00:00:03 John Daub: Welcome to Shibuya. This is Hachiko Scramble in the center of this area. I was asked a question recently, one that's very relevant to the situation: Would I ever leave Tokyo? I'm going to be walking around Shibuya a little bit and discuss this topic with you. I'm going to have to keep my mask on because it is a very crowded area. But for the next five seconds, I'm just saying hi with my normal face here. Alright, on we go.

00:00:38 John Daub: So, would I ever leave Tokyo? That's a tough one. If you walk around Shibuya here, you kind of get an idea that this area is so loud, so crowded, so crazy. When you first come to Tokyo, you really love it. But as the years go on, and I've been here for quite a while, it can get kind of old. Just a little bit.

00:01:15 John Daub: There's a little bit of an iffy bandwidth here. Let me get out to the center. The crossing here, it's red for 90 seconds and it's green for 45 seconds. So, let's cross the Shibuya Crossing and try to social distance. If you're looking on a live, I'm really trying hard to social distance. And if you're watching on Shibuya crossing cam, you can probably see me right now. There's a slight delay on these cameras, but it's really hard.

00:01:57 John Daub: Would I ever leave Tokyo? Yes, I would. I absolutely would. I've been thinking seriously about leaving Tokyo over the last couple of weeks, months and years, in fact. I moved to Japan in 1998. My first six years here in Japan, I was not living in Tokyo. I was living out in the countryside. Places like Iwaki in Fukushima, Numazu in Shizuoka, Kasugai, Fujinomiya that's in Shizuoka, Kasugai in Nagoya. I also lived in Okayama, Kurashiki, Mito, Utsunomiya, Hiroshima, Higashi-Kakogawa.

00:02:53 John Daub: I would come to Tokyo every now and then. You have to if you want to. A lot of the embassies were here. When you saw the train, the Shinkansen or a local train that had Tokyo on the side of it, Tokyo's reputation preceded itself. It was the big city. When you live in the countryside, it was pretty exciting to get on that train, get into Tokyo Station or you'd get off at Shinagawa, get on the Yamanote Line and come to a place like this. But I moved here to Tokyo in a place called Futako-Tamagawa or Nikotama to locals in 2004, teaching at an English school, just about three stops from Shibuya. I was always here at Shibuya Crossing filming for another show that I was producing back in 2004, 2005, before YouTube. The energy here is amazing. I loved it.

00:03:53 John Daub: The first couple of years, the first time you visit Japan, it's so infectious. But for those that live in New York City, how many of them really like to go to Times Square? It's a place that people avoid. But Tokyo, there's a couple of things that you have to know about Tokyo before I make this broad statement of would I ever leave Tokyo. The answer is yes. If you're going to raise a family or as you get older or if you've been here for too long, moving back to the countryside where the population is shrinking is actually a really good thing. It's healthy to do that. And it's a really positive thing for the economy right now.

00:04:37 John Daub: The great thing about Tokyo and living here is that it's got just about everything. When I came here in 2004, there was no Taco Bell. There was no gourmet burgers. There was Mos Burger. There was a lot of McDonald's. There was a Hard Rock Cafe. But over the years, I've seen the city evolve in an amazing way. All these chain-ups have come in for better or for worse. There's even a Carl's Jr. Every single restaurant chain that I can think of except maybe In-N-Out Burger. It's all here in Tokyo. That makes it so exciting. But that's also a reason why maybe that's not the ideal place to live.

00:05:35 John Daub: A lot of people want to be situated right here in the capital because there's so many things to do. But if you're trying to learn Japanese, if you're trying to get involved in the culture, if you're trying to make friends, it's probably best not to be in the city of Tokyo. Over the next 15, 20 minutes, I hope that I could explain this to you that Tokyo is part of Japan, but it is not all of Japan.

00:06:06 John Daub: This is Basketball Street and they love to blast music here. Jeff Ang writes in, "Hi, John. Get something refreshing." You got it. I'm not going to leave Japan and I'm not leaving Tokyo per se, but I am considering a move because let's face it. How many YouTubers are here in the city of Tokyo? There's a lot of content, but I don't want to cover things that are in Tokyo so often. Everybody's done it like 10 times. Most of the stories that interest me are out in the countryside.

00:06:59 John Daub: A friend of mine named Cody, who has an amazing site called Ramen Guide Japan—go check out his Instagram. He's got some amazing pictures and stories about ramen, up-and-coming creator. I met him through working with the Food Ranger, Trevor, when we went down to Shikoku, amazing guy. We went to scout a ramen restaurant in Konnichi [?]. I went there at 10:45 when the shop opened. We asked the owner lots of questions and if we could film about the history of his shop because it's an old shop. He asked us to come back at 3 p.m. when he had more time to talk.

00:07:47 John Daub: Cody waited at a cafe in Akihabara for a few hours. We both went back to this ramen shop. The restaurant was still a little bit busy, even in this period. This was just a couple of weeks ago. He said, "This is Tokyo for you. No, I don't want you to film." I said, "Okay, but why did you ask us to come back?" He said he's on TV all the time. This sums up my experiences with Tokyo. It's not Japan. If I were to film that ramen shop, he'd have a lot of visitors and he has a lot of regular customers and he doesn't want the shop to be overfilled. He only had 10 seats in there. The guy's on TV all the time. He had a TV network coming the next day. So why is it okay to film Japanese TV and you're afraid to film with me? Foreign tourists can't come here right now. He just didn't want to do it.

00:09:11 John Daub: You don't want to do a show where the person is hesitant to give you permission. So we both walked out and scratched our heads and said, "Why didn't you tell us this at 10 a.m.?" That's why Tokyo is so hard to film and why so many YouTubers guerrilla shoot and don't ask for permission. You can't get permission. If you ask for permission, the answer is almost always no, because they don't want people to come to the shops.

00:09:46 John Daub: That was my experience a couple of weeks ago and made me think Tokyo is not really easy to film in. It's not really easy to get stories even if a place has a compelling story. It's very, very hard to get them to say yes to film it. Even if you give them a blueprint and a plan, they don't want to be more crowded. A lot of people just don't want foreigners to come into their shop if it's got a history. So let's go get a drink at this vending machine.

00:10:27 John Daub: If all these people don't want me to film the stories here, why am I here? As a YouTube creator, Tokyo stinks. There's too many people here making content. Owners and most of the people don't want you here filming. So why be here? To be honest, I really dig Kyushu. I love that island. Fukuoka is an up-and-coming city. People are a lot more friendly. They love the attention. Osaka is really great. Not enough YouTubers in Osaka. I'd love to be down in Okinawa. Think about that. The tropical beaches and nice weather except when there's a typhoon rolling through like right now.

00:12:49 John Daub: I've been reporting for NHK since 2008 and that's a job. I've also done a lot of videos for other TV networks, written scripts, casting, a lot of stuff. For that reason, Tokyo's good for jobs. But if you're a YouTube creator, you could live anywhere. You could come to Tokyo when you need to to film the content. You don't need to be here. I'm at a point now where I have to think seriously, is this where I want to be and spend the rest of my days? Probably not, but that doesn't mean that you leave Japan. There's 47 prefectures here. All of them have some sort of uniqueness.

00:14:01 John Daub: Just the other day, somebody left a comment saying it's not called chado, it's called sado. Sado (way of tea) is the tea ceremony. Yeah, that's how they say it in Kyoto, but chado is the way they say it in Kanazawa. This person who was telling me I was wrong was actually wrong because they didn't know that Japan has regional dialects and different ways to say things. If everyone is making videos in Tokyo and Kyoto and doing the same content over and over again, it isn't really valuable to be here in Tokyo filming the same stuff and the same parks. It's going to be something that I think about seriously after the Olympics. Possibly I was going to make the jump to leave Tokyo after the Olympics. Kanae Daub's family is here. There are a lot of reasons to stay in Tokyo, but there's a lot of reasons to leave too.

00:15:08 John Daub: The content I film, usually I'm not in Tokyo. The next episode I'm in Shiga Prefecture. Or I'm in a completely different area of the country. Hokkaido, Kyushu, Shikoku. I'm going down to Kochi again to film down in Shikoku. So it's not like I need to be here in Tokyo. The good thing for Tokyo is that it is an incredible hub. If I want to jump on a flight, get on the Shinkansen, go up to Tohoku, it's pretty much in the center, and I can get around real easily. There's two airports. There's Narita and there's Haneda. The flights out of Tokyo are usually a little bit cheaper.

00:16:30 John Daub: But there's so many things against Tokyo too. The price of real estate. The rent that I pay for a two-LDK, two rooms, living, dining, and kitchen is where Kanae Daub and I live. It's really, really expensive. If I lived in another part of Japan, it would be a third the price. A lot of these outlets that have been depending on foreign tourists aren't doing too good. It's a tough decision. Recently I've been doing more stuff for NHK and for Japanese TV and consulting as well. I don't just do YouTube, but I do some consulting on the side and other things to help with inbound tourism. Guests on a couple of news programs sometimes. If I were to leave Tokyo, a lot of those jobs would dry up. But new ones would open with local television networks that definitely would probably need somebody like me to help them out.

00:18:26 John Daub: So what do you think? Do I make a compelling argument to leave the city? Is there something so magical about Tokyo that I need to be here that another YouTuber can't bring you? Everybody's buddy Paolo, he lives in Tokyo. He makes content here. Do I need to be making the same content as him? Mine has Japan. I'm national, baby.

00:19:42 John Daub: I canceled my trip to Nagoya today so I could stay safe. Kanae Daub asked me not to go to Nagoya, so I didn't go. This live streaming platform, I've been doing it for two and a half years now, three years. It's not that easy. You have to have a story.

00:20:28 John Daub: Wherever you go, it has to have pigeons, cats, and late night food. We're pretty happy here. This is where her family is, and that's another reason why I might not be going at all. I am so not staying here for more than a year. There's no way I'm going to be staying in Tokyo forever. No way. The one thing I want to impress on you is that Tokyo is not just the city here. Tokyo has 23 wards, just like New York has five boroughs. But Tokyo is also like a state, like New York State. There's so many wonderful places in West Tokyo. And the islands, like Ogasawara, 24-hour ferry ride out into the Pacific. That's Tokyo. Aogashima. Tokyo.

00:22:20 John Daub: Sometimes we forget that Tokyo is also places like Tachikawa, which is this suburban... Mount Takao, which is the most climbed mountain in the world, I believe. Takao-san. Okutama which is a really great place for hiking. I love the Okutama area, really good Nihonshu (Japanese sake). Feels like countryside. Pretty close to Chichibu, which is in Saitama very famous for the flowers and the gardens and really natural products, the world's most expensive egg for example, out in the Chichibu area. Okutama is a beautiful place. I could see myself living out there. That's Tokyo but it's like an hour and a half local train ride to get into the city.

00:23:44 John Daub: I used to live in a city called Kakogawa not that far away from Kobe and when I lived in Okayama, Hiroshima and Kakogawa I would very often go to Osaka for nightlife and I would have friends and we would take the train into Osaka and then we would probably blow like ten thousand yen having fun then come back the next morning. Osaka and the Kansai region is stacked. The Kansai region is so stacked with attractions. In fact I don't know why you guys fly into Tokyo at all. Tokyo is crowded, it's noisy, it's overpriced. Fighting a hotel room has become harder with all the tourism when you can come here.

00:25:12 John Daub: My point is simple. I'm not going to be here forever folks so every single live stream from Tokyo is precious. I might be living in another area. The show will go on. I'll never stop doing Only in Japan. No matter where I live and I actually would love to live like two three months in one place and move. The stories are out there that these thousands of YouTubers that have come into Tokyo are filming the same things over and over again. There's so many stories that nobody is filming because they don't leave this city. The pandemic has kept me inside.

00:27:18 John Daub: The question is if I don't live in Tokyo where would you like to see me go? Sound off. I've been lucky with ramen shops I filmed vlogs in so far. It just depends on the owner but the popular places maybe you just catch the owner at the right time but I'd say four out of five times people reject my request to film in Tokyo. I've been asked to pay media fees. There's a game center in Takadanobaba where I had to pay a media fee. It wasn't that big, but I had to pay in order to film in there for an hour. When I was in Dotonbori filming, I'd walk into the shop and say, "Hey, do you mind if we film here?" Five seconds later, the manager comes in and sits me down and says, "Come back in 10 minutes. We're going to clean the shop." That's Osaka. They see the value. In Tokyo, they see it as a burden. In Osaka, they see it as a value.

00:30:12 John Daub: So where would you like me to go? Yama Osaka would be neat. Kamakura is nice. A lot of my friends have moved down there. Hokkaido would be nice. The winters would be tough. Hiroshima might be my favorite place to live. It's got everything in the center. It's got a Shinkansen line. It's got a very inconvenient airport, but it's close enough to Osaka. Very good weather. Sendai is a pretty good base, but Sendai is a little bit far out there.

00:31:32 John Daub: Kyoto's countryside would be nice. Maizuru down there on the coast of Japan. Kyoto is the imperial city. And then if you go out, it takes you all the way to the Sea of Japan. Kyoto's huge too. What I do like about Tottori Prefecture is that they have an airport. They have a JAL airport in Izumo. And that region, the San'in region, people are so much friendlier. The food is so much better. It's fresher. They don't get really bad typhoons going through there because of Daisen, the mountain there. They say it has some of the best water in Japan. I've got a ton of friends in Tottori as well. And I know people at all of the TV stations there. So I would have work. And I could YouTube anywhere.

00:33:35 John Daub: If you have something, an idea of a place where I might want to move to, definitely leave it in the description. I don't have any plans immediately to move to Tottori. I'm going to leave Tokyo, okay? But the question that I asked was brought up to me by a viewer. And it is a very, very good question. Meaning, I don't intend to stay here forever. I think it's mostly the Olympics that's keeping me here. And Kanae Daub's family is based here. But if we saw the opportunity, we would leave too. Where is the most boring city in Japan? Probably the countryside. The countryside can be very, very boring. A lot of places are really, really boring. You buy a house, you live out there, there's nothing. You can read a lot of books and you can do a lot of editing out there. No one will bother you.

00:34:39 John Daub: The question is, if you do have a family, do you want to be living in the city? Do you want to be living in Tokyo? Do you want your kids going to school here? It's hard for me to envision that life. But if we do have a family, then probably Tokyo is not an ideal place to raise a kid, is it? The costs here just keep going up and up and up. But more and more people, younger people, are starting to go home. After they finish university, a lot of people aren't getting jobs in Tokyo. So they're returning home and taking that know-how that they've gotten from the city and bringing it back to their hometowns. That is a good thing.

00:35:25 John Daub: What I've been seeing is in Kochi, in Miyazaki, in some of these other places, in cities that are starting to have decreased populations and the government is taking action, they're inspiring people, younger people, to come back to open businesses with really good tax breaks. So now you're seeing really stylish cafes. Bookstores. They're cleaning up abandoned houses and making shopping streets. It looks like a really beautiful, clean, stylish Japan that the younger people are making out there in some of these towns. Over the next two years, I'm going to go to some of these towns and feature them on the Only in Japan channel to give you a new kind of vibe. The direction that Japan is changing is that Tokyo is always going to be changing. Tokyo is always going to be here. But more and more people are starting to leave. And more and more cities, especially after this pandemic, to return home. Because it's just safer.

00:36:37 John Daub: A place is just a place. A home is where you hang your hat, I suppose. And it doesn't have to be in Tokyo. It can be anywhere. You might not have a lot of restaurants. And you might not feel that hustle and bustle. But you make home what it is. Tokyo has been my home since 2004 for 16 years now. Out of the 23 I've been living here. But it won't be my home forever. And it could be sad to think that. But it's also the evolutionary process of life. And life must go on. Tokyo is always going to be a part of me, folks.

00:37:22 John Daub: Thanks so much for the comments and for playing along. Leave me a comment below on an idea where you think that might be a better place to live. Only in Japan won't stop filming. I got episodes coming out the wazoo. So the series is never going to be ending. But my home base might. Thanks, guys, for watching this video. And I'll see you in the next livestream. Probably tomorrow. Shibuya.