00:00:01 John Daub: Just came back from the mailbox. How you doing everybody? Just back from the mailbox. Here in Tokyo we get a lot of junk mail. Basically, our mailbox might be kind of half full after a few days if you don't collect it. Filled with brochures, flyers, restaurant menus, all sorts of unique things. It's pretty colorful. And if you haven't realized, Japan's pretty creative with advertising. Here I've collected six months worth of junk mail.

00:00:30 John Daub: So I thought we would take some time together in these quarantine days and explore Japanese junk mail. I've already put it up on the desk here. Look at this. Boom! Oh, a little bean. I was waiting for this. This is going to be a lot of fun. Now, I don't know if this is your cup of tea. I want to take you all around Japan too, but I just can't. So what can we do? We can look at junk mail. It's actually pretty interesting here. Take a look.

00:01:02 John Daub: So I'm just going to pan across some of it. This is a chirashi (flyer) from one of the supermarkets. We'll open that up later. A lot of McDonald's, Domino's, sushi shops, a lot of delivery menus. Here's one from, I think that's Lotteria maybe. Well, that's a McDonald's as well. Some more sushi. We ordered from this restaurant just recently. Another pizza place. There's even a Toys "R" Us flyer from just about Christmas when I started to do this. They put that in my mailbox. Look at that.

00:02:15 John Daub: Quality of that meat that is definitely like some A5-looking wagyu here. Looks like they even have some ramen—shio ramen, miso ramen—and some pretty good dining plans. It's part of this, so I'm gonna put this to the side. I might take a look at that but I also have to look at the expiration dates in some of these ads because yeah, is it real or plastic? It's hard to tell. All right, this is a sushi place and they're advertising their salmon. Look at the salmon on this menu, it's beautiful. They even have a 10% discount if you have an ad on here. What's it called? Genki Sushi is the name of this chain here. Whoa, this looks really good. This is one of many sushi menus that we got but they like to put it in these trays. Now last time when I ordered it I was a little surprised they had plastic sushi plates and plastic sushi trays but this one looks like it comes in a lacquerware which represents the value of it. I don't know, they used to get these lacquerwares you'd have to order the sushi and put out—put this outside—and the next day the restaurant will come and pick it up. That's what, a hundred pieces of sushi in there? What that looks really good. So menu delivery menus, we're getting a lot.

00:03:39 John Daub: What is this? This looks super interesting—negitoro don. This is Japanese leeks with minced-up tuna for ten dollars. That looks delicious. It's all about the presentation too. Look at the sushi here, it's got—looks like it's in some sort of—isn't that the Back to the Future flux capacitor that allowed Marty to go back in time? They put the sushi in a flux capacitor pattern. That's pretty cool. I like that. That's only six dollars for this. That's a pretty good flux capacitor. That's right. UFO Bob. Oh look at that. They got—what is that? That's some tebasaki (chicken wings) here. Tebasaki, two pieces of tebasaki for about two dollars and fifty cents, four for about 480 yen. That's reasonable I think. Tebasaki doesn't have a lot of meat, that's one of the problems with that. They got Cold Stone ice cream in a cup. That's outrageous. This is a pretty cool chain and they have a shop at Monzen-Nakacho. I think we ordered from here, didn't we? Can't remember but this is on my radar. It's a keeper. That is a keeper.

00:05:01 John Daub: All right look at this. This is McGood delivery, McDonald's delivery. It says here—hold on, let me get the light behind me. That makes a lot more sense so you can see it better. You might get some glare on there. There we go. Yeah this is a delivery that's pretty cool. This is the gratin korokoro they call it menu and you can see look at that oozing croquette. Oh this was from—I think I ate this, didn't I? This is a while ago. And McDonald's has these really delicious sets that they put together for people. This is a two-person set for about eighteen dollars and you save about 280 yen. And this one you'll save about four dollars if you order all this food. This is a three-person set for about 25 dollars. Look at the way they stack the McNuggets in the background. Pretty creative. I don't think normal Japanese can eat all those French fries though. That's a lot. What is this? Patty God. So they may add—you can add extra patties to your Big Mac. That's crazy. And there's the information for McDonald's Japan for their McDelivery. There's even a QR code for those that are daring enough to try to search the menu there.

00:06:30 John Daub: Wow this one we looked at before. I actually ate this with Kanae on another live stream recently—not this one in particular but we had a katsudon which was so delicious. I love this shop. What is this? Kasane. Kasanea? This is a hanjuku tamago (soft-boiled egg). I always add the baby to my hanjuku tamago because—oh just look at that. Whoa. And this is a katsu shop. You see breaded pork cutlets, kind of like a wiener schnitzel I guess you could say. The Austrians are looking at this and saying this looks pretty familiar but I want it. I should have gotten that one in the middle but I got the one to the right of it. That is the torotama. It's just like this runny egg on there and that's about 12-13 dollars depending on the exchange rate. And the one in the middle there is a roskatsu that just looks so good. And there's—so they deliver. I live pretty close to Ginza. It's not too far away.

00:07:34 John Daub: Oh Domino's. Hey there. They just started a tapioca pizza which is crazy. You know I think there's a worldwide tapioca shortage about a year ago and now no one is drinking tapioca drinks because it's like a tourist thing I guess. So now you're getting tapioca so cheap and Domino's must have bought barrels of them because now they're putting it on pizza. Might be something that we try for dinner. I don't know. Let's get back to these to the junk mail haul. Thank you Lisa Hall. Ultra cheese. Now this one freaked me out. You can get—it's saying here you can get up to 250 grams, 500 grams. That's like a pound right here, a pound and a half I would say, like two point five pounds. And of course they won't—they'll put New Yorker on it because we all know New Yorkers are cheesy. They like cheese. I never had this much cheese on a New York pizza. 100% mozzarella. You can get to a few. This is mochi. Mochi-tei means takeaway and there's a nice coupon, 30% off for the ultra cheese special. Some of these flyers might be out of date but it's pretty dated.

00:09:08 John Daub: Whoa Domino's goes to another level here. Look at the shrimp popping out of that. That's like a shrimp cocktail and a pizza. Look at that. Black tiger shrimp on this one here. How much is that for a large? It says here yeah about 49 dollars for one large pizza but it's basically like a surf and turf on a pizza. And if you know you can get regular price pizzas at Pizza Hut. You don't have to break the bank. A plain pizza costs about 16 dollars I believe. New York cheesecake shakes from Domino's. That's pretty cool. This is a hot show booty which is my neighbor Jeff Bangs in the house. Somebody likes Domino's Jeff. It is pretty good in Japan. I wonder what the quality difference is big in Japan versus the US. You can see down here they show how to order which is interesting for Japanese that don't eat a lot of Domino's pizza. They show how to order. You can get half and half. Japanese love variety. A medium is 27 centimeters, a regular is 28 and a large is 33 centimeters and there's 12, 8 and 8 pieces. So the medium just smaller pieces I guess. And it tells you it explains the different kinds of crusts—hand tossed, ultra crispy. This one's an ultra crispy and you can add additional charges for a cheese paste they put on top here I guess it's like rolled crust. And this is a melt-like layered cheese in the crust for 500 yen extra, five dollars for large for that. I might try that one of these days. They do have brownies and soup and stuff like that but you know what I would use this money just to order more pizza right? I'm not really into that. That's a pretty big discount on Wednesday in Domino's Japan. Very cool. Domino's making me hungry.

00:11:18 John Daub: Oh you'll get coupons in the mail sometimes in Japan. Junk mail sometimes can save you money. These are half price Chinese delivery. People have been asking me for Chinese delivery. They've added coupons into this one. This is a little good stuff here. There's some mapo tofu in there. Anything on the menu for about seven dollars, 790 yen which is about seven dollars with the exchange rate, 750 maybe. Oh wow looks good. And this one you can get a couple of entrees for eleven hundred yen or about ten dollars. And this one's about twelve-thirteen dollars. You can get if you want to add these on here but that's a pretty good deal. Oh I love these. This is like a black vinegar which has a super sweet and sour taste to it. It's really good. And this is super spicy mapo tofu. Whoa that looks spicy. You put that in your mouth and your tongue goes numb. That's about ten dollars for a big plate of that delivered. I'm gonna put this one away because if they've got half price on this and it's still valid. Oh wait it's good until December 31st 2019. Slightly late I think.

00:12:46 John Daub: This looks like the same company right? So I've been collecting this for over six months so we see here two different flyers from the same company. Let's compare now to see how this company has altered their menu. They've kind of kept the same format over the last six months. This one is from January 31st and then this one is from May 31st so kind of a winter and a spring edition maybe. So yeah let's take a look at these and see how they've altered the menu. I'm going to be taking a look at the apartment ones. I have a whole stack of other stuff here that I think you're really going to enjoy and we'll look at this Toys "R" Us one because I'm fascinated by that. So just bear with me now we're going to compare these two menus. So let's look at the winter one first. Look at that piece of maguro. That is a hon maguro (bluefin tuna). That looks like some chutoro (fatty tuna) to me. Chutoro I think yeah.

00:14:01 John Daub: So this company I think we did we look at the menu before. Now this one's slightly different but when you look at Japanese menus for sushi it's so colorful. And these fulfill those categories usually. And I want you to understand when you look at these sushi menus here. Oh yeah we looked at one from maybe March already so we don't have to compare too much but when you look at the menus there's just normal nigiri sushi. You can order that for one person. Families will order this so I want you to look at a family size here. This one is the premium one right here. Okay this is a Miyabi is what it's called. It's got ikura (salmon roe) and uni (sea urchin) in the middle so it's you know it's gonna be pretty good. 50 pieces for about a hundred and twenty dollars, a hundred ten hundred twenty dollars depending on the exchange rate. It's got chutoro which is a very premium cut, the middle premium cut of maguro tuna. So this is gonna set you back a hundred dollars for five people but knowing Kanae and me this is for three people maybe. We'll have a little bit left over I bet you we could both eat this. That's 50—that would be for five people it's about 20 pieces a person which is pretty reasonable right? 20 to 25 dollars a person. And if you underprice the sushi then people are suspicious. That's another thing. If the sushi is too inexpensive then people are pretty suspicious like why is your sushi so cheap? Okay that's why you don't want to make it too cheap. Now that you know that for family of four expect to spend on average about 80 dollars for delivery food in Japan. That's just the reality and that's why pizza is priced the way it is.

00:15:47 John Daub: All right because pizza we don't have to look at—well we can just take a look really quickly. Look at that shrimp. Ah it's a shrimp festival that they're having going on right now. That looks really good. Two pieces, one piece for 202.50 yen you can get it. I think it's slightly grilled and then raw here. That looks great. You can order it online and you can get it for about 202.50 yen. You can just get a plate of it. And then they have a super shrimp platter here that's about 85 dollars. So they have locations everywhere. This one is from Monzen-Nakacho. Monzen-Nakacho in my area has got a ton of places. This is just—I think that's Chuo Ward now. Let's take a look at this and we're gonna move to the apartment ones after we get through what's on the table here. This is just a supermarket chirashi that I got. Okay so this supermarket chain's called Culture. Bunka-do? Bunka-do is the name of this supermarket and they've got a few outlets in Chuo Ward in the center of Tokyo here. Looks like they're having a wagyu festival here. Everything is half off all this wagyu half price. Look at that.

00:17:04 John Daub: Let's see here this is—doesn't say the exact location just says from Japan. These are kokunai domestic beef here. This is kuroge wagyu (Japanese black wagyu) katakuchi rosu like the shoulder roast, a good cut here. This is karubi which is another really nice cut. I like karubi is really easy for yakiniku (grilled meat). Yeah it's pretty nice. And then down here you have kuroge wagyu for stew. So this cut of wagyu is for stew not so much for—it doesn't have so much fat. You don't want to have a fatty meat in a stew so this one is—that's 40% off. This is yonwatoro biki it says here. Yonwatoro biki this one is for curry this one here. So that's what the chunks of meat look like for curry. And a lot of butcher shops will cut it up for you depending on the purpose if it's stew or curry. Curry's got a little bit more fat in it that might be what the difference is here. Shabu-shabu 40% off for the shabu-shabu wagyu. All this is kuroge wagyu. Beautiful. On the other side more meat. Oh so it's just like a niku (meat) festival. Sometimes supermarkets will have this. How much per kilogram? Let's take a look. It doesn't quite—it doesn't really say. It just says it's off but you know what I've never paid—you don't pay as much as you think you would pay but it's a lot more than you want to pay maybe. Is that makes any sense? I don't know how much it is per kilogram. It doesn't say exactly. This one's 60% off. It's for mega packs but I don't know. Sometimes the quality is here. 160 grams for 160 grams of meat for one steak is nine dollars for a kuroge—black haired wagyu roast steak katakuchi rosu I believe that says here. It's nine dollars. That's it. That's so darn cheap that is so cheap for wagyu isn't it?

00:19:04 John Daub: And then here's Pizza-La. It's another pizza. They usually have very strange pizzas here. You know what you're basically just eating toppings. What happened to the pizza? It's possible to add too many toppings. It's just not going to be a good idea to just eat it with the toppings where it's no longer qualifies as pizza. Michael Sasan is here. Totally love watching your at-home food unboxings. Thank you Michael. This I guess you can call this one here is preparation for the next one we're scouting now. Toys "R" Us is an interesting one. When I received this I was perplexed because I thought that Toys "R" Us went out of business right? Apparently it's still in business here in Japan. And I remember going back in 2003 when I wasn't sure if I was going to stay in the US or come home. I remember going to a job festival and Toys "R" Us they looked at my resume and they said you're from Japan. Well you know our Toys "R" Us there is doing insane business. So I think they're just different companies. So despite Toys "R" Us being out of business in America they are not out of business here.

00:20:20 John Daub: Care Bears. Is that a Care Bear? So this is just junk mail that I got thrown in my mailbox for Christmas time. Awesome. Six dollars and 39 cents right? 639 yen. So if it's 100 yen to a dollar it's approximate. So this is—this could be like a collector's item. Anybody want this? Some drones, Hot Wheels. Oh look at that ramp for Hot Wheels. Why would you need to buy this? Can't you just make it out of wood and push your little car down it? It's raining today. There's not a lot that I can do. Look at that kid. He's like check out my awesome dude. Probably didn't say dude original. It's hard for me to see through the screen here. Oh he's got little stations here. All these little things part of his—no they just paid him to go put your hands out and say I caught a fish this big. Whoa look at this that's awesome. He's got a Shinkansen and like the Narita Express going on right there and he's got his own little station in there. That's so cool. I love these things. You know what if I had time and found somebody was interested I would love to do like train tracks in the house and have a little train thing going on around the house. One from the refrigerator to the table isn't that the dream right? You can ask—could you put the beer on the train? I'll send my train over to go pick up the beer and it'll come back. It's pretty cool. I'm just going through here really kid. Oh that's for the young kids—microscope, a telescope 10% off.

00:22:02 John Daub: All right so there you go Toys "R" Us is alive and well in Japan and this is from Christmas so there's no Animal Crossing stuff so don't even ask. Next up I've got a completely full house of junk mail for the next 15 minutes. That was a lot. That's pretty heavy. Let's take a look here. L.L. Bean is representing in Japan. They don't use Japanese models but it is 20% off. But you know what? The problem—hey Raymond! Raymond Centeno's here. I have Kato N gauge trains from Japan. Awesome! Let's talk later. But L.L. Bean in Japan I would say it's like 30 to 50% more off the rack so when they have sales it's like normal price in the United States. Oh these are more food. This is Jonathan's family restaurant. Here you can get this delivered. They've been a lot of delivery food. Restaurants have been sending me delivery. Oh look at that. That's beef stew omurice. You see that? Beef stew omurice for 10 dollars. That looks so great.

00:23:14 John Daub: What? This is more food. Pizza Hut is not doing very well in Japan. It's too oily. Japanese don't like it so the discounts are sometimes bigger. This is now 50% off for takeaway. The pizzas just aren't as appetizing as they don't look as good as the ones from Domino's. Domino's is killing it here. Pizza Hut is way behind. Here's an app for menu. You can deliver. Never heard of this place. Ningyocho. Brozars delivery menu. These look like some pretty good burgers. Actually Kanae would love a burger. Whoa! Wagyu pastrami sandwiches. I thought there was gonna be like a wagyu sandwich—pastrami sandwich. A chicken tandoori sandwich. That looks really good. Brozars. I guess it's a US chain. I don't know. Bacon burger 15 dollars, 1500 yen. A double lot burger. Bacon egg cheeseburger 1750 yen. Here we got a chili burger. Avocado burger for 1500 yen. About 15 bucks for this. That's kind of pricey but again like you can see how much a typical meal for family is. Each family member is paying about 20 to 30 dollars a person. So you got to figure that a burger is for one person. The prices should be far off of the norm or else people question if it's too cheap in Japan.

00:24:51 John Daub: Oh look! America and Japan together in these kitty burgers with a mini salad. Wait is the mini salad the french fries? Because that would be pretty funky. Hey kids have your potato salad. Would you like your potato salad in the form of french fries? Tartar burger. Even hot dogs. Wow my mouth is watering looking at this. Yeah Brozars they have delivery boxes too. These are burgers in a box. That's a neat way to put the burgers in there. One two three four five six seven eight. Eight burgers in a hamburger box. Well it's four hamburgers cut in half. 5500 yen. Are these mini or normal size? It's hard—it doesn't say but underneath it is the mega burger. That looks great. Oh whoa! What? This mega burger is 24 centimeters long. This is a pizza size. This burger costs a hundred dollars. About 9800 yen. It's eight times the size of a normal burger. They call it the mega burger. It's 18 centimeters high and 24 centimeters wide. It's got girth baby. Look at that thing. Look at it. And look of course they know their audience. There's a beer in the background so they're talking to me. Probably there's a lot of you there too. Chunk meal can be a lot of fun. So they got to deliver this from Ningyocho. That's kind of far. It's not too far. There you go. If you want to follow them on Instagram you can go like this.

00:26:46 John Daub: Ervan says get the mega burger. Ervan sadly that super chat is 95 dollars not enough. Thanks for that. We're gonna—Kanae and I are gonna do another delivery food episode pretty soon. Hey where you going Gimble? All right let's I want to get away from food now and take a look. It's just I would say of all of the junk mail that I've had in the mail that I get 50% of it is food delivery menus and the rest of it is I'm going to show you right now. They all look really good. The camera is alive. So is the ceiling. They all look really good. Just Japanese food is oh look at that. It's just so good right? Here's another tonkatsu. Juicy. Ah stop it. Look at that matcha strawberries. How do they send that? No. So this is what the junk mail with the Indian food. That guy's really having a party. There's some Indian food. Oh Tarius. Taris? I've been here many times. Indian food in Japan is cheap but compared to India it's kind of expensive. But they have a naan that I love. Do they have a picture of it? They have a gorgonzola cheese naan. Here it is. This gorgonzola cheese naan is the bomb. It's so good. Always I say in the form of a question because I don't use that term often. But it's so good and they put it with honey on the side so you can dip it in honey.

00:28:27 John Daub: Gorgonzola cheese is good for your cholesterol somebody said. Someone you shouldn't believe I think. What is that? Gorgonzola cheese is good for you. I said oh really? These naan sets look good. But Indian they do have takeaway here. But you know what I like about this and a lot of the Japanese Indian restaurants they have all you can eat naan. All right. Naan hodai (all-you-can-eat naan). Did it say that here? If you eat in the restaurant it's all you can eat naan. Yeah. I think you can get the first naan—if you upgrade you can get gorgonzola naan or almond cashew nuts naan. And then after you finish this after your upgrade you can get unlimited regular naan. It is so good and doesn't cost you anything at all. You always get happy and full at Indian restaurants in Tokyo. It's truly incredible. Oh that looks like a pretty good nabe (hot pot). It's another Brozars. They really—what okay now we're into the non-restaurant stuff here. So after eating all that I think you're all going to want to hit the gyms. Gold's Gym just went out of business so this might be a collector's item right? Gold's Gym change your body change your life. That looks like Tom Brady. Well a little bit. They photoshopped. They're in there too.

00:30:01 John Daub: So Gold's Gym there's a few of them around. I don't know I think they might be separate businesses in Japan so the brand might continue despite it being out of business in the US. But all gyms are closed until at least March 30th on May 31st because of the Tokyo lockdown but you can get half price trials here. 15 dollars a month for the half price trial. That's for a trial lesson I believe. And a lot of these gyms have an entry fee. Most of the newer places don't do that but the older ones they have a membership entry fee. It's not even the membership fee it's like entry fee. It's same with schools. So you have to pay 50 dollars as just like key money like thank you gift. A lot of places aren't doing that but Gold's Gym is a brand. How much is a membership? So you can get a full time membership at Gold's Gym is 10,000 yen. You want to go from different areas at different Gold's Gyms it's 13,000 yen and then this one is for a master. You get everything for 14,000 yen. This is 140 dollars a month. That's expensive right? And this is for full time anytime. If you're just going Monday through Saturday between 7 a.m. and 6 p.m. it's 8,000 yen. So you get a discount if you want to go at off peak hours. So I guess all the gyms are doing that. But Gold's Gym is—this is going to be a collector's item because they're out of business.

00:31:21 John Daub: Oh Nitori! Hey and I have an IKEA or Ikea we say in Japanese. IKEA flyers come in here. But Nitori this is Nitori is a furniture shop in Japan and they're right now they sent me this flyer because they're having a sale. You can get a dining set. Look at this bed set so you can put your futon here, your futon up here and you can put stuff underneath there. Kanae never think about getting something like this. It's not a lot of padding right? It's not the same as a bed but this is Japanese furnishings. The sofas are always disappointing in Japan. Ikea's got a good one but usually they're too small and they're not very well padded but this looks really good. So Kanae would have her cinema chair and I'd have mine but how would we snuggle? Oh no snuggling. We're separated by our big gulps in the middle. We can put the pizza here though. I can see that happening. This one has one of these air assist tables that go up and down. I like those. So Nitori has some good stuff. It's usually pretty cheap and when you're moving in they have five locations in the area including Shibuya Hachiko. They have one at Hachiko—what they have one in Ginza. This is Nakameguro and in Shinjuku but I didn't know they had one at the Shibuya Koen so I'm guessing that's near Hachiko right? No oh no it's not exactly Hachiko okay. And Tobu Ikebukuro. All right you're on my radar Nitori.

00:33:16 John Daub: These people didn't know that they'd be on TV internationally huh? This is I think this is for chiropractor massage yeah. You get a one coin. A lot of things in Japan are one coin. Yeah hey Kevin Riley's here how you doing Kevin. A lot of Japan they always say lunch is one coin and 500 yen coin is about five bucks and if you get one coin it's just convenient for restaurants to price this. But for one coin from last year's September to this—if you went to get a massage on these dates you can get a massage for one coin. That's pretty amazing as well as acupuncture called hui. We call this hui in Japanese. That's only one side that's a pretty good deal. Just a shame I'm six months eight nine months too late. I thought this my junk mail went back a little ways. This is a flyer now to four apartments here. Apartments in Tokyo wow that is pricey. A 1LDK for 450,000 dollars that is pricey. Okay we're gonna have to take a look and see what this is. A 2LDK which is two rooms living dining kitchen that's what it means living dining kitchen for 520,000 approximately. LDK is living dining kitchen. Chicken Florida writes in here I tried green tea matcha cake from my local grocer it had the same mouthful as gum from a tube. Is that typical? No that's kind of gross actually. Thanks for sharing that. I got that in my mind now.

00:35:02 John Daub: So you out there I'm a salesman you out there I'm a salesman you out there I'm a salesman can live in this beautiful condominium. Look at this building so clean so new high-tech internet. The entrance looks like luxury. All this can be yours for 450,000. It's very conveniently located not that far away from Ginza actually. That sounds really nice. It's got all the amenities. A super nice bathroom with misty—is that you get—is her name misty or is that the name of the sauna? Oh okay her name is not misty it's the sauna. You don't get her. And this is what the layout looks like. I know I got City Hunter writes in here you got a lot of junk mail. I know. All right. So let's break it down for you. This is what you get for your 450,000 dollars right? Nagoya John's here. How you doing? I'm the only guy who makes reading junk mail fun. No the only guy. Yeah. I'm having fun with this. All right. This is the apartment layout for a 450,000 dollar apartment. I got this as junk mail a couple of months ago. And this is the layout for a 2LDK. LDK once again for those joining us living dining kitchen and one room. So let's take a look at it. So here's the one room. This is the living and dining room right here. This is the balcony. Here's a I guess it's like a Japanese room here. A walk-in. Here's the bathtub. This is pretty small.

00:36:42 Kanae Daub: Kanae's back.

00:36:42 John Daub: So for 450,000 dollars you get 40 square meters. It's only 40 square meters. That's a rip-off. You went shopping? Per our standards we take our shopping outside to the balcony to disinfect it. We have standards. That's how we do it. Carrie says hi Kanae. Isoko says hi. Isoko Durbin says hi. So yeah 450,000 dollars for 40 square meters. Rip-off. And this one here although it's a really nice location you're right near Ginza. This is 45 square meters for 520,000 dollars. Let's see what you got. It's kind of in the rollout here. You get a bigger balcony probably facing somewhere nice. I guess to the standard plan it could get more expensive if you go to a higher floor. It's always a possibility. Here's your misty sauna bath as well as a toilet which is separated I believe. I guess this is a wall. I don't think they put it together. You have here a kitchen dining living. So the kitchen table is here. This would be maybe like a Japanese room. This looks like a closet. Another room. This is 5.1 tatami and 2.6 tatami. I don't like this layout at all. And this is 10 tatami mats. They write in here jo. So it's 10 jo, 2.6 jo and 5.1 jo. So it's about 5 tatami mats. This is small for 520,000 dollars don't you think? Pass.

00:38:29 John Daub: All right let's see what else they got here. All this junk mail. Boom. Open room from last year. Oh that's crazy. This says here this is 1 million dollars for apartments in this place. Oh it's on Skytree. That's why. This is a pretty nice area. So you can buy an apartment for 1 million dollars here. Why are they sending this to me? Do they think I got a million? That's a nice looking kitchen though. 1 million dollars. These are the cheaper plans here looks like. So if you want for about 260,000 dollars you can live in this. Looks like an older apartment. I don't think I would want to live here. Riverside. You get on the riverside. It looks pretty nice. 1LDK 40 square meters. It's not a lot. And here's the layout. 10.5 tatami rooms for the living and the dining. And then a bedroom here for 4.3 tatami mats. That's not a lot. For 250,000 dollars. Tokyo is just I don't know. They have a housing bubble I think. That's just not worth it. Clean your skin. Here's some more housing flyers. They use really good paper on these. Mitsubishi Housing. I guess they have a new apartment. They have a map here and they show the layout. I do like looking at the layouts. They're like things that you would doodle on a notepad as you're listening to a boring class.

00:40:27 John Daub: This is a good one. You can see the bedroom the balcony on here the closet. You can imagine living here more. Living dining kitchen. This has nine tatami mats which is still that's actually fairly large size here. And then the bathroom on here. A shoe closet. I don't know what that means. Oh okay. This is the entrance the genkan (entryway). They wrote it in English just to be more stylish. Not to try to send it to foreigners. Obviously it's all in Japanese. But they wrote it in English for style. Isn't that funny? And the genkan there's a dressing room and a bathroom and a lavatory. So that costs you about 400,000 dollars for this. This is an E-type and then a B-type. This has one kitchen with I don't know what this means. This is 320,000 dollars. There's the balcony. I guess they put the bed here and next to it is a sofa. So you can lay on your bed and watch TV. I guess if you have a small apartment that's not a bad layout. The kitchen looks pretty narrow. I mean you don't really have a place to put a table there. Here's the entrance a walk-in closet. There's the entrance the genkan. You put your shoes here. There's a shoe box near there and a dressing room and a bathroom. The new apartments this is too semi. The location's really good. There's Tokyo Station. It's right near Tokyo Station. So the location is good. Just a two-minute walk to Monzen-Nakacho. So it's pretty close in this area. It's not too far away from where we're living now.

00:41:49 John Daub: The apartment one's looking kind of boring here. Looks like freight containers Dargun Darkfire writes in here kind of. Oh this looks look at how beautiful. This is a new building. Look at that. The entrance is beautiful. 1LDK for about 440,000 dollars. 4,400,000 yen and a 2LDK for 4,900,000 yen. I think paying the extra 500,000 yen is probably worth it just to get a bigger space if this is going to be your room forever. Look at that walk-in. It's like living in a museum though. So they've done a pretty good job of it. But I don't think I would ever buy something like this. I don't know. Does it make sense to buy a condominium at this kind of a price? I mean it's not like you own the land right? You just own I guess maybe you do. I don't know how it works exactly. But the layouts are kind of fun. It's a nice area Tsukishima. Some more living areas. It's a place a lot of apartments are being built there. Some more skincare beauty care and massage treatment. You get a facial for about 100 dollars here. But I think you can get a discount with some coupons. This is like what I've been what I get in my mailbox for those joining us. This is a Tokyo residential junk mail unboxing. I've unboxed my junk mail.

00:43:23 John Daub: Oh this is a juku (cram school). So kids have to go to a second school. You're not supposed to ask questions in Japanese school. I don't know why. The teachers teach and then you go to a juku and then they help you cram for what you were supposed to learn. I'm not sure. That's just the system. So I'm not really interested. More apartment complexes. They make them look like you know I wouldn't mind going to some of these model homes just to check it out. But we get a lot of model homes and new apartment complex brochures to try to get us to move. Of course they put a Mercedes Benz. You'd have to be able to afford a Benz in order to live here. Or no you can't afford a Mercedes Benz. You can't afford a Mercedes Benz. No these prices are a lot cheaper. These are half of the price of the other place. Interesting. But they put a Mercedes Benz in there to make you think that for this price you can have luxury. And that's a nice view of Tokyo Skytree. That's pretty nice. Can I look at this balcony? What? Look at all that space. No way. I could see myself now just living there without the Mercedes Benz. And you'd be able to see fireworks from your apartment building and the Sumida River. This looks great. Now we're talking. Yeah look at that view. I can see having a glass of wine on the balcony with those very stylish chairs overlooking Tokyo Skytree would not just be ideal right? That's a lot of space.

00:45:05 John Daub: This has got to be away from Ginza right? And it is. This is up there near I think yeah this is up there north of Asakusa. This is more where oh this is where your grandpa lives Kanae where Mr. Seiichi lives. That's why it's yeah it's really yeah there's not a lot. It's land is a little bit cheaper up there but yeah. All right let me tell you guys something some inside information. This picture looks really nice and you get this beautiful view but guess what? It was probably taken six months ago and there's probably two new skyscraper buildings taking over the space and you can no longer see Skytree. That's what happens. All right. You find a nice place. You like the view. Guess what? In six months later you're going to be able to see the Skytree. A new apartment building gets put up and steals your view. Pimple poppers. That's the same. This is an eikaiwa (English conversation school). How much are the uh doesn't say. One Up is the name of that school. Does she look like she's having fun? These man-to-man lessons. So you're so close in the days of coronavirus. I don't think they can do that. I can't do that anymore.

00:46:31 John Daub: Look at these. I love the little teeny trucks the flatbed trucks. They have like no power but they carry cargo. A lot of beauty stuff. Look at that. Oh man. I don't want to mess with her. Really? Do you have to dress like that to go to this gym? You can have a trial lesson and with somebody who looks like her for a hundred—for a thousand dollars for um no 10 dollars. What? You can fight her for 10 dollars? Fusion lesson. You get your butt kicked and you got to pay for that. It's pretty cool. It's a lot of wellness stuff here. A lot of wellness. It's kind of going through it. This is all the non-food ones. This is called Watashi no Eikaiwa. B B school right? I remember this is this English language school catered just to women because some of the men can be kind of creepy. So they have I think just female teachers. They want just man-to-man lessons. How much is a trial lesson? Wow. The entry fee is 600 dollars. It's expensive. Go to that school. Lovely Takelo is here from Australia. You could literally make junk mail scrapbook. I know right? We could do so much with this junk mail. It's fascinating to me. This is what I get in my mailbox.

00:48:15 John Daub: So these are truck rentals. So I guess you can move yourself. You can rent this truck which is two meters long five meters long and 10 meters long. 700 dollars to rent this truck for the day. Does it come with movers? Don't know. So if you're moving I guess you get the movers too. It's depending on the size of the truck. Interesting. Some more moving stuff. I get a lot of plumbers magnets for the refrigerator with plumbers. What? What is that? A V-line. I don't never heard of a V-line. Kanae what is this? I don't know what a V-line is?

00:49:07 Kanae Daub: Yeah V-line.

00:49:07 John Daub: A V-line is a bikini line.

00:49:09 Kanae Daub: Oh bikini line.

00:49:12 John Daub: Yeah. Oh oh oh okay. It makes sense. Skip pass. Yeah slightly uncomfortable. What are those images there? There's the answer. Sometimes the apartment complexes don't go as high-tech glossy with their flyers but uh that was 480,000 dollars for this? Oh it's in Tsukishima. That's why. Whoa luxury car rentals. Hey now I would love to have this for a special day it says here. For a special day. 160 dollars for a rental. I would actually you know what? I'm gonna save this one. Sounds like something fun. Special day. I'm in for that. I can't afford a 400,000 dollar apartment but I could afford a 160 dollar car rental with convertible for a special day for somebody special. Yeah. It really is fascinating. So many. There's so much. This is like six months worth of junk mail.

00:50:21 John Daub: Oh look here's a help wanted ad. You can work with this team. Do you guys want to join the team? No they're not from the Arab world. They're actually in the food business it looks like. Staff wanted part-time arubaito (part-time job). Arubaito is a German word meaning like a part-time job. It's funny how Japan borrowed some things from different countries. So I remember my friend said yeah my job is an arubaito. And here's the resume. You can fill out and send it to them. That's funny. It's on the back of the flyer. They ask you to fill out the back of the flyer is the application for the job. That is creative. That's very creative. You have to paste your picture. Japanese resumes have their pictures attached. So you have to put a little picture. So I know in America you're not allowed to put the picture because they don't want you discriminating based on what you look like. But in Japan you have to add the pictures. Some supplements some drinks. A lot of old people love supplements. There's a multi-billion dollar business for supplements. This looks like a beautiful apartment. Look at that walk-in. Six seven hundred thousand dollars for a 3LDK 70 square meters. 70 square meters. I would live here if it was half price. Maybe it's a lot of space. It has good infrastructure. Where is that? Oh Tsukishima station. It's a brand new apartment. That's why. That's why.

00:51:56 John Daub: Uh hey uh Jodron Asaras. My girlfriend and I have shown all your videos to our friends. We're longtime fans. Keep being you. We love your videos. Thank you. Thank you for showing it. Oh this is air air conditioned cleaner. Thank you Jodron Asaras. Sounds like a dinosaur. It's pretty cool. And Inuliger. Good afternoon John. Got my adverts for anime shops collectible shops and other stores in that pile. We will we're gonna see. Anyways hope you and Kanae are well. Inuliger. Tsukishima station. On the weekdays 1270 yen per hour. It's a little bit harder to get on the weekends. Uh that's interesting. If you're working and if you're working at the register register workers on weekdays get—and which is 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.—get 1270 yen on the weekdays. If you work a little bit after 5 p.m. you'll get another 100 yen more if you work evenings even more. On the weekends you'll get more. This much it's about 15 an hour for register workers in Japan that's pretty reasonable I think. I don't know what minimum wage is anymore. It's always going up. When I left I was waiting tables in Ohio I think I was making like 4.35 an hour plus tips. Lunch was awful because you didn't make any money at lunch. Not a lot of people coming in they were always ordering less. Which one gets the most money? You think it was like the butcher shop or something? They all pretty much get about between 12 and 15 an hour. Interesting did not know that.

00:54:09 John Daub: More ads. I'm looking for manga and anime stuff it doesn't look like we have a lot of that. DHC again. A lot of these has collagen on it. Collagen we say in Japanese. I guess it makes you beautiful or keeps your skin soft. Uh I guess it's marketed to women because this is like an old lady color. It's pretty cool. She's 54 years old. Does she look 54 to you? It's very soft skin. You think they photoshopped it? That would be disingenuous if they photoshopped it right? She looks 54. This stuff works. Kanae should I put this? Do you want collagen drink?

00:54:53 Kanae Daub: She said yes.

00:54:59 John Daub: All right maybe we'll put that to the side. She wants it. It's another staff here they really wanted staff. All right so this is a little suspicious some lady holding her—you think this is—this would be kind of suspicious but it's not it's like a massage okay. I had to do a double take on that like what are they actually promoting here? It's kind of nasty. This is a full course for massage therapy maybe I don't know. Kanae what is this? Full body is this like liposuction losing weight? Oh they guarantee that you'll lose this amount of weight right of course. Wow you can get skinny from massage wow really wow I need yeah look at this. Wow I look more like this I could use this. All right we'll put it I'm gonna just put it in the throwaway pile because it looks like it's marketed to women. A lot of people we don't use WhatsApp here we use LINE so a lot of people will—most of the Japanese will have a LINE. Also with a banana on their back. The next thing we want to talk about is the next thing that I got this from a couple of my patients at my office. It's kind of like a WhatsApp or something like this. This is from Docomo the new iPhone 8. How old is this? 400 you can get it for with a plan I guess. This is kind of old maybe I don't know. Maybe you guys can scan that and figure it out. I don't know I thought they got rid of the iPhone 8s. Here's another delivery just because they look cool with the animated dudes in there. How you doing wink. I like the name of this company Next Stage be like Mike.

00:57:22 John Daub: So this is a campaign this is recent from May 7th but I don't think I think all these are cancelled now because of the state of emergency. It's funny you can check it out online get more information online. Are you putting it in frosty? Frosty is getting some food. Wow would you like to live here in central Tokyo? This is only 1.1 kilometers away from Ginza. You too can live the luxury if only you have—how much? Flip the page they won't even tell the prices they don't say the prices although layouts look beautiful though. Look at it that's a lot of space. That's an American sized apartment. These are smaller ones I'm guessing that it's gonna be you know what I'm saying I'm guessing that it's gonna be above when they don't put the prices it's like a million dollars that's what happens. You call you like you start coughing because you just can't believe what you heard. Some more apartments some of these look like double. Sometimes you know I used to do this for the English school that I was—this is active book dialogue. Sometimes there's stuff for old people because you know Japan's population is old so you get older things. You've seen him you know him from TV commercials. You can do that you can do that you can do that and buy his stuff wow it's pricey. These are kimonos that's almost seven thousand dollars for oh no wait that's not kimonos expensive. Here's another Next Stage gym ad. I haven't we haven't gotten gym ads recently because of the pandemic here.

00:59:31 John Daub: Wow I think we've seen this one. Sometimes they'll put more than one and sometimes these flyers they'll now you're not allowed to it's hard to get in to do these flyers to some apartment complexes but we have a door that people anybody can go in and put flyers in there but it's behind the back so the people who do this for a living know how to get in there but if you just go into the front door it's auto locked so you can't get into our apartment complex. That looks like something we looked at before. So they market it to older a little bit older people to try to get them to join a community. You can meet make friends with these people if you join the community. Um it's a Tanita and it's life shaping for I guess for older people. It's nice yeah. So there you have it. Do we get any junk mail today Kanae?

01:00:28 Kanae Daub: Do we get any junk mail? No oh you didn't get the flyer yeah I know I told you it's all right.

01:00:49 John Daub: Okay I guess that's about it everybody. Do you have any questions? I will take questions from you from one hour of looking at junk mail. Can you even believe it? I can't believe we just did an hour of junk mail. I thought this was an interesting topic. A lot of people if you are coming to and thinking about moving to Japan you're going to get junk mail. All right this is what's in your mailbox just so you know. Um it's pretty fascinating it really is. I'll take um let's see if we can get the 400 likes I really appreciate that maybe even 500 if we push it. But hey baby yoda on here when you said one million dollars did you mean yen or US dollars? I meant one million US dollars which is ichioku yen right? One million dollars is—wait um one million yen is ten thousand dollars. Ten million yen is one hundred thousand dollars and well I think ichioku yen is one million dollars so I saw that it was one million dollars.

01:02:01 John Daub: I'm still trying to erase this from my mind. I didn't know what those shapes were. Uh tourism is down in Japan is your wife's name Kanai? No it's Kanae K-N-A-E Kanae but if you say it fast it's hard to tell if it's an E or an I. Kanai Kanai Kanai Kanai Kanai Kanai Kanai Kanai Kanai Kanai Kanai Kanai. It's hard it's hard for foreigners because they hear Kanai and sometimes if you say it with an English accent it's hard to differentiate Kanai. If nobody really ends with an E they go Kanai broken record. Um stop calling her no I'm she knows what I'm doing. He's waiting for her to react. Um the point is if it's hard to say Kanae ten times without it starting to sound like Kanai you know Kanae Kanae so when you say it in normal conversation it sounds like Kanai. Um it's like kawaii with Glenn. Do you guys have nicknames for each other? We do but I'm not telling you. Ramen delivery we don't have a ramen delivery shop so we might have to do Uber Eats or something. It's something we're looking into. How does Uber Eats on a bicycle deliver ramen? Can you just think about that? They do wrap it pretty good but you figure it's going to slosh around. I think you have to add the noodles later I don't know. But the motorbikes that they deliver the food with they have amazing stabilizers on it so things usually come in pretty good shape even when you go around a turn the box it's like a gimbal it stays level and they have heaters on top of the older ones it looks like they're actually heated inside. So when you get it delivered you have a nice toasty pizza or warm gyoza.

01:04:15 John Daub: But we have ramen delivery in Berlin the way they do the delivery for ramen is they don't fully cook the noodles they stop halfway in the process because it's going to take five minutes or 10 minutes to deliver it to you and then by the time you receive it the noodles have become soft like normal. So if you eat the ramen right away for delivery ramen or takeaway it's going to be a little bit like al dente kind of a harder noodle. That's the secret. Um do you remember Misato from the kyushoku (school lunch) episode? Yeah of course I remember Misato watching from Wisconsin USA. This is the part where you guys want to write in where you're watching from go ahead and let us know. Some of you are shy to ask a question I know but don't be shy you can write in where you're that's an easy one for you. I'm wearing hat because it is not only uncomfortable for me to chew the noodles but I'm not more like to pick them up from the katarina restaurants in Korea. A really normal day in Korea ait. It is my I have quarantine hair and I seriously it's like this right now. It looks like I look like a clown. No one will take me seriously with or without a hat. It's a lose-lose. Prevent saggy to keep soup base. Yeah. Kanae lovely. Kei significa? What is the meaning of her name?

01:05:31 John Daub: Kanae name wa nan no imi desu ka? Kanae in English.

01:05:38 Kanae Daub: It's kind of difficult to explain about my name by English for me. But Kanae is like Kanao. Kanao means dream come true. Dream come true. Kanao is if you have some play or some dream it's come true. It's come true. And my mom and dad didn't get baby so long time. Ah. And if they got me so it mean it's for them. So they dream come true. But kanji is Genki Kami wrote in but it's a different kanji than that Kanao. Yeah. Different kanji. Different kanji but same same but different. Yeah. But my parents defined kanji but mean is like their dream came true. Good. Yes. A lot of dreams came true.

01:06:34 John Daub: Thank you Kanae.

01:06:39 Kanae Daub: You're welcome.

01:06:41 John Daub: Megumi your sister's name is Megumi and that means what?

01:06:45 Kanae Daub: Megumi is megumare ru. Megumare ru. So many people loves you. Ah many people love you. Many people like you. That's a nice meaning to the name Megumi.

01:06:57 John Daub: My name is John. It's a nickname for restroom. Okay. Thanks a lot mom. Name me after. No. John is nice name. No. I got it wrong. I'm trying to go to the John all right or it's one of those guys who solicits all right. John is not it's like you know how do you explain when people ask you what does your name mean? What do you say? Are there any Johns here or what do you say for your name? It means port-a-potty or it means Mr. Restroom or it means a guy who solicits on the street corners and stuff from people for things that pleasure. It's not a name. I cannot explain what John means. It's got Christopher. What does Christopher mean? There's no meaning to Christopher is there? Right? Remco. What does Remco mean? Remco. You know? Joy. I know what Joy means. I'm looking Branday. I see this Royal. Ronan. You got a pretty good name Mr. Ronan. Royal. Dargon Darkfire. What does that even mean? Runaway. PMX. Innalicker. Zack. Joy. Darwin. Janet. Daniel. Bud. Nosh. I don't even know what Nosh means. Viewer from afar. I know what that means. See names should be like that. They should mean exactly what they're intended to mean.

01:08:30 John Daub: For dinner tonight I don't know what we're having. Nani taberu konya? Because I got tapioca pizza if you want it. You can order it. No? Tonight we got a special treat for you which is morning in the US tonight we have your favorite guitarist. No it's not Slash. It's Hana Victoria. Hana was my assistant last summer and she's going to be calling in from Washington DC and she's going to be playing a song for us live. This is awesome. You know back in the 1980s we had Live Aid. We had what was that one We Are the World and stuff like that. We got Hana Aid all right. This lady is happy all the time. She's just a ball of energy and happiness and I'm going to unleash her on Only in Japan Go tonight around 11 p.m. so I guess like 10 a.m. Washington DC time. So tonight and I want to find out how she's doing. She took a job in New York City and left me and my channel. She left us but I wrote her a glowing recommendation. She got the job. I think it was because of the recommendation. I'm just saying. I put a little bit. I put a little bit of Smurfette powder that I stole from Gargamel on there and it made like whenever they read it that dust got on their faces and they believed everything I said. It's called The Documentary Company in New York City and she's helping them make shows and she loves it and I'm glad that she found something that she loves but she's going to share with us what she has been doing for the last six months now in the United States and how she's been coping with um the situation in New York City. She had to leave there which I think is good to work remotely with one of her family members who lives in that area in DC. So uh she's safe. She's doing well. I've been texting her but I have not seen her in the you know visually through video phone. So uh if she has long quarantine hair like me that's going to be a lot of fun to process that.

01:10:44 John Daub: Yeah. My family's doing pretty good. They go out to the supermarket once every five days. They're staying lively. I call in every couple of days see what's going on. Usually it starts off when I complain to my mother that Kanae did something wrong? You know like when kids do that I'll say Mom Kanae farted? You know that's how the phone calls start. I figure you know sounds like I was I'm home right? And then she denies it and I don't back down. And I'm like I'm going to go home. And then I'll turn the camera around and then you hear one and you don't know which one of us did it. My mom has to guess. Usually she picks me. All right that's all I got for you. There's your junk mail thing. Thanks so much for the super chats guys. I appreciate it. We'll put that to good use towards another food delivery episode. And you can see Kanae just wiped down all the stuff from the grocery store. See we got some tofu natto tuna fish. Vegetables. We look like we're stocked for the next couple of days. It's good. All right have a good day. Have a good night wherever you are in the world. If you have any questions leave it in the comments below. I appreciate you watching. If you guys aren't getting the notification you could you know support me on Patreon or try unsubscribing and subscribing again to the channel. A lot of people said that that works and they get the notifications again. Sometimes you just have to reset. Make sure the notification bell is on. I appreciate it guys. See you next time.

01:12:25 Kanae Daub: You want to say goodbye Kanae?

01:12:27 Kanae Daub: Bye.

01:12:29 John Daub: She said wait a moment. All right. Bye. Bye.