00:00:02 John Daub: Hey everybody, this is Daikanyama Station, and it doesn't seem too long ago that I was here. Completely different vibe at night. This place really chills out. It's so quiet, so peaceful. Daikanyama—meaning "mountain on a hill"—and we're sort of at elevation. How you doing everybody? This is somewhere between Shibuya and Ebisu Station, where we're gonna be walking towards. Last time I walked from Shibuya up to here. Now I'm going to take you at night from here to Ebisu Station.

00:00:47 John Daub: It's kind of neat because if you look around, it's so different than during the daytime. Daikanyama and Ebisu in general have a ton of really stylish cafes. Most have closed up, but you can still see what makes this place so special. It's the architecture. Do you see the building right there in the center of your screen? The contours of the land and the styles of the buildings really make this place pretty cool. So please join me for the next 30 minutes or so as we walk around this area and get a sense of what Daikanyama is all about. Then I'll take you to Ebisu, which is a lot more vibrant than this pretty quiet area. I hope you enjoy it.

00:01:45 John Daub: I came here for a dinner for Aomori Prefecture. They invited me to this very special dinner with local cuisine that they brought here to Tokyo. Really incredible dinner. They gave me two Aomori apples and a present inside, which I'll give to Kanae as well. They let me keep the chopsticks from the dinner—special chopsticks made in Aomori Prefecture. So I'm really looking forward to getting back up there. I haven't been to Aomori in a while. The restaurant was right here in Daikanyama. Since I'm back here, why not give you a chance to take a look at this at night? If you've ever lived or stayed in this area, this stuff will all look pretty familiar.

00:02:38 John Daub: But once again, a lot of the people here right now are either finishing dinner or coming home from a hard day of work. A lot of stylish boutiques, clothes, restaurants, cafes. I'm gonna take you a little bit around some of the alleys as well. We'll cross the street right here and take you to the T-Site, which is where we were just the other day. From there, you'll get a pretty good feeling of what this is like at night. Anyways, after everything seems to have closed, everything has a vibe to it—the lighting, the contours of the buildings. It's different than where I live in the center of Tokyo. This is sort of the outskirts. A lot of people live here that have money. It's not cheap to live in this area of Tokyo. So it's always kind of a treat to be here.

00:03:59 John Daub: My camera is so stable because it's on a gimbal. Really is quiet and peaceful up here. You see, hear the engines of the cars down there, but you don't hear a lot of people. Here's a cafe, Le Cordon Bleu. Lights are warm. The streets out here are kind of cold. It's nice to look inside there, but it's closed. A lot of the shops have just closed at 9 p.m. Some of the restaurants. The thing about Daikanyama is that there are a lot of shops, but it's also very much surrounded by residential areas. You see that right there? That's somebody's house. And all around, there's Shibuya in the distance. Do you see those big tall buildings? That's Shibuya Station. But all around here are residential houses, very beautiful architecture.

00:05:37 John Daub: So it's a kind of place that I wish I could live, but it's a little pricey. I think if you find an Airbnb in this area, take it, stay there, and experience this area. Go out to cafes at night. Go back at 9:30 p.m., maybe get some work done, watch a little TV, go to bed. Wake up, go to another cafe for breakfast. There's the end of the street here. We'll make a left. But it's interesting, like I didn't expect this would be the back entrance to a shop here. In any other area of Tokyo, this would not be a very attractive alley. And yet here we have a pretty stylish place. Look at that.

00:06:45 John Daub: So the party I was at—you can see in my bag here. I have bottles of sake. I have two. They said at the end of the party, just take the sake home. Take the ones that you want. So I took one bottle. Then they said, we still have more bottles on the table, take another. I didn't know what to do, so I took two. Should be a pretty nice night when I get back home. All right, here we go. This is the main street here. Oh man, love the architecture. This is the Danish embassy. Not here—I'm gonna turn the camera around in a second. It's not too cold. I think after spending some time up in northern Hokkaido where it was minus 28, it's around 8 to 10 degrees Celsius right now. Pretty warm.

00:07:46 John Daub: I was just here not too long ago. There's the Danish embassy sign. We're gonna walk back now towards the station. There's a couple of really nice alleys that we're gonna walk through at night to give you a feel of this area of Tokyo. And I try to do that on the Only in Japan Go channel—take you there. Hey Danny, good evening. Just woke up? Good morning, Danny. Look at that view—it's so nice with the stairs here. The different colors. Even at night, the colors come through. Nice to see UFO Bob moderating. Thanks so much for being here. Again, like skateboarders as well. That's so Daikanyama.

00:09:04 John Daub: This is where I left you last time, I guess. Now we're gonna finish this livestream—I'm gonna take it to Ebisu. Man, when I came here for the dinner, wow, there are so many stylish bakeries and pastry shops in this area. I hope that they're closed because if they're not, I'm gonna completely spend everything in my wallet on pastries. I'm a fiend for bakeries and mille-feuille desserts and stuff—anything that will raise my cholesterol level, I'm all over that. For better or worse, mostly worse. But so is it a good night if you can finish it off with a big custard pastry? You don't see too many of these around—these are the old phone booths. If you came here 20 years ago, you probably know about the phone cards you would buy at convenience stores—1,000 yen phone cards with nice beautiful prints of different scenes around Tokyo.

00:10:46 John Daub: You can still get them at convenience stores, but you can pay by coins or these slots for phone cards. TT still makes them—pretty nice patterns. I have a collection of phone cards from the 1990s. It was a way for me to see Japan through the cards because I had to get my internet through America Online by calling the United States long-distance for one minute as my emails downloaded to my Dell computer back in 1999 and 2000. Some of these pay phones had phone jacks that you could plug your computer into to download through modem. Brings back really fond memories of me standing in a phone booth in some very cold weather downloading emails, writing—I would go back home, respond to the emails, go back to the pay phone and upload the emails in a minute.

00:11:44 John Daub: Someone's getting out of a taxi here. You can see the back alleys as well—they're very well lit, very clean area of the city. There's what looks like an ume tree, but I noticed today on a run I put on Instagram—sakura trees are starting to bloom about a week earlier than projected. So we're gonna see more and more of that on Only in Japan as we livestream. Even at night, this area has a lot of charm. Nice to see you everybody. Subway trains will run until about 12:30 at night typically. JR goes until about 1:00 a.m., but Tokyo is not a New York kind of place. Whoa, that skateboarder totally wiped out. It's kind of cool—see at night you can do this because during the day the grandmas will totally yell at you. You're not allowed to skateboard in this area, but at night you can do whatever you want, sort of.

00:13:43 John Daub: They're totally railing that—doing something suspicious, sliding off of there. They gotta do it again. Skate or die. Darn it. I think he's gonna do it. Hey, do it man. Oh this is awesome. No, do it man—we're about to bust a crime in action. Oh, that was pretty sweet, but I want to see that 10 times faster. You're supposed to wipe out. That's why I'm filming it—I'm not doing it for safety reasons. I want to see parkour. Benedict writes in, well that was disappointing. Get some speed. Take one for the team. No truck—no! Okay, gosh if that truck couldn't stop, that would be very upsetting. At least the cars are not that low, but a truck. They're like taking pictures. All right, you know what? That's it. It's so fun if he stays on his feet—it's more fun if he wipes out. I want to see blood. He even has an audience here. What do you guys think? Easy come, easy go. Sometimes this happens. Beautiful streets, isn't it?

00:15:24 John Daub: I love the fact that I can use the super wide lens on these YouTube videos and give you an idea. I'm going to take a left here and show you—look at that. Look at the beautiful windows on that shop right there. Now, most of these shops here are boutiques, really stylish shops. Sometimes you'll see chains like Camper, but it doesn't look like a chain. That's sort of half of the fun—you just kind of discover an L.L. Bean in a closet or something. Now I know where I'm going based on being able to see Shibuya Station's new skyscraper buildings. Coffee from Yemen—what's that like? The low-light capability on this iPhone 11 Pro is pretty respectable. This street will take you nowhere—it's kind of lightly lit. Look at the blue lights and the warm light.

00:18:01 John Daub: Daikanyama used to have a lot of clubs hidden in the alleys. You would just hear this hum of music coming from like a basement area. That's kind of creepy—that mannequin in the window. A lot of those clubs went out of business. This is a shop for shoes and stuff. It's not my style—that's like Peter von Gomm's style. He wears this kind of stuff. We're trying to get to Ebisu Station. Let's try to find the main street. Look at this apartment complex—those look like pretty expensive cars. Is that a Lambo? Dude, that's a freaking Lambo, isn't it? What is that? That's that Back to the Future car—is that a DeLorean? This neighborhood is so rich. That's not a DeLorean—sorry. It's a Nissan 300ZX. Pretty sweet car anyways.

00:20:01 John Daub: It is a very nice place to live, Daikanyama. How did I get lost? I never get lost. Do Japanese kids have classes during the week? Actually, many of them do—they have on Saturdays like half-days and clubs. Clubs meaning responsibilities as students that they have to do on Saturdays, which is not a bad thing because kids like to see their friends. So even on the weekends, you get a chance to see your friends, but yeah, you'll see kids in uniforms on Saturdays. You can tell the taxi is available—there's a green light in it. That means you can flag him, but I'm not that lost where I gotta get into a cab. Wow, it was like a Porsche! Man, people got nice cars around here. Ebisu. Masugu? Arigatou gozaimasu. Yeah, Ebisu's this way.

00:22:03 John Daub: All right, I'm gonna walk this way. I'm lost. Where is Ebisu? What is this shop? Hillside Terrace Information. Daikanyama here. How did I get lost? So walk straight and then go this way. I shouldn't have crossed the street, basically—stay back this way. I want to go this way through the alleys. So we completely are lost—we're off target. That's all right, it happens. I told Kanae I was only gonna last you 30 minutes. It's like I got like eight minutes to get to Ebisu—it's not gonna happen. Join me a little bit longer. I know exactly where I am—I have no clue. Apparently, look at the building—it's so pretty. That is a really well-made, well-designed building. What do you guys think of that? I think that's like paper up there—the way that the light is subdued with that very light yellow colors.

00:23:36 John Daub: Now we're gonna make our way towards Daikanyama again, and then I'm gonna take you through the alley going towards Ebisu. I kind of went in the wrong direction, but it's all part of the fun. This is why you explore—you never know what you're gonna find when you walk around at night. You could find this really cool cafe with unique lights, unique food that you've never seen before. In fact, I might have walked... Seems really familiar. Oh, Maison Ichi. All right, I know where I am. Let's take a left here. No, that phone! I was here talking about telephone cards. Ah, how did this happen? This is freaky. This is the intersection. Okay, if I go straight and take a left, I will hit Ebisu Station. That's freaky—this is like total Groundhog Day, like a deja vu situation. I saw that phone booth not that long ago, and there it is again.

00:24:50 John Daub: This is like Eyes Wide Shut, that Tom Cruise movie that was just freaky with Nicole Kidman. They recycled that mailbox—if you've ever watched Eyes Wide Shut, go back and watch it. The US mailbox, they keep recycling it with the same graffiti as Tom Cruise walks through the city of New York. It's one of these little symbolism things that really freaks you out. Now I got to go back to Daikanyama because this is a Daikanyama episode. Would it be safe for women to be alone at night in Japan? Absolutely. Japan is not a very dangerous place at night—not an area like this. There's a lot of security cameras and police around. I think anywhere in Tokyo, you're probably pretty safe. Maybe some places in Osaka might be somewhat worrying, but in general, all around Japan, you'll be pretty safe. The thing is, if you ever get bothered, just scream—that'll freak people out.

00:26:53 John Daub: We did it. Turn the camera around. We're back—there's Daikanyama Station. Now we're going to Ebisu—go this way. As I showed you in the last livestream here, the Family Mart is pretty stylish. That's a nice Family Mart—they probably do the song real stylish inside with a cafe vibe. In the bottom, they have Osaka Gyoza Shop. This is a kushikatsu restaurant. I love kushikatsu, but that's really not that healthy. Kushikatsu (skewered deep-fried stuff)—do you see that right there? It's about 100 yen each. Pretty good. You're not allowed to puke here—no vomiting in this area, no loud talking, don't throw your cigarette and run away, and no peeing. Behave yourselves—best behavior, everybody. Because in this neighborhood, that would be bad. Only in Daikanyama.

00:28:57 John Daub: This is a very residential area. And if you're living this close to Daikanyama Station, which is on the Toyoko Line, you're sort of richy-rich-rich. I can hear the water running in the tunnels underneath. Look at that shop—look at the chandelier. We don't want to get too close because the alarms might go off. I can imagine like ghosts and yurei (ghosts) inside there. If you have to ask what a yurei is, that's just in itself pretty scary. Just the image of those things—hair in the front of the face where you don't see the eyes of this usually disenchanted woman or girl. They don't even walk—you see them in the distance, you freak out, you run away, and as you turn around, they're in front of you. And they eat your face. Nasty, nasty, awful ghost girl people things. Really bad. Spooky.

00:31:08 John Daub: Actually, it's not that nice to be alone out here—there's nobody around. Probably shouldn't have come this way. Yurei are not good. Don't even say that word—if you say it three times, I think pops out at you and eats your face. You can put your hands and try to block it—they eat your hands, then they eat your face. Either way, something's getting eaten. Try to kick them—they eat your feet, then your face. Just let them eat your face—get it over with. You don't fight the yurei. This is the way to Ebisu—I'm pretty sure. Ebisu Station. You just say Ebisu. Gregory, don't even write it—you're gonna get in trouble. If it comes and eats my face, it's gonna come and eat your face. Those people drinking in there—they eat my face, it's gonna come through the Internet. I don't think they have boundaries. If it happens live, you guys will see.

00:33:23 John Daub: Are these women of different nationalities? You look equestrian, like a bullfighter—very Spanish. John walking down an alley and hearing popo—hey, don't say that three times. When you say things three times, things happen. Remember that series Supernatural? If you said Bloody Mary three times, something bad happened. For a very long time, I would say it two times and freak out—I'd never say the third time. By the way, I'm going to Costco tomorrow. And I believe Peter von Gomm's coming with as well as a special guest who I cannot name—somebody that you know. Nice looking shop—it's very Victorian. It's a protein stand—you don't see those too often. Over here across the street—that looks interesting. Ebis showroom—looks like a restaurant and a bar. I've just put that on my map for a revisit.

00:36:08 John Daub: There is some graffiti in this area between Shibuya and Ebisu—it kind of adds to the ambiance. This is called the Hillside Terrace. Oh, Miyazaki Dining—so you have chicken nanban (fried chicken with tartar sauce) and jidori (free-range chicken). Oh baby, I love this stuff. Keep moving. Oh, creepy—no heads, just peg heads. Weird. Mannequins should have heads—I'm very disappointed. Without the heads, they're kind of creepy. Watch the mannequins—they will eat your face. No, they will not. I'm all boozed up from the Aomori dinner. I got two big bottles of sake—this one is Denshu from Aomori, their premium sake. They let me keep half the bottle. And this one—Jūmae Daiginjo, baby. Can't drink this on the street—that'd be nasty. Don't want to drop it—that'd be bad. That's like a 3,000 yen bottle.

00:39:19 John Daub: Ever met a Dominican person living in Japan? Actually, I have—years ago. When you're an expat in Japan, you meet all sorts of people. Can you find the Noboribetsu Loincloth Festival video? Actually editing this video this week—it's very interesting. I'm filling in narration on the history and background of this festival, which is not that old. They started the Noboribetsu Onsen Festival as a way to say thank you for the hot water, which gives them business, and to attract more tourism. It was the freakiest, most amazing festival ever. I've never been that cold—after the festival, it was minus 8 degrees Celsius. The only way we stayed warm, we were completely naked except for a loincloth, and we just threw hot onsen water on each other. Massive bins of steaming hot onsen water—we would dump it on ourselves or throw it at people. All over the ground in Noboribetsu was just steaming—a bunch of naked dudes in thongs running around. Cannot wait to finish this video and upload it because it's so cool.

00:42:17 John Daub: Check it out here down this alley—is that like a hidden shrine? Let's go take a look. This shrine, you can see because of the torii gate (shrine gate), is sort of right in the middle of a park. On the other side there's more izakayas (Japanese pubs). There's a bar right across from this shrine. You can smell the grilling meat—butcher shop restaurant. A lot of the restaurants are closed. There's a chef in there from what looks like India—a lot of people from India are coming here to work. It's an oden (hot pot) shop. Ebisu—Torahachi. That says Hakata—down in Kyushu. Mazesoba (mixed soba noodles). Noodle Bar—toriyaki soba (grilled chicken soba). This looks like one of these Genghis Khan lamb meat barbecues.

00:46:37 John Daub: They got karaoke inside there—there's a dude singing. Dude, that dude's jamming. I just hear the muffled sounds of very bad karaoke, but I respect him for having the guts to sing so loudly. There's only four people in that restaurant, but he's putting his passion into it—hardcore karaoke. We say "karaoke" in English and Japanese. If you say "karaoke," people will point you in a direction. Oh, is this the pod restaurant? I came here about 10 years ago—they put me in pods and we ate inside of a pod. I've never experienced a pod restaurant before—I thought they were going to fire it into space. This is a tori (chicken) restaurant from Kyushu—Miyazaki chicken. Miyazaki is famous for having some of the best chicken. Whenever you paint chicken on the side of a wood panel, it's a sign of quality.

00:48:26 John Daub: This is a Trattoria Evoluzione—looks good. Across from there is this vegetable bar—you can buy vegetables outside, like big Satsuma imo (sweet potatoes), ringo (apples), oranges, and kinkan (kumquats). You eat the skin on kinkan—you don't peel them. Futago—this is a horumon (offal) restaurant from Osaka. That dude's on a date—let's not disturb him. This is a yakiniku (grilled meat) restaurant. Premium beef—charcoal grilled wagyu (Japanese beef). In this restaurant, we only serve female beef. In Japan, the female cow is the most highly valued. Ladies tongue, ladies kalbi (short ribs), ladies harami (skirt), ladies rosu (loin), steak—all ladies. Girl beef—so apparently the females are the tastiest. So go in there and try to ask for a dude and you're not going to get it—we only serve female beef. I love the Japanese menus.

00:52:32 John Daub: Ladies and gentlemen, those of you've been with me for 52 freaking minutes, look at the shiny cars—they make sure the taxis are clean here. JR Ebisu Station—this is how I'm getting home tonight. There's a lot of other restaurants here—this is on the left side of the station that we just walked, but if you come out of Ebisu Station, this is the right side. Sanmarco Cafe, chocolate cafe, KFC, hub pub. This is Ebisu Beer Hall—they usually play swinging 1920s music and serve Ebisu beer. Hey, that light just turned off—was that a sensor? Do you ever explore the many businesses not on the ground level? I do, but for livestream it's hard because there's no signal down there. A lot of really amazing restaurants are hidden down in the basement, especially in Shibuya. Jiro Sushi, the one from the documentary with the 90-year-old dude, is in the basement.

00:55:08 John Daub: My friend's restaurant—I think it's the next one over. Vending machine bank covered by signs—all these signs are restaurants trying to promote. That's a really nice yakitori (grilled chicken skewer) restaurant—you can smell it. Very stylish small shops like this—many of them down this street. That's why I wanted to show you this side of Ebisu. There's Ebisu right there—they have gyoza (dumplings) in there. This is an oden restaurant—some oden and gyutan (beef tongue). People are drinking here on a Wednesday night. This is the love hotel area—I kind of came in the wrong direction. There's some sake labels—so you know the kind of sake they serve. Dude, that's so awesome—that's the sake that's in my bag from Aomori.

00:57:32 John Daub: This is called Hotel Us—a love hotel. At a love hotel, you have two patterns: if you just want to rest (which is basically no rest at all), it's open from 5 to 2, and you can stay for up to five hours for 5,700 yen. Or you can stay overnight—weekdays from 9 to 10 or midnight to 1, or weekends from 6 to 10 or 9 p.m. to 1 p.m. Pretty cheap for central Ebisu—7,800 yen. Check out this restaurant—I used to have a club called the Yakiniku Club, and we would go in here and eat. Maki, the owner, would barbecue inside that tent—we would grill delicious Nepali meat. They've got good momos (dumplings)—you can get a pretty good all-you-can-eat lunch for 1,000 yen. It's authentic because everybody who works there is from Nepal. A lot of Indian restaurants are staffed by Nepalese—it's pretty interesting.

01:00:57 John Daub: Nepal is a beautiful country—been there four times. This is a fashion health center called New York—up the hill is Cafe 8. One of the directors of Tokyo Eye at NHK always wanted to go there—they serve a complete Peking duck for about $40, which is crazy cheap and really good. I think Cafe 8 is in five or six locations now around Tokyo. Gyutan stand—they open from 3 p.m. On the other side of every station you have Montbell and that ice cream shop—you remember the viral video I made five years ago? On the other side of every station is the Japanese ice cream shop—ikawokuri or something [?], all sorts of weird Japanese flavors like milk, sesame. There's a Shake Shack—they've really multiplied over the last two years, but now nobody really eats it.

01:03:53 John Daub: I'm gonna take you through the station a little bit—Ebisu Station has always been quite confusing to me. Up on the second floor you can walk to the Garden Place where Ebisu Beer has a museum—pretty nice brick piazza place where you can chill out for an afternoon. There's the escalator—you can go up to the second floor through a shopping mall to get you to the Garden Place. If you're taking the Yamanote Line from Shibuya or Meguro, this is the station in between—Ebisu. All these people are going home after working hard or hardly working—not a lot of people wearing masks, about 50/50 now. So this is where I say goodbye to you—I'm going home, you're going home this way. Hope you had fun. It's always really nice to walk around an area to give you an overview and share an evening with you.

01:05:31 John Daub: Ebisu is a pretty cool place—there's some really nice shops on the other side, so explore some more. Inside the station there's Antico Cafe—Al Avis, avis means bird in Latin, I believe. Ebisu Station is a pretty sweet place. I'm taking the subway—nobody found me so nobody gets a follow-me card. I'll be back probably tomorrow for another livestream. February is going to be a busy month—I got a lot of editing and some big announcements coming up. Thanks so much for watching. If you have any questions, leave it in the description below—definitely encourage me to do more livestreams walking at night. Click the like button—that tells the YouTube algorithm to suggest Only in Japan videos more so you get notifications earlier. So click the like button if you like this kind of content—encourage me to do more. It's been pretty warm in Tokyo—like spring. Until then, have a good day, have a good night. I'll see you soon. Bye from Ebisu.