00:00:07 John Daub: Greetings everybody. Welcome to Shinbashi Station. This is the new exit. It's been renewed. This is the Ginza entrance or exit, and it's kind of neat to see. How you doing? We're early for this live stream, believe it or not. I've come here to Shinbashi because I wanted to take you around this area. I'm here anyways to pick up some stuff for Daimyo supporters for next month. So I thought maybe we'd just take a walk around here. I just released the new video. You definitely want to check it out.

00:00:39 John Daub: It's about farm-to-table Japanese Wagyu. Omi Beef, one of the top three Wagyu brands in the entire country. I got access to go into the farms to take a look at the cattle themselves and track that to the restaurants and the tables. That was an interesting episode with our friend Kevin Riley from Kuma's Kitchen. So you're going to want to check that out on the Only in Japan John Daub channel. There's a bus taking off right behind me. But this area is kind of neat and I haven't been here in a while. I haven't been here too much.

00:01:09 John Daub: This is the bus that goes to Haneda. There's like three people on there. But this bus leaves not too often. It's a different bus, but there's lots of buses here. Shinbashi was actually the terminus or marker zero for Japan Railway back in 1870. And I'm going to in another live stream, maybe tomorrow or sometime this week, take you to the old Shinbashi Station. It's still kind of standing with some of the reminders of it. This is, I believe, one of the new Shinbashi buildings, but it's so retro from the 1960s, I believe, late '50s.

00:01:39 John Daub: Above it, this is why I love this exit. You have those buildings from the late 1950s and '60s and above it you have Shiodome just right nearby. And you have these modern-looking skyscrapers. It is such an amazing contrast here. And as Tokyo evolves so quickly over the next 10 years, we're going to see so many changes that are going to just totally change the city. Hey, Pigeon, Jay Walker, Pigeon, move it. So dangerous. Did you see the light? That worried me for a bit. I thought that pigeon was going to not make it.

00:02:28 John Daub: Let's go see if he has a comment. So I'm going to take you around the station area for the next 20 minutes or so just to get a look. And hopefully this series will document you maybe haven't heard anything yet about the city of Akasaka [?], which is what the city was like way back. Sir, do you realize that you almost caused an accident? Hey, no, no, no, don't go that direction. Just fly away. I'm trying to save your life. You're going to not—not good. And give them a sense of urgency. This is not the best place. But if he's found food, I can't argue with that. We're gonna cross the street right here.

00:03:16 John Daub: From the Showa era, they've started to get rid of all these old buildings and try to build for the future. Shimbashi is one of these areas that is going to be on the move and I really hope it doesn't—it stays the same good old Showa era buildings. So we like a lot of personality. You can see here there's some more construction and I'm gonna be taking you to a really weird-looking building towards Ginza as well as a business that is about to go out of business. I don't know if it's still available but I saw that the sign is still there. This is where the bus is and this is a very famous terminus a lot of you probably don't know for the bus to go from Shimbashi to Shibuya. And it cuts across the town and sometimes bus is faster than taking the Yamanote line if you're not inside of the station.

00:04:19 John Daub: You're going to be in trouble if you're not in the station already. Jump on this bus and it'll take you cross town through Roppongi to Shibuya's back entrance and it's pretty neat to catch. This is just across from Shimbashi Station which is right there. Hey, Yavan is here, good afternoon. So it's the shinkansen man. What I wouldn't do to get on one of these right now and just go to Kyoto for an afternoon with Kanae Daub. I'll be on the shinkansen pretty soon anyways, very fast. Shinkansens are quite expensive. Um, it depends where you're going. Oh that looks so good. Look at that gyudon and this one, the egg on these gyudons reminds me so much of the egg last night for sukiyaki.

00:05:13 John Daub: This one looks very interesting. Look at the natto on there—fermented soybeans with a raw egg. This is a westerner's nightmare. They call it the neba-toro gyudon meaning the slimy. They didn't just put a raw egg and natto though, they put in here mushy mountain potatoes. So it's just a slime and then there's some meat in there. Oh, there's the meat right there on the side. Oh, I gotta try this one of these days. All right, we're gonna do a midnight snack run. Maybe try one of this really really deep hate [?]. There's more pigeons. Hey, I saw your friend. Tell him to be more careful. Look he's going in the restaurant. Table for one. What is he doing? Throwing in the restaurant? There's three pigeons in the restaurant. Look they're exiting like they've just eaten something.

00:06:17 John Daub: Tokyo's pigeons, Shimbashi pigeons are cheekier than most. Alright, let's get a move on. We got to get this episode rolling. Oh ramen. Showa ramen smells like dashi right here in this corner. I'm waiting for the traffic light to turn. That's a really nice-looking katsudon soba set for what about seven dollars? It's really cheap. Alright, we're minutes away. I'm gonna walk this way and I'm gonna show you first of all, where are we gonna be going in the next couple of days in another live stream? And then I'm gonna show you a business that is about to go out of business or I think already has gone bankrupt. And it's kind of a sad thing. We've lost so many really vital businesses and this one is very vital, especially to Peter von Gomm.

00:07:17 John Daub: All right, if you can see this way over this black van. Hey move it, at least the pigeons get out of the way. Don't block the shot. Right there is where the original Shimbashi building is. You can kind of see the dome up there right now. It's actually open. I thought about going there, but I'm gonna save it for a morning live stream. And it has a lot of markers from the 1870s where marker zero was set for Japan Rail back in that era and it's kind of neat that it still stands as a memorial remembrance and maybe we can go into the museum a little bit later on. This direction takes us away from Shimbashi. Again, the Ginza line goes through Shimbashi, that's the Ginza exit entrance because it dumps us right at the end of Ginza Hachome, or the eighth block of Ginza.

00:08:21 John Daub: This is the butt of Ginza and we're on top of it now. Taking you right now is that orange building which I believe is a sad reminder of what once was. Kevin Riley's watching, brother. Sad days are upon us, sadder than we know. Look at that owl. It's got—always thought the owl had these creepy eyes. Look at that. Don't know what for, it's weird. So this here is a restaurant called Hooters and they've gone bankrupt. For Hooters, this is the last one, the only one that is right now in business. So I thought maybe Peter von Gomm and I might go in here for some wings. We always come here for the wings, the world famous. Yeah, they're going out of business. I believe they're not gonna be here much longer.

00:09:30 John Daub: Hooters came here about ten years ago and I met Kevin Riley at the opening of the Hooters. And they just opened up for about two weeks and I was doing an NHK show at Hooters—don't ask. And it was a classic with Jennifer and the director told me to go over there and ask those group of foreigners if they would be interviewed and talk about something. And so I asked them and one of them was Kevin Riley and I ended up keeping in touch with him and now we're really good friends. But Hooters filed for bankruptcy and they're not going to be here very much longer. This is the last location. The first location in Akasaka has been closed down I heard. And yeah, support America and wings. It's kind of sad.

00:10:20 John Daub: We're underneath the highway here. The next thing I want to take you is over here. There's a building in this direction. I love doing these street walks because you get a slice of life of Tokyo from it right as the shinkansen rolls by. Again I see double WRX turn. I'm gonna make it a special something special. Hey Mario Valentine, I'm a brand new insider, hello from Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. My last name is pronounced like Valentine but with a B—Ballantine. That's very nice. Thank you Mario and welcome to the insiders. That's not too far away for where one of the three amigos lives. Shane I think he's up there. Vic's in the house from Canada, awesome. Thunderbeard, always good to see you here. Wonderful. And Js pictures, John can you say James likes Fortnite. James likes Fortnite's Ryan K, very good.

00:11:55 John Daub: James likes Fortnite. Was it worth it? This building right here as you can see the curving of the highway above us right. We follow the curves of the building and underneath here there's always some really interesting barbecue. This is a barbecue restaurant. So I've taken a couple of these restaurants here but if you pan over to the right here this is again we call this nama shape [?]. Do ki do them zoom act—uwa. Do authiah be Saturday Dole and Bashi. I don't know exactly what that means. I think the dole means like land. But above here is this really weird building and I don't think they could get a lot of the real estate right and the real estate in Ginza is so expensive.

00:12:40 John Daub: If you pan up you get this really weird looking building with—it's basically it's just a pole that they put into the ground and then they built stuff off of the pole like capsules. And this is the Shizuoka Shimbun building and I don't know what Shizuoka was thinking when they put this building up here because it's just really weird. Let's take a look see underneath here. Bizarre and there's even like a little makeshift balcony up there. Look I see some chairs up there. You'll see this building if you're walking through Shimbashi and Ginza. It's pretty unique. It's worth a picture architecturally. It's very unique and looks like it was built in the 1980s or something when things were really weird during the bubble era.

00:13:49 John Daub: And they probably just had some money and said what can we buy with it. Okay let's build a tube and then build some things off of the tube like a capsule. And they've kind of done a good job with it and it's still here today. I guess they couldn't buy the land here or they wanted to have a fountain so they put the third floor starts there. It's pretty unique. I think Aini is a new traveler, welcome. Let's go take a look at see how clean this fountain is. By the way this is Ginza Corridor which I've come to many times. I'm not going to take you that way. Yeah I guess this is where the pigeon has been a few many times. I do think that this color of water looks like Mountain Dew. That's a good thing for Mountain Dew fans everywhere. We found your onsen bath.

00:14:45 John Daub: Alright, let's get back over to Shimbashi's Ginza entrance exit. I don't think it's dirty I just think it's not clean, does that make sense? I mean I wouldn't drink it but is there any fountain water you would drink in a city? I don't know. It's interesting because this is actually an entrance to the expressway. The Tohoku Expressway entrance is in Kita-Ikebukuro and I've been there many times but you can get onto the highway from here. This is an entrance onto the highway and Tokyo's highways are so chaotic and insane. Whoa that's a Ferrari. Whoa dude do it, gun it, can it do it yeah. It's awesome. Beat the shin constantly should be racing.

00:15:47 John Daub: The point of that is that this is an entrance and it's pretty weird that they put an entrance to the highway so hidden behind Hooters. I don't know, it's kind of neat. You're not allowed to walk or ride your bicycle on it. Just it's kind of dangerous, it's very very narrow up there. And the highways are all above ground in Tokyo and they're so narrow it gives you so much stress to do the highway. Look at that two-tone car. I could just stand here in the corner and watch the cars go onto the highway and this could be a pretty darn good episode. I could narrate it. Hey there's a Shutsu-go I go in by we gotta say guys go by. Where's the next Ferrari? Ferrari we got a Porsche. Doesn't that seem to work? Just a typical day in Tokyo.

00:16:44 John Daub: Alright let's walk back around a little bit. I want to show you some more of this Ginza exit. There's some pretty neat alleys here but it's when you go underneath the tracks that really things get interesting. If you are looking for a place to stay let's give a shout out to the Apple Inn love shop. I've never been in there. I don't think today is the day to start. It's weird. Oh the love shop's over there. Alright we can at least walk by there. I didn't know the love shop was underneath there. I don't want to go up to the second floor. I'll be isolated. Go to the second floor become isolated and that's not good.

00:17:32 John Daub: Whoa look yes they got taiyaki baby. Oh yeah but they're not doing anything right now with it. Look at that red bean paste in the window there, gnarly. It's very cool. Okay we're gonna have to get—I'm gonna have to get one of these. Now what do you guys think? Look they put it in ice cream they just stuck the fish in there and into a thing of ice cream. That's so cool. Alright they got the cypher the flashing colors but they've got two kinds: cream and red bean paste. What do you think it should be? Looking for if I got some cash here. Okay I got some right here let's get a custard one.

00:18:30 John Daub: Wow, what's that? Saku-saku. It's crunchy. Discovering new things. And they have like a matcha juice here for 150 yen. It's pretty interesting. Wow, it's coming like right out of the fryer. Thank you very much. Wow, that's awesome. Alright, we're already starting off with some street food. Very cool. So if you don't know what taiyaki is, it's shaped in the shape of a tai, which is a kind of a sea bream fish. And I'm going to be eating this in front of the Apple Love Store. That's a different kind of an Apple Store. Things... we won't go in there. They have nothing that I want.

00:19:45 John Daub: Alright, let's try this taiyaki. Whoa, it's like a cookie. I got it from that shop right there. Oh wow, that's good custard. I actually didn't eat any lunch. This is lunch. It's not healthy. Kanae Daub's going to be angry. Why did you eat custard for lunch? I said, well, it was on the street and I thought I'd go for it. Oh, I think he's making some right now. Let's go take a look as he makes the process and I devour this. Mmm, he's got some anko in there. So he—oh, look at the presses there. Oh, there's the custard. Oh, that's what I'm eating. That's a lot of custard. Ah, it's about—it's less than $2.00. 200 yen. That's pretty affordable. Wow! Cream is busting out of this thing.

00:21:09 John Daub: You want a bite? Why would you need a rubber ducky? Oh, okay. Pan right. Some weird stuff. This could look like—this is like the trailer for the new Naked Director for Netflix, which I think is coming out soon. We saw some trailers for season 2, which was—even Kanae Daub was like, I don't want to watch this, and then she started watching it. That's funny. Very scenic underneath the tracks here. Oh, there's an entrance. Is that where the tunnel is there? You can follow underneath the tracks all the way to Yurakucho. They might do that.

00:22:13 John Daub: Shimbashi is an old part of Tokyo and I like the fact that they keep these old steel bridges here. They just paint it over a little bit. When you start to get rid of this, especially the railroad stuff, I get really sad because a lot of the history, you can feel it. You know, people in the bubble era going back. There's a restaurant in the alley. So I want to go to the tunnel over there. Let's go over to the tunnel. Ooh, that looks good. Taiyaki. Hey, Suzette S is here. Thanks, Suzette. And Sheryl M.P. Incredible. I remember this. We were on the other side of this about two weeks ago. This is like some sort of weird ramen corridor or alley thing. Look at this. It's some sort of alley.

00:23:52 John Daub: Alright, let's do this. We're behind the Ginza Corridor. I don't remember this. How about the signal? I don't know if the signal is going to stay. Getting kind of deep underneath the buildings and stuff. They've done a good job with the lighting. It's very clean here. Look at the wood. Almost like a deck. I didn't know that they had different other options for eating deep in here. Unagi sushi. One piece of unagi sushi for $2.50—350 yen [?]. That's so cheap. There's got to be a catch. Probably everything else is like $5. I don't know. Hey, Mario Ballantine. I got interested in Japan and wanting to travel because of John's videos and the PlayStation 4 game called Yakuza. I'm currently playing Yakuza 6. Oh, I even learned how to speak Japanese as a result. It's funny.

00:25:16 John Daub: Video games is like a gateway into Japanese culture. I remember playing Grand Theft Auto and you could hijack like Yakuza cars and drive around and stuff. It's a weird looking vending machine. There's like graphics and lasers and stuff. And there's some more stylish restaurants going down this way. I did not know about this alley. Alright. I'm going to bookmark the Urakori, which is like the inner corridor of Ginza. Some good shops here. Alright. Let's go back. And for those joining us, don't forget to go back and take a look at my Wagyu farm-to-table episode.

00:26:11 John Daub: There's the shinkansen up above. Oh, no, that's not the shinkansen. That's the green Keihin-Tohoku line or the Tokaido line. One of the either the Tokaido or the Keihin-Tohoku line. I think it's the Tokaido line. Interesting. Keihin-Tohoku, I think it's blue. Alright. Welcome back out to Ginza. That was interesting to Shimbashi's Ginza side. I'm fully sugared up now across the street. Oh, there's some restaurants over there on the other side. Alright, let's do this. Run with that guy. Yes, yes, yes.

00:27:43 John Daub: Look at this alley in the back here underneath the highway. We have a Pronto, some tables, little izakaya back there. And then there's some unique alleys. We started the live stream just over there. You can see beyond the subway. There's the entrance to Ginza Shimbashi Station. Let's make a left here and kind of take a look at some of the alleys. I got a feeling we might discover something. I think we might find some old buildings because I kind of planned to come this way earlier. Yeah, but definitely go check out that Wagyu video I uploaded on the other edited channel. It's 18 minutes of total knowledge on Wagyu beef in Omi, which is one of Japan's top three brands. I got access to go onto the farm. Check it out. I'll put a link in the description here.

00:28:43 John Daub: Look at this building. It says U on it, which could be unagi. This is a really unique looking unagi restaurant and a parking garage. Let's go take a look at the unagi restaurant. Sometimes they're cooking it outside. Fate is telling me go and eat unagi. This is with all—look at there's the unagi right there. It's already been sauced. They just have to grill it. And then look at this old brick grill. Just char grill it. And then after they grill it, they dip it in this tare, this sauce. Amazing. Oh, man, what am I doing? Looking at it? I wanted to kick the door open and go inside. How much is it? It's a little pricey. It's about 3000 yen for a small and for a larger size, 4800 yen about. And this is 2000 yen for a little takeaway sushi bento like this size. That's nice. I like this restaurant. I'll have to come back here. I think Kanae Daub deserves some unagi.

00:29:58 John Daub: Take her. She wanted yakiniku after watching the Wagyu episode like three times. She kept watching it over and over again. That's why I didn't go. I said, well, you didn't want to go. You couldn't go. Oh, yeah. She said that. Look at that old mom and pop buildings here. There's a key store. They still make keys. It's good to see that. Actually, Ginza is filled with a lot of mom and pop stores that have been here for generations in the alleys. If you get off of Chuo Dori, you'll find in the alleys a lot of the old stores that are still here. There's a lot of these little stores and there's one that I'm going to be featuring soon in an edited video. And they're the best at what they do. There's a lot of stores in Ginza that are like that. They're the best at what they do because they've been doing it for generations.

00:30:56 John Daub: And there's such a need for that niche that there probably will always stay in business. This is something like Walmart and Don Quijote and these chains can't put niche family-run businesses out of business in Japan. That's a good thing. Like, I know everything about cuffs on shirts and I can make the best shirt cuffs. And if you ever need a good shirt cuff, I can—like things like this. It's a nice looking restaurant here. But these thin little bars, very famous in Shimbashi. Let's take a right here. I think we can. Let's take the long way around. Yeah, because we don't have a lot of—the population in Japan is shrinking. A lot of businesses rely more on tourism to fill in the gaps of income.

00:32:02 John Daub: And because most Japanese are very, I don't know, they don't like to take any risks. So people aren't going out to eat as much. So the government gave incentives like go-eat campaigns and go-travel campaigns. And they've yielded a lot more people out. But still, there's the majority of people are staying inside, not taking any risks at all to get sick. Across there is the tourist entrance to Don Quijote. This is where buses from China used to line up here. Loads just all buses from China. And there'd just be people from China here, standing outside and smoking and buying stuff from Don Quijote. And it's empty. So kind of a shame for the economy. And this is the start of Ginza. They'll close this road here and the old toy store with a Licca-chan downstairs in the basement. You'll have like 1000 different varieties of Licca-chan dolls. It's like the Barbie doll of Japan. It's pretty cool if you're 12 or under.

00:33:10 John Daub: Marty Depp by his hair! Three two one, Marty! Cuervo Gaming is now a traveler. Thanks for signing up. Our membership's been doing really well. Alright, do you see that Porsche store? And this is a shout out to Mr. Johnston, who's a train otaku like me. I'm going to go here one of these days in the very near future. And you see that old building right there. That's the old original Shimbashi Station, where they still have a museum and reminders in there of the 1870s. And there's some nice things to remember that era over in that region. And what makes it pretty unique is that around it, you see the old Shimbashi Station and the terminus was there. Now it's over on this side. Above it, you see all those new buildings. And the city said, we're protecting old Shimbashi Station so it has been protected.

00:34:21 John Daub: And I wish they'd do that with more buildings but I don't think you can get rid of the old Shimbashi Station right there. A lot of people don't even realize it. They'll walk past it and don't realize that they're walking past history. Man that was the first major train station in Tokyo. That was Tokyo Station kind of—this is where all the trains would start and end here at Shimbashi right there. A lot of people don't know that. You buy a JR Rail Pass and you don't even know that. Well I don't think it's actually relevant maybe it's not relevant but just history. Pretty excited about it when you're living in a city with so much history as Edo—I mean Tokyo—it's pretty amazing.

00:35:26 John Daub: Well check out this little soba stand here. That's a udon stand. There's nobody in there they're talking about the Bible. So they do religious conversions through loudspeaker on cars through the city. Interesting. Right, only in Japan talking about Christianity through speakers. I don't know if it works or not. But the great thing about loudspeakers is that you can't not hear it even if you cover your ears. It's pretty loud so you sort of works through brute force you get people to convert I guess I don't know. See this is the island that I was talking to you about and I don't know how much longer that these group of buildings are going to be here. You have the shinkansen line here and here and then there's this weird island that we walked around about 30 minutes ago. I don't know what they're going to be doing with that but I don't see it in the plans for the city.

00:36:34 John Daub: And there's the Hooters and the orange in the center we were at saying goodbye to that building and there you go that's my bicycle right there. I know it's really very shocking but this is a pretty neat area to visit and stay if you're going to be picking an area where to stay in Tokyo. Shimbashi might be probably an ideal place. Not only are the hotels pretty affordable here—maybe a little bit run down—but you can't beat the nightlife here in Shimbashi. Oh probably not the best place to park my bicycle but sorry City Tokyo. Sorry that's where we started the live stream that's a thumbnail that's where we ended. It's kind of a neat scene. You could jump on the Yamanote line and get over to Tokyo Station to get on the shinkansen or you can go this way to Shinagawa and jump on the shinkansen there.

00:38:05 John Daub: So wherever you go you can jump on the shinkansen. It's kind of neat. Shimbashi is one of my favorite places not because I live near here but also because it's got a lot of character to it. A lot of the buildings here go all the way back to the Showa era and they're still thriving in a way sort of because they're supported by old people who are nostalgic. And Japan's seniors are the leaders here don't you forget it. The young people they're like working in convenience stores and totally disconnected. It's the older generation that votes. Yeah so there's that and this is where you come if you want to relive an era that was priceless. I like this Showa era very much. I wish I was here during the Showa era. I came in the Heisei 10. It's 10 years too late.

00:39:02 John Daub: So there you have it. Any questions? This is the part of the live stream where you can say where you're watching from but I do appreciate the support. Go check out now that 18 minute edited video on Wagyu and let me know on the comments on that video what you think about Wagyu. Did this change your mind? Did Omi in Shiga Prefecture—does Omi beef treat their cattle better than other places? Would you try Omi beef now that you've seen that video? Do you think that it makes a difference how they treat the cattle? Two to a pen with a lot of fresh air coming in and green pastures all around them. Do you think that makes a difference to you? Leave me a message yes or no. I want to hear from you on the new video. It's a big deal for me it took me like ages to edit. Just kind of got to push that a little bit.

00:39:57 John Daub: Alright there you go from Shimbashi Station. I'll be back tomorrow in another live stream uh probably in the morning maybe at that railroad station depends on the weather but I'm also going to be traveling. Just a notice um on the Kickstarter project I do have on I want you all to mark this down in calendars. October 10th is when I'm going up there and live streaming our fireworks festival. October 10th 10-10 at 6 p.m. which is like 2 a.m. California or something. Alright it's not a convenient time for America but I'm gonna make an announcement for this um coming up in the next couple of days. I want everybody to watch this and share it. You might have to wake up in the middle of the night to watch it but it's when they've launched fireworks. I can't change that. I asked them as a joke if they would do it at midnight and they didn't even answer.

00:41:09 John Daub: You can't get on here because he's airing it out. This is airing it out that's inside of a Tokyo bus. Hey Kenny Riddle John speaking of religion have you ever had any weird encounters or heard stories about Japanese cults that target foreigners and their wallets? I have not. I know that they exist but I have not heard—I've not experienced it myself. Hey John Kimura you got it. I'm picking up—I'm picking up Kanae some takoyaki that's her request for today. Uh Kenny actually when I first came to Japan one of the places that I lived was Hiroshima. I lived there for—for I moved there twice over my 23 years living in Japan so I lived there for about a year or over a year. And uh there weren't a lot of foreigners in Hiroshima unless they were a U.S. Marine because there's a Marine base in Iwakuni.

00:42:00 John Daub: And they would all come out to Hiroshima to you know to party. So I had some friends from the U.S. Marines they're crazy and very actually good guys just a little crazy but they're always good friends and very loyal—loyal friends. And if you ever got in a fight—why would you get a fight in Japan—if you ever in a bar fight I think you want some Marines on your side. So never I never got in a bar fight but I always had some buddies to drink with in Hiroshima. But I bring this up because apart from the Marines the only other foreigners were English teachers and Mormons. And I don't know cult at all but I always—you couldn't mistake it how well dressed that they were and how polite that they were. And they didn't really push it but you could always talk about it a little bit and then you could just talk about anything else.

00:42:55 John Daub: And sometimes they would use it. Hey do you want to go get something to eat and they'd be like okay. So they're always so friendly and really good—very good people. I'm not too interested in the extent of religion exposure that I've had to Japan besides my trips to the temples and the shrines which are very non-pushy. Nobody tries to convert you. If you go to a shrine in Japan it is what it is. Um and everybody pretty much is born Shinto and dies Buddhist so uh there's that I don't know. Um but nothing like cult wise nothing like that. Yeah uh Japanese love Italians. Yeah of course they do everybody loves Italians except—I don't know do they love Italians in Italy? I don't know I guess so. You'd be expected to cook a lot though let's just—I'll just put that out there if you come here you're going to be expected to cook a lot of spaghetti I don't know.

00:44:00 John Daub: The last thing I want to leave you with is the Tottori Okayama store. If you can't get the Tottori Okayama there are satellite stores and what makes this interesting is that these two prefectures—one in the Sea of Japan the other one on the Seto Inland Sea—Okayama and Tottori combined together to make this store. So instead of having one store they have two and in Okayama a denim is very popular. So you see they're selling the denim from Okayama. Japanese denim jeans are world famous and you can see that they manufactured denim in Okayama homemade handmade still today. It's very pricey but I think you do get what you pay for. Here's some denim jackets all of them. A high fashion made its way to Japan but Japan embraced it and they do such an amazing job. Look at that denim. Kind of look good in that yeah the indigo.

00:44:49 John Daub: Um Shikoku has some of the best indigo which is just across from Okayama. In Tokushima has a really good indigo culture so yeah the denim in Okayama is world class. And I was thinking of going down there and checking it out. They got some denim masks that you can buy too which uh are pretty nice—very stylish. So there you have it um I hope that you enjoyed this live stream just pretty much walking around and chillaxing in the afternoon on Shimbashi's Ginza entrance. It's a pretty neat place to stay if you are picking this as your location your hub on a trip to Japan. Um I do think that the restaurants here and the nightlife here is better when you are staying here so you don't have to get on the train you can just like crawl into your bed here in Shimbashi.

00:45:51 John Daub: It's worth it especially if you're—the hotels here are a little bit cheaper a lot cheaper than neighboring Ginza. And I just showed you that Ginza you could just get there like five minutes from here. So the fact that this is actually cheaper and so close to not just the subway stations for the Ginza line which takes you to Shibuya the buses all of the depot are here. So I'll be back here in the next couple of days, I think to bring you the Shimbashi old station and walk around that area next time. Have a good day everybody. Take it easy. Stay safe. Stay healthy stay positive and that's all I want to say. Always I can just keep talking for hours, but I won't. Mata ne.