00:00:10 John Daub: Greetings everybody. Welcome to Ameyoko Market. This is Okachimachi Station behind me. I gotta be here to buy some things. I don't want to spend a lot of time here obviously. But we're gonna take a look here at the market and you can make a decision on yourself if this place is safe to go to on a Sunday afternoon. Now it gets really crowded around 1pm. It is now about 12, almost noontime. So we're gonna have a quick look at the market.

00:00:41 John Daub: We're gonna take a quick seat and then move on. I gotta come here to buy candy or goodies for my Patreon supporters. This is a great place to do that because you can find everything in one spot. Now Ameyoko, this market actually has history going back to after World War II when this was the black market of Tokyo where a lot of GIs came here. Which is maybe where the name Ameyoko—America-yoko, yoko meaning kind of like an alley or a side place along the Yamanote line. Ame also is the word for candy. So this could also be where it was very famous because of candy. There's a couple of really famous candy stores not too far away. Oh, they have those PET masks here. How cool is that? It's a design key. They're not the most protective masks, but they do keep the droplets in and you know, the times that we are in, if everybody wears one.

00:01:44 John Daub: It's also a great place for a kaisendon. This is where you get a really good bowl. Many could say it's like sashimi on rice. But this place has been quite famous and has loads and loads of different varieties here. Here's a toro salmon and maguro don for half size for 300 yen and that's crazy cheap. One of the reasons why is because this is an old market up in Ueno-machi. So they have like clearance items. I'd say many of these things are clearance items that have been sitting around for a long time. So they can undersell everybody because the volume of sales is also really high. Now again, almost everybody is wearing a mask. A few people aren't and you just stay clear of them. But in these times that we live in, you have to be really careful everywhere that you go.

00:02:16 John Daub: Eugene Holbrook's here. Thanks, Eugene. It wasn't very long ago that we had another street market view episode in Inuyama just two days ago where I got to eat A5 Wagyu sushi from Hida Beef—Hida up in near Takayama. It was so good. So every now and then I'm going to swoop around and show you. Right now, matsutake mushrooms are really in season for the autumn. Tastes are a little bit expensive. But down here, they're more reasonable. You can see the prices have been slashed. Maybe like half price. They won't tell you the prices. You got to ask them. But that's those matsutake are all from Japan. I also came here because I wanted to see what shops are still in business. Some shops are not in business. And this place that always has kind of a military goods. Like you get that cool retro green vibe from here. Maybe there's history going back where this shop was selling stuff after World War Two—old GI clothes and things like that.

00:04:08 John Daub: [train announcement] Keihin-Tohoku line making its way to Ueno Station up there. Market looks right now it's not as crowded. But there are more and more people here. So our visit will be short. I'm going to wrap around here. Let's go. Let's go through here. And then we're going to come back around to see the other side. In better times, I would hang out here for a really long time because it's an amazing market. Stars and stripes, beans—there's still a very beloved country always will be here in Ameyoko—America underneath the tracks of the Yamanote line. Inside here and a lot of people don't know that but you can go underneath the tracks and there are markets and more sellers in here. Do keep in mind that bargaining is acceptable in Ameyoko but not a lot of people like to do that. Mostly in Japan Japanese culture the price is set. In Osaka they're a little bit more flexible with the price.

00:05:27 John Daub: I like the looks of a lot of these restaurants. You still have that kind of Ueno-machi Showa era feel to it and they preserve the signs the way that they were back in the day and it's I like that. So when you do come and eat here you get a pretty authentic experience. Hey Jennifer French is here. Love these live streams. Thank you Jennifer. I just put in an order for the Postcard Club postcard for November and you're gonna love it. It's from my trip in Nagoya. I know everybody's names because they put the labels on for the Postcard Club and I said oh there's Jennifer French's. Oh there's no surprise it's kind of cool.

00:06:26 John Daub: All right so the fashion has changed from summer to winter. A lot of these places if you're looking for exercise gear and stuff you can find it here. Usually there's bargain bins right there 990 yen and you just pick your way through the bargain bins. I'm not sure I'm gonna do that in these times but that option still exists. What do you think? You see anything good in there? Anybody want to dive in there? Hey Brendan Walker. I'll tell you what Brendan I'm going to circle back around and then take you into the place where they have those cheese dogs. How about that? We'll see if they're still in business and how things are going. I'm kind of walking through to see if anything has changed as well because I'm thinking seriously of making an episode at Ameyoko from a different point of view as I've done in the past.

00:07:30 John Daub: America—it's nice to see stars and stripes representing. You can see the sign of the times here as well probably doing good sales on some of these t-shirts and masks as well. In the front here oh Peter—Peter von Gomm that's something he'd wear. What is that? I've never seen that before. There are restrooms up there I didn't know that. It's good to keep your mind on the always available restrooms. So all right so they're complying with the rules of Tokyo to have alcohol and gel pumps in the front here. That's good to see they're doing the best that they can do. Yeah well I'm kind of scoping it out and seeing what is available. I have a lot of stuff that I'm not really sure what they're doing but I'm hoping that they're doing it well. I haven't been here in a long time and it's interesting to see the options and how they've changed. There's so many new businesses that I'm seeing as well. I'll try to point them out. This was not here too long ago. This looks new—sponge cake castella. Little uh that. Not these again Peter this is kind of stuff he wears at home like his pajamas. Whoa it's cool United States Navy. Very cool. Whoa Top Gun.

00:09:36 John Daub: Hey Mad Hatta it's the Only in Japan gachapon right now. This is the perfect place to put it too. Seriously considering it. I know the perfect person to help me do it too so I'm going to give him a call when things settle down a little bit because I got so many projects coming up this month—JNTO seminars um gosh I'm doing something with Japan Rail up in Tohoku. I'm starting that next week. I have the fireworks festival on Wednesday. By the way you're not gonna want to miss that. Oh this is Hamachan they have really good tempura. You get mountains of it for a pretty affordable price. And I like the fact that you can eat outside here. Oh he was waving at us. Didn't mean to single him out. A lot of old shop signs are still there. So that means this one looks like it's gone out of business. They're closed on a weekend, which is unheard of. Okubo. Yes I hate seeing mom and pop shops going under. This place has changed hands. This taiyaki place a couple of times. They look like they're just starting to open up. Prepare for the lunch rush. If not, people are coming here to eat early. This is lunchtime right now.

00:11:35 John Daub: You know if you do come here back in the spring or the summer or next year when things are a little bit better, this is an amazing place to come at night. Come here early at like 5 and stay until 7:30, 8 o'clock. Just drinking with the locals and stuff. A lot of people who live in the area they still come here. It's really authentic. And that hasn't changed ever. I like that. I've been to this shop as well for NHK to do Kanpai with the Locals in an episode 10 years ago. That was my second Tokyo Eye episode that I came here. That was a good one too. More kaisendon but this is from a chain. So it's a little bit more expensive, maybe 30% more. All right this is a chain too. I think that this might have changed hands or renovated. But you can see the business is back. In Tokyo business is back. Not the same scale but you can see people are really starting to gear up and get ready for the boom. There's a Thai restaurant up there. It smells so good. Ricardo Ortiz. Of course we're live. Welcome. It's very very hard to social distance so I'm just doing a walkthrough.

00:13:05 John Daub: All right we're going to wrap around towards the entrance here and see if my friend's business is doing well. Oh there he is. He's doing good. Hey Shimura-san. Long time no see. How are you? I'm fine. Yay. How's your daughter doing? She's in New York. She's doing telework. Oh telework. It's my first time here. It's been a while since I've been here. Yeah. How are you? Are you okay? I'm okay. Yeah. I hope you'll come back here again. Yeah. Please come here if you're thinking about getting 1,000 yen. He fills a bag full of chocolate. You got to come here. Thank you. I'll come back.

00:14:26 John Daub: Shimura-san is so kind. I can't believe it. I want to put it in. No no no no. He remembers Only in Japan. He's only Japanese. Oh I can't believe it. Amazing. You can have it. Hey wife. Oh yeah it's nice to meet you. Yes. I can do 100 million yen. I'll come again soon. Thank you. Oh I love Shimura-san. He has been at that location. He just gave you a bag for just being here. Ah man these kinds of things make me want to cry a little bit. First of all I'm really glad that he's doing really well. What am I going to do with this? Kanae I just got a bag of chocolate. Yeah one of the nicest guys. Not a lot of tourists have been coming here. So I'm going to say if you do come to Ameyoko probably come and say hi to Shimura-san. He puts on a show. And for 1,000 yen you get more than you bargained for. It's crazy. I'm so happy. I can't believe that. In a second we'll take a look and see what's inside.

00:16:03 John Daub: That's nice. I got a lot of friends here. Not just from doing the NHK show because I've known Shimura-san oh my gosh maybe yeah 11 years I've known him. But I've walked past his shop for 20 so. Oh he didn't have to do that. I'm just coming to say hi. He always makes sure I leave here. I remember walking by once. Oh look at that karaage. I walked back once just say hey Shimura-san and then he said wait and then he gave me a bag of chocolate. I have to be careful if I walk by there. That looks really good this set too. They make the plastic designs for these. There's a place where they sell them at Kappabashi which is just about a 15 minute walk from here. That's a lot of nuts. It's a nut tower. Oh pineapple things like this. This is the place to get it. And it's always really really really competitively priced. So this will be the cheapest place.

00:17:17 John Daub: This is Ueno Station here. And we're going to wrap around now. And I want to see if that cheese dog place is still in business. It was doing a lot of business because of the tourists. And now that I think we're down to like 0.01% of the numbers we had last year a lot of these businesses that have relied so much on tourists have been in the red for quite a while. Eugene Holbrook get something to eat. I'm getting that vibe here. One of the reasons why I haven't is because I have to remove my mask. And that's kind of worrying for me in crowded places. So we'll see if the cheese dog place is there and maybe snag something. The takoyaki place next to the cheese dog place is incredible. This is the street we know. You would go up here these steps and then take a right. This is where we came for the cherry blossoms every year. And not too long now before the colors start to change.

00:18:13 John Daub: Yesterday it was raining really hard. The temperature dipped so low it felt almost like winter. And we thought about turning on the heat almost which I usually don't like to do that till December 1 because Japan is pretty temperate. Not too hot not too cold. That's Tokyo. Anyways what the heck? What is that? That's like dead pigeon. Pigeon gotcha pon. What? Toby did that. What is that? Why is this? Dead crow ones I'd get it. Pigeons. Hello I found a Toby emoji. The members get that. Well check this one out. This is just buttons. Omachishite kudasai. Please wait. All right let's try one. We can get one of these. How much is it? 300 yen.

00:19:36 John Daub: I peeing kids. That's nasty. Others like a Statue of Liberty in sexy poses. That's awesome. That looks like I who wants one of those. All right I got to get one. These buttons look kind of fun and even have a Halloween one. Let's see if I got coins here. Sometimes I don't have it looks like I'm going to be OK. I'll let you vote the Internet. Should I get a button or should I get a sexy Statue of Liberty? Which one should I get? Statue of Liberty in sexy poses. Lady Liberty. Or should I get a button? If you push it it tells you to do something. All right non non rights in button. Gem Defensor or rights in button. Not UFO Bob says button. Adam says button Jackson Schizzi button. Wow looks like button here. The chomp pigeon. I can't live with that. Where am I going to put it? I put it on my jacket to show the pigeons that I mean business now or the crows will think I'm one of them. All right I guess button.

00:21:03 John Daub: It looks like it's button. Anthony says pigeon though. All right we're going to go with this button. And can I give me alcohol to use afterwards? If you touch anything she said oh it's a 50 yen. They don't take 50 yen. All right. So we're getting a button and apparently it works. So hey now. A hundred yen. What? What's up with that? Take my money. No it won't give me any of my money back. I thought it was going to take me for a ride there for a second. Oh what do you think it is? How do I do this with one hand? Hold on a second. Kimball needs a tripod. All right we're just going to do this.

00:22:42 John Daub: I gave me all this candy. Here we go I'm opening it up. I'll give you play by play. Open sesame. All right first of all it's a let's. Oh I got the Halloween one. Awesome that's the Halloween one. This must be rare. But that lady said there's not a lot of tourists. That's quiet here. All right maybe you have to turn it on. Hey say something. Say something. Is there a button? It's not talking. Is that it? It's just a button. It's weird. It's just I thought says talks. Oh gosh. Kore wa? Oh gosh. She means candy please. For Toby it's supposed to really talk. OK hold on. I'm reading the paper now. Maybe the battery is dead. There's one with ramen. I guess it's supposed to be say what do you want Sunday? Don't eat it. All right I'm going to send them a Twitter thing. It's broken. Is there an oh no. There's no button to turn it on. It is what it is. No on button. There's no piece of plastic to separate the battery. Just the battery is dead. I don't see the battery tab. Do you? I'm pushing it. Oh gosh. Kore iro? Could I put a candy please? It says. All right we'll try to fix it later.

00:25:36 John Daub: Let's take a look and see what she gave us. Oh these look really good. Well he didn't give me one. He gave me like eight. All right I'll put some of these in the daimyo packages. You'll know where they came from. One of the reasons he can give so many snacks is because they're usually quite close to the expiration date but these look pretty fresh actually. He just gets really good deals off of all these products. These are mint chocolate things. The mint is not too popular in Japan. And I saw you put a bunch of these in here. Yeah mint. That's why mint is not popular. So these are probably. Oh look they got a pretty long expiration date. All right I can send these to some of you from Shimura. Yeah I like mint too but Japanese don't like it so much. You can put these capsule toy capsules in here. All right that was weird. Oh look here's a counter. Anyone need a counter? It's weird. You find all sorts of stuff like shrooms. Kinoko clips. These are clips little games. Oh I got kind of one of these rings before. She was not impressed. These are cat food rings. This looks pretty neat. This is the sounds of the Yamanote line I believe or one of the train lines. Interesting. So there's some good ones here. Maybe I should have gotten that next time.

00:27:31 John Daub: There's some really new places in alcohol. I only use my right hand. You can come here directly from the Narita Express and get your gachapon right there. All right let's go in and take a look at see if we have the cheese dogs available. Miss Antiflow from Canada welcome. Densetsu mutual respect. Wow it's nice to see Gem Defensor. It's been a while from the Philippines. And G-Man Three Full. It's going pretty good. Michael Sasano is here. These are for serving takoyaki. I'm hungry. I'm going to go check it out. I don't want to be in a place with a lot of people though. And I'm kind of cringing here. Let's go let's go walk about now.

00:28:52 John Daub: So for those of you who had to cancel your trip February March April May June July August September October I never thought I would be seeing all those dates. And then probably November December January February March. Gosh it's already been so quiet. This is what you're missing. But things are getting okay. I'm going to go check out the other places that are here but they're not in the rest of the world. And it's not a time to be complacent. Oh there's no masks over there. All right just keep walking. Kind of take a wide arc. I know it's overkill but trying my best to stay healthy here. I came here because I have to buy some things. I should probably wait until Monday. Sunday is a tough day. All right let's get back inside here. The market usually doesn't get crowded on Sunday until around one to one or two p.m. But I'm going to take a quick look at a few sites.

00:30:01 John Daub: Simplistic. Those are not Japanese booties right there. Those aren't Japanese booties. So that's from another area. I'll look at the Queen. What are you doing here? She stayed at the Imperial at the Queen of England. She stayed at the Imperial Hotel in Tokyo. And she was here back in the 1950s I believe. Not sure when the last time she was here 60s. But when she was here in Japan Imperial Hotel. I think you have to ask for it or they serve it on special occasions maybe but you can get the same menu that Queen Elizabeth had when she came to visit the Imperial Hotel. They prepared a meal for her. For the most part it's just young people who aren't wearing any masks. All right we got some Chopin playing in the background. I don't know some sort of piano music. It's sort of creepy too. It's kind of got a Halloween creepiness to it.

00:31:21 John Daub: Hey Brian Chavez must be working in the diamond industry because yeah jewelry is also very very famous here. If you know your jewelry you find a lot of shops in Ameyoko. So that diamond that is significant for where we are. Sean808 have a beer with your cheese dog. Trying to stay healthy Sean. Trying not to drink before 5 p.m. It's hard to do. But I do know that travelers are coming to Japan a little bit more than before but they still have the 14-day quarantine period. However a lot of that is on the honor system. Oh this shop is closed down. So I'm seeing a lot of shops that aren't here anymore. It's kind of sad. If you like this definitely click the thumbs up button and encourage me to do more walkthroughs around. I'll be outside of Tokyo most of November by the way. I'll be up in Tohoku and I'll be taking you with me. So it's a reason for you to subscribe to the Only in Japan Go Channel. And the new Only in Japan Channel John Daub produced by me. It's my channel. Got a new video that I believe is going to drop tonight from when I went to Nagoya. Very fast turnaround on that one. Really cool story.

00:33:04 John Daub: Whoa I like how Kabuki people like good shoes. Shoes are important to people in the Kabuki world. They really like to rock it. And welcome Darren Martin new traveler. Awesome. Unlocked the hanabi emoji for Wednesday oh my god that's true. Wait Wednesday—Monday Tuesday Wednesday in three days we're doing another fireworks festival up in Katakai. I gotta start promoting the app. Tebasaki oh Japanese chicken wings it's gonna be good. For those of you who are getting ready for NFL tomorrow. All right this is the road where the cheese dog is Brendan. We're gonna take a quick look see. Let's try to stay safe. Usually this is so jam-packed with tourists you can't even walk. So I just got a little dog dog baby how you doing doggie.

00:34:11 John Daub: You know I see my friend Dean on a lot of advertisements. That's not Dean but you'll see these foreigners who are modeling that probably were like English teachers that just got lucky or something. Sometimes I see people that I know and Dean Newcomb he's actually a professional model. I see him all over the place in these ads. He doesn't promote himself a lot so when you see it it's kind of cool like whoa that's Dean. There's one where he's getting married at Daibosa billboard at one of the hotels. It's funny when you see your friends in advertising or when you hear Peter von Gomm's voice narrating the ANA airlines seatbelt safety video. That is so wrong. I hate mosquitoes and they have a gachapon where a giant sized mosquito will look like it's stinging your hand. That's so wrong. This temple here I believe the temple here has been in Ameyoko for a very long time. It's nice that you can go up here and get a little kind of a bird's eye view down on the second floor. And on the left and the right are okashi shops candy shops that have been here for decades. I'll probably go in here and take a look and see what they have for our daimyo inside of here. I don't like to buy stuff at Don Quixote. Kind of support the local businesses if you can. Not that there's anything wrong with Don Quixote.

00:35:44 John Daub: Oh no! Brendan! No! It's been closed because of the COVID. Alright we'll get some takoyaki. But there's a line guys. Alright it's too crowded. She's been making the takoyaki here for ages. There's quite a line. I can't get it today. It goes around the corner too. I gotta get out of here. There's a lot of people. John's gotta stay safe. Unfortunately this location is now out of business. It says they're looking for a new tenant so it's on sale. That's kind of sad. Oh man. Darren Martin new member. Dozo yoroshiku! Have a pint of cheese dog. I want a cheese dog but it's out of business. Darn it. Let's see what kind of Kit Kat flavors they have today. They always put the Kit Kats on the side here. Alright nothing too unusual here. What? Check this out. That's new. Alright I might have to get this for our Daimyo supporters. Whenever a new flavor breaks I try to get a bag. Cheesecake looks interesting. So what do you think Daimyo? You can sound off right here if you want to.

00:37:41 John Daub: Why is the takoyaki place so long? I should have started with the takoyaki. I always burn my mouth on that too. I'm trying really really hard to stay out of crowded places. And this is getting a little bit too crowded. She just started another takoyaki here. This is gonna take a while. It's gonna take 10 minutes for me to get some because the line is too long. And they put massive slices of tako octopus in there. It goes around the corner. I'll just... It's just gonna be a livestream of me standing there. There you go. There used to be more takoyaki places but they're all closed down. What I'm noticing is that a lot of the street food has been off of the street now. And the stands that used to be operating I've walked by them they're all kind of shut down. You see these are closed down. So a lot of the food operators that relied on tourists are gone. The takoyaki place is always gonna be in business because it's famous but the cheese dog is gone. I'm kind of shocked by that.

00:39:12 John Daub: JWS Old School. Busy day today indeed. Bible 2022 appreciate that. We had like a Super Chat thing going on where people would give $5 and then they'd write in a million dollars. It didn't work like that. Had to... I went back and watched it with Peter von Gomm and we were both cracking up. I like the color of these. These are the waterproof bags but you curl it up there and the water doesn't get in. I like the color. Interesting. Camouflage. You can't find it if you lose it though. Whoa! Indiana State Police. Anybody from Indiana recognize that? Pretty cool. Very cool. All right no cheese dogs. There's no street food without a line. Looks genuine kind of. All right so we got some enka going on here. This would be a great shop to come to. They still sell the albums the way that they used to in the Showa period. And I do see old timers locals still come in here. And they do release enka stars their videos their work on records and stuff. So it's kind of neat to get it in the authentic way. A video on enka would probably require coming here or Shimbashi to get the real authentic experience.

00:40:56 John Daub: There's a line over there too. So I guess the lunch rush has started. Hey I saw your kind in the gachapon machine and you did not look so lively. Just be careful. Watch yourself. You might end up in a gachapon machine or in Hello Hi A21's kitchen. It's the dark side. Dark side of our moderators. Sorry that was uncalled for. All right folks. Yeah this wasn't supposed to be too much of a street food experience. I don't want to wait in that line. All right let's go take one more look at that line. Maybe it's gone down. I don't want to stay in one spot. Got to get the goodies for the daimyo and get out. Those cheesecake Kit Kats look good. What do you think? Yeah this is the part of the live stream where you give me a thumbs up if you want to see more content like this. Maybe if we get to a thousand thumbs up I'll wait for the takoyaki. But I don't know. I need a lot of support for that. I don't like lines. Kanae's not going to be happy.

00:42:26 John Daub: Cobra Bebop's here. Hey have you ever done a video on the space boat? I have several live streams but nothing on the history of it. So it'd be an interesting one. Interesting topic. One gazillion dollars. That might be the biggest contribution we've ever received. Never received a gazillion anything. Thanks for that Cobra Bebop. That was generous. No it's only getting longer. That's the line. It's just a cluster. It's kind of scary. I'm sorry. The takoyaki if you decide to get some Queen of Tacos I want to get some. Maybe not on a Sunday. Somebody coughed. One two three four five six seven eight. So there's 12 people here. There's 12 people here in front of me. All right maybe it'll go faster. The line's really long. You know what? I'm going to have to 86 that. I'll come back. Queen of Tacos put that on layaway. Trust me there's going to be a ton of street food episodes up in Tohoku too. And I'll be back here. I came here for the day.

00:44:14 John Daub: I'm going to go up here and check it out and see if they have anything. But I'll take you up to this shrine which is a temple which has less people. Is it a shrine? I always get confused because there's no... On New Year's they do ring the bell 108 times. So this is the temple. The air is nicer up here. It just feels a little bit safer. Yeah guys I'm really trying hard to not put myself in too much of a compromising position. Sorry folks. Still pandemic. I'm not sure why 108. That's a good question. I think it's just something in Buddhism that people do.

00:45:42 John Daub: All right folks I thought this was a really interesting walkthrough because we are still in a pandemic. We do have to be careful. Now there's nobody around me so I can kind of take a little bit of a break. We wear the masks to protect each other within the community not so much to protect ourselves because you really need goggles and stuff to do that. But I'd say yeah it's a little bit of a compromise. But I'd say 97% only three out of 100 were not wearing any kind of covering. And I think that yeah people are a little bit maybe too complacent because the numbers are not so high like in the West here. But that's not a reason to not take as many precautions. And I'm not going out because I got some really big episodes to film in November. So I really have to stay safe. That's why I'm not going to wait in line. I think I got to keep making content and stay healthy. I get a feeling about that. Waiting standing there with all the crowds around us. Stay on the move. Wash my hands 20 times a day. Don't touch my face. Things like that. Mask is okay. Hide up here in the temple.

00:46:51 John Daub: I think that some foreigners wrote here. Oh that some in Vietnamese. Interesting. Everybody has some sort of prayer they'll put here on the board including this guy. He drew a self-portrait. It's interesting. Yeah. Prayers for everybody somebody with their family member. But that's a good message right there. So stay safe everybody. I'll be here for another live stream probably tomorrow. I'll do another live stream and coming next week on Wednesday I'm going to be going to Katakai for the fireworks festival in Niigata. Kanae and I are renting a car. So expect like three live streams Wednesday and maybe Thursday. We're going to be doing some videos in Niigata. And then I got so many episodes to film next week. So just get ready for some big releases and some drops because Only in Japan is back back. Bye guys.