00:01 John Daub: Welcome to this Mister Donut in front of me. They just happen to have a really amazing donut set. Let me take a look and show you on the poster. There's a long line of people. Do you know why? Right there, you see it through the window now. Mochi cream donuts. I'm so excited for this. But you know what? I don't have to go in there because I've already bought a bag of them and we're going to unbox these right in front of the Mister Donut.

00:32 John Daub: Here, Mister Donut is one of the most popular donut shops. And at this time of day on a Sunday, it's quite crowded. So I went in there and pre-bought these. You can see them sitting right in front. It's kind of a weird setup too. Hey, don't close the door. I'll show you what I mean in a second. Come on over here. And I found a spot that we can unbox these. This is Monzen-Nakacho Station. I've come here before a couple of times. They have a nice mix of restaurants and all sorts of confections. This is going to be exciting. I've been looking forward to this for a while. So these mochi cream donuts just came out yesterday. There's an Uber Eats right there. How's everybody doing? Okay. So happy 4th of July to everybody on the US side. It's already the fifth here in Japan. Hope you're having a really good weekend.

01:50 John Daub: So these mochi donuts are really interesting because I've never seen anything like it. You're going to see what I mean in a second. All right. First off, let's make sure we sanitize our hands here. All right. Hey, Vic Vic. Thanks for the coffee because after you see what I'm about to show you, I'm going to need it. Let's get inside this bag and start pulling some goodies out. Right there. You see it. Okay. This is what I'm talking about. So they put the donut in this little box here. It says mochi cream from Mister Donut. Japanese say like, you know, pocket monsters. We say Pokémon. We say Mister Donut. Looks like an egg on top of there, right? We're going to figure this out in a second. That's not the case. In fact, it's even better. Whoa. That looks so good. That looks like jewelry, doesn't it? Looks like sparkling diamonds inside of there. Let's keep that in here. What else did I get?

02:59 John Daub: That jewelry-looking one. This is for Kanae Daub. This is the French cruller. And yeah, there's some mochi inside of here as well. And leave that one for the little lady back at home. And I got one more that we can try. This is, well, it's got a little mushed up here. This is the azuki bean, which is a red bean paste on a donut. I thought this would be pretty interesting as a backup. But this one here is the star. It seems like. Whoa. They literally just put mochi on top of there. Look at this. How cool is that? Right? Look at that. And they just set it on top of there. This has got to be really good in the center of it. I believe it's some kind of jam similar to a jelly donut. This is certainly stretchy. All right, let's try it. It's exciting. Mochi cream donuts just came out. Look at that. Oh, wow. All right, here we go. I'm picking it up. This is so weird.

04:38 John Daub: Oh, I see. Okay, so inside of the mochi, yes, I did sanitize my hands for those who are wondering, inside of mochi is cream. Do you see that? That's genius. And then there's some jam in there. That should be this thumbnail right there. I'm gonna have to get another one. Oh, wow. That is incredible. That's really good. It's like a blanket of mochi. Underneath there is the good stuff. And I like it because it keeps the cream in there. You know, cream doesn't get all over your face, but there's a rice flour. That is what keeps mochi from sticking to your hands. They put a little bit of rice flour on there. And you get that down there inside. It's not powdered sugar. It's flavorless pretty much. Wow. That's really good.

06:17 John Daub: How much was it? I'll show you the receipt. How about that? So let me go over it with you. It's always good to answer it. Monzen-Nakacho shop. This is the receipt. The daifuku (good luck) donut, each strawberry daifuku donut, 237 yen so about two dollars and twenty cents maybe. Next one was a pon de ring strawberry cream, about a dollar seventy. And there's a lemon mochi cream French cruller that I got for Kanae Daub, was a dollar seventy. About azuki red bean paste shu cream donut was a dollar seventy. So there you go. I paid with a ten thousand yen note. There you go. That puts Krispy Kreme to shame, doesn't it? Krispy Kreme is a little bit too pricey here.

07:14 John Daub: Alright, next up on the list here. We have another donut. This one I'm gonna eat is the azuki red bean. Yeah. This is pretty heavy. The other one was a lot heavier because of the amount of cream and that mochi is never going to be. This is a donut review. Yeah, it pretty much is a donut review on the streets of Tokyo. This is also part of the mochi cream series that just came out. Yes. Oh, it's like stuck. Oh the mochi stuck in there. Ah. Look at that. Did you see it? Whoa? So is that, I thought that was like icing or something. That's mochi. Not all. That's icing but inside of the icing there's mochi like melted on top of there. Smells like azuki. Here's the bottom of it. It is a donut. You're not a Danish. It's a donut. Alright, we got to do the complete open up and show you what's inside gutshot, right? We got to do a gutshot. Dan dan dan and ah. Oh. Yes, that's so satisfying. Oh, that's so satisfying. Oh. Mama look at that. Look at the mochi on there. I just hollowed out. I love this part kind of like a some mochi mochi kind of a Danish-looking thingy, but it's not a Danish. Donut, here we go. Really really good. This is better than the other one. This is better than the daifuku donut. All right, this is so good.

09:45 John Daub: Mem is here. You need something super dry and strong. Yeah do. W ride X turbo. Thank you. I might go get one another one for Kanae Daub because these are so good. Yunhwang enjoy it. Let us seeing your last year. Thank you. Brad Butcher's here really enjoyed the TED talk meeting. He saw that when the Kilimanjaro coffee story I told them on like there was like seven years ago, I think. I had a cup of vida. I love these canned coffees that came out of the Georgia Kilimanjaro uh the Coca-Cola vending machines back in 1998 1999. So in the year 2001 I took the train all the way from um from Beijing all the way to Moscow and then I got to Moscow and then I took the train on towards Amsterdam got in a flight flew to South Africa did a safari with some friends for two three weeks then we took a flight to Tanzania to Nairobi went overland to Moshi in Tanzania then I climbed Kilimanjaro. The whole purpose of the trip besides having fun was a silly goal to drink a can of this crazy Kilimanjaro coffee on the top of Kilimanjaro and I did that. There's no reason other than I could. And there's a funny ending to the story.

11:11 John Daub: Gerald Augustin thank you and get. I got one more to try here. When I got to the top of Kilimanjaro you know this is a very special story. When I got to the top of Kilimanjaro and it took me about three months to get there hold on we left in July of 2001 and we got there September I got to the top on September 9th uh 2001 this was two days before you know New York and uh I opened up the can of coffee and I carried it for all that time and I went in to take a drag and nothing came out. It wasn't empty it was frozen and I couldn't actually drink the can of coffee because it was so cold on the top of the summit of Kilimanjaro that the Kilimanjaro coffee can was frozen so I had to stick it between my legs to melt it enough to get a couple of drops out of it and then everybody had known the story that I climbed Kilimanjaro with me so everybody started putting the coffee between the legs and taking a little bit of this Japanese Kilimanjaro coffee that came from here imported to Japan brew it into coffee put it into a can and I brought it back home. It was kind of a neat experience. Thanks for watching that. That's an old TED Talk. That's for kids too, that TED Talk. I did.

12:28 John Daub: Alright, last but not least, is this one here. This is a strawberry pon de ring and I came to Japan before the pon de ring existed. The great thing about the pon de ring is that it has this kind of a mochi mochi pull to it naturally. Let me take it out. This one looks like it has jewels on it. Whoa, there's some strawberry in there. This is going to be too good. It does look like jewelry, doesn't it? This is so beautiful. Can a donut be beautiful? Yes, it can. It's like they actually painted it on there, like art. Again, this series just came out. Let's do the very pleasing. Oh, oh, oh. Oh, it's breaking in the wrong spot. Keep pulling it. That is so good. And inside, so they've taken the pon de ring and they put in some jam in the center of it. That can't be easy. And look what else is in there. This is so nice. Can you just jam this in your mouth? Cobra Bebop's here and Yukito06, welcome to the travelers. One for each side of my mouth. I can hamster this thing. Oh, wow. That is a really, really good strawberry jam.

14:21 John Daub: Now, mochi does not have a specific taste. Mochi takes the taste of what's with it. So that's why you never see just mochi by itself. It'll be dipped in soy sauce or something like this. This mochi is taking the taste of the strawberry jam that's also on my fingers. And that is really, really, really exciting. Mmm. Wow, that is so good. Yes, these are alcohol wipes. For anybody watching, I came prepared. Come on, the times that we live in. Wow. That was incredible. I'm going to take one more look back at the Mister Donut shop so you can see what they look like. The presentation of it is just as important because in Japan, the presentation of the food is what really sells it. It's not just the marketing, but it has to look good. And at this Mister Donut's, there's two kinds. This is the one where you take the tongs and you take them yourself. But they've taken a lot of precautions, and I think it's safe to eat. But these just came out, so they're super popular. And there's a lot of people. This is Monzen-Nakacho. There's a lot of people that were in line because this is something that people want.

16:07 John Daub: Alright, let's go check it out. You know what I really like? The staff keeps on cleaning up the area and wiping it down. And they're very, very good at it. Before I started the livestream, I was watching them for about 5-10 minutes, watching them taking really good care. Whenever there were no customers in the line, they would be preparing it and resetting it and doing everything to make the area look really nice and clean. You have to give them a lot of respect in these tough times. The staff is doing such an incredible job. And all the people out there that are on the front lines, big thumbs up to all of you for that. I know it's not easy. It's not easy at all. Hey, Carlos Mitchell's in the house. And AB&B77, love your videos, have a snack and meal. Or pick up something for Kanae Daub. I'm going to pick up something for Kanae Daub. Chas, you, thank you for all of these videos. Look forward to seeing more. Good luck. Thank you. From Hong Kong. How cool is that? The mochi donuts are the ones that are right in the front there. And then you see on the top, the advertisement for it is pretty neat. They look like little ghosts. One of them is strawberry, and the other one is kind of a lemon, I think. And it's called a daifuku donut. And I'm going to get one for Kanae Daub before I go back home. Yeah, it's really good. I don't have permission to film, so I'll just do it from the outside. There you go. So if you were here in Japan, this would be the lineup for you. Oh. Come to John. Such a Homer Simpson moment.

18:25 John Daub: Bonus time. I'm going to take you over to one area that I showed you before. This is a good place for lunch here. If you ever get to Japan, you want to check out Yoshinoya. It's been tough for Yoshinoya. I'm going to show you what they've been able to do. They've put in here, do you see the partitions? And they leave the door open. So the partitions on the left and the right kind of give you a little bit of privacy. But they also make sure that you can kind of keep everything in there. And they ask you when you do eat at places that have counters and stuff, not only do they put an X on the seat so you know where not to sit, they also ask you not to talk at all. So it's kind of a little bit of a challenge. It's kind of impolite to be talking. You don't go in there with families usually. You're just going there as an independent dude going in there to get some dinner. Fishman Gaming's in the house. Welcome, new traveler.

19:24 John Daub: Alright, so we're going to cross the street. I'm going to show you a little bit of Monzen-Nakacho. Kind of some of the back streets. I did another live stream and if you want to check it out, I'll put a link right up here. Kanae Daub and I walked around this area and showed it to you. And it was really nice. I like to ride through here. It's not too far away from where I live. Not too far away. But if you haven't been able to, if you had to cancel your trip to Japan, I'm really sorry to hear that. A lot of people have been planning the trips for September and it looks like even then it's going to be really, really hard. This is not a time to travel. This is more of a time to just kind of wait it out, I think. Until it's safe enough. Even domestic travel in Japan is really, really difficult right now. We have a trip on the books that is to go on Monday. And we're not sure if we're going to go or not. But because everything is set up already and we would lose a lot of money if we did not go ahead with the trip, it's going to be really hard to cancel. So we're kind of in a bind. We'll figure out which way we go. But yeah, I think we might have to go to Kanazawa on Monday despite not being able to travel. But it's not something we can cancel. So yeah, I think we're going to. I consider what I do to be work. So there's that. But it's something that Kanae Daub and I have been talking really deeply about. Because right now it is a really tough situation in Japan. In Tokyo especially.

21:08 John Daub: Alright. Right now, today is the election day. So there's a lot of people that are going to the election to vote for the mayor, or we would say governor, of Tokyo. And it looks like Governor Koike is going to be re-elected. She's an independent. And she's got support from just about everybody. All the political parties. She's done a really good job. And she'll be the governor when the Tokyo Olympics come. But again, the election has not been decided. It's just, she had such a big lead. I can't imagine any other candidate coming in and winning. Um, she's registered as an independent, I believe. I like just walking around the neighborhoods. It's all about just getting lost. You see that right there? Like these really old houses. That property is so valuable. You could probably build a five-story high-rise building and rent it out, but they just choose not to do that, and you can see that with a lot of the houses here. Some of them are so old. Um, when I came here about a year, year and a half ago with Kanae Daub, we walked down some of the alleys of Monzen-Nakacho. And the point of that was this is the Japan, I think, the Tokyo that you're kind of looking for. It's a shitamachi (old town), like you feel like you've gone back into the Showa era, which is you know, like the 1950s of Japan. You still get that here in Monzen-Nakacho. Not so much in Shinjuku, to be honest. Not so much in other areas, but this is far enough away from the center, which isn't that far at all.

23:01 John Daub: Oh, here it is. Let's just take a quick look-see at this alley. Gotta burn off those mochi donuts. That was so good. Hey, Jennifer French is here. Ah, look at this. Here's a little something for the next lunch. I owe. I owe. It's an Ohio thing. Go Bucks. This is what I'm talking about. Look at the trees on the left and the right of it. The old signs. Like the rust on there. So much personality in these old two-story buildings. They could build it much higher. And the buildings above it, they are much higher. But this alley just kind of retains that old Showa-era feel. I love this alley. It's not the best time to go to nightlife here, but you can see there's a marker. I'll write a link in the description so you can find this out. But if you look at the video that Kanae Daub and I did about a year and a half ago walking through here, it's pretty neat. I like in the center of it, it kind of takes a left turn or a right turn, depending on which side you're coming from. And there's a tree in the middle of it that's kind of popping out there. Do you see? The restrooms for all these places, they're so old. They put the restrooms outside. There's like one building that is where everybody would leave. If you have to use the restroom, you have to leave, open those wooden doors, come out into the alley, and you'd go in these little restrooms. Some of the old Showa-era drinking establishments, they were all like this. Look at that. It's so amazing. All the angles and things. It's like a museum to me. You can see your eyes are drawn to the different colors, the discoloration, just the time having a toll on the buildings here. And again, this does go around a little bit, but all the shops have so many plants or trees in front of it. There's Jolly Apollo. There's an izakaya (Japanese pub). This is Monzen-Nakacho that you're looking at. It just happens to be where there's a Mister Donut with mochi. Oh, here's the ladies' restroom. It's interesting. Oh, no, that's men's. I don't think ladies could manage that. Just gonna take a zero on that one. Hey, Jim. Welcome to the travelers. Thank you.

26:23 John Daub: Tryin' Touhou-tan. Thank you. Welcome. Welcome to Tokyo. This is Monzen-Nakacho, and yeah, this is one of my favorite alleys. I took it here a year and a half ago, as I said. I keep saying it because there's people joining in the live stream all the time, but if you take a step back, it's a pretty nice picture. At night, it's even better because the signs light up a little bit, and the street kind of glows. If it's rained a little bit, too, that's the best time. The sky's kind of purple above there at sunset. The lights have come on. There's a little bit of glow off of the street from the rain because we're right now in the middle of the rainy season. Zana dude. Welcome. Jaden Westhead's here. Hey, Jaden. Hi, John. I've been very busy lately, so haven't been able to catch a lot of live streams for a couple of weeks. Nice to see you back. Kanae Daub and I are doing well, and the new channel launch is going well, too. We've applied for monetization of it, which takes a while. Just kind of waiting for that to come through. Yeah, there you go. I've never actually been drinking here. I've always wanted to. I always come through here during the daytime, but if you come at night, it's pretty cool. Maybe come in 2021 because it's not the most ideal time to make it, but these alleys, you just kind of, they kind of just spring up on you, and there's loads of them. If you just walk around Tokyo, sometimes you don't know where they are. You'll just walk in the back streets, and they pop up in front of you, and this is a reason why you should take one day if you visit Tokyo and do nothing but just walk around and get lost because you'll be walking and go, whoa, what's that alley? You start taking a couple of steps inside of it, and look, you're in another time zone. That's what it's all about. That's what traveling is all about.

28:40 John Daub: It's kind of fun. I think it's a good thing to go and spend a day looking at all the established attractions like the Skytree and you know, Sega World and things like this, Akihabara, but just walking around the streets of Tokyo is in itself an attraction, and I'm not talking about like Shinjuku. I'm talking about like Monzen-Nakacho, the neighborhoods where people live because that's when you really get a slice of life here in Japan and get an idea of what's like to be here. It's a humble little town, Monzen-Nakacho. It's got a really good temple that's famous for sumo wrestlers that come here to pray. There's a couple of statues from famous sumo wrestlers. There's a couple of very famous cafes, and if you go straight, there's the other way. Kiyosumi-Shirakawa is called the coffee town of Japan, and there's some good, really old kissaten (coffee shops) with some good history to it, but that's the vibe you get here in Monzen-Nakacho. Hey Ryan from Canada, just saw your Randy Santel video again. Whoa! That was like a year and a half ago. Randy came here and he devoured like five bowls of abura soba (oily ramen), which is like this oily ramen. I don't know how he does it. And then afterwards, we went out and we ate some more in Randy Santel fashion. One of the nicest guys I ever met ended up taking down a couple of brews after he ate like five bowls of ramen. I did a livestream of it, and he filmed it for his channel as well. Helped him set up the shoot. Big honor. Hang out with the great Randy Santel. Yeah, the shrine is the shrine and the temple are all this way to the left side, and this is the Fukagawa region area of Tokyo. Really beautiful for the cherry blossoms. It doesn't look so impressive by the intersection, but you don't judge it as a city. This area, you judge it as a neighborhood, I think. It's behind the facade of this intersection that you really get to see the Monzen-Nakacho area, which is pretty cool.

31:22 John Daub: Alright guys. Very cool. Itachi0536 is an insider. Welcome. By the way, I'll be uploading the insider travel tips. I'm going to be doing once a month. The June one was a little bit delayed, so there's two coming in July, just so you guys know that. That it's still on the way. Which one do you like better? Ramen or tsukemen (dipping noodles)? Ah, tsukemen is so good though. It's a tough one. This is cold ramen. Like a cold, but you know what? It still has that hankyu tamago (soft-boiled egg) in there. Ajitama (marinated egg). Can't argue with that. Cannot argue with that. This is a Chinese restaurant. That's so cheap! You get six gyoza with one. You get the flashing light for free. 210 yen for six gyoza. Whoa. That's a good deal.

32:42 John Daub: Alright guys. Thanks so much for watching. I'll see what I can do tomorrow to do some livestreams, but it looks like that we may go or not go. I'm not sure, but I want to say thanks so much because thanks for helping with the launch of the new channel. It's never easy to start something new, but we have an amazing community here and the support has been overwhelming. In the first week, we had like 30,000 subscribers sign up to the channel and it's up to me to get the content out and now get the word out about the new channel. Any help is greatly appreciated. That's where all of the stories and the edited stories are going to be going and I'm working on a couple of them this month. Hopefully we'll be able to travel some more, but we're keeping an eye on the news and making sure that everything is safe. So I want to say I hope that you and your family stay safe. I know that we're still struggling to get through another month of July now, but everything's going to be alright. Just keep going. Keep your mask on and stay away from crowds of people and you might not make it to Japan, but I'm here for you and I will keep taking you around the country as much as I possibly can. Thanks so much for the support everybody. Thunderbeard's here from Sydney. Awesome. Dragon Darkfire Traveler and Joey. I lost my phone. Welcome. Have a good day everybody. Amanda too. Thanks for the love from Oz. Australia. Bye guys. And do click that like button.