00:00:00 John Daub: Hey, greetings everybody. Welcome to Tsukiji's Outer Market. Behind me is the gate to what used to be the Inner Market. It's just... it's not even a parking lot. It's pretty much just a white walled out area. And you can see through here... it's all gone! I'll take you up above the wall there. That's what remains of the Inner Market, which moved to Toyosu in October 2018. And now, we're gonna find out what remains.

00:00:29 John Daub: A lot of YouTubers have gone through here and shown some of the videos of it. I came here in 2015 and went to the Inner Market to the tuna auction, which is incredible. After the Great Kanto Earthquake of 1923, the market moved from Nihonbashi, which is very central. That was the big marketplace in Tokyo back in the Edo period, the Meiji era. And then after the Kanto Earthquake, they had to move it. They decided to move it here to Tsukiji. And it was the market until 2018. For a very long time.

00:00:59 John Daub: So, there's a lot of history here, including this shrine behind me called Namiyoke Inari Shrine (wave-averting Inari shrine). Nami means wave. And we're gonna take a look in here. Because of the travel situation here in Japan, not a lot of people are going anywhere. It's not a really ideal situation to travel. I talked to a couple of the business owners there. They're okay with me filming and highlighting some of the food, some of the things that they're doing.

00:01:45 John Daub: Since the market closed in 2018, and I'll explain some of the history of Tsukiji Market, it's still a place that you gotta come. Since it closed in 2018, this has become a place that a lot of tourists will visit. Not just for sushi, but there's a wide range of foods that are quite interesting here. They found a way to cater to the tourist market. And to kind of keep that spirit going, which is Tsukiji's Outer Market. Of course, fish and raw fish and sushi takes precedence here. But we're gonna find some other stuff to eat here.

00:02:17 John Daub: Alright, this is Namiyoke Inari Shrine. I've been coming here for years. I'm just gonna take a quick look-see in here. But this is where fishermen come to pray. They've been coming here for a long time. And this particular rock... Do you see this one right here? It says sushi on it. So I guess this is where you would come for praying for sushi. Kind of neat. And the history of fishing goes way back to when this market first opened. And this shrine has been here for a long, long time. Despite the market moving to Toyosu, I don't think they're gonna be moving this shrine anywhere else.

00:03:10 John Daub: So let's go take a look now at the market. There's the torii gate (shrine gate). And it's still a really nice place to come and pray. And if you're gonna start your Tsukiji Market food adventure, you might wanna start there. Take a look at the old gate into the inner market. Used to be such a vibrant place with the carts going by, whizzing by, carrying pallets full of fish and other goodies. Now it's just a white wall. It's kind of sad for me to see. But I don't live too far away from this neighborhood. This is a place that I still like to come. In fact, that's my bicycle on the right side.

00:03:54 John Daub: Yeah, only in Japan would they have a Shokupan Sushi (shokupan = white bread). A lot of these shops... when they decided to close this down and move it to Toyosu, a lot of the owners were kind of in a panic. They were gonna do it a lot earlier. But because of the delay in moving it to Toyosu, that gave businesses some time to readjust. Like this place, a Trattoria, which is a pizza place, I guess. Paradiso. Not something that you would associate with Tsukiji Market. But it's here.

00:04:27 John Daub: Now, fishermen would spend all day on a boat. They would leave in the middle of the night, and then they would come back, and their day was pretty much finished by 6 a.m. So they would go out for their dinner, which was our breakfast. The last thing that they wanted to eat was fish. If you just go across the street, you're gonna find a lot of ramen shops, a lot of gyudon (beef bowls), on the other side of the street. And the reason why is just because fishermen did not want to... The last thing they wanted to eat was fish. They didn't want to see fish. They didn't want to smell fish. They wanted meat. And you'll still find some of those meat places. In fact, the first Yoshinoya restaurant, which is the most famous gyudon fast food restaurant in the world, was started here in Tsukiji Market.

00:05:15 John Daub: Oh, wow, that looks beautiful. Look at that. Look at the ikura (salmon roe) just dripping out of the bowl. This looks like a donburi (rice bowl) shop. And most of the donburi shops have tents. There's almost nobody around to eat them. So I want you to keep watching, and I'm gonna take you through one of the more famous alleyways where they're serving really good fish, really good kaisendon (seafood rice bowl). Kaisendon is seafood on a bowl of rice. That's what this is right here. That's a kaisendon. And it's so good. This is a little bit pricey. That one with the ikura spilling out of it. I love the fish eggs, ikura on rice. It's so simple. Just put some soy sauce in a little saucer of wasabi and mix it up and then pour that on top. So good.

00:06:08 John Daub: If this is your first time to Japan, visiting on an Only in Japan Go stream, click the thumbs up. Show some love here. And definitely subscribe because it's always fun when you're joining me. And with me live. You're with me here when we go through this. And I'm gonna see if I can get something to eat here.

00:06:33 John Daub: You're gonna find all sorts of businesses. Here they're selling like saucers, teacups, things that you would have in a sushi restaurant. Porcelain ware. They got some stuff over here. So you can find some pretty good deals still today on Japanese kitchenware. The best place to go is Kappabashi near Asakusa on the other side of town though. Here's another place. A lot of sushi places. My favorite place, the one that I came here with Mike a few years ago, was Sushi Zanmai. But don't dismiss the other sushi shops here. All the fish at the sushi shops come straight from Toyosu Market which is only three kilometers away. They come straight from the market. So everything is pretty fresh.

00:07:28 John Daub: Now I'm gonna take you over through this alleyway where they're serving some food here. This is a tako senbei (octopus cracker). Whoa! Tako senbei. And they push the takoyaki really hard down there and make a senbei. It comes out really cool. Actually, I probably should get here. Let's come back to this. What time is it today? It's almost 3 o'clock. So a lot of the shops will close really early. That shop closes at 3 o'clock. The shop that I wanted to take you [to is] closing in about like two minutes. Here's another kaisen don shop.

00:08:07 John Daub: Whoa! You're still gonna see some things that represent the fish market like fresh maguro (tuna) heads to show that, yeah, they got new fish today and everything that's coming is fresh. This looked really interesting. Konnichiwa. Wow. What is this? Inari sushi. So let's try one of these, huh? Oh, like this? Oh, that's inari sushi, right? Yes. Wow. Then, how much for the crab? Thank you very much. Let's try one. All right, this is crab ikura. Ikura. Oh, yes. First of all. Thank you very much. You're welcome. Oh, thank you very much. You're welcome. Can you speak English? Yes. Amari. Just a little bit.

00:09:21 John Daub: So this is inari sushi and putting some crab meat with ikura in there. Oh, look at that. That looks so good. Whoa. That costs about 500 yen and that's going to have a lot of flavor to it. Yeah. Definitely, at this time, you're going to want to wash your hands. I have alcohol wipes. Make sure you don't take any risks. Just next door, you can see they're grilling some really delicious seafood. So I wanted to come here first because they're closing in five minutes. A lot of these shops aren't staying open for a very long time.

00:10:17 John Daub: All right, let's put some soy sauce on here. Just a little bit. There's some wasabi. I'm going to use soy sauce. I'm going to use chopsticks to prevent from touching anything. Just be safe at this time. So let's give this a try here. Wow. That's got some volume to it. That's really heavy. It's really good, the inari sushi. It's wet, you know, so it's very moist around it. And that crab meat is so good. Thank you. That was fast. Thank you. Wow. I'm so hungry. A lot of these shops are closing. So you probably want to get here earlier in the morning.

00:12:02 John Daub: Now, on the weekends, this market is pretty vibrant. I will sometimes ride my bicycle through here. And there's so many people that you just cannot get through the streets. Now, right now, it's not too many people. This is the end of the day. It's only like 2:30. And her shop closes at 2:30. So they stayed open. She stayed over a little bit longer for me. That's very nice of her. Before I usually do these, I'll go and ask really quickly if they mind me coming through here.

00:12:45 Staff: Are you done?

00:12:47 John Daub: No, I'm done. Oh, you're done? Oh, they're cleaning up. I have one. One? Thank you. Sorry. How much is it? 100 yen. Oh, 100 yen? Yes. Thank you. Thank you. So how many hours a day? About 3:30. 3:30. There's no one here, so I finished a little earlier. Well, do you do it every day? On weekends? Are you busy on weekends? But recently, I've been busy every day. Recently, they're not very busy, but on the weekends, things have been a lot busier. Thank you.

00:13:26 John Daub: All right, let's give this a try here. This is tamagoyaki (rolled omelet). And it's a specialty of the shop. And actually, tamagoyaki is a really good dish. It's a very good sushi. You'll find it. I wanted to bring you like five minutes ago. It's just because everything is closing really quickly. If you take a look at the other side here, I think they kept that warm for me because I'd asked them. They make tamagoyaki with different things inside of it, including scallops, different seafoods. I think that's crab right there. It's really good. And they'll grill it fresh in front of you. This makes it an amazing street food opportunity.

00:14:00 John Daub: And I feel because this is sort of my community, I feel like I really want to come out here and promote some of the businesses. Now, they're going to be serving more food all the way up to dinner time. And I'll walk past the restaurant that I think the sushi shop that I think that everybody should stop in at least once, especially if you don't know a lot about sushi. But first, let's try some of this steaming hot tamagoyaki. Check this out, everybody. Egg on a stick. Is that not the most beautiful thing you've ever seen? All right, don't answer that. My wife is watching. But it's pretty cool. It's got so much volume. For 100 yen or less than a dollar, like 95 cents or something, if you want to be exact. This is ridiculous value. Oh, man. And best of all, it's on a stick, so you don't touch it. Therefore you stay clean. Itadakimasu. Oh, that's sweet egg. That's sweet egg. This one has nothing in it. I think sometimes you don't need anything in it. Sometimes just egg is the best. It has dashi in it. I can taste some of that bonito fish flakes, katsuobushi we call them. So the dashi is really good. And the egg is so soft and it's so good when it's steaming hot like this. Oh, man.

00:15:48 John Daub: Pigeons hanging out in the right place. How you doing? Where you going? I don't have anything left. I don't even have anything to share with you. Sorry, buddy. Toby (crow), by the way. The bamboo sticks. Recycle. Eko. Mmm. Gochisousama deshita. Arigatou gozaimasu. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah. The place that's grilling seafood out there right next to the inari-zushi is open a little bit longer. Some of these shops will remain open longer, but historically these shops have closed very, very early, which means it's like a breakfast place and it's still got that culture where you come here to eat breakfast.

00:16:45 John Daub: This is another tamagoyaki shop across the street. And, you know, families will come here to buy quantity to take back home and eat there. And sometimes, you know, tamagoyaki is not a tough thing to make, but they make it a little bit different here. So we're going to walk through the alleys and I'll add a little bit of history, a little bit of some stories to this walk. So I hope you do enjoy the next 20, 30 minutes as we kind of stroll through here. And if I do see some more food to eat, you can guarantee I'm going to probably pick it up. They also have like ichigo daifuku (strawberry daifuku), which is strawberry in mochi (pounded rice cake). If you don't know what mochi is, oh my gosh, what's wrong with you? It's like the most amazing, very chewy, stretchy rice that you can get.

00:19:05 John Daub: Tsukiji Outer Market is really, really vibrant place even in the off hours. If you come here at night, people come here for dinner, especially from local businesses. But because of the travel situation now, not a lot of people are going out. This is the most famous sushi shop, maybe chain in Japan. That's not a conveyor belt sushi. This would be like mid level. That guy in front of us is the president of the company. He's the one who buys the most expensive sushi in Japan for like a ridiculous sum of money on New Year's. And he's going, I caught a fish once this big. It's true. Very powerful in the industry. He is. And when I went to Oma in Aomori, people who are his friends were very, very well off. They were doing well business wise. So being friends with the president of Sushi Zanmai is sort of a big deal. Your businesses can do pretty good here.

00:20:22 John Daub: Why [would] that walk you? That's unusual to find wagyu (Japanese beef) in a fish market. And this is like a wagyu gunkan (battleship roll) sushi that's kind of crazy. I guess if you have wagyu it can be double the price. Right there it says uni (sea urchin) the sign in the middle and this is a chef who will prepare uni in different kinds of ways of course I think he has other things but the sushi bar right there is completely empty and this is sort of a between time after lunch rush. Uh is there let's just get a quick look and see what they're making here oh wow so that's wagyu and she's putting that on top of the gunkan sushi look at that so you're getting a wagyu sushi there that looks great so one of these is 500 yen and a wagyu is just the wagyu is a thousand that's a pretty good deal there's some unagi (eel) here so they've got unagi sticks that looks really good too you can get grilled unagi it smells amazing and this here is ii dako (sweet octopus) which is octopus on a stick it's a little baby octopi that's something that I think everybody should try that's uncommon 600 yen for a stick of it yeah the reason why I don't get the unagi is I have to make sure that it's from Japan the unagi I've had from abroad um sometimes they put too many antibiotics in there and I have a reaction so you have to be careful and I think at that price it makes me kind of worried.

00:22:04 John Daub: Here's a shop that's selling cuts of maguro from Toyosu Market fresh and yeah they also have a little stand where you can buy it on the side there and you can if you're really hungry you can stop by and try it's about 1300 to try some uni sea urchin right there fresh on ice and you can get some sushi packaged if you want to take it back home fresh packages of it or you can just buy the fish yourself now I know a lot of friends that will buy chunks of maguro take it home like this do you see that in the cases and they'll take it back to their family and then they'll have temaki-zushi (hand-roll sushi) and temaki sushi are like cones right you take a piece of rice you put some fish in between it and then you roll and make a cone-shaped thing that you hold in your hand.

00:23:07 John Daub: There's a lot of fish markets here check out the massive crab legs here whoa that is a big big and right now look at that look at that massive crab in that tank that is so exciting oh my word that's an alien crab do you see how big that is oh wait okay it's two crabs that freaked me out i was gonna say it's still pretty big no matter how you slice it look at the size of the crabs in there wow that's huge i see crabs that big from coming from Hokkaido from Hakodate market so the stands are starting to close they're starting to close um and we're gonna go through this alley here kind of look around here's the um ichigo daifuku they're cleaning up right now there's fresh strawberry on the just fresh vegetables and you can eat this as like a street food at the stand here but they're closed up right now in fact all of these stands in the alleys are starting to end you can find deals where they're selling things for half price if you come at the right time but oh here's a knife shop you can get some really good knives fish knives usually they're different than the honcho (professional) knives you would use in the kitchen but the alleys here still really interesting to wander through here you can feel the history of this market that goes all the way back to after the Great Kanto Earthquake of 1923 the market opened um after six years of construction it took 420,000 people six years to build this market and I believe it opened in 1935.

00:25:11 John Daub: [They'd done] some serious research on how to build a market of scale they went to the United States Japanese experts went to the United States and went to Europe to see how the markets work this is spicy kaniro (spicy crab?) that looks really good it's a thousand yen for that package which is a pretty good deal um yeah looks like they're closing down a lot of the shops are closed this is the um Tsukiji neighborhood association if you do want to film technically you should go in there and get a permit from them but they're never open anymore so I can never get a permit to film they give you an armband so you can do this legally a lot of the owners used to be very upset with youtubers or filming in this neighborhood but I think they've seen that having people come in and show off what they're doing is the best thing to get people to come here when you don't have a market or a tuna auction anymore you kind of want people like us to give it a little boost.

00:26:12 John Daub: This in front here this is the reason why I came down that alley this in front here is Sushi Zanmai Honten (main branch) and this is where I came with uh my buddy Mike to eat a lot of sushi the honten is the main shop the first shop for Sushi Zanmai arguably people say that this shop is the best of all of the Sushi Zanmai which is a national chain you can find them all the way up in Sapporo down to Kyushu they got chains everywhere that was [the] owner's business plan to make sushi affordable for everybody and accessible and you can see in there they have professional chefs that make it in front of you not conveyor belt sushi so I think it is definitely a step up from conveyor belt sushi and you pay a little bit more but the cost performance is amazing there he is there's a menu for the harumatsuri (spring festival) or spring festival you look at him holding the knife like a samurai let's get a quicker look here quick look here this is uh the president with a knife for the spring festival from March 3rd to April 26th and you can see they have um three cuts of maguro a blowtorched tuna blowtorch tuna and negitoro (scallion tuna) so all five for less than 1200 that's an insane deal down from it used to be 1500 it's down to 1280 yen that's an amazing deal and that aburi toro (blowtorched fatty tuna) you're going to want to order two or three of those it's that good and they have ikura don here that's a lot of ikura for about 35 dollars.

00:28:25 John Daub: I think if you're gonna order um food this is a good place to go but I also like to support small businesses so I'll sometimes go into the alleys and go into some of those tents and check out them as well this is a sakura (cherry blossom) ice mochi it's uh cherry blossom flavored ice cream mochi that looks pretty good too so you can have a pretty good meal here do you need a reservation i don't think so you just come here but if you do come I come in the middle of the um it's open 24 hours by the way but if you do come at certain times there's a wait and you have to sit on this bench do you see the bench inside for a while while a table opens up so it sometimes helps to call ahead and you can see all the restaurants now have alcohol bottles do you see that out the white one here so you can spray your hands before you go in it pays to call ahead but if you don't want to call ahead you're probably going to find a place to sit anyways just got to wait a little bit.

00:29:20 John Daub: Again the market here was opened um in the 1930s and you can still see some of the history and the like the patchwork of buildings that you'll see around look at that big fish head the reason why I think you should come here is just to make sure this place never goes away it's awesome we really want to protect this the history of the city and cities are very vulnerable to the marketplace meaning it's just no business here they're all going to go out of business right it's just no business it changes to become something where there's business so this is a place where you come to get sushi and eat and drink and there's the big big fish up there in the sky behind me and this is the fringe of the outer market behind me you see this building that's the headquarters for Sushi Zanmai right now and uh what floor is it I forget but one of the floors is where the sushi chefs will all train and that's why they train there so they can become consistent so no matter where you go you're going to get a pretty good [quality of fish] the chefs train inside here this is where I went to get permission to film at one of the restaurants a couple of years ago talk with the PR guy they're pretty happy uh to do that more youtubers should call ahead and try to get permission but I walked right in there I knocked on the door the guy I gave him my business card and he said sure set up an appointment and got a chance to sit right at the table and bring my cameras and make a pretty good episode out of it we eat a lot of fish sometimes they also will give you the meal for free if you ask in advance we had to pay.

00:31:17 John Daub: Here's two stands here on the corner um all right let's go back around here and I'll try to take you through one of the alleys cut across two of the alleys and I'll show you the view from the front of the alley through there i don't think it's going to be very busy again a lot of the stores are closing down but I wanted to bring you in the middle of the day because one there's less people safer for me at this time and two to give you a hint at what it's like on at an off time during the weekday i think it's pretty interesting it's still well worth a visit and if you're a seafood lover this is the place to come still Toyosu you know if you're coming to Tokyo and you're only eating McDonald's or you're eating western food because you're afraid of maybe not knowing what's on the menu i think it's pretty evident because they cook the stuff right in front of you you can just point to what you want here if not the street food here is pretty good there's a place where you can get sushi on the street it's all made from in the shop they bring it out to you you can see what it is and it doesn't cost a lot of money to try it and then after you've had your own introduction to seafood here and you get used to it a little bit then I think you start to eat a lot more of it.

00:32:35 John Daub: All right this is a market here konkan (dried goods?) and you can find little stands that used to be a lot more fuller than they are now but we're between the dinner time and the lunch time so of course it's not going to be as crowded oh so they got deals here oh look at that that's a big piece of uh of grilled fish a lot of it's discounted after the lunch rush i think this looks like uni yeah this shop here is selling sea urchin which you can eat here in packages sea urchin comes in packages like that the prices are different reflected in the weight of it and the quality of the sea urchin but if you're going to eat uni sea urchin you want it to be super fresh it just doesn't taste good if it's in a can and it's still pretty expensive even though it is in a can see you shouldn't anyway you any way you look at it sea urchin is really expensive.

00:33:47 John Daub: All right here's another alley you see it it's kind of neat where you're just walking down the street like this and you see a slice of life walking by you everybody hard at work in there in the alley um what's this so I know a lot of tourist buses have come here to try to promote the businesses they'll take you on here let me just get an idea what is this free bus so it's a free bus service between Shinjuku Asakusa Akihabara Odaiba and Ginza i guess lets you off at the electronics store wow is it free? Yes you need a reservation? You don't need a reservation? No thank you so it's a free shuttle bus to Tsukiji it'll take you to all these places you don't even need a reservation it's like a hop on hop off bus and i guess it takes you to the electronic stores but it's for foreign tourists from Tsukiji to Odaiba, Ginza you could walk there Asakusa Akihabara and Shinjuku check that out free is pretty good deal pretty good deal.

00:35:10 John Daub: All right let's go through this alley um I'm just going to take you to the front here and show you this part of the market and then we'll go in through the center cut right through there spiral uh case here has always been something that's been interesting to me the design of it that's Tsukiji's that's like the inner market but there's two ways to get here one you could just walk from Ginza it's like 10 minutes or something you could also walk from Kachidoki across the bridge which is on the Oedo line at Tsukiji station is actually uh that way you'll come out to like the end of the market it's uh the Hibiya line (gray subway line) which is the gray subway line hippie line gets you here as well as the Oedo line uh here's a map right here so you get a little orientation of it it hasn't changed despite this being completely gone you see the the new map it's like wiped out and it's kind of i think they were going to turn it into a parking lot for the 2020 Olympics but we've walked here here's the um Namiyoke Inari Jinja that's where we started from here we walked down this street we walked down this street we ate some food here we had some food here went down this alley came down here we saw the Sushi Zanmai honten and we walked through here now I'm going to take you through this way okay so you're going to get another look at the outer market and then I'm going to end the live stream up here and then my bicycle's here but that's where we are Ginza's not too far away the station is Tsukiji-shijo shijo meaning the fish market is still here and that's the closest and if you go all the way to the other side this is Tsukiji uh subway line which means you have to walk a little bit to get to the outer market for about five minutes but the Hibiya line does a stop here.

00:37:19 John Daub: And it's kind of worth just taking a look here at the um Hongan-ji Tsukiji Betsuin (Tsukiji branch temple) which is like a really interesting Buddhist temple made out of stone it was made in a non-Japanese way because more of a western European way because this area at Tsukiji before it was the fish market was the um foreign residents this is where the foreigners lived the communities back in the Meiji era this is where a lot of the embassies were in this area and the first American embassy was here in Tsukiji and there's a rock near St. Luke's Hospital that commemorates where the first American embassy was here uh in this neighborhood so the foreign influence was pretty strong it was after the Great Kanto Earthquake in 1923 that they moved they had to move the market from the center to here.

00:38:20 John Daub: All right let's take a look at the alley here we're gonna cut straight through how you doing everybody click the like button you guys want me to eat anything else let's see if we can get to 750 likes I leave it up to you can we go in through this alley all right let's get let's cut through wow it's pretty empty right now i guess this is a quiet time so uh there's not a lot of people in the alleys but yeah in the evening a lot of offices are here these are all packed in the evening at least they used to be right now we're under some travel advisories so it's not common to see crowds these businesses are still closed here's another alley i think we can uh i think we can walk through take you through some more alleys here um Sushi Zanmai has about four or five shops that you can go to this is an annex but i highly recommend the head shop because everybody highly recommends the head shop 100 yen for a piece of sushi it's cheap all right here's an alley over here so just like little teeny uh alley shops right i can't walk through this one but you can see it's got a very nice counter a sushi chef in the middle really nice classy looking inside you see that right now anybody can go in here and eat it's open.

00:41:24 John Daub: And we're back all right I'm gonna take you around there's another alley this way let's see if that shop is still open that was grilling all right they've closed up everything is closed up all right there's that shop closed up that we started off with this shop closed off in the corner and this shop is closed you see all the windows and the gates is closed right the tamagoyaki so it's pretty early we'll find something to snack on let's go down this alley get to the other side and I want to take you and show you how Tsukiji market is evolving since the market moved in 2018 this neighborhood has found new ways to try to keep people coming in one of them is offering non-fish options to try to cater to all sorts of people wow do you see that wow let me see if i go back there for a second this is a really pretty shop look at that that's like really stylish shop here wow that's like in the center of an alley there's like an oasis of sushi you can see that the alleys are so narrow here a lot of character and personality in it it's this is the way like it feels like you're in the Showa era which was like 30 40 years ago 50 years ago when we were in the Showa era you walk around here and that's something that i hope never goes away i hope that this area never goes away.

00:43:02 John Daub: Um I'm going to take it to the other side and this market really is evolving it's changing to the times because tourists don't always just want to eat fish they just came right out of that alley look at that tourists want to eat more than that so there are steak red steak places coming in across the street you'll find ramen you'll find all sorts but i definitely see sushi and i look at the sushi and say i don't want sushi i want to eat some yakiniku (grilled meat) that's across the street too Dai Sushi is here Dai Sushi is one of the places people would line up for hours to eat on the inner market they still have a shop here and they moved another shop over to Toyosu. I mean, it's good sushi, but I always thought that cost performance, you're probably going to get a pretty good cut set sushi Zanmai. Unless you're a sushi professional, like you eat it like every day. I still think that place is pretty good.

00:44:09 John Daub: All right. This is a standing bar of hot wine and ginger and sake that has nothing to do with the fish market and looks like a new place that has popped up for the residents of this area. And you can see they're inside, they're drinking wine. So when you get closer to the street here, you see the businesses have sort of changed. A lot of these places that were selling things related to fish and fishing, fishing knives, fishing kitchenware. Some of them are still here, like this place sells knives and pots and pans, but you'll find that a lot of them had to sell their businesses because of the competition and whatnot. And entrepreneurs are finding new ways to bring this neighborhood back to life, especially on the weekends. You can really see this place come to life on the weekends. Right now it's pretty quiet, but Saturday, Sunday, wow.

00:45:27 John Daub: Here's the main street. This will take you to Kachidoki Bridge and Ginza. So you'll see Kachidoki Bridge in the distance and Ginza on the other side. It's a pretty good walk. I did a live stream going around the Kachidoki neighborhood last year. And this is the way to Ginza. It's about a 10 minute walk this way, a couple of traffic lights. And you can see there's a Sukiya, which is gyudon and curry. And the fishermen would come on this side of the street, get out of the market, go on the other side, and you'll find a lot of places like that in there. Offering everything except for fish. Because the last thing a fisherman wanted to eat was fish. Many of these shops are closed. It's just an early time and that's part of the culture here. The other side of the street's still open. There's a famous ramen place. I think that's Hokkaido ramen across the street. You see that with the red sign in the middle of your screen? And there's another ramen shop across the street from there.

00:47:00 John Daub: We're going closer to the another entrance to the Tsukiji Market. The one where you would wait for the tuna auction. That's where I'm going to right now, just on the corner of Kachidoki Bridge. But during the day, Tsukiji Market really, the outer markets are really quiet. And I would love to come back, just walk through the streets between 3 and 4 PM. The only people there, or the only living creatures there are pigeons. Get some air time. Hey! I guess you didn't want to, you want some air time too, huh? Careful. Hey, this guy. They really want to get in on this go-

00:47:47 John Daub: Hey guys, welcome to the livestream. You guys travel far? See you got some friends there. You should come here. Look for them. I gotta go this way. I see you gotta go that way too, so. It's a good place to say goodbye. I'm going to take a, we're just like close to taking the turn here. I'm going to show you some of the new businesses that have started coming up. I mean, this is really good real estate. It's just 10 minutes away from Ginza. Its identity is fish. But as we get further and further away from that date, October 2018, when the market moved to Toyosu, new projects, I believe where this wall is, that's the inner market, and they're going to be building stuff there. I mean, it's inevitable that apartment complexes and stuff are going to take over because they're going to try to get as much money out of this as possible.

00:48:43 John Daub: Here's another shop right here. These used to be sushi shops. I think that is a sushi shop. Okay, that's a chain here. Here's the Sushi Dai chain. Usually there's tourists waiting all day outside here, but right now because of the travel condition in Japan, there's nobody waiting. It's open until last order at 3:30, so it's still open. And there's maybe two people inside there, which is really rare for Sushi Dai. Yeah. Again, I still think that Sushi Zanmai, this is a little bit expensive and people would wait for hours, so I always said that Sushi Zanmai is a better deal.

00:49:40 John Daub: Look at that. Across the street, this is the main entrance. Do you see where the guard is on the other side? Do you see the guy with the yellow jacket in the center of your screen? That's where you would go and wait in the middle of the night at 2 a.m. to get in for the tuna auction, where they would auction off like $20,000 cuts. But at 3 o'clock in the morning at 3 o'clock and you still have the course of maguro, tuna caught all over the world. And across the street from that entrance is everything but fish. You have kushikatsu (skewers), which is from Osaka, deep fried, anything, but fish. I think he has some fish, deep fried stuff, ramen, next to it, Yoshinoya that looks like an old Yoshinoya location. There's another ramen shop with the black sign over there. Fishermen did not want fish. These shops are still there in front. Pretty good they do some pretty good business again this is between Toyosu fish market the new fish market if you just go straight for about two two or three kilometers you get to Toyosu fish market so it's a pretty straight shot so the fish here is pretty fresh as well it never really changed.

00:50:43 John Daub: Now this is what I'm talking about here so I'm gonna cross the street there's almost no traffic but the restaurants here a lot of them went out of business I noticed because I ride my bicycle through here a lot and the businesses that are coming back are anything but fish restaurants there's a tapioca and tea Bolton Cafe a tapioca and tea place that's closed right now and then right over here is a I believe that's a ramen shop a spicy teishoku (set meal) so spicy food Chinese cuisine this here is a it's Gigi bar so I think they do serve fish on the menu this just I remember they were building this I'm glad they finished it let's go just take a look at the menu wow look at the lunch menu here that's not sushi that's meat man oh that looks so good do you see the green onion the negi green onions on top simmering in udon I believe that is you see the noodles oh man it's closed at three so it's closed right now that's why there's nobody in here but you can see the menu here has evolved they have oden (simmered dish) which is simmered treasure I like to call oden like a treasure chest of different foods simmering in like a dashi oh look at that that's nuts yeah that is there is some seafood here but not a lot niku tofu (meat tofu) that's just meat and tofu on rice no seafood so curry udon it's curry on top of udon noodles so you can see they're moving away from fish a little bit that looks good look at the egg on there wow that's about 1000 yen you can get that that's pretty good looks healthy too this shop just opened I'd say two months ago.

00:52:54 John Daub: And that's the entrance where we started the live stream I think the future is pretty bright here there's the abandoned uh inner market there's some of the buildings are still standing and the city is talking about what they can do with that that's the parking lot I believe but the building with the fish auction and all that has been torn down and the reason why was simple they had to do it in the market because uh it wasn't safe um there were chances of contagions and things like this there's a lot of talk about moving it to the 21st century Tsukiji was built for the 19 20th century uh and they needed something that was airtight that's Toyosu market now where there weren't ninja rats they used to call them ninja rats here you would see them.

00:53:48 John Daub: And you know what happened all right I can tell you this because we're a couple of years removed all right after they closed the market and they stopped having fish in this market here there used to be fish everywhere. So the rat problem was insane. They had tons and tons of rats here. And they were ninja rats. In fact, I think the New York Times wrote up an article about this. You might wanna Google Tsukiji's ninja rats. These rats were hardcore, man. I've seen them climb on the wires. Do you see these wires? They would be on the wires climbing. That's why they called them ninja rats, climbing and getting around to get from meal to meal any way that they could. And you'd see them on the top of buildings. They were all over the place, like hanging around like ninjas. And after the fish market closed, I'm not gonna hunt for them because they're gone. You know where they went? The reason why you don't find the ninja rats here, it's like, we don't wanna live in this old neighborhood anymore. They went to Ginza. Ginza is just, I don't know, it's like 1500 meters straight, like 10 minute walk. So I've been finding that if I've seen tourists when I walk through there, we'll drop some food or something. Tourists are really messy people. They drop some food, ninja rat will come out from the sides of the streets, pick it up and run back in. I've seen it during the daytime hours. Those ninja rats who were here, they've moved to Ginza where there's more people and more tourists and more food. And they're over there. High class, high class Ginza ninja rats now. And they're hiding between the buildings and underground and in all the little cracks between the buildings, because Ginza is also an old neighborhood. But it's pretty cool. You can see that on the other side there. If you walk through Ginza, just be aware that Tsukiji's ninja rats have moved on. It's a true story.

00:55:46 John Daub: And there you go. Everything is pretty much closed now. So I can go and see if there's a vending machine, get a drink for you. I'm a little bit thirsty. But if you have any questions, you can leave a question in the comments below. If you haven't subscribed tomorrow I'm gonna be doing another update. I shouldn't be smiling so much. It's a more serious one. Because so many travelers are affected by what's happening worldwide, I've been doing these updates from different locations to give you an idea of what it's like to be traveling in Tokyo. I've made a call out to any tourists that's here right now. If you are visiting, send me a direct message. I'm gonna try to meet with three or four people and get an idea of what it's been like traveling around Japan at this time. Instead of just me talking, I think it would be pretty interesting to meet with some people that are visiting here and get their feedback on traveling around Japan, see what it's like. So if you're gonna be coming, if you're still thinking about making a trip to Japan, why? But I don't know. Maybe they have some input that we don't know. So hit me up a direct message. You can try me on Instagram. I get a lot of messages, especially now, so I might miss it. But try to hit me up if you're a Patreon supporter. You could definitely hit me up there because I read them all the time. But Discord server as well. Discord server, just direct message me on the Discord server. But I'd like to talk to you. And I think that all of you who are watching would like to hear from tourists or visitors that are here visiting and hear their feedback on what it's like to be a tourist at this time. I'm very curious, because this is a historical time where, like this is an Olympic year, come on. So everybody wants to be in Japan, but why they can't, it's obvious.

00:57:32 John Daub: So tomorrow's live stream will probably be tomorrow morning. And tonight I'm intending to release a video I made in Saku City in Nagano. It's gonna be a premiere so we can chat along and talk about the sake making process. But because there was no signal inside of the brewery, I had to record it and upload it later. And I put a little bit of a narration and edited the beginning of it. And we'll release that tonight at a convenient time. I know people in California are getting a lot of political stuff hammered at them because of the primaries that are happening over there. So maybe this is a real chance. I'm gonna go get some refreshing breath of fresh air to be in Tsukiji Market. Still smells like fish here. All right, thanks guys. Have a good day, have a good night. If you have any questions, leave them in the comments below. Hit the subscribe button. Yeah, and encourage me to do more of these neighborhood walks. I love it. I love to study the history of these places and share it with you. And again, like the likes let me know that you want this kind of content. And I keep doing these neighborhood walks because they keep getting lots of likes. So let me know your words, what you feel and leave me a comment. I'll see you tomorrow or tonight if you're watching. There's the Nami, what's the name of that place again? Nami, oh, I can't believe I forgot. See everybody, have a good day, have a good night.