00:00:00 John Daub: Welcome everybody. Kelly Trujillo, thank you so much for the super chat. I missed the super chat. Hey everybody, so we're back again. How you doing? I had to start another live stream to get back into the old live stream. That was weird. All right, so let's take a look now into this area here. This is the Gachapon Kaikan (capsule toy museum). Welcome to the Gachapon Kaikan. I know the owner and I'm guessing that he might not be around but I feel like this is interesting here.

00:00:47 John Daub: The signs they have to promote safety—like that dude didn't need to walk right near me. Sometimes people don't have any sense or they just don't care. Everybody who comes into the Gachapon Kaikan needs to be wearing a mask and they're having shortened hours between May 11th and May 31st. Tomorrow they're going to go back to normal hours. But it's interesting to see that they have alcohol temperature checks for the staff and for the people. Please stay away one to two meters. Don't talk aloud inside. So if people keep at a distance it's safer. It's interesting that they have the news board outside of the Gachapon Kaikan. It's very hard to enforce this though.

00:01:58 John Daub: There's always something really interesting in the Gachapon Kaikan for collections here. Hey everybody, thanks for joining us again. We got kicked off of the last live stream. I don't know, the YouTube app just keeps crashing but that's okay. It's something that can't be helped I guess. How you doing, Pixela? Pixela Abode? The maids did not sabotage me. Hold on. I don't know. Really happy, Misty. Let me make you a perfect fit mask and cool. I'd really appreciate that. I think it was on Facebook, right? Okay, I'll catch you on Facebook. Yeah, the other day the live stream also cut off when I was doing mobile live streaming. So there's probably a bug with the YouTube app. It kind of happens. It could be a bug with Apple's iOS software. So I'm not really sure but Toby did not infect it. We're gonna have to have a Toby emoji. Just a little bit of news.

00:03:07 John Daub: Tomorrow I will apply for the YouTube memberships. So we're gonna see this onto the channel as soon as they're approved. Making an opening video here today and I'll explain more in a video the purpose behind why memberships will be activated on the channel. Tonight I'm hoping that I'll be able to do a midnight snack run depending on the weather but I'm trying to be extra careful and staying away from people as much as possible. That galley is perfect. That's crazy. We only have 78 people here. I was careful not to touch the inside of my nose if that means anything. You have to be careful. But I'm not touching anything on the streets. I'm not picking anything up or touching counters or going in public places. I see 74 people. The app is just really messed up. There's the Yamanote Line that went by over there. All right guys, we're gonna loop around one more time. I gotta go back to my bicycle.

00:04:21 John Daub: What is this vending machine? So this is like some sort of mystery vending machine for cards. For collectible cards. And you don't know what you're gonna get, but if you put the money in, you'll get some collectible cards that are pretty valuable to some people. Gachapon Kaikan. I'd like to do an episode on the history of this place and the history of gachapon (capsule toys). It would be really fascinating. Today, the owner is not in. So he's taking the day off. But I'm really happy that it's still open and he's able to do business. A lot of my friends that have small businesses are not doing too well. But Gachapon Kaikan's in an area where I think they're always gonna do well. Akihabara is a place where even if foreign tourists are not here, Japanese tourists are.

00:05:49 John Daub: Keihin-Tohoku Line. A lot less people today. We're gonna walk back now towards Akihabara Station. I'm sorry guys, the last live stream crashed. I had to start a new one. But as you can see, life is returning back to normal slowly. But no international tourists. Even Carl's Jr. has a COVID-19 announcement for people to stay safe. A lot of the places that have closed—the restaurants—are doing takeout as well. Tetris Things, thank you from Canada. That's very nice of you. Wow, I smell some beef. I think I saw Trekaris in here. Hey there, you guys. Long time no see, Trekaris. Hope you and Kanae have been doing well. We're doing pretty good. Just the other day we were able to go outside and get some air. And slowly and surely things are opening up. Jeff Roberts, buy yourself a cream-filled teriyaki.

00:07:51 John Daub: Little doggy wants to do some shopping. One way to avoid people is to walk on the side of the road, which is pretty much empty. Whoa, look at that hippie van. Awesome. That was a full-on Grateful Dead van. Did you see that? That was pretty cool. I hope he comes back again. So you can see here that pachinko place—he's actually taking people's temperatures right there. Watch. He's taking the temperatures of the people so they can go in and play pachinko. That's really good. That was interesting to see. So they are doing temperature checks for pachinko players.

00:09:13 John Daub: There are almost no foreign tourists in Japan. In the month of April, 2,900 foreign tourists came in—down 99.9% from a couple of years ago. But now Akihabara on a Sunday looks like this. And it's extremely quiet for Akihabara. Usually it's so in-your-face loud, but today it's pretty tame. Carl Sage is here. I'd hope to be in Japan by now doing some academic research on the Ainu people. But that won't happen until next summer. Yeah, you know, up in Noboribetsu near there, they just opened up a brand new Ainu museum too. But they had to delay the launch of it in April, which is a huge shame. I wanted to go up and help them cover it. But it looks like it's not going to happen.

00:10:11 John Daub: Oh, look at the ramen gachapon. You've got five different kinds of ramen in there. And then here's some canned food rings. Nothing says I love you better than a can of fish on your ring finger. That's pretty wacky, right? That's 300 yen for a fish ring. I don't know if that's worth it. Should I get one for Kanae? They have different kinds of canned rings. This is canned fruits that might be better. They're always coming up with something pretty unique. Sleeping cats. Large creatures of the deep. Skeleton baseball. Fake electrical outlets. Why would you need that? To plug in fake electrical products. It looks like an Indian auto rickshaw. Some pretty weird stuff in here. Hey, there's some Doraemon. I like that hat. Doraemon on patrol.

00:12:00 John Daub: Hey, Callie Trujillo. I'm going to Japan when this is over. For everyone, for a sec, let's give a thumbs up. Thank you. Callie Trujillo, absolutely. We can get to a thousand likes, can't we? Little Dragon Ball Z action going on here. Kouki. I want to get one, but I don't want to touch this. I don't have any alcohol. What should I do? Oh, look at this. Sprawled out animals. Animals that are just sprawled out. It's pretty cute. All right, I guess I can get... Oh my God. Touch it. I don't want to touch it. Ugh. All right, let me see what I got here, coin-wise. I guess I can touch it, but I'm going to have to wash my hands really quickly after this.

00:13:15 John Daub: All right. Can I do it ninja style? I don't have any teeth. I don't have any shoes. I support the economy. Do it. I did it quickly. Move away from the people. Get your prize and run away. Okay. All right, let's see what ring did we get. Marty, this is a ring for Kanae. I have to sanitize it. The insider is not happy. Sand hand sanitizer. Got to get some hand sanitizer inside this shop. It was 300 yen or $3. I figure I better get Kanae some jewelry, huh? They should have a gachapon machine with hand sanitizer. I would totally buy it.

00:14:40 John Daub: It won't open. It's so stuck on there. Is there some kind of secret way to do this? Excuse me. He's got a bicycle there. I'm going to go to this side here. I can open this. Okay, I got it. That was hard. All right. Here it is. Kanae, somebody loves you out there. I got you a can ring. I got to open it up here. Marty. High five to Marty. I think I have some wipes in here. I touched it with just the tips, but you've got to be careful, right?

00:16:28 John Daub: Hey, Erze! Hey, John! Okay, let me... I'm gonna get down here in a really beautiful position. Now I can open this up here. Okay, I'm throwing that away. So what do we got here? So they've got various can rings. This is the blue one, which is yakitori. Let's open it up and see. These are so indestructible! I can't open it! Someone got some scissors? All right. What do you guys think of my new ring? This is for Kanae. All right, here, take a look. It's a yakitori ring. I'm now lord of the... I can't get it off! It's a beautiful canned yakitori ring with a UPC code on the inside. This should fit Kanae well. I can't get it off, though.

00:18:34 John Daub: Erze here. Hope your ninja gachapon method is as effective as opening the capsule. Yeah, no. It was really painful. Tony P., just stopping by to support. Thanks, Tony! I'll watch this later. Hope you are well, John. Smash that like button. Help John out! Love seeing Akihabara. Take care. Thank you, Tony, aka Toby. Gerald Augustine, still on the fence about our trip in Japan. I got that. So your updates are extremely helpful. Thank you, John. Stay safe. Thank you for that, and I'll be giving another update on traveling to Tokyo in a couple of days. As the city opens up a little bit more, we're going to see kind of where everything's going to be going over the next two months. I think June 1st will tell an important story, and that's tomorrow.

00:19:48 John Daub: Oh, cluster. Get to the side. Climb the fence here. Go around the people. All right, so that was kind of fun. We got to get a present for Kanae. I'll find something better on the way home. Would you be happy if your husband brought you home a yakitori can ring? I don't think so. Finger food. So folks, everyone, if you're joining us, thanks so much for watching. We're in Akihabara on a Sunday, and we're taking a look at this really popular area without any tourists during the last day of kind of the pandemic for Japan. It seems the country is really reopening tomorrow, and many of the shops are still closed, but many are open. So I wanted to come live and just get a show to bring you with me and get a view of what this area of the city is like right now, because I don't think it's going to be like this for much longer. We don't know what the future looks like, but I can tell you it looks like this right now.

00:21:32 John Daub: Hito Chuo is in the house. Can you review the Abino mask you're wearing? It's small but comfortable. It fits me a lot better than it fits most people. Elastic. It's got about 10 layers. It's five layers of cloth that have been folded. It does keep slipping off down. Would I buy it? No. I got to find some hand sanitizer. Sometimes they're in the front of the stores. But am I grateful? I'm grateful that they have it. So I'm happy that they have it. They gave it to us.

00:22:43 John Daub: Inuliger is here. Hello, hello from Edmonton as usual. How are you, John? Doing pretty good. And it's Liger like tiger. How did you know that's not Liger? How did you know I was going to say that? Inuliger. There you go. Craig Kawaguchi. Thank you, Craig. Marty, times two, please. I'll be doing it. I'm going to go and help to the Gachapon Kaikan when things clear up and do an episode there. That's a big doggy. Well, it's funny. My YouTube page is reading eight people are watching. This is the part of the live stream where you guys write in where you're watching from. We have viewers from all over the world. What part of the world are you watching from? Akihabara draws an international crowd and so does this live stream. So love to hear from you.

00:24:04 John Daub: Martin, blank as gin. Thank you. Welcome to Akihabara. I'm going to fall into Akihabara for real. I've been living in Akihabara and fun and amidst all the... Where is he sleeping? Yeah, he's all alone from now on. I'll be okay. [inaudible Japanese]. If you're not curious, go ahead. You'll find out. You're all here. You have something dehanded. Print of Mount Fuji with all the waves—very cool. I guess I can get a drink. I know it's telling me we only have eight people watching. What is there anything unique here and let's see anything that's striking. All right, let me go back down this way. Oh you're on the other side. We have a Coca-Cola one. Anything new, crew? No, it looks like the same old. This shop is also closed.

00:26:01 John Daub: Here and inside here they had a lot of really old mom-and-pop shops and I'm really sad to see that and I hope they open back up again because Scotty from Strange Parts and I have been in there. We made some friends with the business owners. They have a lot of really unique components and I was hoping that Scotty comes back we'd be able to go in there but it's still closed. Look at that roast beef dome. I'm looking for a vending machine. Oh this guy's a little bit scared. Guys are getting a mystery package. Oh no, here it is. Here's the vending machine store. Problem is it's a really bad cluster. I don't see any vending machines now. Here's one right here that looks like a drink vending machine. So they're selling masks right here but that box of masks is $26 for a box of fifty masks and if that alcohol spray is $14 and they have these packs of 20 masks that's eight dollars for that. That's pretty expensive. It's interesting to see that they have that though. Mountain Dew. I don't know. There's nothing really. What is it, arginine five? What is that?

00:28:05 John Daub: Jeff Bang writes in here, enjoying the walkabouts. Welcome, Jeff. It's nice to have you with us as we scramble around this beautiful part of the city. Gosh, I don't know. They're all boring. There's another vending machine over here. All right, the maids always feel uncomfortable if you film them so you just want to stay away but there's another vending machine over here so let's see we can find. That's interesting. That's a weird Fanta from Colombia—lulo. All right, Dragon Boost. It sounds like an energy drink. All right, let's try that Fanta. That was a weird looking Fanta. All right, let's see if I could get... See, I have my Suica card this way. I don't have to touch anything. What is that music in the background? Does it look like I know? No, X Bitter. No, you keep your X Bitter away. So I have a Kitaca card which is from—this is the Suica of Sapporo. I like the flying squirrel. What can I say, I'm a sucker for the flying squirrel.

00:30:07 John Daub: I've escaped to a quiet corner. This is a Fanta World Fruits—Sekai no (world's) delicious flavor from Colombia, lulo. Interesting. It's not orange. I don't know. Hold on. I don't want to. All right, I know there's so many people outside. It's made from cocoa leaves? Six toes? Right, it's in here. Made from cocoa leaves. That's interesting. All right, lulo to you too. It just tastes like sugar to me. It just tastes like straight up sugar and then it's some weird fruit flavor and that's it. I don't taste any lulo and I don't even know what lulo is but it's from Colombia and there you go. There's my review of lulo. It tastes like sugar and fizzy water and there's some kind of fruit. I don't know what it is.

00:32:38 John Daub: All right, I didn't like it. It tasted pretty nasty. No pulp. That was maybe the worst Fanta I've ever had. Fanta is usually pretty good. It has a ton of sugar. Whoa, it's mostly sugar. All right guys, I'm getting out of here. It's getting more and more crowded. All right, so there you go everybody. Thank you so much for joining me. There's six people watching according to this. I don't know what's going on with the YouTube. Trevor Beck's here. Hey Trevor, if no one has paid for your drink here you go and if there are any food places grab something. Trevor, thank you. I'm gonna actually use that to take Kanae out to a restaurant. They're gonna be opening tomorrow. I'm a little bit worried about going out to restaurants and getting back to life but we might go early to a restaurant and I think we've been stuck inside for over two months just like a lot of you.

00:34:27 John Daub: Oh boy, that fan just kicking back, but we did get a ring out of it and some good memories. But for the most part, this live stream was a way for me to show you what Akihabara looks like at the end of this step one, stage one, phase one of Tokyo's reopening. There's three phases to it, and tomorrow, phase two starts, no matter what the numbers are. The numbers have been going down in Japan for quite a long time, and now they're starting to come up a little bit after the Golden Week holiday. Everybody had stayed home a month ago, and now we saw that the numbers dipped down to just three people in the entire country, or was it the city? Just about three to five people were in fact... We just got sick in one day, and then that was like a bottoming out, and now it's starting to come up a little bit, like 20 people. But I think for the most part, people feel like we're out of the worst of it, and that's kind of a dangerous thing.

00:35:30 John Daub: Speaking of a dangerous thing right there, that's a dangerous thing. They're going to get dragged into a maid cafe. She's really aggressive with those guys. They got unlimited funds and saving all their life to go to that maid cafe, not quite sure. It's Akihabara. Yeah, so this is kind of a piece of history for you and for me. I lost my Fanta. Can I touch it? It's on the street. I can touch it. These popular places usually don't have recycle bins. It's hard to find a recycle bin here because they fill up too quickly. But yeah, I'm going to be doing some more neighborhood walks, taking you through there, but I want to put some history into it. There's usually a reason why I take you to a certain area, some sort of background information that makes it worthwhile for both you and me. There's my bike.

00:37:05 John Daub: Whoa, honey toast. Honey Toast Cafe. What? Whoa. It's got the kanto flier going in hardcore. Look at that burger. Oh, I've been shut in for so long, deprived of bad food because Kanae's been cooking some amazing food. I'm going to be eating some amazing stuff. Master Senpai GG's here. Stay safe and treat yourself. Treat yourself with some nice food to take home to you and your wife. Thank you, Master Senpai. You got it. I'll be doing that on the way home. But I'm really happy to have been able to share an afternoon with you. Look at that roast beef. Oh, this looks great. What am I doing? It's a stylish cake. Not a lot of people in this area of the city, but I know, as I said before, a lot of people just couldn't get out of the city. They could not make it to Japan. They had to cancel their trips. So I will keep this going so that you can feel just a little bit that you're here with me in the country. I'll be giving you an update in a couple of days as more news comes in. Maybe around Tuesday. To report on the second phase of Tokyo's reopening.

00:38:49 John Daub: That's going to start, I think, no matter what the numbers are anyways. Because the economy... Japan was the first developed country to be in a recession. So we need to also restart the economy, but do it in a safe way. What I saw around here both worried me seriously and also gave me a little bit of comfort. The staff are wearing face shields and masks. And there's alcohol pumps everywhere. But it worries me that people aren't really staying... We all went in there. You can see people are very, very close together. So if one person does have it, a good chance that more people are going to. So I want to say be really, really careful. I don't want to say stay in your house and hide. But just be really, really careful. Take alcohol with you. Wipe your hands. Wash your hands as much as possible. And just be safe. Because we're still in the middle of something.

00:39:55 John Daub: I guess you can hang out with your friends a little bit. No word on the Tokyo Disneyland opening. It's still to be announced. I'm guessing that's going to be maybe stage 3. So probably if the numbers look good, maybe by the middle of June, things will start to turn around and they'll start to open amusement parks. The problem is though, it seems a little bit early. I don't know. Maybe the middle of June. Fuji-Q Highland was open when we went by there with limited service. But there weren't a lot of people in the amusement parks. I think not a lot of people are going to be going in the beginning. Or I could be wrong. It seems like a lot of people might go. I'm not sure. I just know that when you watch the people crossing the street at Chuo Dori here, it is a lot of people. I'm talking about the one, the next crossing which is between Akihabara Station and Chuo Dori. There it is. It's a lot of people crossing on the other side over there. And they're packed in pretty good.

00:41:20 John Daub: Shibuya is still busy. If you go to our Discord server, I have a list of live cameras around Japan and Tokyo. You can go in there. Some of our moderators set that up. You can go in there and you can actually see live all of the areas of the city of Tokyo. What it looks like right now. Akihabara looks like this because we're live. HelloHi821 just put in the link to the Discord server. That's the invite for you. You need the invite to get in. It's free. There's the Yamanote Line behind my shoulder here. But Tokyo looks like it's in a much better situation than it was two and a half months ago. I'm comforted to see that everyone's taking precautions. Shop owners have face shields. They have alcohol pumps in the front. They also have vinyl between the registers and the customers to keep people safe.

00:42:18 John Daub: Now it's just up to the people to keep your masks on, stay safe, stay away from people, not get into clusters, and try not to go into crowded places. Maybe Akihabara is not the best place to go on a Sunday. I don't know. I'm glad I came in early. It's getting more and more crowded as the day goes on. But it would have been a lot more crowded had the tourists been here. Because April had 2,900 tourists—99.9% drop of tourism. Which is crazy, right? That train's going to snake over in this direction. So there you have it from Akihabara. I hope you enjoyed this. If you do like it, give me a thumbs up. I'll be back with another Street View episode next week from a different neighborhood of Tokyo. By the middle of June I'll be allowed to leave Tokyo and start traveling around to other prefectures if the conditions allow. Stay safe, everybody. Much love.