00:00:08 John Daub: Hey everybody, welcome to Shinjuku. This is a very busy and bustling area with a lot of history and today we're going straight ahead to a market that has been here since after World War II, after the air bombings. This area was created and I'm going to take you there and show you a little bit inside of what we call today Omoide Yokocho (Memory Lane) and what they called it something else in the past.

00:00:37 John Daub: How you doing everybody? So I'm going to get a little bit out of the way here. We're going to be exploring this area and then afterwards I'll take you a little bit around Shinjuku to see how this area has changed. But before I cross the street I wanted to show you a photo from this exact spot here. And this photo goes back to, we believe like, can you see that right there? Back to 1950. And there's the entrance right there. It says Shinjuku Nishiguchi (Shinjuku West Exit). That's the entrance right there that you can see straight ahead and that's where we're going to be going. Jason, sorry about the glare. I'll show it to you again when we get underneath that covered area over there. Just to share you a little bit of the history there. That sign that's green over there says Omoide Yokocho. And over the years it has changed significantly. In 1999 it suffered a very big fire that destroyed 28 of the 90 shops, I believe.

00:01:42 John Daub: I remember seeing that on the news when I came to Japan over 20 years ago. Let's see if we get the glare off of this a little bit. So this is the area in 1950. You see the entrance there? It says Shinjuku Nishiguchi down there, the white entrance. That's where we are right now. And that sign sort of is in the exact same place. You can see the symbol Nishiguchi here. The history of it going all the way back. And I love it when we can tie history in with these walks going around Tokyo.

00:02:19 John Daub: Now, we are in a pandemic here. This is a, would be considered a very tight space. So it's important for you to wear a mask. Not so much so you can catch anything, but so that you don't give it to other people. That's the most important thing. If we're all wearing masks, then it has really reduced the infections here. And that's why Tokyo has done such a great job. It's like completely gone, but it's much better controlled than in a lot of other really big cities.

00:02:48 John Daub: All right. And after this, I'm going to take you onto the other side of the tracks and show you how modern Shinjuku has come as well as show you some more historical photos. Let's get in here. We're going to go into Omoide Yokocho. And already right away, you can see on the left side, they have, this is the sign for Tokyo saying that they're adhering to the COVID-19 policies, the rules with alcohol and social distancing. And we're going to get a chance to see that in here. They put up every season, they'll change the leaves in the spring. You'll have cherry blossoms in the fall. You have koyo (autumn leaves) or changing of the leaves. So let's get in.

00:03:19 John Daub: A lot of the shops here have changed hands and they're no longer owned by Japanese. I'd say it's like maybe 50-50. It's hard to tell. But a lot of immigrants have come in here and bought the property. One reason that a lot of people are willing to sell this really prime real estate is because of what I showed you before, this is all like really old wooden buildings, right? This is absolutely a fire hazard. And after 1999, a lot of business owners said, you know what? Maybe this isn't the best place to have a business. We're going to be walking back and forth a couple of times. This is a very famous shop right here, Ui-chan and they've been here for a very long time. The thing is, though, like a lot of the people who actually do eat here are really long time customers of Omoide Yokocho. They have been eating here for decades and it's just an old habit that they can't stop doing. Despite the tourists and how this has changed over the last 20 years. They still come here and do breakfast. So there are still locals here, which is kind of a cool story.

00:04:53 John Daub: We're already at the end of this alley. Just wanted to give you a quick walk through before we get a little bit more in depth. There's yakitori (grilled chicken skewers) and yakitori. Yakitori Yokocho (Grilled Chicken Alley) is where you can come and get yakitori. They were approximately in the 1950s after World War Two. This whole area is like kind of influenced by Odakyu. There's an Odakyu train line that goes out into the suburbs. But there's also the Odakyu department store, which is just like a stone's throw away. You have to throw it pretty far. It's like a three, four minute walk from here. They had a big influence on this area after World War Two. And they, according to some of the historical sites from Odakyu, there were 300 shops in this area, all of them selling food. And back after World War Two, a lot of people just didn't have places to go. Everything had been destroyed. So that's when these shacks were built.

00:06:05 John Daub: Let me get here. Here's one of the alleys I'm going to take you to next. That's that alley over there. And we're going to go there next and wrap around. And you can see just how I'm going to turn it vertical. I could have printed these out, but I'm trying to save paper. Do you see how they're all just kind of shacks built really fast after World War Two, just to give people a business and a place to eat? And there's the road that we started on. We crossed that road to get here. It hasn't changed too much. The landscaping and here it is. Maybe in the 1990s, you see all those different colored roofs. It's very, very old. It's very easy for it to catch fire. There's the train lines on the right side. And that's the intersection that we crossed. This is pretty much, I guess, I think it was like 1948. It was a lot open, no skyscrapers around in the area. And that's where we started here. There's a little bit less glare on this photo. Just to give you some perspective of how important historically it is.

00:07:15 John Daub: It does look like chaos and it feels like chaos. And that's the beauty of these shops that still retain that Showa era. It's kind of mixed in with the old Showa era. The 1980s looking buildings as well. So Shinjuku is just an amazing patchwork of architecture. But here's the deal. Because of the fireproofing and the earthquake proofing of buildings, my feeling is that this is not going to be here forever. If they've already destroyed Harajuku Station and they're going to rebuild it so that it's not a danger should a big fire earthquake happen, probably that's going to happen here too. And they make this into a museum. So we're going to lose some of that authenticity of what they call Omoide Yokocho. But what a lot of people called, do you know? They used to call this back in the day, Shōben Yokocho (Piss Alley). And Shōben Yokocho means piss alley. It was called piss alley because people would just piss in the alley. Because it's an alley. Where else are you going to go? Well we're going to find inside here, there's a place where you actually can use the restroom. So if you do come, this will be a guide.

00:08:26 John Daub: Can somebody explain to Martian that this is a mobile live stream? Blame YouTube. The app makers could absolutely make this 1080p. Hi John, a fan from the Philippines. Have a great day. Thank you. Meiji Yu and Jeff Ang. Hi John, I really miss that alley. Get yourself a refreshing drink. Thank you Jeff. I appreciate that. I think we missed a couple of questions earlier. But I'm going to take you in one more time and show you now. Oh yeah, Radoslav. Very cool. BGN, is that Bulgaria? I don't know that currency. Alright, let's go back in one more time. I'm going to show you here the street on the outside of the alley. And then we're going to go in and I'm going to show you where the restroom is. And I don't think the restroom has changed in 30 years. I think it's the same thing.

00:09:24 John Daub: Alright, this is the kind of a shotengai (covered shopping arcade). It's a covered area right off of the street. This really hasn't changed that much over the last 30 years. There's a lot of exchanges, ticket booths. You can get discounted tickets here. There's some places to eat cheap lunches. And some of these restaurants here connect into Omoide Yokocho. There's a very busy intersection down the street. And just pan around here. A very big, big camera. And there's Odakyu right across the street. That's one of the many buildings that they own. And the Odakyu department store is right here. Shinjuku on a street. Pretty interesting afternoon. Alright, let's get back in here.

00:10:06 John Daub: Oh, they look dapper. For those that want a shortcut to the other side, you can get underneath the tracks. There is a secret escape hatch for Shinjuku right here. Not that many people know about this. If you go around the back, there's a tunnel over there. Do you see it? Right there. It'll take you underneath the tracks. You get to the other side. Boom. It's as simple as that. And here's that alley from before. I don't know. There's not too much back here to see. But it's a pretty unique alley. Especially at night when they turn on the lights. It really glows. Alright, let's go back into Omoide Yokocho.

00:11:21 John Daub: Here are the remaining restaurants right there. And you can see, I stopped there at Ui-chan. Ui-chan is right there. That's in the middle one. Right there. This has been a popular place for a long time. And I believe it's the original owner. But a lot of these in the front here have sold to new owners. And it does look old, but they're not the original owners anymore. Which is probably not a bad thing. You want to keep everything fresh. You can see, motsunabe (offal hot pot) is something that is very very popular here. Motsunabe is, I don't know, awful? Which is kind of like the guts of the animals. The things that people would throw away, they made it into a stew called motsunabe. And motsunabe is very very popular here. Even though it's like one of these post-World War II foods of just recycled parts. They made it into something that even today is very, and usually they'll have the motsunabe simmering on the front there. Because it's part of the history. A big pot of it will be boiling. And if you're coming here to drink and get a couple of beers, you're definitely going to want to try to get some of the motsunabe.

00:12:45 John Daub: Here's Ui-chan, which I showed you about earlier. And yeah, you can see some of them just kind of look like I love the symmetry of this to have a ramen bar. Is that ramen? Just right there on the corner. That's what gives it so much personality. They're not straight lines here inside of the alley. No smoking for obvious reasons because that causes fires. And I think it's now law. They also have cameras to make sure that there's no crime. I'm waving to the cameras. Just showing that there's a lot of security here. Alright, let's see if I can find that restroom.

00:13:32 John Daub: Oh, it's closed. The restroom is closed. So down here through this... I guess they open it up at night. But through there, this creepy alley is a restroom that has... could be in Trainspotting as the worst toilet in Scotland or maybe in Japan. But I think they've cleaned it up a little bit. It is kind of creepy. And it's through these bars. But they open this up at night so that people can use the restroom. I guess during the day they don't want... There's other options. They don't have to use the alley. But it's pretty cool. Very cool. Do you have any questions about Omoide Yokocho? I'm going to take you back in through there. I'll show you a little bit more. I don't like to film the restaurant owners and the other people. I do think that there's a certain amount of privacy that people should have. But if there's nobody in there, I can kind of let you have a look in there.

00:15:08 John Daub: Here's some yakiniku (grilled meat) places. You do get amazing bargains. And my feeling is of Shinjuku that it is one of the most competitive places to do business. The rent is pretty high because of the foot traffic. But there's also so much competition here. So the prices are low. So you have to do business on volume. And when you have that kind of a problem, this place was especially hit hard by the pandemic. A lot of businesses have gone under. The ones that stayed afloat were the businesses that didn't really have to pay rent or anything. They were the owners. Everybody had to pay rent pretty much. The stimulus package didn't do too much to help them because the rent was just so ridiculously high in here if you don't have customers coming in. Let's walk in through here.

00:16:01 John Daub: Suzette's here! Snack for you and Kanae! Ooh, I think I will get her. You know what, Suzette? I gotta talk to Suzette for a second. Alright, Suzette? Kanae's been watching the video that I made in the last video. In Shiga Prefecture, the Omi beef episode. So she asked me to get some wagyu coming home. So that's what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna bring some wagyu and then we're gonna cook it on our balcony like we did a couple of, a few months ago during the pandemic. She's craving the beef after watching it over and over again on our TV. Because as I'm editing it, you can hear the meat sizzling and she would stop what she's doing to come and watch and see me editing that Omi beef episode. So I gotta bring her back some meat. Shinjuku's a good place for that.

00:16:52 John Daub: These are called noren (shop curtains). These curtains here give a little bit of privacy. But oh, I've eaten ramen at this place before. It's really good. A place where if you do have midnight munchies, you can come here and get a bowl of ramen. And they're really fast with serving it up too. Look at the personality on this. All that grime on here. What YouTuber will show you this? And yet it's so awesome. Here's a sign here. It says, new-type coronavirus. They've closed for the virus since the ownership here. And the sign actually apologizes. This is a day off, I guess. I'm not sure when they're gonna be opening again, but the owners that have to close up the business actually apologize. Because you never know when they're gonna open up again.

00:18:00 John Daub: That's not nice. Somebody really... That lady... Did they mean to do that? Kind of cruel. I don't know. Is that part of the sign? I can't tell if they meant to do that because it's so symmetrical. Whoever touched this up, it's like the perfect situation. I mean, I don't know. What's different? I don't know if they meant to do that. It's hard to tell these things. So there you go. Yakitori is the big draw here. There is a little bit of graffiti. I mean, you don't see graffiti too much. But when you do see a little bit of it, it says to you, Shinjuku. Because we don't have graffiti in the countryside too much anyways. It says Shinjuku to me.

00:19:09 John Daub: This is Omoide Yokocho, Kevin, and welcome to everybody. Some of the restaurants. This looks more like a chain restaurant. So over the years, Omoide Yokocho has become I don't know. It's an important place to me because I remember when I came here first time in 1998 when I first came to Japan. It was a little bit more authentic. Not that many tourists were coming here. It was still more kind of local. I guess when the 2000s hit, we started to see more and more tourism coming to Japan and that's when this became almost overrun with tourists. And just now, it's really a different situation than it was before the pandemic. Now it's more locals coming back a little bit. More people trying to support the local businesses. So that's actually a good thing. The location of this is awesome. And there's so many hotels in this area. It's very easy to make a trip to Omoide Yokocho to go check it out.

00:20:20 John Daub: Yeah. So maybe we're going to make one more trip through here from a different angle later on. Not a lot of people. Typically on a weekday, you would have tons of tourists here and these shops would be open serving lunch. But not today. Let's go underneath this bridge here. This is where the JR Yamanote line and the Chuo line and a bunch of other lines cut through here. The Chuo Main Line. And I'm going to show you up here. Do you see that Labi? That is a building, I believe, that's going out of business or at least the big TV screens are.

00:21:00 John Daub: Labi in itself hasn't been here that long. But I believe the TV screens and the shape of the building is kind of iconic because in so many Hollywood movies, when they portray Japan, they have a scene from this direction. There's a pedestrian overpass about 200 meters straight. And that is every single Hollywood movie has had a scene of Tokyo. Maybe it just plays for two seconds. Taken at sunset from that pedestrian bridge over there. You can see it if you use Google Maps. You'll be able to scout it out pretty quickly. I think I did a live stream with Peter von Gomm when we went around on a motorbike in 2017. It's kind of a classic now. I started the live stream from that bridge showing you downtown Shinjuku and we rode on his motorbike through Shinjuku at night which is pretty cool.

00:22:03 John Daub: There are some homeless here in Shinjuku and they've had a really rough time as well. So this is the Unica Vision and there's three screens here. I know it's not cheap to operate this. I'm sure it uses a lot of electricity. Not a lot of people are advertising here because as you can see foot traffic is way down because of the pandemic. I don't know exactly why but I know Labi, their business plan, this is Yamada Denki, their business plan was very much on relying on tourism. Especially Chinese tourists who are buying a lot of electronic products and taking it home. Without tourism, they've all been in the red and that's meaning a lot of closures including the Tsukumo building in Akihabara's Denki Town. Which I made a video on last month before it closed down. I went inside those hamster looking tubes. Which is so iconic.

00:23:20 John Daub: Alright, we're about to cross the street here. That's Kabukicho over there. Click that like button if you like these walks around here and if we can get over maybe 2,000 likes on this, I might come back at night and do a Kabukicho nighttime walkthrough because I think it's really a special experience to walk through there. I won't go too late at night because I know that it could be a little dangerous. You have some people that probably don't want to be filmed. But if you get there like around at sunset a little bit after, maybe it's okay. Or very late at night at 1. I don't know. I came here by bicycle. 2,000. See you tonight. Oh no, geez. Don't say that. It'll probably be in the next week or so. I'm going up to Akita Prefecture for a fireworks festival soon. And I've actually come to Shinjuku to pick up some lenses at Map Camera that I bought.

00:24:21 John Daub: Do you see this here? They've been installing Wi-Fi all over for the Olympics, but also these 5G, I believe this is part of the 5G network that is starting this month. It's rolling out even hardcore because of the Apple, the iPhone is coming out with 5G and there's just a kind of urgency from the city of Tokyo to get the 5G network up. A lot of the 5G is installed inside of these traffic lights, which always have electrical power running because 5G signal can't go around or through buildings, even has problems going through trees and bushes. They need to have 5G routers or signal transfer relayers all over the place. So you see that a lot in Shinjuku. The dream of having driverless cars is real and I think that Japan will have that on the streets by 2021 when the Olympics happen. You're just going to see cars with nobody in it driving around. That would be pretty cool, wouldn't it? Boom!

00:25:29 John Daub: Alright, we're going to walk in there a little bit. This is a bonus. See if we can get a thousand likes and I'll take you in there. So if you're watching, there's no reason why we can't break 1,000. There's my bicycle. They've been putting in these bicycle racks in here and I think it's a great idea. There's my bike right there. If you stay for an hour, you pay 100 yen or a dollar, but it keeps the traffic out of the area. Usually there's bikes all over the place. Gyudon (beef bowl) curry rice. Wow, it's been ages since I was here with my friends Dan and Lincoln from What's Inside. We filmed a square watermelon episode I think it was like two years ago now. Those guys did it in one take too. I was their cameraman. I was helping them out too. It's a good episode.

00:26:41 John Daub: And everybody knows this scene, right? You know where I am now. Raise your hand if you know where I am. In the distance, towering above that hotel. That's right. For all of you that cannot be here in Japan that had to cancel your trips, I'm here for you today. It's kind of a cool scene. It's really neat at night. Hotel Gracery. There's a nice cafe up there so you can eat on this little balcony and you get really close to. Uber Eats is on the move. Alright, let's take a look. Oh, Godzilla's not wearing a mask. He's breathing that bad Mothra breath on everybody. I've been on the lookout for these hot cake mon. Can't find them anywhere. Might have to take a quick look, see.

00:27:57 John Daub: A lot of people are out and about more than usual because today starts the go-to travel campaign for Tokyoites, meaning Tokyoites can now leave Tokyo on a discounted deal where they can get the government benefits in order to travel. It means the government's kind of paying them to go and travel now. The rest of the country has had that for a while and Tokyo started a little bit late. WX Turbo's here. Rock on. Matthew. Grab some food. Maybe if I find something I'll try to grab something off the street here. Irvonne. Someone say lenses. I know, Irvonne. Irvonne, that's what I'm here to get. I'm here to get that. This way will take you to the robot restaurant that nobody goes to. Robot restaurant has been hurting very badly. Let's see if they're even in business anymore.

00:29:14 John Daub: I'm gonna take you back to the alley that we started at to end this live stream. So we're gonna be going on for another 15 minutes or so. We're really not that close to 2,000 likes for the return to Shinjuku to do a live stream at night here. We're gonna have to do better, people. Oh, let's see what they got on the menu here. What? All you can eat and then all you can drink. All you can eat and drink plan is 100 yen. It's $30. What? That's so cheap. Makes you suspicious on the quality, huh? Can't be that bad, right? Pasela Resorts. Pasela! Oh! I did a, um, what is this? Business hotel. A lot of business hotels here. I love in the alleys here you'll see people that are doing stuff. Little businesses. Shinjuku has so much personality. Look at this Chinese restaurant that I think has been around for decades. The old style of it from the 1950s. Early 60s.

00:30:46 John Daub: But Pasela is the one that have a love hotel called Bali-an and it's like going to a Bali resort. We filmed it for NHK like 10 years ago. I filmed inside of a love hotel for NHK which is in itself really weird. We had to do other hotels to make it not just about love hotels though with it being NHK. It was like a requirement. But Pasela is the one that came up with this idea to make love hotels like a resort and instead of hiding who you were with you would check in like a regular hotel. It was a unique concept and it did quite well. Kanae won't go though. She said she won't go. Looks good.

00:31:33 John Daub: I think the robot restaurant used to be around here. Hey Tommy K! Good morning John. Thanks for all the great vids. Stay safe and keep up the great work. The Wagyu segment on the other channel made me dream of the day we can go back to Tokyo. Yes! Kabukicho! We love you Kabukicho! Can you win one of these in the UFO catchers? Sort of. That's a big one. Hey Nick Chong! What's up brother? Thanks for helping us relive memories around the Shinjuku Omoide Yokocho Kabukicho. Pick up some Ringo apple pie. Oh you know about those! They've opened up a bunch of locations too. There's one in Hibiya which is the one I go to the most. Check it out! This game and I'm not...if I start filming myself with this they'll tell me to turn off the camera. That's why I can't play it and film it. But these Taiko games, they're really hard. I stink. It lasts like 30 seconds too.

00:32:48 John Daub: It's nice to see that they still have these games and there's already a staff member eyeing me over there. I don't know why everyone is so strict with filming. I think this morning Peter von Gomm got busted at the end of his livestream with Joji. I like kind of a retro feel to this right? It's like all the buildings if you just look up you can feel the retro-ness of it all. Yeah look at this. It's closed up. This is I think where you would get the tickets. It opens at 2:30. But I don't think that they're doing too well. This used to be one of the biggest attractions and I heard that they sunk in like something like 10 million dollars or something for this. The PR was incredible for this. And everyone started to come here including I think some of the big travel shows on TV came here. Anthony Bourdain even came here and said the food sucks but the show is incredible. It was pretty classic. I remember that line. Don't come here for the food. I think they gave them a bento. When I came they didn't even have the bentos. Oh here it is. Robot Restaurant. That's new.

00:34:26 John Daub: Shogun Burger. I don't know. Is that something that would interest you? How can vegetarian be okay? Does that make sense? No. Does that look vegetarian okay? I don't know. What about this one? No. Wagyu pork. I don't... What does that mean? What does that mean? Vegetarians that are cringing right now. I guess they mean that the cows are vegetarians maybe. I don't know. It's interesting. You know what? I don't see the I forget where the entrance is to this but there you go. Oh there's the Bali Lounge. That's what I'm talking about. The Love Hotel. Is that here? I think it's on the other side. The Bali Lounge Love Hotel. That was so nice. That was the... Oh let's go this way. The nicest Love Hotel that I went in and I'm not admitting that I've been into others. I kind of just did.

00:35:50 John Daub: The city of Tokyo about three years ago when we had a hotel shortage was promoting Love Hotels as a place for people to stay. Because a lot of them were empty and all the other hotels were full and people were saying well we can't book a place. Well if you couldn't you could always go to a Love Hotel then there's I don't know thousands of rooms that were available after 10pm. You have to go for a stay and you have to go do that after 10pm. Oh here's the Robot Restaurant. It's pretty massive. Yeah I'm not gonna go inside there. I tried to live stream in there. They blocked it or something. I don't know why. It must have been the music.

00:36:46 John Daub: Alright. These alleys here and Kabukicho one of the things that I do love about Kabukicho not so much that it's kind of dirty but I do love the personality in the alleys. The streets. The fact that these buildings they all really haven't changed much over the decades. The signs. The kanban (shop signs) going up. Don't just look at the ground floor. These businesses go all the way up. Three, four floors. You're gonna find something interesting. This Robot Restaurant pretty much owns Kabukicho. Manzoku Station. Manzoku means satisfied by the way. Manzoku. Good word to know. Satisfied. When you put it together. I'm so bad at the UFO catcher games. They just take my money. John Kimura is in here for the food. Alright we'll find something maybe to grab here. I am kinda hungry.

00:38:08 John Daub: Francis Young Jr. When are you filming Hayama? Oh Hayama is a great place to live. I've got so many friends who live in that area. Up there on the hill. Great views. Long views. Looking over to Mt. Fuji. Not too far from Zushi. I believe the Emperor has a house there. They also have Hayama Beef which is a very famous Wagyu beef brand. That's the beef of the Emperor. That's what I've been told. Maybe one of these days. I was asked to go down to Yokohama for dinner. To a place that might be going out of business. A historical place. I thought about filming that to try to preserve it. Oh this is deep. Deep Kabukicho here. You see all the signs. It's neat to see some of the traditional Japanese art here on the street though.

00:39:04 John Daub: Alright we're gonna wrap around now. We're just underneath the Godzilla. And then I'll wrap around to the left. Just imagine back in 1946 after the bombings in Tokyo was one of the hardest hit places in the history of war with bombing. There was nothing here. It was just all leveled. Shinjuku as this area was just all leveled. One of the reasons why this is such a patchwork of buildings is they tried to build stuff really quick and grow after this and they didn't have much to build with for a long time. Oh I guess we walked too far. Is this it here? Alright let's go back. It's easy to get lost back in the alleys of Kabukicho and end up in the wrong place.

00:40:28 John Daub: I see that. There are some pretty cool cafes and bars. Again like I'm not going out and drinking and hanging out with my friends yet. We're still in the middle of a pandemic. There's incentives to go and do that but we're still kind of hanging back and seeing what happens. The Go To Eat campaign also started where people can get vouchers to get up to I think it's like 2 or 3 thousand yen or like 20 or 30 bucks off of dinner if you go out to eat. But we're still both, Kanae and I are a little bit iffy on going out there because everybody's going out right now to dinner because I mean if it's half price you can go out and get like yakiniku or nabe (hot pot) half price. The restaurants get full. All of them have to comply to the policies but look at the little alleys. This is not too far away from Golden Gai which is about 150 meters this way. That's another live stream. Walk through there during the pandemic I wonder how they're doing. Especially now when there's these vouchers for saving money. I think you can even get discounts off of drinks.

00:41:54 John Daub: I think people in Japan are quite conservative usually. That's never good to see. Neither is that. I mean what do you think you see a hand starting to come over and just a fang. See that? You just see a fang and a fingertips. Kind of creepy right? This used to be where people went to see the cinema and there were some really big cinema in a plaza over here that I went to 20 some years ago. But this area was also very seedy and very dirty 20 years ago and they've made a huge effort and cleaned this up greatly. This building here, this hotel has really been kind of the center stone of Kabukicho cleaning this area up making it more presentable to tourism. Because I don't think it was the perfect place for tourism back 20 years ago. You'd stay here because it was cheap. It was like Nishinari-ku in Osaka or something. Kind of a really seedy place.

00:43:14 John Daub: Now there's a big mix match of stuff. You can see that seediness is still kind of here. If you remember the Netflix drama The Naked Director that was also filmed back in this area as well. There's that plaza I was telling you about. I guess we can have a really quick look see. Then we're gonna walk back to Omoide Yokocho, the alley that we started at. Do one more walk through. Hey Wano, you chill out with that manzoku okay? I teach you a word and you start to abuse it huh? No manzoku for you. Alright this plaza has been, I haven't been here in a decade I think. There's no reason for me to come back. Wow what? They removed the cinema. This straight ahead used to be a massive cinema. Now it's gone. What? Confusion. This was here, this game center. Very weird. I didn't know. It's probably been like this for years but they've taken it out there. Kabukicho is on the move.

00:44:49 John Daub: Hey Brett Fletcher, John. Are they going to cancel the Sumo Grand Tournament? I haven't heard that yet. I know that like in the United States the NFL is still going on, the basketball finals are on, sporting events are going on around the world. I'm not sure what they're going to be doing with the Sumo Grand Tournament but I do believe that they've held some Sumo tournaments before just without any audience. Alright we're going to walk back now to Omoide Yokocho and thanks for the question. I'm going to look that up when I get back home. We're going to walk through this area of Kabukicho back towards Omoide Yokocho also known as Yakitori Yokocho. And then after people drink a little bit, I guess after 11pm it becomes Shōben Yokocho which is PP Alley.

00:45:43 John Daub: It's at night, this road, that a lot of people will take pictures showing these amazing signs. They're not illuminated right now. But especially when the streets it has rained a little bit, the personality of this area, all these lights shining down on the street just giving this amazing neon glare. There you go, Juan. You happy Juan? Juan got his manzoku. Simon is saying that the Sumo Grand Tournament is taking place. Juan might be respected in the same way that Toby (crow) is now every time we walk past a manzoku sign. We'll think of Juan now. Juan. Very cool.

00:47:00 John Daub: Wait for the truck to go by. Hi John, this is Joe from Virginia Beach. Somebody asked me what the Tokyo Bunny is. How would I know? I just went past it for the first time. I did eat in a restaurant here but it looks like it's out of business. There was an idol Niku gang. That doesn't sound... What do they do? You eat meat and then they gang up on you? There was a restaurant that I had a yakiniku party at back in the day. I used to have this club called the Yakiniku Club. Every 29th day on Niku no Hi (Meat Day) maybe about 40 of us would go out to a Facebook event and meet and have some yakiniku. There was a restaurant right here on this alley and I can't find it anymore. It was owned by an idol. She had quit and she started, I believe in this building here, a yakiniku restaurant. I don't know. It doesn't seem like it's here anymore. We had dinner there. It was pretty cheap and pretty good. This is the entrance here that we met. The businesses down here will typically go out of business every two or three years. Nobody really can make... You make a heap of money because you're a new business then the business starts to trickle down and then you sell and then a new business comes and then they have a boom because they're new business. That's sort of the way it always goes.

00:48:41 John Daub: So there you go. Don't say I didn't take you to Kabukicho, okay? Just one big noise machine. Okay. It's copyrighted music. Oh, you get two hours for free. That's six hours for 30 yen. That's cool. Copyright music. How dare you blast so loudly. My livestream. You corrupted us. Look at that view looking back at the city. Awesome! That is Shinjuku, brother. You know, Irvan knows where I'm going now. One last look at Unica Vision. This is going to be going out of business. I guess they're going to be tearing it down soon. This was on the chopping block. It's one of the victims of the pandemic. Unica Vision was again like from over there you could see this platform where Hollywood would take all the introduction to Tokyo photos. And this is the end of Unica Vision. We're going to see a different Tokyo.

00:50:09 John Daub: I would love to livestream Map Camera. I don't think that's going to happen though. I got some serious shopping to do, brothers. That's right. So that's Yebisu Garden Place. And we're walking down underneath the Yamanote Line which is right here. And I'm going to take you through one more time for those of you that have been waiting patiently to go through Omoide Yokocho which is a historical alley going back. The signal might kind of fade out. We're pretty deep inside this tunnel. Let me hustle through here. Image Alley. Last couple of streams have been pretty chill. Love it! Small donation for the tip jar. Thank you! That pays for the bandwidth too.

00:51:07 John Daub: Speaking of which, I do have another livestream I was thinking of doing because the 5G mobile phone carrier war is so hot right now in Tokyo. Rakuten has entered into Oh, we just missed the light. Rakuten has entered into the mobile business and they have been extremely aggressive giving all you can use 5G. Straight ahead is the overpass that I was telling you about where you get amazing views. Do you see that? Where the arrows are? Pedestrians can walk across that blue. And it's If you look back at sunset, you will have that Tokyo Drift looking video that you've always wanted if you come to Tokyo. Don't forget to come to this cross pass and get a couple of photos at sunset. You'll thank me later. You could thank me now if you want to. I don't know. It's free country.

00:52:05 John Daub: Alright, that's where we're going to be going. Walking across the street to Omoide Yokocho. For those of you who are just joining us, this is a picture of it in the 1950s. I believe this is Showa 25. And today that's what it looks like. It's pretty different. I think it's important for you if you do come as a tourist to Tokyo to understand some of the history. This all wasn't here until 1946. This is just like a blank slate. And they built this all really quickly. And this area is the only kind of place that has stayed the way it has been for since 1946 pretty much. It's of course changed a little bit. But the layout and the way that the street goes, the unevenness of it all, that's all very much something that we should protect here in Tokyo is where the city came from. I hope that they find a way to do that. But I do know the way that things are going because of the earthquake proofing and the fire proofing and the safety measures that are improving every year or getting stricter. A lot of the old buildings are going down not because to make way to progress for bigger buildings but just because of safety reasons.

00:53:29 John Daub: So let's go in through here one more time. For those that are joining us, the 1400 people welcome to Omoide Yokocho. I'll go really slow this time. There's the motsunabe pot in the middle. That guy's still there drinking beer. Smells like grilling meat. It's so good. Hey Chris Rancey's here. Thank you Chris. Welcome to the alley. It's a good place for ramen. This one too. The competitor. The noren gives people a little bit of privacy there. Very cool. There's Ui-chan. Wee-chan. Look at all these stickers. I should put an Only in Japan sticker here. We should get Brendan Walker's sticker and put that up here too. Shakudama. Put a little Brendan here. Wow and you can smell here. You see the char grilled of the sticks here for the yakitori. That gives it that taste. That's neat that they have that right there.

00:55:18 John Daub: Very cool. And then do you see right here the pot right here on the alley? That's motsunabe just simmering there. And you can tell they're very proud of the recipe motsunabe which is just awful kind of gut stew. It's pretty reasonably priced. They have that there simmering. It's very healthy. I wonder if you can get that to go. I don't think Kanae would be happy bringing she's looking for yakiniku like the good stuff. Again that's motsunabe. And if you do come to Tokyo you should especially this alley do try that. That's a Showa after World War II kind of a meal where they just take the parts of the animal and made a stew out of it. And it's actually pretty good. And very inexpensive. And very good with drinks.

00:56:42 John Daub: Boom! There you go. Glen Terra Oka thanks for joining us here. Raymond Centeno. I remember getting lost at Shinjuku Station. I wish that Slice Juice existed before my visit. Raymond I gotta do one getting lost in Shinjuku because I've kind of figured out how not to get lost there. It just takes a little bit of navigation and there's some landmarks that I could show you. Ryan Kay, Brad Fletcher, Deadly Raver. I have a few bucks to practice UFO catchers. I'm gonna do actually you know what Deadly Raver I'm actually gonna do a video on this for the edited channel about UFO catchers. There's some new technologies, some new things in the industry since the last time I was at a UFO catcher game. So I'm gonna put that towards the production of that episode. It's gonna be pretty comprehensive episode and we'll be filming it outside of the city of Tokyo. There's a place that I know that'll give me access behind the scenes to really show you UFO catcher culture. If I do it I'm gonna do it right. You know what I mean?

00:57:44 John Daub: Francis Young welcome to the Travelers and War Dog. Why Japan isn't full of restaurants and restaurants. Maybe a lot of them have left because of COVID and Jeff Roberts. Doesn't completely have a bad reputation at night. It does a little bit. But and Spike021 again I will go and do some UFO catcher games. I do think that's a part of Japanese culture and it's kind of a neat thing to do with you on a date. And Kanae and I have not been on a date for a while. So there you go everybody. This is what I look like when I walk around. Have a good day, a good night. Thanks so much for the support everybody. We didn't get the 2,000 likes but I believe we will get there. Given time. If we can get to 2,000 likes I'm telling you I'm gonna come back here at night and do a live stream to just give you an atmosphere of what Kabukicho is like at night. It's kind of dangerous to do that. I might have to come with my bros. I don't have any bros. Jennifer? I don't know. Peter's too not he's not strong enough to come at night.

00:58:53 John Daub: Chris Rancy more tip jar. Thank you Chris. That's really awesome. Irvonne knows where I'm going next. I'm getting some lenses for filming the fireworks that's happening on October 10th. You're all invited on the 9th, 10th and 11th. I'm gonna be live streaming up in Akita for our Kickstarter crowdfunding project where I bought a fireworks festival. I literally bought our own special grouping inside of a professional fireworks performance. The only live public one that was not cancelled or changed the date or nothing like that. So thanks everybody. Wear your masks. I always bring a spare mask by the way. Right here. So just in case I need it. Be safe. We're still in the middle of a pandemic. The situation in Japan is a lot better than in other places around the world and hopefully after the election things will settle down in the United States as well and I can come for a visit because we do miss a lot of you. Especially New York City. Our friends over there and everybody in California who we would have seen in March but we couldn't because of the pandemic.

01:00:02 John Daub: Yeah. There you go. I'll try to do another live stream tomorrow as well. October's gonna be full of traveling. The end of September was kinda chill but October I'm getting a rented car, airplanes, lots of trains going to Kochi, going up to Tohoku several times for videos. So it's gonna be very very busy on the Only Japan Go channel. Definitely click that subscribe button and I'll see you again real soon. That's right Jason. Hanabi (fireworks) time. It's gonna be so awesome. I cannot wait and it's only like just a little bit over a week away. How crazy is that? Oh man. Thanks Air2TheRon. You're very welcome. Have a good day guys.