bit about the Yamanote line—um, before you know, after World War II they kind of romanized it to Yamate—Y-A-M-A-T-E is what it was called. And uh actually when you look at the line, it doesn't say Yamanote—it says Yamate-sen in Japanese in the kanji—the "no" is not there because that was the original name, the Yamate line. But in 1971 they changed it to the Yamanote line, and now it's clearly written in English as Yamanote. But a lot of old people still call it the Yamate line. And then from here to Tokyo Station—you see the Shinkansen. There she is on the left—Yamanote line has 11 cars, the Shinkansen has like 16—it's massive.

01:13:39 John Daub: Yurakucho—JY05. The doors on the left side will open. Please change here for the JR line and the Yurakucho subway line. Alright, I'm going to show you a map of the entire circuit that we did—very very interesting. Welcome to Yurakucho station—one after the Yamanote line. Ah it's nice to be outside—the nice cool air. I've been breathing train air. I love Yurakucho station because you can go to the ends of the station—you get such a nice view of the city. And now we're going to have the train that I rode—the E235, which is a new Yamanote line, the E235 series, which has that green front to it. The doors just close faster—it's more efficient. It's a pretty good train to ride on, and it'll replace all the older trains—which are the E231-500s. To some people that means something. Alright, goodbye train—thanks for giving me a ride for the last 45 minutes or so. I love the history of Tokyo—when you ride the Yamanote line you really can see it all on the left and the right. Now I know that riding it and watching it on the video doesn't do it justice—it's not the same as if you're looking left and right out the window. You can feel the sounds, you can feel the bumps of the old tracks—check it out, you really can feel the bumps of the old tracks by riding the Yamanote line. And uh it can be an attraction in itself. Here's the Keihin-Tohoku line, which competes with it on this side—as you know because you've watched the video. But yeah, if anybody who's come to Tokyo has ridden the Yamanote line—you can't avoid it because to get from A to B, the circle is the easiest way, right?

01:15:49 John Daub: Alright, let's take a look at a map now—usually they have them here in the station. Hey, Faye Bone is here—hi John, happy new year. Faye from Adelaide—we are so looking forward to coming in February. Only a month ago, your live streams have been super helpful—keep up the good work. Thanks Faye. And David Kimura, snacks for this ride—thank you, I'm gonna go get breakfast now. Oliver, I really appreciate it. Linda Motobuck, thanks for the awesome look at the Japan JR Yamanote Line—nostalgic about past trips. Can't wait to ride the Yamanote Line in May from Motobuck doorway. Greg Hoshida for the train ride—thank you Greg. And Jim to let me know that there was no sound—thank you Jim, I really appreciate it. Oh, I like these ads—please stand behind the yellow line. I think I could just do an episode recording the ads because this is also for Shogatsu (正月，New Year). It's pretty interesting to see the culture through the commercials that they make here. Now, as the Yamanote Line goes by again—here's a map that we just completed. I have all these notes here that I was trying my best to give you guys a historical look at the Yamanote Line. But here's a map—it looks like a carrot, right? And we are now at Yurakucho. But there's 30 stations, 50 trains riding the Yamanote Line—25 going in each direction. It goes both clockwise and counterclockwise. It takes about two to three minutes to go between the stations.

01:17:45 John Daub: It's sometimes faster to connect from Tokyo Station to Shinjuku on the Chuo Line and the Sobu Line—do you see there? So if you want to get across on JR, get off at Tokyo or Shinjuku and you can cut across. It's faster to take the Chuo and the Sobu Line than it is to go around the Yamanote Line. And learn the extensive network of subways because that's also really helpful to do that. This lays the groundwork for the Yamanote Line. So ladies and gentlemen, this is the last thing I'm going to introduce you to before we cut off on this live stream—this is super cool. I'm going to put a link right here maybe. There is a live stream that I did that didn't get a lot of views for some reason—I thought maybe it would have done better. On the end here, on the back, is a place where you get to stand—I think it's on the other side of the platform. You get to stand there and two trains will scream past you every 15 minutes or so—both trains will be going really fast by you on this corner. And I stood there and you can feel the power of Japan's trains going by. It was so cool—you have to go check out that live stream. If you catch it at the right time, right there at the corner, you can really feel like an amazing amount of power and energy. I don't know if that's something you're interested in, but if you watch that live stream, I'm pretty sure you'll be happy with what you see—because not a lot of people know about that. I only know because I'm continuously wandering the city of Tokyo, looking for good stories. That's a pretty good story that I've seen. I've seen a lot of people—and sometimes when I take the train back here, I will see other tourists that had watched that live stream and are doing the same thing—trying to catch the Keihin-Tohoku line and the JR Yamanote line going by you at the same time, at full power. It's awesome. And you're just separated by the train—like standing between the two trains. It is a very very powerful thing—and slightly scary.

01:20:11 John Daub: Alright, there you go everybody—I hope you enjoyed that. Please give it a thumbs up if you like live streams about trains or any kind of trains because I look at those and I look at encouragement to try to make content. I know that the Shinkansen is very popular—so I thought I would do one on local trains, the Yamanote line—very interesting. I did see that some people had found me when I was live streaming, but they didn't want to interrupt me. Whoa! That train just came by real fast—that's what I'm talking about! That point right there—these two trains just fly by you, separate like this—so cool. Alright guys, have a good day, have a good night—press the like button, encourage me to keep this up. I get lots of new ideas—2020 just started. Definitely, if you're interested in the KitKat giveaway, go to Instagram, Only in Japan TV—follow me there because I got some pretty interesting photos. And I'm going to be taking you around the entire country—a lot of the stories are going to be going on Instagram as well. So I'll see you there on that platform—and I'll see you in the next live stream, probably tomorrow. As the Japanese holiday season is starting to wrap up—between December 28 and January 6 or 7, a lot of businesses are closed down. It's pretty quiet here—so we have a few more days of peace and quiet before the city of Tokyo gets back to normal. Have a good day, have a good night everybody—bye bye. And click that like button and subscribe.