00:07 John Daub: Thank you. 20 yen. Thank you. Thank you.

00:54 John Daub: We've got 40 minutes to get in some big trouble. And that's what we're going to be doing today in this episode. Welcome to Tokyo Station. I've got a lot of bags here with me today. Let's get inside and do this. Now, I'm going to be riding the Akita Shinkansen. The Akita Shinkansen is a little bit different than the Tokaido Shinkansen and the other ones. Akita Shinkansen requires all reservations. I'm not going to be able to just get a juseiki (reserved seat ticket), which is a free ticket. I've got to actually get a seat for this. That's my mission. Then I've got to get an ekiben (station bento). Ekiben are just part of the fun. Hope you're ready for an adventure, everybody. Because, as you know, anything can happen in a live stream. Let's do this.

01:55 John Daub: There's no intro music or anything like that. We've got to work on that YouTube app. I want to have intro music. Title rolls. Things like this. I actually have a face shield. And Kanae Daub said that I've got to wear a double mask. So, she's pretty strict about that. Here's the corridor. Not that many people for a morning. You know? This would be morning rush hour. But we don't have that today. For those of you who had to cancel your trips, you would be here with me. Because of your travel. But not today.

02:44 John Daub: Alright. I'm going to put my bags down here. So, hey Dani. Irvan. Nice to see you. Shane's here as well. Oh, look at that. They have Japan Rail Pass. So if you have a rail pass, you'll be able to make a reservation with that. I'm going to switch this to English. Just because I think it's better for you guys to see it. But they start talking to you in English. And all the Japanese around you start looking at you. And you get all hot and stuff. We've got to get a reserved ticket. Because that's the only one that they have for the Akita Shinkansen. Seat for reservation for the Shinkansen. Akita. From Tokyo. You can't miss this. It's so big. Tokyo too. So, on the left side, they have the different kinds of Shinkansen. Tohoku Shinkansen, Yamagata Shinkansen, Akita Shinkansen, the Hokkaido Shinkansen. We are going on the Akita Shinkansen too. Oh my god. That's today. 840 is the time. I act like a child, but let's pick adult. The Komachi 9. There you go. Green car. Should I push it? No. It's not necessary.

04:23 John Daub: Alright. Now this window comes up and I always pick select from a seating map. Alright. And in this case, the direction of travel is this way. This should be car number one. So, let's pick this. So, there are some openings here. The reason why I picked that is because I like to see which cars are really crowded. This second car is really open. So, this offers the most protection maybe. This one is the least occupied. Number 16. I can't go back the other way. I guess those are already full. So, because I like to pick the least occupied car, let's see here. I don't know which seat to pick. This is like going to a Starbucks. I gotta pick my drink. I like the first car because it's usually really crazy. Alright. Let's just go with the second car. It says least occupied. I'll sit in row number 10 seems lucky. There you go. Everybody always picks a window seat. Confirm. There you go. I'm selecting this. Purchase outbound ticket only. Boom! Tokyo Komachi 9 to Omagari. Confirm. Done. What? That is expensive. That's like $160 for this ticket. Alright. Hey, I gotta go. It's business, right? Shinkansen be expensive. But luckily I carry hundreds.

06:25 John Daub: Alright. Get in there. Beautiful. Nice new crisp notes. Alright. I need a receipt. Receipt. A reason not to use my credit card is that I've already mistakenly shown the number several times on live streams. It never goes well. There's the receipt. I need that for official business purposes. And here's the ticket. This is to Tokyo to Omagari. And it tells you the seat number. The car number. Do you see that information? There it is. Seat Komachi number 9 car 16 seat 8. Oh, it does it in English if you order it in English. That's interesting. Alright. Coolness achieved. Now I just have to get my stuff.

08:02 John Daub: How you doing? Alright. There's an entrance here for the Shinkansen. And actually you can't take this one. You know why? Because it says the Tokaido and Sanyo Shinkansen only. The one that goes to Osaka and Hakata, Fukuoka. So we have to go in through the other entrance and it clearly marks that in green above here for the Tohoku Joetsu Hokuriku Shinkansen. It doesn't actually say Akita Shinkansen. And Yamagata and Akita go in a different line and you just have to know that's going towards Tohoku. Everybody in Japan knows that Akita is in Tohoku. So that's where we're going. Let's Google this. So make sure you get your ticket and you keep that because we're going to need that for the Shinkansen. Now we have some time to kill. Vuhahaha. And there are ekiben all over the place. Here's an ekiben shop here. The signal might not be too good because we are deep into the station right now. But let's go to the ekiben station that we usually go.

09:27 John Daub: She's holding. This is where you line up for the end of the line to get what they're selling here. Oh, which are these roses? This is the Tokyo Tulip Rose. That'd be a pretty good present to bring somebody. They look good. Hey Shubha. Get something for the trip. I shall. How about an ekiben? Because this is a typical Shinkansen run. John needs his ekiben. What I've noticed is that every single person 99% or 100% of the people are wearing masks. Can you notice this? Everybody has a mask on. It's extraordinary. Nobody questions the purpose of it. Everybody knows they're thinking about other people. That is amazing.

10:48 John Daub: Alright, what do we got here? This is a miso katsu with unagi. That looks like a Nagoya type of a bento. That's Nagoya Castle on there. This is a beef Doma niku. That looks really good. I'm looking for like, how about an Akita bento? Oh, this is beef tongue, gyutan (grilled beef tongue). In a self-heating box from Sendai. That looks really good too. That's a little bit too heavy for breakfast though. Over here we have some seafood. Here's some crab and hotate (scallop) and salmon bentos. They look really beautiful. But I'm looking for something lighter. Maybe something from Akita would be nice. Right? Oh, this is the unagi bento that I've gotten so many times before. This one's a little bit pricey, about $23 for this one. But it is a really beautiful and delicious unadon (grilled eel over rice). Shirasu don (baby sardines over rice). Shirasu are these little teeny white fish on rice. And that's pretty light. That's a good breakfast. You can see it there. There's a bento shaped like the Shinkansen. That's the train that I'm going to be riding. The Komachi, I believe. This one is the E6 going towards Akita. And the green one is the Tohoku one. And the E7 here is the Hokuriku one going towards Kanazawa. What is that? Like a yakitori (grilled chicken skewers) bento. That's really interesting. Yakitori bento. This is the sandwich area. Usually there's just a sandwich here. The delicious egg sandwiches. This one says, I like the retro looking packages though. This one is a normal sandwich for 600 yen. It's a tough choice. It looks like a lot of beef. This one is a Taiwan bento. That's interesting. It's got two eggs in there. Oh wow, that's a yama. Is that a Hakone bento from Hakone. That's pretty. Alright, let's just pick something. It's a hard choice. It's not so easy. This is an ebi ekiben (shrimp station bento) with shrimp. There's a big shrimp in there. Gyuniku bento (beef bento). Beef bento. Everything is really heavy looking. Karaage Zanmai bento. This is my favorite. This is Kanae's favorite too. The Tokyo ekiben. Tokyo bento. Shall I get this one? It comes in a box that looks like lacquerware. Look at that. I'm always happy with this one. Alright, let's get this one. I've always been happy with it. That's Tokyo Station on the front. Do it. And something to drink. I'm not getting a beer. It's like 8am. Although they do have alcohol free beer. This one is zero alcohol. I don't know. You know what? I'm just going to go with a water. A Pocari Sweat would be good too. I think we're just going to go with good old water. I think I can get a coffee on the train.

15:11 John Daub: Waiting in line here. I see someone checked in from the Philippines. I'll check that out after I get the bento. Thank you. A bag. Yes, please. ¥1995. ¥1000. ¥2000. Please give me your receipt. It's alright. Thank you. They got little teeny karaage too. The bags cost extra. You can see ¥5 for a small one. ¥10 and ¥25 if you want a bigger bag. That's a new thing that they started to try to reduce the amount of plastic. But most people get the plastic anyways. Alright. I got to get official receipts because this is business. Business. We got a little bit of time. I love the wall here in front of this ekiben shop. It's a really nice shop. I like to come here because the choices are better than on the platform. But you can get the bentos on the platform. I think if you've watched this series, you know as well as I do all about ekiben. But on this wall of fame, a wall of shame for those who've eaten every single one of these in one day. This is pretty incredible. Next time I'm going to try this ikura (salmon roe) one. Look at the ikura, the orange globes of delight. And this one looks really good too. Three kinds of fish. I should have gotten this one. This has the unagi on it. So next time I'm going to go and get that one. But it's a pretty cool shop. Across the way there's some more shops. But I always tend to go to this ekiben shop. I don't know why. I've been going there for a long time. Yeah, Japan and cash is still king here. Michael T can't wait to be able to visit Japan again. I can't wait to have you here. It's so quiet. David Kimura, thanks for paying for the bento. Much appreciated. Salty Apple, welcome to the travelers. This is great. Eric Fernandez, Vice of Tokyo, Vanilla. Banana for dessert, you got it. And Leonel-san. Leonel-san, tasty ekiben. You got it. This is dedicated to you, brother.

18:09 John Daub: The Shinkansen is over there. You can tell with the green looking Shinkansen. That's Tohoku Shinkansen. And on this area where the ekiben is, there's the Yamanote line (loop line). These are the local train lines. Often I've been riding the Tokaido line, which is just the normal one. That'll take you all the way down to Kyoto eventually. This is the Utsunomiya line or the Utsunomiya-Takasaki-Joban line. Not a lot of people riding the Shinkansen today. The Shinkansen is about, I'd say, 70% empty. So, the risk to get infected is quite low. People are only traveling if they have to. And once again, it's business, so you do what you gotta do. The blue is over here. That's the Tokaido Shinkansen. The green is going up north. It's kind of easy to figure that out. And they write it up here. You can see Akita on the stairs to heaven. Stairway. It's heavy. It's exciting when you get on the Shinkansen. It's like going on an airplane except you're kind of not, you know, it's a train. No, it's not a train. It's a Shinkansen.

19:33 John Daub: Alright, let's do this. We got some information here. Oh, here you can charge your IC card. Oh, I gotta do that. Somebody remind me to charge my IC card. I only have, that's why I had to pay by taxi, by cash, because I don't have enough money on my IC card. Forgot to charge it. Validated there on the left side now. And, quite often they'll check to make sure that you, make sure they'll stamp your ticket again. We have about 15 minutes, which is an eternity for me. This is quite unusual to have this amount of time. How dare I come so early? It's like I have something to prove. Alright, where's the 840 train? There it is right there. Platform number 20. The Akita Komachi. Hayabusa, baby! She's mine. Going towards Shin-Aomori on the other side of Japan. I love it. I love it. Reserved seats only. Do you see that? That's big time right there. Look at the line for coffee. I gotta get a coffee. Alright, I gotta get a coffee here. Distance. Gotta get a coffee. It's part of the routine. Hey, Calvin Black's here. Hi John, sorry I missed out supporting on the fireworks. Oh no, Calv- That's too bad. Do you or Kanae ever crave Chinese takeout living in Japan? We do. Kanae used to live in New York, by the way. New York is like the king of Chinese takeout. Maybe Californians might disagree. But they just opened up a Panda Express in Shibuya. It's bizarre. Japanese are not sure how to react to Panda Express. Alright, let's get a coffee. We've earned our morning coffee, I believe.

21:49 John Daub: I have a coin purse. Because I get a lot of coins. Oh, they got three sizes. Which size should we get? Always pick the one in the middle. That's not large. That's double L. There's no small. Sweet. Double L. That's funny. And I will never get an- I rarely get iced coffee. After September. Alright, a coffee in the L size. Please give me a bag. Please give me a bag. 405 yen. Thank you. Thank you. So cute! Give me a little bag. Let me get the coffee from spilling. Let me bring one milk just in case. Boom. You know, on some of the Shinkansen, they stop the coffee service, and you know what? This is cheaper than buying the coffee on the Shinkansen. Alright, up we go. Platform number 20. The Komachi Shinkansen 840. Say goodbye to the turnstiles in Tokyo. I'm not waving at anybody, really. This is so exciting! We're going on the Shinkansen! Ken Rutley, you're doing it! You're joining me! Halifax Ken! Michael T. Can't wait to be able to visit Japan again! Yes! Thank you, Ken! There it is! They're cleaning it! It's green, baby! Look at the ladies patiently waiting to get on. They have to stand a certain way. It's almost robotic. Look at that! Even the legs are very much in a... They're taught to stand like this. This is crazy. Alright. There's our Shinkansen right there. We have literally... 12 minutes! This is insane! I never have this kind of free time. What am I going to do? I thought that I would be done by now. I don't know what to do with all this free time. Hey, lovely Takelo from Australia! It's awesome to watch your videos first thing in the morning today while making a bento. Hey! Missing Japan adventures. Can't wait to come back to Japan for more adventures. Absolutely. I hope that you can come back to Japan for more adventures. We need more people visiting Japan. It's just utterly boring here without you. It is utterly boring.

26:08 John Daub: Alright. Let me check my ticket here. I'm car number 16. I'm going the wrong way. We're going to Omagari Cha Cha Cha. I'm so early. This is unheard of. Nobody... I never... I'm not even running. What's wrong with me? Hey! There's the Shinkansen kissing! The Shinkansen is kissing over there! They're smooching! They're making out! And that's why when I bought the ticket, I couldn't buy the tickets on this car because this is going in a different direction. They're going to be splitting up halfway through the trip. And this is where the E6 series and the E5 series make out. And they're smooching. Check it out. That is a hardcore kiss. Oh man. They are connected. In fact, turn away from this. You don't want to see this. This is actually quite dirty. Look at that. Ugh. Awful. You know what? You two gotta... Look, okay, I understand embracing for a couple of minutes, but really for the next two hours you're going to be like this? Watching the two trains come together and then parting is kind of a unique thing. So if you do get here early, you can see the trains coming together, being put together. Above the Shinkansens, you can see the Marunouchi side of Tokyo. There's the top of the north entrance. Whoa, there's another Shinkansen coming in! That's the Hokuriku Shinkansen over there! I want to go on that one too. I want to go on all the Shinkansens at the same time. It's crazy. The Toki is the Shinkansen that goes to Niigata, and Toki actually is a bird. So it's named after a bird. There's the Hokuriku Shinkansen from the front. No, what is that Shinkansen? This is the Hokuriku Shinkansen. Oh, that one is a Hokuriku too, but it's a different color. That's bizarre. This one is going to Kanazawa. But this one had like a different color to it. Whoa, they still got the double decker Tokis! I thought these were out of business! That's a double decker Toki! Whoa! I thought they were out of business! Oh, it's on the move! It's on the move! Dun dun dun! Da da da da da! Awesome! Do it, Shinkansen! Move it! It's a double! I thought that these double deckers went out of business. I guess you can't lose the classic design. Beautiful. Launched from Tokyo Station. Alright, I'm getting I'm going to where I gotta go because, I don't know, I'm just really excited! Aren't you excited? How could you not be excited? This is insanity.

29:50 John Daub: John Wakamatsu is here! Tony P is cheering on! Haiko is here! I have to support my fellow love for Shinkansens! I love me some Shinkansen! Tsubasa tickets to Yamagata. That's interesting. So it tells you this is the end of the train. Very nice. Thank you. So I gotta wait here, but that's car 16. That's my seat. But I'm gonna take you to the front because that's what I do. I love to see the nose. I wanna pay my respects to the beast that will be riding. I'll be riding all the way to Akita. This was the movie Neverending Story. This would be my dragon thing. Look at those ordinary trains. Not that exciting, right? Just ordinary trains. If you were riding it though, that means you're in Tokyo. And there she is. Look at the nose on her! Beautiful! Perfect in every way. Look at those lines. Looks like a shoe. And then see the nose will open up. That's where it does the kiss, but it's going the other direction. Beautiful!

31:30 John Daub: So there's some good questions here. I'm sweating from my excitement. I also spilled coffee. I think I might have spilled some of it. Only I get this excited to ride the Shinkansen which is like my thousandth time. It's alright. It's a child in all of us. Let it out. It's about three hours to get to Omagari. And when I get there, I think I might do an Omagari livestream just to show you Omagari station. I've never been there. And I haven't been to Akita by Shinkansen before. So this is a unique experience. I'm looking forward to it very much. I'm going to film the manufacturing of fireworks up there. This is for the Kickstarter project. We got fully packed twice. So we have two festivals. And this is the start of me making these episodes. So I'm really excited about it. And it should be really an interesting time. I'm getting nervous. Like is that my Shinkansen? And Kanae told me that I have to wear a double mask. So there's the Yamanote line going by. Those bells freak me out when I hear that. It's like, is that my train? It's beautiful, isn't it? It's interesting though that this is an older platform. They don't have the walls here to protect you. So you could go and touch the train, but nobody does that. Nobody does that. I have a face shield as well, but I'm not going to be wearing the... I'll wear the face shield if it looks suspicious inside. There's another Akita Komachi, Akita Shinkansen on the other side. The Akita trains are cool. Look, they look like spaceships over there. Look at the way that the window protrudes like that. It's awesome. Oh, okay, it's time to sit down. Kanazawa, Kanazawa, do it! Awesome. Alright, let's go inside.

34:00 John Daub: One of the things with sitting on the Shinkansen, I don't think I can get in. We're still waiting. They're doing a final check. There's only three people getting in on this train. Do I get the right ticket? It's the right ticket. Car 16, seat 10A. But I think people are getting on at Ueno and people are getting on at Omiya, and then nobody really will get on beyond there. Not too many people are going up to Akita these days, but yours truly is, and that means that I am going. This happens. There are very few travelers. I got alcohol wipes to wipe down the area, but to be polite, once we get to Ueno station, I'm going to be cutting out on this live stream. So we're going to take a look a little bit outside of the window, and when we get to Omagari, a little bit before there, I'm going to show you some of Omagari station. We'll exit there, take a quick look around the station for 5-10 minutes. I don't think I'll have time to do it at another time, so probably in about three hours or so, I'll have another live stream from Omagari, okay? But we're not supposed to, we shouldn't be talking too loudly on the trains. We're going to take a look at the Oh, hi-yo. C10A. Oh, it's lovely. It looks like it's made of gold. Camera bag. Oh, mama. Alright, I want to point out here that there's not a lot of overhead space, so if you have big luggage, forget about it. Just leave it in Tokyo, because when the Shinkansens are packed, there's really not a lot of space. Second mask of protection. Individually wrapped. You still here?

37:50 John Daub: So, my colleague from the Japan Fireworks Association is here, and thanks to her and her team, we have the ability to make these fireworks possible. So the other member is in another car, but it's nice to see that she's still here. Now we're on the road, on the tracks, going towards Ueno Station, and then after that, Omiya and Saitama. And a lot of people are going to be getting on the Shinkansen there as well. I've already seen... It is so smooth. It is so freaking smooth. We're already in Ueno. I don't think I need to do an ekiben unboxing, because I've already shown you this ekiben like six times. I've shown you this ekiben like six times on bento live streams. I think the signal dies halfway between here and Ueno, so the signal might die out in a second, but I'll be back. We're at Ueno Station now. So the signal dies. There's a really big tunnel that we have to get into. There's a tunnel.

43:50 John Daub: Look at the bento. That enjoy. Because I'm not going to eat it now. I'm just showing you what's inside. It's a beautiful piece of salmon in there, and I love the egg. That tamagoyaki (rolled omelet) is so good there. It says Aoki on the top. A little bit of meat, rice, and the vegetables, the simmered vegetables, and that little fish-chicken meatball. Not sure what it is. I forget. It's all really good. This cost like $16 though for this bento. And I'm not going to eat it now. I'm not hungry. It's like 8:30. Just give it some time. If you want to see it unboxed, I think I ate this like 7 times or something. Talk on the shinkansen. But I'll show you outside the window a little bit. We don't pick up speed until a little bit later. Please press the button and notify the conductor. In case of any issues, the conductor's rooms are in cars 9 and 12. We wish you a pleasant journey. So Omiya is about 15, 20 minutes from here. Not too far away.

46:09 John Daub: If you like these shinkansen train runs, make sure you give me a thumbs up and like this video. You liked it. If you don't give me a thumbs up, I will never do another shinkansen run again. Not true. The train will arrive at 11:51. The train is a 17-car train. The train is a 17-car train from the 11th car. The 7th car is Komachi. The 10th car is Kudan. The 12th car is Hayabusa. This train is not available in the pre-trial and 9th car. The train number is displayed on the inside of the car. Thank you for entering. Next, please change to Omiya. Please change to Omiya. Please introduce yourself. The reason why I don't use the train wifi. The train wifi comes from 4G. It's the same as the wifi coming here. In tunnels, it might be a little bit stronger. But in tunnels, you still kind of have to use the wifi. You won't lose the train wifi. It's not what happens with pocket wifi. Pocket wifi uses 4G signal. It's the same as having 4G. Usually, we didn't get 4G network firsther, but it's quicker than the pocket wifi router which is subcontracted with service networks. I was told that. At the malls. I like the admins hat emoji. The O.G. Edward Tunnel. Alright everybody, thanks for watching. Alright, thanks for watching everybody, have a good day. Definitely subscribe to this, and I'll see you in the next livestream. In three hours. We're not even picking up speed yet. I guess we really open it up after Omiya. Passing the station.