00:00 John Daub: The Chocolatory in Ginza for the KitKat store where you get KitKats. Hi. How you doing? You won't believe this. So, I went inside the store and they told Peter von Gomm and me in another live stream about two and a half weeks ago to come back on December 15th and we'll have them. That's what they said. Peter will verify. So, I came in now and they said it's sold out. I said, how could it be sold out? You told me to come back anytime after the 15th. And they said, well, actually, even if you did come on the 15th, you wouldn't get it. They said you had to have a reservation. I said, well, you didn't tell me that. So, there's actually no chance of getting these aged barrel whiskey KitKats. This is one of these Nestlé things where they tease you and get promotions and you never get one. So, I'm very, very disappointed.

01:02 John Daub: And you know what, KitKat? I've had enough of you. Actually, there's better stuff to eat. I know, right? I actually have in my bag a bottle of Laphroaig. All right? And I'm almost tempted to just drink it and then dip KitKats in it. But that would be clickbait. Right? I can't do that. What an awful store. It's the holiday season. How dare they do that? Press release didn't even explain anything. Well, instead of complaining, aha, we will march on. Although, I won't be eating whiskey KitKats and changing the title of this live stream, which I have not done yet. But I'll take you to get a sandwich at the sandwich store. I'm just in shock. How could they do that to us? They did it to you, too. Because this is supposed to be our time. Our moment. Our KitKat. And they disappointed us.

02:17 John Daub: All right. Welcome to Ginza, everybody. I know Francis... it's sold out. And even if I did come, it's only by reservation or something. And they said I can't even buy it online. I'm like, what? So what is this press release all about? So, welcome to Ginza Plan B. I don't think it's expensive. I don't think it's exclusive. I think it's just a tease. Where we could do this. We're not going to tell you if you could buy it or not. Why would they do that, though? All right. Let's not complain. I'm just complaining to the 500 people that just came into the live stream. So it is the season. Let's take a look at some window shopping here in Ginza. Let's start with this window. Expressionless. Emotionless. I love it. That hat on red table says something. It says Chanel. This pose says, I shave. All right. Good. Window shopping's fun. What would you put in that little Chanel bag? I can think of a couple of things. Style? Or practicality? I'm not quite sure.

03:53 John Daub: So, we can't have a KitKat, but we can have a walk. And walk it off. That's right. Walk it off. Enjoy the holidays here in Ginza. As we go and get a sandwich at the sandwich store. I'm still really impressed, though, with the Yoshinoya Pokémon bowl for 478 yen. I would get that, but it's very, very hard to talk inside there. And right now, because of the pandemic, it's not a good idea. Ginza, they always have guys in the window looking at you. What does this three mean? The 12 days of Christmas. Three French hens. Right. We get to call Jennifer. We get two of her friends. All right, check this out. This is the Loro Piana booth. It speaks to me. It says, it's winter. I can wear blue and still be a mannequin. The white jacket represents snow. All right, let's move on. Here's the Apple store. There's always a bunch of people trying to snag free Wi-Fi. Because they forgot to pay their mobile phone bills. It's funny that they still do that. I guess they are waiting for an appointment. Some VIP just went into the Apple store too.

05:52 John Daub: See that car back there? The driver was looking at me. Uh-uh. I'm down with that. All right, let's go in here and get a sandwich for Kanae Daub. She wanted a sandwich. I'm going to get her a sandwich. It's not going to be a whiskey sandwich, but it'll be a pretty good sandwich. You know what I mean? Big shout out to John Kimura and Marty for making this happen. The woman wants a shrimp sandwich. I'm going to get her a shrimp sandwich. It's as simple as that. No, the ebikatsu sando. That's the bomb. It's awesome. All right, let's go in here and get an ebikatsu sandwich. Oh, they do have them here. These are a thousand yen each. Yuzu bread, and beans, and sushi bread.

07:34 John Daub: One by one. Yes, please. Bean and yuzu. Would you like to get one of these? Yes, please. That's 2,450 yen. Yes, 2,450 yen? Yes. I would like to have a ticket. Thank you. I'd like to take it with me. Thank you. That looks so good. This is the apple cube. Looks delicious.

10:14 John Daub: It does sound like an AC/DC song, For Whom the Bell Tolls. That over there is the Nissan building. Wow, there's more cool bikes. Inside there on the first floor they have concept cars and Sony moved their showroom up to the third floor here. So I'm very disappointed about these whiskey KitKats. Jose Vargas, yummy. Don't forget about a drink. Good call, my friend. I'm going to be going down here to get some bakery goods as well for Kanae Daub. She likes... Oh, wow, there's another killer car. Awesome. Beautiful day here in Ginza. If not, you know, getting a KitKat, I'm so disappointed. Trying to hold my disappointment in as we cross the street so I can eat a piece of bread. You can see that the lion of Mitsukoshi has a mask on. So you all gonna want to stay safe. Oh, you know what I can do. I forgot about it. Okay. Let me go this way.

11:34 John Daub: All right. I got a drop to do here. I can do this while we're live. So yesterday we got about four new members of the postcard club. So this is going out from the Ginza post office. How cool is this? So this is going out to Noreni in Singapore, John in Murfreesboro, Tennessee, Diana in Ontario, California, Hey Rizal in Singapore and Mark in Singapore in Heerlen, Holland which is in the province of Limburg, I think which is where the nice cheese comes from. Thanks guys. And you're getting the happy new year stamp on there. Here we go. Off from Ginza. It's just right there. It's pretty amazing actually to me. I'm a big fan of... Hey, I heard baked goods for Kanae. Yeah, Irvin, actually, I got baked goods for us, too. So I'm gonna try this right now because I'm extremely disappointed in the fact that we did not get any whiskey KitKats. How dare they play with our emotions.

13:21 John Daub: All right. So what do I have here in place of whiskey KitKat? I have whiskey and I also have yuzu ponzu. In the center is yuzu. Does anybody know where yuzu comes from? Where does that fruit originate from? I'll give you a hint. Look at the chat. There's your hint. Yuzu comes from Shikoku in the prefecture of Kochi. Good job. And I'm making a video on yuzu. That's why I thought this is good. Yuzu has an amazingly pleasant smell but is extremely sour on its own which means it's really good in cosmetics. It's really good in breads, jam, other products, not so much on its own. It's kind of a disappointment. Very tasty. It's got some yuzu jam on the top there and some white chocolate. Oh, you're gonna love this yuzu episode because I started producing it in October when they were harvesting and I went back in December to finish. It's a good episode. It's coming in January. This is really good.

14:53 John Daub: That's a nice Lexus. You can come to Ginza and just car watch all day. It's amazing. Look at that car. It's a sweet ride. Very nice. All right. Right over there is the Ginza post office. Um, this neighborhood's post office. But the main Ginza post office is actually down near Shimbashi. Um, I usually go to the bakery. I like the bakery down in the basement of Mitsukoshi. It's a little bit pricey. But they got some stuff that I never see in Japanese... I think it's a Japanese, um, French fusion bakery. Which is really nice. Oh, there's a prototype again. I like the name of that right there: Merry Future Christmas. So it's not about Christmas this year. It's about Christmas in the future. And Santa's riding a rocket. Let's get a little closer on that. That's pretty cool.

17:05 John Daub: I don't think that's enough space for all the presents. People taking pictures of... what is she taking a picture of? Hello? New dream project. What? I don't get it. Is there a bird up there or something? She's gone. I don't know sometimes. I don't know. So where to now? Mike's in... you know, I don't know. I have no idea. I might just end the live stream. I just... I might not even... this probably will go unlisted, too. I thought that they would have the KitKats. Not said that some other person did a video on these KitKats. I Google searched it. I couldn't find it but... nauseous as crafty with searching stuff out. I can't search. Um, apparently these KitKats do exist. It just doesn't exist for us because you need a reservation. Peter's going to be upset too because this is part of his Christmas present. Peter, if you're watching, dude.

18:06 John Daub: Okay. Find a KitKat competitor. I did the bakery. It was pretty good. I'm taking a sandwich back to Kanae. So... I did. I don't know. Didn't you say no, I guess not. Never mind, that's right. There was none. There are no reviews. There's no articles on it. There's just press releases in the beginning of December. Not one single review on this KitKat, not one. Okay, it's mystical. It's not even SoraNews24 with Rocket News couldn't get a KitKat to try. Not even SoraNews24 and they feature everything that's weird. So I don't get it. I live with it. It's not exclusive. It's mystical. Nico writes in fake news. I think that might be what it is. Mr. Nestlé, I think it's his grand stubborn stupid jealous and very greedy grandchildren that took the family fortune in Switzerland or something. They did this to us. Anyways, uh, I'm just kidding. Whoa, dudes. Did that just happen? Back in the 1930s. Looks more like the 50s. And there she goes. Did you see that? You Flip writes in '57 Chevy Nomad. What? I want to go run and chase it down. But there's a copper right over there. So I can't do that.

20:06 John Daub: All right, folks. I don't really have anything else to do. Does that sound good? Irvin, no? Run, Forrest, run. Run where? I don't even know if I should go left, right, center. I got nowhere to go except down. I told improvise. Let's buy Kanae a dress. Oh brother. Let's shake down the KitKat shop and check all the drawers and prove that they don't have any. That's what I would do. These buses are pretty neat. It's a JR bus. I didn't know that JR is running the city buses. That's kind of unusual. But these fuel cell buses apparently are electric buses. So JR Higashi Nihon group 50/50 by 2050 they want to reduce carbon gases to zero. So that's the name of this bus. It's kind of... there's a bus driver's. It's not real. So Japan Rail is doing that. That's super interesting. I had no idea that JR East was in on this. What do you think about starting a JR East fan club? I'm thinking that might be a pretty good idea. Japan Rail is pretty cool. I had no idea that they had buses too that were running around the city.

21:51 John Daub: Have yourself a merry little Christmas. Is that 5G? A free Wi-Fi. Is that 5G up there? That looks like millimeter waves up there. And the ginseng Wi-Fi is in here. Is this 5G? I don't remember this being here before. I did a commercial for Panasonic for millimeter waves um two, three, no three years ago. And uh, I was the sound of the millimeter wave. I was Mr. Millimeter. This is before they called it 5G and Panasonic was creating these millimeter wave boxes. And I'm looking for them because I know what they look like. They were supposed to be in every traffic signal. I don't see them. Do you see them? I don't see millimeter waves. 5G is called millimeter waves, I guess. I don't see them. What YouTuber is going to bring you the traffic lights, huh? Let's be honest. That's enough to click a like button almost. Wow, that guy's got a sweet ride. Did you see that? Let's go this way. Let's improvise. We'll see what we can find this way. Have yourself a merry little Christmas. KitKat screwed us back. They promised us whiskey and lots of blissful chocolate and aged whiskey barrels. They did not deliver their promises to us. It's so true.

24:01 John Daub: So I used to work at a school called Gaba and uh it was in this store, it was up on the top floor of the Cine Switch and they moved locations. But the Cine Switch is the artistic movie theater of Japan, so they do a lot of really interesting runs in there. Stuff that you wouldn't see in normal theaters, which is good. Cobra Bebop, when is the Christmas album dropping? Well, you have to collect it off of the internet. They're sold and they're given away in pieces. Yesterday, uh two days ago we had the uh back in the 1930s song which is a beautiful time for Christmas. Miracle on 34th Street, I believe came around that time. There's even some Star Wars songs on there. Whoa, Ali. All right, let's go have yourself a scary alley Christmas. Go where there's no signal and smoking. Oh, yeah. Oh, this used to be the vending machine corner in Ginza. There used to be a really really um like a smoking vending machine area that all the English teachers would go to back 12 years ago when I was working there.

25:28 John Daub: Let's cut to the other side. This is uh what do they have here? This looks like some sort of sea bream ramen noodles. I guess there's always a line here. I don't even know what the shop is called. Oyakodon, it's oyakodon. But why do they have noodles? Interesting. It could be Niku. It says here many places do not smoke and there's a dude back there smoking. Should I report him? Is there a signal? This is what happens when a live stream goes awry. Just walking alleys. Worrying my wife. Really? The signal held through that? It's the Ginza Station subway elevator. And here we are. We're literally here. You know what I can do? Let's really test the signal and see if we can find the entrance to Sukiyabashi Jiro. The sushi guy. At least we can find the entrance, right? That'd be kind of cool. Let's do it. Let's go find that 95-year-old sushi chef guy. Give him some Christmas cheer. He doesn't really smile in that documentary at all. Maybe he has some whiskey KitKats 'cause he's kind of a VIP in this neighborhood.

27:58 John Daub: Jerry, no. I can't even change the title 'cause I started the live stream. I was really excited. I thought we had it, Jerry. Seriously, I'm... you don't know how disappointed I am. And you know what? Sony called and they said that it's gonna cost me more to fix my A7S3. So it's been one of these weird days. Days started off weird. Yeah, you know the winter has really beautiful skies and if you do want to take a look at Mt. Fuji, winter is the best time to do that. Summer you rarely get a chance to see Mt. Fuji in the summertime. Alright, I think he's in the basement here. Alright, let's go see if this place is open. That's Lotteria. How do I get into the basement of this place? It's been a while. What's down there? See here, second floor Ginza Coffee. Basement is this restaurant. Alright, I don't want to go there. Alright, let's keep going. I'm pretty sure it's in the basement. Alright, let's just go down.

30:57 John Daub: Hey, Jennifer Santos is here. Hey Jennifer. Welcome to a stream that got... Alright, so this is... You can see Sukiyabashi. Maybe it's gone. Maybe it's a... Didn't make it. I like what they've done. Ginza Station has changed. Look at the wooden floors. They didn't have this before. This is the basement of what used to be the Sony Building. Sony Building is under reconstruction right now. Alright, it's not that way. Huh, what's this way? Looks like some kind of game center or museum. What's that? There's some sort of weird park down there. See this? It's in the basement of Sony Park. There's some really weird stuff down there. So I don't know. It's called King Gyu. It's weird, huh? It's weird. Look for the building with the suit shop. And the little something for the lack of KitKat. Thank you, Raymond. Alright, let's go do it. Look for the building with the suit shop. Alright, you got it. Let's get outside again. Raymond has given us a clue. We're piecing this together little by little.

33:41 John Daub: Hey, Imagialli. John, when are you going to dress up as Santa and walk around Ginza? That's an awesome idea. That would spread joy and cheer to the world. You know what, my friend? My friend Joseph Tame did that. Except he did it in a different way. Joseph, he dressed up as a Christmas tree. You have to Google it. Google um Joseph Tame Christmas tree. Dude went around running as a Christmas tree around the city. He was in the toilet episode. Oh, there's the suit company. Best part of Tokyo is probably... That's a hard one. That's really really hard. Oh, there it is. Okay, did you see it? Did you see it? Very strictly no photographs. They basically set up an impenetrable... I didn't nothing. I was standing right there. There's a camera that says no photographs. It says fifth generation. Um and some guy walked out and had... after eating sushi I guess. He eats there a lot. I think it's going to be pretty easy to get a reservation. I don't think that... I think the uh fifth generation has now took over and he's not 91 anymore. But that shop is a little bit snobby I think. So I wouldn't eat there. And rightfully so. He's a master of his craft.

37:18 John Daub: Master of his craft. It's a bad signal. Signal jamming machine. When do we see it because it's a bad signal? You can see it on Netflix. Search Jiro Dreams of Sushi. See it all you want. Yeah. So the exit's by the suit shop. Wow, I don't think I've been down there in 15 years. Not much of a reason. I don't like snobby places. Saito Sushi was not... I mean it's a classy place but he's a really good chef and really fun nice person. But I heard that if you go in there they see the tourists and they like do different foods and stuff. The quality goes down. They get angry. You gotta be ready for anything. What some sushi shops should probably do is they don't take a reservation unless you were referred to them. Just like a doctor, right? They don't take a reservation. They just want the money. It's $300 to get in based on supply and demand. $300 to sit down there. So it's pretty good I guess. Just depends. For me I kinda like $1 sushi. I think it's pretty good too. Slightly expensive. Kyubey was more affordable. Kyubey has a really good reputation. And that's this way. It's an alley. Let's go down the alley.

39:12 John Daub: Kyubey has a really good reputation and they're more affordable. Cobra Bebop right in here. What do you think of Otemachi? Just skyscrapers? I don't know. It's skyscrapers and hotels. Okay and office buildings. And there's some new shopping in there. What they tried to do was try on the weekends to find ways to attract people to go in there. So there's also a burrito shop. There's a ramen shop there. There's a couple of really interesting stores in Otemachi but I don't know. I think it's getting there. That Torch Tower will be really interesting. Check this out. Secret Ginza shrine. Alright, let's give some money to the shrine. Nice. Close my wallet. There you go. I did not see those monkeys there. It's a pretty neat little alley. Foxy Dixie Lady. Alright, let's keep moving. When you explore the alleys you don't know what you're going to find. The last thing you're going to find is a mugger. I've never seen them in Japan. Look how clean the alley is though in Ginza. Right? Look how clean this alley is. It's so clean.

41:36 John Daub: Black Floyd, I'm sorry to hear you got mugged twice. Hopefully not by the same person. And I'm glad that you're okay. I've never been mugged. If I was they could just take it all. I don't want to mess around with that. Oh this is the building that had the Cupid on the corner there. And they removed the Cupid that used to be on the corner. That's a shame. So a lot of new buildings are going to be here in Ginza when you come to visit. Oh this is the unagi shop. That's about all like Asakusa. Is this the honten? There's a lot of old shops with a long history. I didn't know about this one that was here. I didn't know it was right here. James Bond in You Only Live Twice came racing down in a Toyota. I forget the name of that sports car convertible with Aki. And they got into the subway station on the Hibiya line. So I've been researching that movie. And I might try to do something with it. You watch the movie looking for the signs of how Tokyo has changed. It's kind of cool you know. Because in the 1960s after just about 20 years after the war there still weren't a lot of videos of the city of Tokyo back then.

43:20 John Daub: One of the most fascinating movies on Tokyo after post-World War II was the Humphrey Bogart movie Tokyo Joe. Now I don't think he actually came to Tokyo. But a lot of the movie crew did to get footage of Tokyo in the mid to late 40s. And the footage in Tokyo Joe is really interesting. You can see Shibuya. It does not look like Shibuya. It's a good Bogart movie. It's middle of the pack maybe. Middle of the pack. Alright, let's take you out to the main street. And we'll have to... I'll have to go back and get Kanae her lunch. So the postcard club postcards are on the way. Thanks so much for... We got 5 new members yesterday. Our goal is 1000 Patreon supporters. We're so close to 10,000. We already hit on the Discord server so we've hit all of our goals almost this year which is incredible. I'm so proud of the community we've done so much. So many good things. Kickstarter project where we get and I'm editing that video. Another reason why I gotta go back. That video is coming. I think sometime next week. I'm still editing it. I finish when I finish. But I set a deadline of December 30th for that. Personal deadline more or less.

45:04 John Daub: So there you go. I'm glad a lot... hey some of you got the postcards already, cool. Thanks so much for watching everybody. I know it's not ideal. I'm gonna have to change the title and the thumbnail now but what are you gonna do? You just pretty cool place to hang out. Anyways so thanks for spending a couple of hours here with me. I'm going to... I'm gonna go to the bakery I think to get something for Kanae and then I'm gonna just edit like crazy tonight. Tomorrow I get another live stream and then Kanae and I are planning to rent a car and take you one last trip for this year. I have to go and film some background video for another episode that I'm producing right now that I have to get out in January. I hear that Mount Fuji has snow now which they didn't a month ago. So I'm gonna try to get those shots with nice sunny blue skies that we got today. So we'll see if we can get back to Mount Fuji and I'll bring you there live. So there's value to subscribing to this channel.

46:02 John Daub: And there's a couple of episodes that are gonna be dropping on... Oh and the last thing, if you wanted to be in the Only in Japan new channel episode, I have a thing where you can submit a video to me for like 15 seconds where you say "Only in Japan." And that video is gonna be going up on a video that's gonna release on the 30th or 31st at the end of the year to say thank you to everybody. I think we have about 24 people that submitted the videos. I can take an infinite amount. So just keep sending in there. By the way, Sergey, don't send me anymore Russian nasty movies okay. That