00:00:00 John Daub: Welcome to Tokyo Station. How you doing everybody? I'm now using an external microphone trying it for the first time. That in front of us is Tokyo Station, which the sign obviously says. In this episode we're gonna be taking you all around the entire Tokyo Station on the outside of it so you can take a look and see the access points. If you are coming to Japan at some time it's gonna be really interesting. I'm always interested to see all the other tourists getting lost around here. But if you watch this livestream you're going to have so much knowledge that you will be able to get around here and not look like a tourist. Which is impossible because you have these big suitcases and all this. Nevertheless this is the Yaesu side of Tokyo Station. How you doing Jennifer French Nat? And I see we got a nice crowd in here.

00:01:04 John Daub: This is the Yaesu side of Tokyo Station. So if someone says Yaesu, Y-A-E-S-U, this is what they're referring to. In about 15 minutes we're gonna be on the Marunouchi side. Don't worry this video will have chapter playlists so you can skip around to the area that you want to see, an area that might be most helpful to you. That in front of us is the taxi stand right outside the central exit of Yaesu. We're gonna go this way right now. This entire episode is going to be broadcasted outside. As we go around I'll be adding in some notes, some tidbits about Tokyo Station. Because for me this is a fascinating place. This is my access point into the city, well into the rest of Japan. Because the Shinkansen leaves from here. This is the main entrance right here towards the Shinkansen. Often I will—this is where I get a taxi when I get out. This is the taxi stand right there. There's spots one two and three. So they'll come up in lines and in order to move the line a lot faster, just get into the taxi that is available depending on where you are in line. And they'll move out of the way pretty quickly. So this line moves pretty quickly to get a taxi. Again the starting fee to get a taxi is about 480 yen right now. But the prices start going up pretty quickly after that.

00:02:46 John Daub: Over there is the highway bus terminal and there's not a lot of traffic these days for the buses—most of them are regional places in Kanto like Ibaraki to Mito or to Utsunomiya. Like night buses maybe leaving towards Kyushu, Hiroshima, some of them going up to Aomori will leave here but that's for JR buses okay so it's a little bit different. Right up there you can see that's the Yaesu central entrance and we're gonna be back here in about 25-30 minutes as we walk around the entire exterior of it. I like starting here because they also have some information like maps and every now and then I'm gonna stop and take some of the questions that you might be having here. Again this is the taxi stand that I just showed you, here are the JR highway buses that are leaving and then that's the inside of the Yaesu side and we're gonna go around right now. The Yaesu side—now Tokyo Station is always changing. I've had the longest time as I was living here between 1998 and about 2010 the exterior of the station was a lot different. It looked really old, very 1960s kind of. I guess the last time that they had done that was during the 1964 Tokyo Olympics where they really renewed this area but they did it again for the 2020 Olympics so a lot of this stuff here is new but the area is still evolving.

00:04:34 John Daub: Let's go here towards the Daimaru. This if you're looking for gifts this is probably a good place to come into the Daimaru department store. They have a lot of omiyage (souvenir gifts) which are gift boxed that you can get inside of there. But you can also go to the basement of the Yaesu side and you're gonna be able to get some really good gifts in the basement of here. Just go down right here to the Daimaru food floors—there's an entrance from the outside that's really convenient. We're not gonna be going down there but this is the Yaesu North entrance not the central one and it's a lot more impressive than this Yaesu central entrance so the north entrance. Alright see that guy right there taking pictures? He's doing that because they're not supposed to park their bicycles there—he's going to be giving them a ticket. He's a ticket man, he's on patrol. So we're right here and we're going to be walking around a little bit more.

00:06:05 John Daub: Next place I'm going to show you is inside of here—there's a metro link or this is where you're going to find alternative buses that go towards Narita Airport that are not JR and they're not doing very good right now because there's just not a lot of traffic going towards Narita Airport so I think one of them might even be out of business. Across the street is very interesting here—do you see that orange shop? That is a discount ticket exchange meaning if you have a ticket like a Seishun 18-ki (youth 18 ticket, a 5-day JR pass) for a three-day pass you could probably sell it and get some value out of it right there in that shop. Maybe not get the same amount of money but you'd be able to get something back for it. But you can also buy passes and tickets and discount Shinkansen tickets—maybe save a thousand yen or something if you go into there and get it. I think this is a chain—Sarah Beth's? I thought they made pound cake or something in the U.S. now they have a pancake shop in there. If you look over here right there is a secret entrance into Tokyo Station and it'll take you kind of a shortcut in there but it's unmarked and mostly business people will take it. I don't know if I should be telling you that but it's just kind of a secret entrance into Tokyo Station.

00:07:26 John Daub: This here is Sakura-dori (Cherry Blossom Street), sakura meaning cherry blossoms which you can see here as the airport limousine goes by. They've chopped down a lot of the sakura trees, the cherry trees. One of George Washington's biggest fouls—or at least I think that's a myth—General Washington when he was a kid chopped down a cherry tree and got in trouble, sort of the rumor. They chopped that down and I guess they're making it wider for pedestrians and that's going to make it a lot easier for the massive influx of tourists for the 2020 Olympics, maybe maybe not. Alright in here is the airport limousine buses and if you've ever come to Narita this is where they're going to be dropping you off—not in front of where the JR buses drop you off but right here at Tokyo Station. This is pretty convenient, it's close enough but again the JR highway buses are going to drop you off about maybe five minutes closer to the Shinkansen depending on how much luggage you have. Across the street over there is another airport bus that's offering a lot of freebie tickets—they're offering free stuff, free transportation services I believe. However I think they might have gone out of business—they were offering 1000 yen bus trips to Narita Airport but I think that just because based on travel they're out of business now or have suspended the service—not just a parking lot.

00:08:58 John Daub: Inside of this building here there are in the basement some really good restaurants which you won't find that are as crowded—most of the people eating at this restaurant are business people. We're gonna be taking a left at the next traffic light. Jennifer French, thanks for being you. Who are you? Surprise Cat T. Lunch on me. Thank you, Surprise Cat T. We'll see what we can find on the way. Fred Darmia's in the house. Armchair Captain. That is totally Tokyo drifting right there. We have a new member, Tristan Miner. Welcome, new traveler. And WX Turbo's in the house. I can feel the presence of WX Turbo. I'm glad I brought this new microphone because it is so windy. Good morning, Nausha. How you doing, everybody?

00:10:09 John Daub: So there's nobody around here. In this live stream, I'm taking you, for those joining us, around the entire Tokyo Station exterior, showing you some of the access points, information that you're going to need if you come to Tokyo Station. That's sort of what I do. Because this is my backyard in a way—Ginza, Tokyo Station and Nihonbashi, which is right here. I'm gonna turn the camera around in a second. If you want to discuss this or you have some questions, and I don't answer your question here in the chat and I miss it, go over to Discord—discord.gg/onlyinjapan. 24 hours. Just tag me in there and I'll try my best. One of the moderators will be able to help you out because they are probably watching the stream and the comments. And I know I do miss some here. This is Sotobori-dori (Outer Moat Street). And there's a link in the description of this video if you're following along. Sotobori-dori and what is this road here? I think this is Eitai-bashi-dori (Eitai Bridge Street). Eitai-bashi-dori. And this here is Nihonbashi and going towards that area there.

00:11:11 John Daub: Again, this is a new building. And I think I did a live stream here earlier in the summer. This new building is now finished. It used to be like a building with trees all over it. And now it's a massive skyscraper that goes up into the sky. That's just about done. And then over here, they're gonna be tearing this building down and starting another one. I think it's called like the Torch Tower [?], Tokyo Torch Tower [?]. It's gonna be the tallest building in Japan. And when I say building, that does not mean tower because Tokyo Skytree will be the biggest, of course. But a ton of construction on this side of Tokyo Station. This is the Nihonbashi side of Tokyo Station. You can see we've already navigated all across here. These are where most of the buses are. The 1000 yen or $10 buses go through here. Now we're gonna cut across underneath the tracks and then make our way to the Marunouchi side. Michael Sasano. That is huge. That's what she said. Nagoya John. One YouTuber goes around the outside, around the outside, around the outside of Tokyo Station. I love going around the outside of Tokyo Station. This is the first time where I think we circumnavigate it. Isn't it? That's like a sailing term. Can you circumnavigate a station? I don't know.

00:12:38 John Daub: But the thing is, this station is changing so much. I might have to do this again in a year just because of all the amendments that are happening. In the distance, you can see the access for the trains going into the station. There's the Tohoku Shinkansen going by, that iconic blue-green color. I see Peter is here from Austria. Good morning. Everyone's doing good, I think. I am. Some buses do depart from here. Even for me, the bus system is quite confusing. So what we're gonna do is I'm just gonna loop around here for a little bit. This is the Shangri-La Hotel. The access point to it, Trust Tower. And there are a couple of bars and things, restaurants in this building here on the first floor. But for the most part, not a lot of people come from this direction. And if you're gonna meet somebody, this is maybe the best access point for meetups. Because it is, as you can see, compared to the other entrances, the Nihonbashi side is really quiet. Do you see that? And on the second floor, if you're waiting for somebody, there is a lot of people. There is a Starbucks. Do you see that up there? So it is a good place if you want to relax. And you can look out the window if it's cold outside, like maybe today, and see if somebody, if your friend is coming out to wait, they'll be right down there and you can just grab your coffee and go down there and meet them. I might have done that a few times.

00:14:37 John Daub: From this point here, the Nihonbashi side is really quiet. I'm going to go to the other side of Tokyo Station. We're going to be going over towards the Marunouchi side. But on the Marunouchi side, there's nobody around. On the Marunouchi side, there's also Otemachi. And this is the entrance point for the subway. On this side, the Yaesu side, there's no real subway access. Okay? There's no real subway access to—hey, you know what? 1080p, I saw that comment. I can't do it because of the YouTube app. The YouTube app throttles this at 720p. You talk to YouTube. I'm all for 1080p. This is a mobile live stream and won't let me do it. All I could do is try to improve the audio maybe. What are you going to do? As I was saying on the other side, there's no real subway station. The Asakusa subway line and the Ginza line are from Nihonbashi Station. And Nihonbashi Station is about from the Nihonbashi exit, right, that I showed you. You can walk about 200 meters. That'll take you about 300 meters with all the traffic lights. It'll take you about like 10 minutes to get there, I think. With a lot of luggage, it's not worth it. Better to take a taxi. But you can get to the Ginza line and to the Asakusa line and maybe the Tozai line, I think. They all cut through there, three subway lines. They do not connect with Tokyo Station because it's JR. And I don't think that they connect to Otemachi, which is the station right here.

00:16:24 John Daub: And Otemachi is one of the big, big Tokyo hubs because it does connect with the Central Business District of Tokyo and Tokyo Station. And Otemachi is connected underground to the Marunouchi side. This is the closest exit to the Nihonbashi side, B7. And you can see it connects with the Toei, which is the—I'm going to start from right to left. The Toei, the I09, is the Mita line, which is Tokyo Metro. And then the other three are Metro, which is a different company. The Chiyoda line, Hanzomon line. The orange one is the Marunouchi line, which is actually red. And the T is another. That's the Tozai line. So those three stations will stop here. And you can get to Tokyo Station on those lines. The Toei Asakusa line is about a 250-meter walk up the street. It's not connected underground. There's a lot of lines. My friend Indy, a ton of lines. And that's what makes this such a convenient station to live around. One of the reasons why it's my backyard.

00:17:23 John Daub: I'm going to pan over this direction for a second, because the landscape that you see here is not going to be the same in about a year. I'm pretty sure. I don't know if this building in front of us is going to get knocked down, but everything around it is going to. There's going to be a big, big building and a huge shadow on this area. Now, above us is the Shinkansen line. And when it comes to cafes, one cafe in particular has all of the real estate, and that's Starbucks. And there's a second-floor Starbucks up here that has amazing views of the Shinkansen going by. Shinkansen's going by every, like, five times a minute. No, hold on a second. Like, 15 times an hour, it feels like. Once every seven minutes from there, because you have the Tohoku Shinkansen going by from this direction. Hold on a second. So you have the Tohoku Shinkansen going by here, so maybe five or six times an hour, I think. But there's a lot of Shinkansens going by from this direction. It's kind of old underneath here. Reminds me of the 1950s and 60s kind of retro vibe underneath the train tracks. But really clean. No graffiti on the walls here. Is that graffiti? Graffiti's so happy. Creepy happy. Serial killer happy. Let's keep going.

00:19:02 John Daub: Welcome to Otemachi, the backside of Tokyo Station. Or it could be the front side. I'm not really sure. I do know this, and I'm going to give you a mouthful of the Imperial Palace in about five minutes from now. But straight ahead is the Imperial Palace. You see the green over there? That's where it is. And you'll find one of the creepiest shrines that we have to pay respect to over there. Another story. Peter and I covered that a few years ago. Fungus USMC. How many laps around Tokyo Station can you do today? I can do ten. I think. There's nobody around. Considering this is my neighborhood, it's not like I'm traveling far from my house. I guess even though it's a state of emergency, it's my backyard, right? It's not like I'm going around. Otemachi Station. For the reference, this is B5. This is the exit B5. Now if you go out of B5 and you go straight, it'll take you straight to Marunouchi. That's the north—I believe it's the north tower?

00:20:33 John Daub: Underneath here, especially during the lunch hours, you have some restaurants. Not all of them are doing too well. Not a lot of people are eating here, but they're still open. This is Nakau, which is a really popular gyudon (beef bowl) restaurant. They also have a pretty wide menu of stuff. I used to eat here when I was an English teacher because it was pretty cheap and pretty wholesome. There's a roast beef bowl they got here. A bowl of udon. Look at that maguro (tuna) bowl right there. Ooh. Various donburi (rice bowls). So Nakau is—they have a vending machine in there so you can look at the pictures and eat what you want, take what you want. It's pretty reasonable. Oh, you can see Shinkansen in the reflection. And that's the—looks like—what line is that? I can't see it's all. Could be the Yamanote line. When it comes to JR, the lines going through here. The Tokaido line, which will take you all the way down to Kyoto and Osaka. It'll just take you seven to eight hours, I think, to get there. It's pretty long by local train. With the Shinkansen, it'll take you about two and a half hours. Two hours.

00:21:54 John Daub: So the Tokaido line. The Sobu line going towards Zushi. It goes between Zushi and Chiba. The Chuo line, which will cut across Tokyo to Shinjuku. And if you need a fast way to get to Shinjuku, the Chuo line is your best bet. Get off at Tokyo Station. I think it's four stops that'll take you to Shinjuku. Instead of going around on the Yamanote line, you can get to Tokyo Station, change to the Chuo line, and it'll cruise across the city pretty quick. So that's kind of a cross-town shortcut. Queen of Tacos is here. I believe you can do ten. I totally could do it. Maybe not today, because I have to make pizza for Kanae Daub's family. It's coming over our house. Kanae Daub's family's coming over the house, so I have to make two pizzas for them. So on the way home, I have to stop at the supermarket to get ingredients. All of these phone booths have been turned into Wi-Fi places. So if you do need to get Wi-Fi and you're lost, or you just need to get on the Internet, you can access it right here. The ID for the login and all that is on the side of it. And it might change in a year. I'm not sure. And I believe the Wi-Fi router is up here.

00:23:19 John Daub: Boy, the pinch to zoom is not working good. I believe the—well, that could be 5G as well. I'm not really sure. But it's convenient that they've turned those into 5G access points. And for 5G, you're going to need to have them all over the place. Millimeter waves all over the entire city. And right now, I believe one of the reasons that the Internet signals have not been so strong is because I think Docomo is doing something with adding in the 5G, so they're going on and off line a little bit. That's the Oazo building. And if you've been to Tokyo Station, you've probably been in through there. There's a Maruzen bookstore, which is before the age of Amazon, I would buy books inside there. A lot of books. It's a cool place to chill out. There's a lot of restaurants in the basement of this place. Again, this would be considered Otemachi. And then after this street, this is Otemachi. I would call this on this side Marunouchi. Now, I don't know the lines are exactly like that. But in my mind, that's sort of the way it goes.

00:24:43 John Daub: When we get to the Marunouchi side and the Tokyo Station block, I'm going to stop and take some questions from everybody. That would be our halfway point. Let's see here. Any more interesting points? Now, this side of the Tokyo Station, the Marunouchi side, is the old side. So I guess you could call this the main side. Although for me, the other side is my access point in. But the Marunouchi side is the original entrance to Tokyo Station. It was built, I believe, in 1912. I could be wrong. Somewhere between 1911 and 1913, I believe. By an architect that really did an amazing job adding brick, western-style architecture to Japan. And the outside was just renovated, I believe, it started about 10 years ago. And they finished it about 3 years ago. And it looks absolutely beautiful. And you've been here with me in live streams all the time. My favorite image of Tokyo Station is that of Babe Ruth in the movie. He was here in 1934, making a trip from the United States to Japan to promote Major League Baseball. And you can see him in a convertible. Babe Ruth with a huge smile on his face and thousands and thousands of Japanese cheering him on. You can Google that image and you'll see the same facade as Babe Ruth saw when he came here in 1934. It's pretty cool.

00:26:36 John Daub: Now, if you want to get into the subway, this here, and I passed it for a reason. This is the Marunouchi North Entrance. Or exit, depending if you're coming out of here. Inside of there, and I'm going to do that right now, before I get to the halfway point. I'm just going to take you inside the North Entrance just to take a quick look. There's a mailbox on this side, and there's about 4 or 5 mailboxes around. If you do have a postcard that you want to send, there's a red mailbox on the left side. And where they're going down the stairs over there, that'll take you—I wouldn't recommend going down this one to get to the Marunouchi line, but you've got to go downstairs to the basement to get there. So that would be the entrance point. But I think that there's one inside here that makes it a little bit easier. There's another reason why I'm showing you the inside of the North Entrance. Somebody said that they added kinetic sensors into the basement, into the floor on this terminal here. I don't know too much about it, but it kind of absorbs all of the kinetic energy and puts it into a battery.

00:27:42 John Daub: Over there, that information center is where you would verify your JR rail pass, where you can buy other rail passes in the North Entrance of Tokyo Station. And here, if you just come out of the ticket turnstile, you can follow the signs, and they're pretty good at helping you get to where you want to get to. Imperial Palace straight ahead, Otemachi, take a right. And the Marunouchi and Tozai line are available if you walk through here to the basement. This way is a little bit further. I would go probably to the South Entrance. The Central Entrance to get there. There's a JR East travel place if you want to exchange money on this side, as well as 7-Eleven banks, which takes foreign credit cards, ATM cards. And there's another place where you can get rail passes if the other one is closed. It just depends on the kind of pass. I get my Tokyo JR East Welcome Rail Pass here. Pretty convenient. The North Entrance is a good one to know. Marunouchi North Entrance. It's a good one to know. And mark on the map if you're a tourist, because that is where they also speak English in there. And if you're thinking about planning a trip around Japan by rail, that's where you want to go to talk to the ladies there. They have all the information. And I say ladies because I've never seen a guy in there. In the, I think, 12 years I've been going into that station area to get passes, I've never seen a guy in there. They're all like JR ladies. JR East ladies.

00:29:32 John Daub: All right. So this, into the sun. The iPhone does a pretty good job with this. That's the 205 days to the Paralympics. And the other side, 173 days. Oh my. It's moving fast. And the games are not going to be canceled, everybody. I know you might have heard rumors. The Tokyo 2020-2021 Olympics are not going to be canceled. So they're just rumors. They can't cancel it. There's nowhere to go. You can debate amongst yourselves. I've done that. I've debated this into the ground, I think. So this here is the halfway point of our tour. There's the Japan flag up there. And if you look down this stone, which I've shown you a half dozen times in the past, is the old Tokyo Station marker. And a lot of people come here to get snap photos. That's Tokyo Station in Japanese kanji. Tokyo-eki. Good place to get a photo. And if you look straight ahead from here, as I said, I'm going to beat it into the ground. It's a beautiful clearing. Takes you all the way to the Imperial Palace. So if you want one of the best views of the Imperial Palace, just walk straight on for about 400 meters. You can see the traffic on the other side. Way, way down there. That's the end of it. And then you get into just this massive clearing where the emperor lives. Not a lot of people there. Usually there's more. I'm going to get out of his photo. There's more space than there are. In the city of Tokyo, it's very, very odd to see all that open space.

00:31:25 John Daub: Again, here, other points of interest is the Shin-Marunouchi Building. Is that the Maru Building? And the Shin-Marunouchi Building. Right there. This is the new one and that's the old one, I think. They kind of have the same architecture. We're on the seventh floor. You get this really amazing view right there on the corner here. You can stand there. And I think somebody is standing there taking pictures of us from the other side. Over on this building, the lookout that you want to hit. Let's get behind the sun here. It's right there. And I've been there a few times in live streams. And you get another aspect of Tokyo Station if you want to take this picture here. Because I always think that it's very impressive. A lot of people come here for wedding pictures as well. Because you have the old and the new. It's just such an iconic view of the city of Tokyo. Because not a lot of things survived the World War II bombing. And I believe they had to reconstruct some of this. But held up pretty good, doesn't it? Again, in World War II, March 10, 1945, was one of the worst bombings in the history of war happened in Tokyo. The fire bombings. And it wasn't so much the bombs. It was as much as the fires that came about as a result of it. And I don't want to get into the war. But just want to say that we lost a lot of buildings in Japan. Well, Japan lost a lot of buildings. And that's sad. Because a lot of history went up in smoke too.

00:33:08 John Daub: In front of us are these new fuel cell buses. It's pretty cool. We'll get a little closer. I'm going to take a break for a couple of minutes and just answer some of your questions. Here. How you doing? Any questions so far on this trip around Tokyo Station? Until we kind of high tail it. There's not that much on this back half. But I do have some interesting points of interest on the rest of this. Because I do come this way. This is the side that no one will show you actually. The next part. So what say you internet? Hit the like button. Let's see if we can get to 700 likes. And I'll grab something at a vending machine on the way back. How do you like that? Are you feeling cold there? Writes in Fred. It's a little chilly. But it's not too, too cold with the sun out. I think that really helps a lot. It's weird. We've had some really, really hideous cold systems come through here. Dumping a lot of snow. And then it gets warm the next couple of days. And then it gets cold again. I guess that's a typical winter. But yeah, I'm okay. You know what's the toughest part right now? In terms of weather is the pollen. It is absolutely awful right now. My eyes hurt. My throat is a little raspy. And it's from the pollen. It already started. We call that kafunsho (hay fever). About 10 years ago I didn't really have kafunsho or hay fever. But the older I get the worse it gets. Tokyo is awful. If you think Kyoto is bad, Tokyo is so bad with hay fever. And it's already started. It's a little bit early this year. Which is scary.

00:35:00 John Daub: So that's why. It's dry and the pollen. When are you ordering your A1? You know, Ervin, if I could afford that. And I'm getting closer with every single one of these Super Chats. I would totally get two of them. But the a7S III is going to be, you know, that's my camera. But I did order one alpha 1. Because the 8K is going to be an important part of the Only in Japan series from April. Because I want to get to 4K. And I'm going to need the 8K to be able to zoom in. So I've got two cameras now. And I usually use two cameras or three cameras on Only in Japan shoots. So yeah. I've got an a7S III and an alpha 1 coming. And I ordered it at the one minute before they started taking orders. So I should get mine pretty fast this time. How about that? Ha! Jeff Eng. Hi John. I hope I'm glad to catch this live. I hope you feel better. I feel pretty good. Pretty energetic. I slept well. Which is not common. I'm editing right now the fireworks video. I'm trying my best to try to get that out ASAP. I've got two new videos I'm also editing for Only in Japan. There's a lot of editing and some long nights ahead in the next few days.

00:36:04 John Daub: Thanks for that. Mike Chan writes in here, A1. That's right. I had to get it when Peter von Gomm was the narrator for it. If you saw the live release that Sony did, it was Peter von Gomm was narrator. I remember reading that. I remember turning on the TV and was surprised. I was like, wait, that's Peter. Kanae Daub was shocked. She didn't know that Peter had done that commercial. She was like, that's that guy who was our MC at our wedding. Yeah. So I got to get it just based on that. And then Peter goes, yeah, when you get it, can you let me see it? Because it was under glass when he got a look at it. That's not fair. I said, dude, you could probably afford to get one, no? DC's in here. Keep it up. All right. We're going to take off in a second. Some good questions here. John, have you ever stayed in the Tokyo Station Hotel? Ashley writes in here. Ashley, I can't afford that. I think it's like $300, $400 a night. But I would love to one of these days. There's the entrance to it. And if you're ever going to splurge, I mean, there's the Aman Hotel, which is over here on the Otemachi side. And a friend of mine did stay there, and I got a chance to look inside her room. It was amazing. But she also paid an arm and a leg, and she's a TV news anchor in the U.S. on one of the big networks. So it's like, yeah, she can afford that, but I can't.

00:37:21 John Daub: So I'm really happy to get a chance to take a look inside the Aman Hotel. I was able to have coffee and tea, which was an arm and a leg. But inside of here, I did go inside once and have a cup of tea, and it was $30 for a cup of tea. Luckily, I wasn't paying. Yokohama FM picked up the tab because they wanted to pre-interview me for an interview for radio. That was like five years ago now. My gosh. We have to get you a sponsored stay then. Yes, please. I would totally. I'm very, very interested in the history. And the Tokyo Station Hotel, I think that would be just the renovations that happened in the last decade. I would love to make an episode on that, just featuring on, I think maybe Babe Ruth stayed here. I don't know where Babe Ruth stayed. Where did Babe Ruth stay when he was in Japan? Probably not in existence because of the bombing of 1945. But I absolutely adore the Marunouchi side. And if you are in the Shinkansen, you're just coming through, just stop here, get a couple of pictures, because I think that this is such, like in the city of Tokyo, there's not a lot of historic buildings that are still around. This is one of them that you can't enjoy.

00:38:34 John Daub: This is the south exit now. And again, Ashley, that's what you were talking about, the Tokyo Station Hotel signs right there. You might be able to get there. Oh, Ruth stayed at the Imperial Hotel, did he? Wow. I know that Joe DiMaggio had his honeymoon there with Marilyn Monroe. They came to Japan. I didn't know Ruth did. I'm going to have to talk with the Imperial Hotel because I've met the general manager there a few times. See if we can get an episode on there. Because when the Queen visited, she stays there. Royalty usually stays at the Imperial Hotel, which is not that far away from here. And they still have her menu on there, and I would love to eat and try that menu that they've had. Here's the Marunouchi south entrance. Let me see if I can get the sign here now. There you go. And you can see all the train lines. There's nine of them. Nine of them, including the Shinkansens. Look at that. When you come in here, you have to pan up. Reminds me of some of the buildings in Vienna. I wonder if that's part of the Tokyo Station Hotel up there. Interesting.

00:40:15 John Daub: So there's the entrance to Tokyo Station on the Marunouchi north entrance. That's where we are right now. It doesn't have the same amount of information as the south entrance, especially for tourists. If you're visiting Japan, you want to mark off the south entrance. But the north one does have some points. There's a Midori no Madoguchi (green window, JR ticket office), which is a place where you can make reservations for all the nation's trains inside there. This is also a convenient place to get to the Marunouchi line. You don't have to walk as much if you come out this direction. You just go underground there. But it is kind of a hassle, because if you do have big luggage, you have to do what he's doing right now. So this direction here, going in this way, will take you to Yurakucho, if you go straight. But this here, ladies and gentlemen, especially my Patreon supporters, this is where I send almost every postcard, is sent from right inside there. I ride my bicycle here with a stack of postcards. And if you haven't gotten one from me, check out Patreon, the Only in Japan Postcard Club. I send them from the central post office in Tokyo, because this is the only place where they give you a Tokyo, Japan cancellation stamp. And for me, the stamp is such an important part of a postcard. I want to see where it's cancelled. I try to release them in different areas if I can, go to the main post office, but this is the main post office for Tokyo.

00:41:56 John Daub: And it's called the Kitei Building (Tokyo Central Post Office). And they renovated it. It looks beautiful now. The exterior is a white brick. And if you pan up, inside of the original building, which is only five stories high, when they renovated, they added this skyscraper in the middle of it. And you can see it goes up really high into the sky, very modern looking building on the Tokyo skyline. This is where the Japan Post has their headquarters. There's a nice clock up there. And I've walked through here a dozen times, so you don't need too much orientation. But straight ahead is the Apple Store. Of course, they found the best real estate. We're going to go this way. We're almost back to the start. You can see on this side, the brick is not quite as clean. So it looks more the original color of the brick with the Marunouchi line, the Yamanote line going around. Aiken's in the house. Thank you for going on a walk, John. I haven't seen this side personally. It's my next must-see. I always go to Ramen Street side. Yeah. I think if you're visiting Japan and you know one side, you might not go around it. So circumnavigating Tokyo Station, kind of useful.

00:43:24 John Daub: Now this part of Tokyo Station is interesting. You can see the trains are going by. The Yamanote line is going to cruise by in about three seconds. Oh no, that's the Keihin-Tohoku line. So I have never taken a Hato bus before. And I would love to do that when things get a little bit better. But this is where all of the Hato buses depart from. And one more information that I should tell you is if you do depart from a Willer bus, which is another bus company, or a third-party bus, it's not Willer or JR buses, a lot of them will depart from the side streets here. And it's very important that you know exactly where the buses depart. Night buses will depart in different areas of Tokyo Station, and it can be quite confusing. So make sure you have on a Google map, pinned it out the night before, at least the day before, because you don't want to rush to get to a bus. I've missed buses before, night buses, because I didn't know where it departed. And they've moved the buses around a little bit over the years. So some of them will depart, especially on the weekends, on the side streets of the Central Business District in the middle of the night. The Hato buses depart from here. And these are the Tokyo sightseeing buses on the Marunouchi side. Sort of in the south part of the Marunouchi side.

00:45:00 John Daub: And again, the sad thing with the Hato buses is a lot of them have gone out of business. Or have been suspended. I don't want to say gone out of business, because I'm not sure. But I know that they've suspended the service just because they can't get, they don't have enough tourists here. Or they just can't because of the state of emergency. So, a very sad state. And you know, I love the Hato buses because this is a really wonderful tourist destination. And you can get a pretty good orientation of the city of Tokyo for a reasonable price. And you can see they've kind of suspended it between January 9th and February 7th. They're off. So it's really, really quiet. And in fact, this whole side is pretty quiet. This is the Tokyo Panorama bus. Give them a little plug because they need it. Adults are 1800 yen. And children are half price. That's pretty cheap. And takes you, where does it take you? From here to Hibiya to, wow, all the way around. Kasumigaseki, Toranomon, Tokyo Tower, Rainbow Bridge, Odaiba, Toyosu. That is a really massive tour. So that'll take you to a lot of places. Not towards Shibuya, but mostly on this side of the city. It's a pretty good tour.

00:46:48 John Daub: Inside the basement of the Marunouchi side as well, where the Marunouchi subway line is. Loads and loads of restaurants and shops. I think the Yaesu side might be a little bit better as the fuel cell bus makes its way. It's so quiet. The shopping is probably a little bit better on the Yaesu because Yaesu has done an amazing job of, I think they're almost competing. On the backside of the Kitei building, you'll find a few cafes inside of there. There's a Starbucks and I think there's two other local chains in there. So you'll be able to caffeinate on the backside of it. Grab a coffee. And if you have a couple of hours to kill, this is a good area to do it because it's a lot quieter. And if you go on the other side towards the streets here, on the weekends they have markets that run towards Yurakucho. So they're always trying to do unique things in the Marunouchi side because when the central business district is closed on the weekends, where businessmen are not here, they try to have festivals and draw people in for some of the businesses that need that. It's kind of neat. Some of the street markets are pretty cool in this area too. These shops are all closed because again, like on the weekend because today is a Sunday. Not a lot of customers here to eat so they shut down. Especially now with the state of emergency.

00:48:03 John Daub: Oh, this is the Vilon Cafe. I'm glad this is still here. They have really good desserts. That's a French bakery cafe. Kind of pricey. When I come and give a coffee, I put the postcards in the post box. I will stop here to get some pastries for Kanae Daub sometimes. They have some pretty good chocolates, chocolate goodies. Awesome, Livenville. Welcome, a new insider. Cool. Living in the 21st century, just became a traveler. Welcome. And Sakura. Thank you. Hats off. Wishing that John one day will make some video about Japan's special ancient sports. That's a really interesting topic. I'm fascinated with the way people lived during the Edo period. For those saying, this is a pretty cool car. Do you see that one there? These are some of the, this company has these cars where they keep them on to the side of the road. And you can just ride share, I guess the word is on the internet. You can make a reservation, just pick it up and go. If you have a driver's license, it's pretty interesting. Only two people can fit in there.

00:50:08 John Daub: All right. Everyone who's saying like, why are you doing outside? This is my neighborhood. All right. So it's not like I have to go there. I'm not that far to get here to Tokyo station. This is my backyard. And you're allowed to go outside. Just know. I understand that. Hey, you know what? There's about 50 other YouTubers out here making videos. I got to keep my business going here. Staying in. I'm staying local. This road here. If you follow the tracks, loads and loads of restaurants in better, better days. You can, it is a pretty cool vibe, especially after 7 PM, but all restaurants are closed. And I'm going to be in Tokyo now have to close by 8 PM. So it, especially on the weekends, it's quiet over here. They have the flea market, which is going on on this side. That's, this is the International Forum. This is one of the venues for the Tokyo 2020, 2021 Olympics. And they still have the flea market, but because of COVID, there's a lot of checkpoints to get in, which is smart, but I don't think a lot of people are going. Everyone's doing their best to try to keep their businesses going. Very rare graffiti. Very rare. This is a part of bicycle parking lot. And I've used this several times too.

00:51:31 John Daub: If you don't want to get your bike towed, you're going to want to use an official parking lot. Put your bike in here, it's pretty self-explanatory. Put your bike in there. There's a number. This one says number 30. When you come back and you want to get your bike, I believe it's two hours for free. Yeah. Two hours. You can use this for free. And then for 10 hours you have to pay a hundred yen. And then 100 yen for every five hours after that. After three days, they take your bike away. So three-day parking if you wanted to. It's pretty cheap. Don't try to park your bike in front of Tokyo Station. It'll be towed away unless you're just doing a really quick pickup or something. And even then, I can't advise that. That's so funny. You might lose it. But following the tracks here again, the next station is Yurakucho and then Shimbashi. And you could probably walk there in about 20 minutes to Shimbashi. 20, 25 minutes if you just go straight and focus, which is what I never do on my walks. All right, we're back on the Yaesu side. But what makes this different is this would be influenced highly by Ginza, which is just over there. So from Tokyo Station, you can walk to Ginza in about 10 to 15 minutes. It's a pretty good walk. Again, Ginza is also part of my backyard. You don't have to go far. And Tokyo is a very navigable city on foot.

00:53:39 John Daub: So this train station, sometimes the 400 yen taxi ride pays for itself in the time that you save getting down to the subway and waiting for it. You're not jumping into a taxi for $5 and getting to another area. It's sometimes better than the subway. It just depends on how far you have to get. We're almost back. We're about 75% of the way done. Toro Toro Port goes here. When the pandemic ends, would you consider streaming from a public bus? I would. And it would be interesting because I think I could do it all on Wi-Fi because the public buses all have really good Wi-Fi on them. That would be interesting. And the view, I would probably do the Shimbashi to Roppongi bus. Because that's a route that I would like to take. But that is not served too well by other modes of transportation. So I wanted to point this out here because this is a pretty good map to give you an idea. So this is where we stopped at the Tokyo Station Hotel. And we walked around this way. Went under the bridge just now and we're here on the corner. Our ending point is right here. So stick with me for a little bit longer here. Places of interest is right here. And I'm going to show you that right now.

00:55:12 John Daub: Now across the street is where most of the Willer buses will depart. There's a bus station and this is where I missed my bus once. There's the JR bus rolling in. JR highway bus rolling into the station this way. And many of the buses, the third party buses, depart from this bus station which is just across the street. Keep that in mind. Okay? Because I remember I had to run here because I missed the bus. I thought it was at the Tokyo Station Hotel. And then he said, no, no, it's over here. I ran here. I saw the bus I was supposed to get on departing. And I started knocking on the window telling the driver, I got a ticket. Let me in. But once the bus departs, you have to let them go. They can't pick you up. Policy. So we've gone around here. And we have just a little bit further. So the bus station for Willer and a lot of the other third parties are here. There are some banks and other businesses. Most of them are not too excited about this. But they are excited about this. Ginza starts right here. And then you can see. I think it was right about here is where a $30 million dollar ruby was not stolen. And the famous sushi place is here. And the Sony building. And Yonchome. So it's about a 15 minute walk. Subway station, Yurakucho is right there. Ginza Ichome. So if you need to get on the Yurakucho line, it's about a 10 minute walk to get there. It's not convenient. Especially if you have luggage.

00:57:01 John Daub: On we go. I know that ruby. Oh man. Just a misunderstanding. That certainly raised the profile of that ruby. Here are some of the businesses inside here. Again, they are always changing hands. You know, every couple of years a new business will open up. Or a new restaurant. Tokyo, the turnover in the restaurant business can be quite high. A really cool cafe that was here one year could be gone the next. Or could be part of this massive new skyline. And there's a skyscraper that's being built right now. And they're building this so fast. It was less than a year ago. This was actually like a picnic area where they were doing yakiniku (grilled meat) in this urban park. And now it's almost a completed skyscraper. It's just incredibly fast. I think they have the Olympics in mind. Tony Pei's here. Welcome Tony. Follow man with hat. For those with bigger credit cards. This is the entrance to the Four Seasons. And it's a wonderful location. Because from here you can walk to Ginza. Walk to Tokyo Station. You can walk to Nihonbashi. This would be as center as you can be. And you can walk from the Shinkansen. So, if you have $300 a night to blow. I don't know if you're blowing it. It could be value to somebody.

00:58:38 John Daub: All the vending machines are across the street. Check it out. That is a really nice bank of vending machines. If you like these tours. Click the like button and encourage me to do more. I react to likes. Because that's always nice to be liked. I was kind of sad though. When they tore down this building. I believe they had like a Hokkaido store. There were a couple of other prefectural stores that were inside there. And they're now gone. I think the Kyoto store was also inside there. Now there's no Kyoto prefectural satellite shop to buy Kyoto goods in Tokyo. You actually have to go to Kyoto. Or order it on Amazon. This is the Yaesu Book Center. And that's where I met the president of Dassai. Which is the Nihon sake maker. At one of his book signings. And he gave me access to go into his brewery. Check out that car. That's an awesome car. And there's a little doggy out the window. That looks like Toby (crow). Justin! Is that Satoshi in there? That's not Justin. That's a pretty cool car. You don't see too many Chevrolets in Japan. That looked like a Camaro to me. But I can't be too sure. Because I drove an older Camaro when I was back in the US. I kind of splurged a little bit. Because I never owned a car in the US.

01:00:43 John Daub: Hey y'all. Welcome back. Kind of lost the signal for a second. So we're just about there at the end here. And that Camaro went by. This is the end of the end. And again you can see the beautiful job that they've done with the renovations of Tokyo Station. Again this is just in the last 10 years. If you haven't visited Tokyo in a while this is probably new to you. But looks like a sail. And again this is a really good contrast to the other side. The modern Yaesu side. This is a lot more modern. Just a different vibe. And it's so interesting that a station on one side and another side are both really big and very highly trafficked. They have different also vibes to them. Different styles. Like a different neighborhood. Again I didn't show you this before. But this is the highway bus terminal. And we'll get into this in a second. And over here is Yaesu Chika (Yaesu underground). Which is a renovated Yaesu side. Chika meaning basement. Shopping mall for Yaesu. And there's a ton of shops. In fact it's so big you can get lost underneath there. And there's a ton of shops. Seriously. I think you could spend an hour just looking at shops underneath there. The Yaesu Chika extends. We're right here. If you go underneath ground you want to go. Again there's shops here and then it goes this way. And there's a ton of shops including Bubby's where I always get Kanae Daub a slice of apple pie or mocha pecan pie from Bubby's in there. I might have to do that tonight. That's what I'm talking about. Ton of restaurants there. It's the good stuff. Yaesu Chika.

01:02:38 John Daub: Internet speed does not correlate to signal issues. YouTube app's got to get its act together. Alright. That's all I can say. So here's the expressway bus system. Let's take a little bit of a closer look in here. You can see the bus is departing. If you don't know how to use the vending machines you can wait in line to get a ticket. They're pretty helpful and speak a little bit of English. Again, just like entering an airport they do make sure that you don't have bad stuff on here. They do have rules. No gasoline. Don't travel with gas. But for the most part you can get just about anything from the vending machine and tickets all the way up to like two minutes before departure. And then you can run and catch the bus. There is a point where you can't do that anymore. They do have a lunch pack vending machine. We can just take a second here. They do have some lunch packs in here. Wow. Yakisoba (fried noodles). That's interesting. Bite-sized rusks by lunch pack. So you can grab a drink before you get on the bus from there. Or a lunch pack from the vending machine.

01:04:20 John Daub: Over the last 10 years it's gotten so much easier to navigate. They have these LCD panels that will tell you the bus before and the bus after. So you make sure you get on the right bus. And it's in both English and Japanese with a rotating menu. It was never like that. It's a schedule with a dozen other buses on there. But it will tell you the time of departure as well as the stops. So it's a lot clearer for passengers now. And if there's a long line they do a better job of line control. And helping tourists. There's always a staff member here if you need to get a ticket. He'll point you in the right direction. JR East does a really good job of that I think. You know, you could save some money with Willer maybe. I think it's only maybe $5 or $10. And I think JR does a pretty good job of the buses. The highway buses. Although Willer, they do have luxury night buses and things like this. So I can't say for sure. I never ride the buses. I'll just rent a car now. Or I'll take the Shinkansen or fly. But they used to have and we're back now. They used to have these $3500 or $35 night buses. And they still might. That departed from Tokyo Station to Osaka. To Osaka's Umeda Station. And I never got any sleep. I never took one where I got sleep. But it was so cheap.

01:06:02 John Daub: And when I was starting out as a YouTuber I had to take these buses because again I would blow my entire budget just on the Shinkansen. Where I could go back and forth to Tokyo if I wanted to. I was able to get a night bus in Osaka for $70. I just gotta warn you. If you do that route you're not gonna get a lot of sleep. The seats are four to a row instead of three to a row. That makes a big difference. It stops all the time. There's usually two people that are snoring really loudly. So you don't get a lot of sleep in there. And that could waste the day depending on how you operate when you operate with very little sleep. You get what you pay for. There was nothing really to buy except at the convenience store. And I'm not really. I don't know. I've got a big microphone on so it looks kind of suspicious. I can go in there and get a lunch pack. Except I'm not allowed to really eat it because I'm gonna ruin my appetite for dinner tonight. That's another reason why I'm not jumping up for joy. Didn't they have a vending machine across the street? I was gonna go get a drink from a vending machine. Let's go see if they have anything this way.

01:07:36 John Daub: This is the last exit that we haven't visited yet. This is the Yaesu South entrance. And again, the south entrance is pretty important to know because this is where the highway buses depart from. And inside of here, the Yaesu side of Tokyo Station is really, really convenient because it's just a long corridor. Here. Let me just take you for one second inside. Just for one second. You can see it's just. I don't want to disturb anybody. It's just a really long corridor that'll take you all the way to that Nihonbashi entrance. You can see it starts here at Yaesu South, Yaesu Central. There's Yaesu Central North, which is Daimaru Department Store, all the way to the Marunouchi side, which is where I did stop and show you. It's kind of an interesting. And left and right of it, there are some shops to buy gifts to take with you. No vending machines on this side. Another entrance to Yaesu Chika, which is the department stores and restaurants going down here. And if you do get lost and you need help, this is a koban (police box) right here, the green sign, which means police box. And they've got a map in here and happy to guide you around. They might not speak the best English, but the police officers here are pretty helpful. There's not that much crime unless you're stealing a ruby. So they got a little bit of free time if they're in the police box. That means they usually have free time if you've had something stolen or you lost something and you need to contact them, they will help.

01:09:56 John Daub: Magnificent meal! Thank you. And that's it! We've actually ended where we started, which is right here with this sign. It took one 70 minutes. That is ridiculous. There are the rules for the taxi. There's an actual guide on how to ride the taxi. So as one pulls up, if you're waiting in line, you get in the next one, the next people will go into the third one, and then all three of them will depart. It moves really quickly. Super, super convenient, and I'm often taking taxis to get home because it's only like 5-10 minutes depending on traffic. Let's see here. I can cross the street and give you one last view from the other side because that's where I parked my bicycle. Up here is a Docomo shop and a Hitachino craft beer place. So if you need to get a brew before you get on the Shinkansen. Could be an option. If you do come by taxi to Tokyo station, it will drop you off here. This roundabout. See the taxis are coming in. This is so convenient, and every time I gotta run to get to the Shinkansen, and I'm usually running, the taxi will stop here. I get out of the taxi, and I run straight into the entrance. The platform for the Shinkansen is about one minute this direction. It is so convenient.

01:12:15 John Daub: This will take you straight to Kyobashi and eventually to Tsukiji. Nagoya-chan says, get a beer now. Nagoya-chan, that's an amazing idea. And I think I will. But gotta get back also to get to Kanae Daub to help prepare for dinner and start editing. Streaming from a bike is not legal. Technically. Unless you are doing it where you're not holding onto anything, you could probably do it. But if you're holding onto the camera and you're looking at the screen, then the police can't stop you and give you a ticket. And they often do. You can see, wow, I didn't notice how long the queue is for the taxis here. They move pretty quickly. Any last questions? C.A.L.L.Y.R. on behalf of all the people that would like to donate something but can't, here's a little something. Get a snack for us, please. C.A.L.L.Y.R. You got it. I'm actually going to be doing another livestream maybe tonight in Ueno. I have a job where I have to film after hours at Ueno Station. And I might do something in the middle of the night. I'm going to be using that. We'll be putting the supertask to good use. I appreciate it very much. I really do. Let's see here. Any other last questions before I take off and get back to Kanae Daub and start cooking?

01:13:57 John Daub: Let's see here. Did I miss any? Nagoya John, I appreciate it very much. I'm going back here, making through. When the pandemic ends, would you consider streaming from a public bus? I'm looking at that. Living in the 21st century as a new traveler. Sakura. Aiken. Raymond Centeno. If you're using the Shinkansen, is the Yaesu or Marunouchi side better to use? Good question. I would say Yaesu. It really depends on if you're coming by taxi, which side of Tokyo Station is most convenient for you to get on. Then it's answered for you. Yaesu is always going to be easier because literally, the Shinkansen is this platform right here. Up here. That's the Shinkansen. From the Marunouchi side, you have to walk a little bit further to get to the Shinkansen. Meaning you have to pass all the local lines to get to the Shinkansen line. From the Yaesu side, you can go straight to the Shinkansen because it's a lot closer.

01:14:52 John Daub: If you're taking the Marunouchi subway line, which is the only subway line that says Tokyo Station, the last piece of advice, and John, this is such a great question because I can touch on this too. The last piece of advice is Marunouchi is the only subway station that has a Tokyo Station in the name. But as you see, as I went around the station, it is not the only subway station around here. Otemachi is about a five minute walk to get into Tokyo Station. You saw that Ginza Ichome is a ten minute walk. Nihonbashi, which is this direction, it's about 300 meters to get to the subway stations there. The only one that connects to Tokyo Station is Marunouchi. Do you have to take the Marunouchi to get here? No. You can just take the other stations. You just have to walk a little bit. Sometimes it's faster to do the 200 meter walk than to change trains inconveniently to take the Marunouchi to get here. Or, do what I do, just take a taxi. It starts at 420 yen, I believe. That's not too pricey. Especially if you have two or three people, it pays off. Excellent question. What is the retail electronics neighborhood? That would be Michael Beck. That would be Akihabara, more than likely. Or everyone now is ordering on Amazon. Pretty much. Or online. Rakuten or one of the other sites here. I think I answered it all.

01:16:20 John Daub: Thanks so much for watching this incredibly long livestream. Again, I'll put a chapter playlist inside of here so you can get to the side of Tokyo Station that is most interesting to you. If you missed something, go back and watch the playback. Click the like button and encourage me because I definitely need those likes in order to keep operating. That's how I know that a livestream did well. If we can get a thousand likes or more. Yes, but the secret entrance. There's one over there. I kind of showed it to you in the last about an hour ago. I walked past the secret entrance. It's not so secret anymore. And I gotta get a piece of pie now from the basement. I didn't really go inside anywhere. You can see the state of emergency has kept a lot of people off the roads. I don't live too far away from here. This is my neighborhood. So everybody who's getting stressed out and saying stay inside, just chillax because this is my neighborhood. It's a nice neighborhood. Because it includes Tokyo Station. It's awesome. Thanks everybody for watching. I hope this was informational, fun. If you have a question, leave it below. I will try to help you. Go to the Discord server or to Twitter. Yes, I'm on Twitter. Only in Japan TV. And I do have a new channel which a lot of you are not subscribed to. Because you think it's an old channel. I don't know. But John Daub, only in Japan. John Daub is a new channel. We're getting very close to 100,000 subscribers. Rebuilding again. I have a new video dropping really soon. So thanks so much for the support everybody. I will see you in the next livestream really soon. Later Gator.