00:00:00 John Daub: Hello everybody, welcome to Tokyo. That in the distance is my favorite bridge in Tokyo. Yes, even more so than the Rainbow Bridge. That is Eitaibashi, Eitai-bashi (eternal life bridge), which means bridge. And the Skytree is right behind it along the Sumida River. This bridge goes all the way back to either 1696 or 1698. The records are a little bit sketchy. But today I'll be taking you on a trip over to this bridge.

00:00:33 John Daub: I wanted to admire this wonderful view. A lot of you are in a lockdown. We are in a state of emergency, but that's not a lockdown. The shopping malls are all open. We just have to be very, very careful. And I'm staying outside in this live stream, taking you to this beautiful bridge. Now, it's been under control. It was under construction before the 2020 Olympics. They were renovating it. And throughout its history, it's kind of been in a lot of construction. There's a lot to this bridge. And when you know the history of it, it does make it really, really special.

00:01:10 John Daub: So this is the last time we're going to see this view. And you can see the Skytree has a pretty nice color to it. The tower up there is changing color. And with this backdrop, it's just so beautiful, isn't it? Alright, we'll get a lot more of the Skytree and all that. This is Chuo-bashi (Central Bridge), which just means Central Bridge. And this one leads to Tsukuda Island, which is behind me. I'm going to do a live stream on Tsukuda Island one of these days.

00:01:39 John Daub: That's where a lot of... Before this bridge existed, or any of the bridges, there were ferries that crossed the Sumida River. Now we're crossing the Sumida River right now. And Tsukuda, that's where all of the fishermen that were fishing for the shogun, Ieyasu Tokugawa, lived, of course, in Edo Castle. So we're going to be crossing this bridge. And in fact, if you go straight this way, you get to Tokyo Station. It's about 2½ kilometers, I think.

00:02:11 John Daub: But this bridge in itself is really beautiful. And you're going to get, look at that sky over there. Wow. That's Tsukishima-bashi and Kachidoki-bashi, the two bridges in the distance. And this bridge, Chuo-bashi, is really, really beautiful in its own right, leading towards this island. Right here, which looks like a little Manhattan. About 1.5 miles long. It is quite windy and I do have an external mic which is a blessing in these kinds of situations. But the wind is going to go down as soon as we get a little bit closer here.

00:02:48 John Daub: During the cherry blossom season this walkway is so beautiful and there's loads and loads of cherry blossoms or sakura trees. So this bridge again, I told you the construction started in 1696 or 98. Let's just say it was a late 17th century and Edo period. Yeah, this was I believe the fourth bridge across the Sumida River. I have a picture here if you're interested click that like button. I will get this. Get my other phone out here. Here it is. So this is what the bridge looked like back in the late 17th century.

00:03:44 John Daub: It had an arch to it and you can see on top of the bridge. They're totally, totally busy, right? And one of the things that people told me about this bridge, you know the ghosts that wander around. And by people I mean the internet. This bridge was super, super crowded. It was basically like rush hour on a subway. Just so packed people were going from Edo, which was on this side of the river to Fukagawa, which is on the other side of the river, which is now Monzen-Nakacho.

00:04:22 John Daub: You had to really push your way through it. It was always like that. I believe 24 hours a day, I cannot confirm it. I wasn't there in the late 17th century 1690s, but it was that busy. And as the years went by they did do reconstructions of it. You can see it did flatten out a little bit. So it looked like a port over there. I believe this is going the other direction and that island I believe is this island right here, which is Tsukuda Island right there with those skyscrapers.

00:05:03 John Daub: This is the beautiful Sumida River. Not many boats on it because they mostly stop operation around six seven o'clock because of the state of emergency. So I got some more pictures to show you in a second. Urban's here ready for an equipment upgrade. I do have that DJI Ronin SC but that Ronin 2 looks really good, doesn't it? It's a beautiful bridge and this is one of the best places. I don't think a lot of visitors who come to Tokyo actually come down to the riverside.

00:05:46 John Daub: But if you're staying in a hotel just like nobody here, this is crazy. Did if you stay in a hotel, this is one of the best places to go for an evening walk. Just kind of relaxed. Look at the beautiful scene the skyline with Skytree over there. But in most days when you know, we're not in a pandemic this river is filled with so many boats and it is kind of really bizarre that there's not a one right now it is really bizarre. Space boat goes across here all the time and we are seeing space boat more and more but not right now.

00:06:26 John Daub: I go running here. I used to go running here almost every day since I hurt my knees and because of the pandemic I don't go that as often as I used to. But it's a beautiful no traffic lights for I think it's about three or four kilometers and then you have to kind of go around one old bridge and then you got another clear view to Asakusa and maybe even all the way to Takasaki. I think if you keep going straight to Gunma or something.

00:07:10 John Daub: Hey in nuclear is here long time no see from Canada. How have you been pretty good? Pretty pretty good really busy editing. Trying really hard to get work done. All right, we're getting pretty close here the closer you get now these neon lights. It's always been illuminated as long as I've been here in Tokyo illuminated like this in this blue light, but it got more LED-ish about I don't know five years ago.

00:07:46 John Daub: But again once again, they renovated it right before the Olympics. So it was under under a canopy for I guess it was about a year and a half. Which is kind of a shame and I could smell every time I ran underneath that fresh paint wafting across the river here. We're getting close to Eitaibashi. I'm gonna show you once again when we get to the spot here some of the historical pictures, but I do want to say that this bridge has kept the shape that it did back in the 1690s 1698 I'm gonna say 1698 is the definitive date that it was opened.

00:08:32 John Daub: So 1698 the bridge had this arc to it. All right so people would have to go up and then go down to get to the other side. But they maintain that arc in the new design that was constructed after the great Kanto earthquake in 1923. And I like that that's just a little bit of a tidbit. Why is that arc there? It doesn't really need to be there. But it pays homage to the original shape of Eitaibashi. I don't know that for sure but I'm pretty sure because if you see the two pictures together that arc pretty much goes along the same line as the original Eitaibashi bridge.

00:09:14 John Daub: It has been built several times over the last for centuries though. Can you imagine? Wow, it's like 300 and some years old this bridge on the same spot. So here's another picture of Eitaibashi. It's like a geisha taking a trip on the Sumida River and you can see what I'm talking about. The stilts gave it a really nice arc to it a lot of traffic above there and even though the cars go straight across you can see it still has that shape of an arc. Super super busy bridge.

00:09:59 John Daub: Again, that's what Edo looked like back. I guess this would be the 18th century. Maybe it's hard to say. Yeah with all the all the boats and stuff. I'm sure it's the 18th century now beautiful and here it is right before the I guess this is there in the Meiji era. It had gotten a little bit lower the construction but you could see there's a ton of people on there and was actually a lot busier than this. From the reports that I had it was so crowded it was like like being on a jammed subway because this is the main way across.

00:10:37 John Daub: Before this bridge existed they actually had a ferry. I believe it was the Fukagawa ferry that would go across here and that that ferry was again one of the main ways to get to the other side to get into and out of Edo. It's a beautiful bridge. Look at the way to illuminates the water and if you look back here and we're gonna see from the other side it's even more impressive that's Tsukuda now this this this area here is the only original island that was in Edo.

00:11:13 John Daub: I believe it's a little patch a little rock that was there and they constructed they man-made the rest of the island to include Tsukishima and Kachidoki, but this where the skyscrapers are is on hard hard rock. And that's why they could build those tall buildings and why until recently they couldn't have it tall skyscrapers air to the grounds here. Hey it feels uh feels like i'm a little late but because there aren't many people out but it's really just late here in california what are you doing up what are you doing up all right we're gonna go up here and cross this bridge just like they did hundreds of years ago but before we do that let's go to the other side okay.

00:12:03 John Daub: Let's go to the other side now every time we would run underneath this bridge there was always a flood because it's if this area is almost at the same level as the river it's almost at the same level as the river so the water when a boat would go through here would spill over the walls here and would totally flood here so i'd have to gym like shimmy across the wall which you can't see because it's a little bit too dark so here's Eitaibashi from the other side beautiful beautiful view.

00:13:04 John Daub: Now at this point you have to kind of go up and around and there's some other really old things that you can see but it's a little bit more beautiful than the river so it's kind of a old bridges to admire because I love the bridges of Tokyo but we got it we're gonna loop back around here so you had the shimmy along this thing because of the water was underneath here alright hustle through here hey Frank the tanks here with no tourists do you feel different when outside not really it just feels I don't actually go outside that much to be honest with you so I don't know just feels weird to be outside.

00:13:53 John Daub: King Wong's here vending machine fund if we find something we will find something we'll hit a vending machine and char Walters welcome from New Zealand how you doing it's a cup of Joe right there here's Tokyo right now hey there's a knockoff or is a Sukiya in the distance alright let's cross this bridge this is your Sumida Gala Terrace there was a live stream I did about five years ago no no no that's not Tesla like three years ago I'm just over here there was a restaurant called Eitaibashi Brewery and that's since been gone gone out of business yeah this is a very historical crossing.

00:14:57 John Daub: It's like I don't know if you can imagine hundreds of years ago jam-packed bridge like at a festival. I love the what the LED does it the rivets on here look at this really gives it really makes it stand out 20th century 21st century hey brandonnie is in the house shocked be shocked about that hey that trucks in the way there's the Skytree. Tommy K asks a very important question what would the John Daub Only in Japan vending machine hold all sorts of goodies.

00:16:11 John Daub: Alright now we're heading over to the Fukagawa side so before we do that let's absorb in absorb this view here and I'll talk a little bit about this bridge so originally was a hundred meters it said see it's about I don't know I'd say it a little bit more than 100 meters crossing this is a look back at Tsukuda from the bridge but in 1807 the 20th of September was a great festival at Fukagawa Tomioka Hachiman shrine which is in Monzen-Nakacho not to which is just across the bridge here there's a big shrine and I've been there a couple of times with you in a live stream just straight that way.

00:17:03 John Daub: And everyone was excited and wanted to go to see the festival. On that day, I'm gearing up because there was an accident right here. This exact spot. So on that day, September 20th, 1807, shortly before the accident, a boat of a feudal lord passed under the bridge, and the warden stopped the crowd from crossing for that time. So there was a feudal lord was going under, and everyone had to stop. All right. When the boat was gone, everyone stormed over the bridge, and that's when it happened.

00:17:41 John Daub: All right. So this was like rush hour traffic. You just couldn't move. It's like a football game in South America or something, where accidents are happening. Everybody's pushing from one side to get to the other side. And then after the feudal lord left and they opened up the bridge again, everybody started to push like crazy. And then it just got too heavy, I guess, because the bridge collapsed. A lot of people didn't make it. There's an art depicted of the collapsed bridge of 1807. You see that? Not one of Tokyo's finest moments.

00:18:26 John Daub: So I guess all those people fell into the river here. They guess they might be stuff from people's pockets underneath the river. I don't know if there's any kind of history we could salvage from the bottoms. Davies Locker. Many small boats came here. Came to help looking for drowning people. Temporary hospitals were set up along both sides of the shores here to take care of the wounded. The bridge was later rebuilt by the Bakufu government and then renewed to become the first iron bridge in Japan in Tokyo, 1897.

00:19:02 John Daub: So this bridge was pretty much. It's pretty much the way it was built in the reconstruction after that collapse. So the first iron bridge in 1897. And you can see it's made of iron. The rivets here. The rivets here probably going back to over 100 years. I just touched it. Now I got to alcohol my hands. So the new bridge was a lot flatter. Interesting history. Sorry. So the bridge collapsed. It's saying here it happened August 15th, 1807. I want to get that right. But there were in the I guess in 1807 there were a lot of accidents. It just seemed like a bad thing. It was a bad year for this bridge.

00:20:01 John Daub: Now we're on the Fukagawa side, which is essentially Monzen-Nakacho. Interesting. It says here, Eitaibashi. It's around the other side. So they had an iron bridge and it was something else happened to really make things a little bit tough on this bridge. It was the great Kanto earthquake of 1923. At that time, there was a lot of fires going on. A lot of things were just wiped out. The rivers. I guess it was Kanae's grandfather who told me stories about about that earthquake that he I guess he was still a child.

00:21:00 John Daub: He was born in the 19 like like Taisho something just before the earthquake. I guess he was really, really young. But he had been told lots of stories about what had happened that day. And there are apparently lots and lots of bodies. A lot of people burned the devastation from fires back in the Edo period. Back in the sorry, the Taisho period. Back when. When most of the buildings were made out of wood was devastating. There's a lot of traffic here. And that's Eitaibashi written in Chinese characters or Japanese kanji.

00:21:36 John Daub: Just hundreds. I guess it was like hundreds of thousands of people had perished because of that earthquake. And more than the earthquake and the building collapsing were the fires and people just jumped in the river. And after the great great Kanto earthquake. Because we had the great Tohoku earthquake in 2011. Almost 10 years ago. They built this. They rebuilt the part of that bridge. Part of this bridge is made of wood. They rebuilt it completely in. I believe it's iron. And they also made it the first earthquake proof bridge in Japan.

00:22:08 John Daub: This I believe was the fourth bridge to go across the Sumida River. And there are a couple of other really beautiful bridges going up this way. But this is the first river. This is one of the oldest bridges down down the river. The next one would be Kachidoki Bridge. Which I believe is the last one before Rainbow Bridge. This way. And Kachidoki Bridge was built after the Japan-Russian war. As a tribute I believe. These days it's not quite as packed. We can thank the subway line. Which I believe is the Tozai Line maybe that goes across underneath the river here.

00:23:00 John Daub: If you like these historic walks. Definitely definitely click the thumbs up button. And don't forget to subscribe. And turn that bell on to always. So you make sure you get the notifications. Because I got a couple more really nice historical walks. That will keep me on the outside. Not on the inside. Space boat. When it comes this way. Some of the boats. If you go this direction. This will underneath Chuo Bridge. This is where we started the live stream. On this bridge.

00:23:30 John Daub: If you go underneath there. This will take you. Dump you into Tokyo Harbor. The big part where Rainbow Bridge is. If you go this direction. Oh ho. It's a smaller waterway. It will take you to Toyosu. And then from there. Some of the boats will dock at LaLaport. Which is a shopping mall. Not too far down there. I guess where that building is in the center. Is Toyosu. It will take you around. And then eventually. Go around. Tsukuda and Tsukishima. And you end up back in Odaiba. Tokyo Bay.

00:24:02 John Daub: David Welsh. Thank you. Michael Sassano. The weather looks perfect for a walking tour. There goes a jogger. Hey. What's that bag doing? Okay. Just keep it there. So it doesn't go into the river. Probably fell off of a truck. Just a lot of wind on the river. Thank goodness for this microphone here. It's doing a pretty good job. You see it? It's the Rode NTG mic pro or something. I don't know. Rode's names are kind of long. But David Welsh. Thank you. That's nice of you.

00:25:07 John Daub: Hey Andrew Fo Wing. Sad historical event. Interesting nonetheless. Chen Meso. I'm sorry. John. Are there any manhole cover gachapon machines? I heard that there were. But I haven't seen. So I'll be on the lookout when I get back to Akihabara. So that's pretty much the gist of it. But I got one more place I want to take you. It's up to you now. If we can get to 450 likes, I leave it up to the community. I will take you to another historical bridge that's about, I don't know, about a hundred and fifty meters this way, which I think you're going to want to see.

00:26:02 John Daub: It's up to you. Can you click? Can we get to 450 likes as a community? It's up to you guys. I love playing these little games because it's active participation. So watch the traffic. And for every car that goes by, click a like button. But if you clicked it once, don't click it again because you're basically cancelling out your own click. Wow, we're almost there. Impressive. You have until this light turns green.

00:26:40 John Daub: Somebody played the Jeopardy song. Whoa. We're about 60 likes away. That's crazy. We can do this. We can do this. We're a team. Raymond says smash the like button. Sean is just laughing. Kenneth says double like it. No, Kenneth, don't do that. Florencia, smash it. Gman3fold is psyching me up with the Pear Man. Wow, we're so close. Betty C. Thanks for taking us on this journey. You're very welcome, Betty. Welcome to Tokyo. Talk to you soon. TokyoTown23. Hi, John. Hello from the UK.

00:27:25 John Daub: Just wanted to wish you well and wanted to know your thoughts on the extended state of emergency. I can tell you that as we cross the street. Oh, come on. We're five likes. We're five likes. Come on. Somebody click the like button. We're five likes away. Two likes. I can't walk. I'm not walking until we get to... Okay, good. The drama. The drama. All right. Waving bye-bye to Eitaibashi. This way, we're going to be able to get to the end of the video.

00:27:57 John Daub: So, the steps... There's steps right there that'll lead down to the bridge to the other side. We walked underneath the bridge once. Those steps are right there. You could actually walk through an alley between the bushes here. Secret way. But we're going to go this way because it's the main route. This road will curve around and take you eventually to Ginza. And this road straight ahead will take you to Tokyo Station. And many of you know where this road leads past. It takes me pretty much where we walked. We walked two days ago around Tokyo Station. So all these live streams are connecting. Genius.

00:28:41 John Daub: All right. This bridge was under construction for years and they just finished like about two, three months ago. And now it's opened up. Whoa. It's opened up again. God, the wind is so strong. It feels like a typhoon almost. I got to turn my hat backwards or we're going to lose. Loser. They painted it a nice white color. I think it was more of a like a rotting silver. But the engineers made some structural enhancements to it to make it more earthquake proof.

00:29:21 John Daub: Pretty much after the 10 years ago after the great Tohoku earthquake, a lot of the buildings in Tokyo were renovated or had some structural enhancements to make sure that nothing ever happened to the bridge should a strong one hit. One of the reasons to come this way is because you get. One more beautiful view of Eitaibashi. I love her. Look at it. Look at the way that those lights just, I don't know, reflect off of the river. It's really, really pretty. A lot of joggers will come this way.

00:30:12 John Daub: And because we got to almost 500 likes, I'm going to take you a little bit further extended. It's really a shame because just right there. Down here. Just right there. There was an awesome. Like a beautiful view. It's like a beer cafe and you could sit on the balcony. It's gone now. It's turned into some kind of community center. I think I'm not sure exactly what it is. And here's a big testament to Tokyo when they renovated the bridge. They also renovated the toilet and they made a multipurpose toilet for everybody. And I thought that this is really, really a good thing.

00:31:00 John Daub: See here. Wow. Look how clean that is. Public toilet. Really clean for public toilet. That's so clean. Let's see if. Okay. I love the fact Tokyo has also done a really good job adding history and showing you. This is the view. Wow. This is one of the pictures I just showed you. Hey. Eitaibashi. They've written it up here. Again. Okay. It's now a given 1698. It was 150 meters long about back then. And it talks about being I think the fourth bridge across. It looks pretty massive. Doesn't it? I would love to have been here just to walk across it. It looks like fun.

00:32:16 John Daub: This was the last bridge before you got into the open Tokyo Bay. And you can see loads of boats. Some of them. I guess they would have to dock here because they couldn't get underneath the bridge. Again once you got to the end. That looks like Tsukuda. This. Oh, is that what that is? This would be Tsukuda which is that island right there. Where the Tsukuda fishermen were. Looks kind of deserted. Yeah, that's Tsukuda right there. That's the kanji for Tsukuda. Interesting. Wow. So this is the exact point of this photo. This painting. Interesting, right? I like this.

00:33:00 John Daub: So you can see 1698 versus 2021. Thank you Nightbot for sharing the temperature. It is really, really windy here folks. And it is a little bit chilly. But it's nothing like what it is in the East Coast. And the US with all that snow that we saw. I hope everybody is doing well. So if we come down here. There is a little bit of a terrace. And a nice place to bring a bento or a couple of brews. And just kind of relaxing.

00:33:38 John Daub: This is the walkway. I would have to go over this bridge to get back to this walkway where I could go for a run. And leads you all the way down to. Almost to Asakusa. There is one more break in it where you got to go around the bridge. And then there is some of the highways. The ugly highways from the 1960s before the Olympics. And then there is Skytree in the distance. Hey Carrie. I am walking. What are you doing? Kind of relaxing out here. I thought this would be a good place for a historical tour.

00:34:15 John Daub: But I can imagine. I wonder what people were thinking in 1807. When during the festival at the shrine over there. This bridge collapsed. And so many people had drowned or got seriously injured. But the thing with that accident in 1807. Again this is what friends have told me. You know. Ghosts and stuff that. After people started to fall in. And the bridge collapsed. Apparently people did not know. People did not know that the bridge had collapsed. And they were still pushing across.

00:34:55 John Daub: So at the place where the bridge had collapsed. People were still toppling in. And it was several minutes before they had stopped. And they could start to rescue the people. And again the current here is quite strong. Pulling out in towards the Pacific Ocean eventually. So it was a huge tragedy in Tokyo. August 15, 1807. Yeah. Thanks so much guys for clicking the likes. We hit our mark of 515. Did not think we would get there. But we did it.

00:35:30 John Daub: John Kimura is in the house. You got it John. I do appreciate it Betty C. Let's see if we can find a vending machine. And then we will put a ribbon on this really fun live stream. I love the historical walks. And I hope you do too. Leave me a comment if you have any suggestions on a historical walk around the city of Tokyo. That I have not done already. Let me know. Because I am always looking at things we can do to make the city come alive. So when you do come to Tokyo. You can feel the history here. If you just know a little bit more about it.

00:36:02 John Daub: So that is where we are on the front. And then we are going to the corner there. Where that red spot is. And the river just keeps going up and up. Towards Asakusa. In fact if you go up for another. I guess if you are walking for another 30 minutes. You do get to Asakusa. And you see the big. The golden poo. And the bridges there. So you could walk all the way there. It is just kind of a little bit of a hike. But it is such a beautiful walk. And a nice spring afternoon. Wow. It is a reason almost to walk to work. If you are living around the river. And this is Chuo-ku.

00:36:34 John Daub: So this is the area in which I am living. It is very convenient for getting around the city. Tokyo is a wonderful place for bicycling. If you are just staying off of the main roads. If you learn the side roads. It is really really nice for riding around. Especially in the evenings or on the weekends. And there is even more historical bridges. The further you go up the river. The more bridges you get in. I forget the total number of bridges. That go up. Along there. They tell you if you ride the space boat. But there are a lot of bridges that cross the river now.

00:37:22 John Daub: This is. That you are looking at. Eitaibashi over there is number four. The first iron bridge. And earthquake proof bridge in Japan. Let's see if we can find a vending machine real quickly. I have a travel update coming. Probably tomorrow. Oh. See. This is where the Eitaibashi Brewery was. It is out of business. They used to brew the beer right there. And then you could enter into the restaurant here. And then there is a balcony up there. But looks like somebody. They have. I don't know. Done something with it.

00:38:10 John Daub: In fact if that property was available. I would buy it. It is beautiful. Wow. It is so cold now. With the wind. This is such a weak vending machine. This is so weak. There is nothing I want in there. There is nothing I want in there. Alright. We got to. We got to walk even further. I think that there is some this way. Let's go across. Hey. Carlos. Carlos Mitchell is in the house. Here is some for corn soup. Oh that corn soup hit the spot.

00:39:01 John Daub: Let's see what we can find. No guarantees that we are going to get it in this live stream. So I have tomorrow a travel update. Because a lot of stuff is happening behind the scenes. I didn't want to do it. I didn't want to talk about this. Until we were closer to the end of this live stream. But. Tokyo extended the state of emergency. State of emergency is not a lockdown. Alright. This is completely different. There's a lot of misunderstandings of what this actually means.

00:39:31 John Daub: A state of emergency is less for us and more for the businesses. So you can see that there's actually a lot of people walking around. Manu writes in, it's a recommendation. It's a little bit stronger than that. You can go outside. You can go out and get exercise. It's all about social distancing here in Japan. Wear a mask and social distance. Wear a mask when you're in a crowded area and social distance. Wash your hands. But there's no law saying you have to stay inside of your living room and order delivery food.

00:40:07 John Daub: In fact, if you're a conspiracy theorist or not, the amount of infections in Tokyo has gone down from 2,000 to just a little bit over 300 now. So they've gone down, I don't know, a lot. Don't ask me why. I'm guessing just people are staying inside and more people are working from home and the holidays are over. But, but. No buts. No buts. But the situation in Japan is nowhere near the same as in Perth, Australia, for example. One person got sick. I think it was a security guard at a hotel got sick. And they did a five-day lockdown of the entire city.

00:41:00 John Daub: They don't do that in big, big cities in Japan. It's impossible. Because it would adversely affect the economy too much. Right now Japan's economy is so much in the hole that I don't think there's no more bailouts for people. I don't think they can afford it. So you have to keep doing what you're doing. Just be mindful. And what the state of emergency is is for businesses more than for individual people. They do it the other way around.

00:41:27 John Daub: So if you're a business, you have to, if you're a restaurant, you have to shut your doors at 8 o'clock. So these delivery people are shut down. And there's most of the people on bicycles are like delivery people. They have to shut down at, at 8 o'clock. So if you're, if you're waiting on a delivery food, you got to order it now. Or cook. The, the shopping malls are all open. The grocery stores are all open. Offices are open. The train stations are all running. It's not a lockdown. But it's been extended. And that's probably a good thing.

00:42:02 John Daub: I think, I think, and I'm going to talk about this more tomorrow in the update. But I think, I think, uh, Prime Minister, Suga needed to be a little bit stronger. And he flexed, he flexed a little bit, declaring the first state of emergency in his tenure. And he extended it. And that just lets people know that this is still a serious situation. You still have to wear your masks. You still have to be careful when you're inside. You still have to avoid clusters. You still have to social distance. You still have to wear your masks. You still have to do these things.

00:42:36 John Daub: Um, and people were getting a little bit complacent. Um, I'm outside most of the time. So, it's, it's okay. But it's when you're talking with people and getting close that it is extremely dangerous. So, I don't do that. Stay away from people. I just walked away. Walk away. Stick and move. Don't stick. What am I talking about? Stick would mean I would have to do something. Ah. John Flynn. Uh, I'm from Ohio too. Hey! OH! Very cool.

00:43:27 John Daub: Alright, there's a 7-Eleven right there, but, I'm gonna save it all and get a drink, um, back at home because I'm getting a little cold. The, the temperature's starting to drop. Across the street is one of my favorite curry places. Boom. Oh no! I just see a, I see another victim. That was an ENEOS gasoline stand. A gas station. Now it's out of business. The ENEOS. It used to be part of the, the restaurant. But now just the restaurant's open. And the restaurant is still open. For now. But it has to close at 8pm. Like all the other restaurants.

00:44:05 John Daub: Any last questions before we end this livestream? I'll be having a beer tomorrow. In fact, I'll be having a beer probably on the Twitch stream, which I'm thinking about doing tonight. So. I have, it's hard to, it's hard to talk. So I have another livestream that's coming up, um, maybe for insiders. And, uh, tomorrow we have a travel update. And I have a Twitch livestream. If you, if you don't follow me on Twitch, that's cool too. Um. I've been doing Twitch for the last, uh, I started after the, uh, pandemic. And I haven't really done it in a while. So I'm trying to get back into it.

00:44:52 John Daub: So got a Twitch livestream coming, um, maybe tonight or tomorrow morning. And, um, yeah. I still have a Lego of Tokyo to build and some other things to do. Kanae will not help me this time. It's a very busy, busy schedule. And I have loads and loads of videos. I have actually eight videos that have, that just need to be finished with the editing. To come up on the main channel. I've been, uh, stockpiling them. I don't know why. It's mainly because I've had so many things on my plate. Including a documentary. There's like so many things. So I better get back.

00:45:24 John Daub: Kanae did. She said, don't get involved. When John has Legos, walk away. Walk away. It could be, Musashi. It could be the longest livestream in the history of this channel. Which, by the way, is a two hour livestream that has over, like, a million views. It's crazy. The longest livestream was a two hour street food video. That is the most popular video on this channel. And get this. Million views. The average watch time on that video is 90 minutes long. People almost watched it to the end on average. That's insane. It's like watching a movie. Some dude eating street food in 720p. Not, well, HD would be a lot better.

00:46:12 John Daub: Okay, I could cross right here. I could cross right here. Kanae is wise. She is. She's wiser beyond her years. Or I'm just immature. I think I can double cross here. Everyone's doing it. Actually, let me get closer. That looks really good. Tomato garlic cheese. What? Whoa. Anybody else would wish they were micro-sized and could jump in on there and eat their way across? Nice. You can get this for takeout too. But, considering. That Kanae has dinner waiting. I better not do that. Wow. There's almost nobody inside. There's very few people on the inside.

00:47:34 John Daub: Alright, let me go to this point. We'll take a very good look at Eitaibashi and call it a night. What's waiting for dinner tonight? I don't know. I don't know. Maybe nabe? I think it might be nabe. Because I need to get some shots of yuzukosho to finish up a video I'm planning to upload. Around the 7th or 8th of February. I need one more shot of nabe with yuzukosho. And then the video just requires me to add in some subtitles. So maybe nabe.

00:48:12 John Daub: So there you go. She's a beautiful bridge. Eitaibashi falling down, falling down, falling down. Eitaibashi falling down. 1807. See? History. Make it into a song. Not something we should celebrate though. Thanks so much for watching. I hope you enjoyed this livestream. If you have any questions, leave them in the comments below. Hit us up on the Discord server. I'll put some, uh, put some of these old photos in the Discord server so you can take a look at it and get a nice shot of Eitaibashi before I head back to dinner.

00:48:56 John Daub: It takes me about 20 minutes to walk home from here. So I better get on and move on. I'll see you tomorrow for a travel update showing you, talking about some of the, some of the big announcements that have happened. including with the Olympics, what the talks are, the Olympics, and the state of emergency, and all this stuff we'll do tomorrow in a Q&A as I download the news and digest it for you to help plan your trip. When will Japan open up again? We'll know tomorrow, maybe. We'll know tomorrow. Bye, everybody.

00:49:36 John Daub: Hey, WRX Turbo. Sam K. You're welcome. From Australia. And Rara Bela. Hi, John. Sending you some 29 degrees Celsius from a... Oh, that's so warm. Thank you. Would you send me some of that chilly weather that way? Here you go. To the Philippines. To the Philippines. To the Philippines. I added some snow in there, too. To a toro porco.

00:50:10 John Daub: I could tell you this story. I just saw this question here. A buddy of mine who still lives on Tsukuda Island, he has a kayak, and we inflated the kayak, and we tried to ride the kayak around here. We had helmets on and life jackets, but a police boat busted. They busted us and told us to go back in, and we were never allowed to... I've never been on it again. So, if that answers your question. But I will tell you this. I do see those jet boats, you know, the little ones that you stand up on, jet skis, going across here sometimes. So, I don't think it's impossible, but there's a lot of boats going across here. You just have to be very careful. And having a license, a boat shipping license or something might be useful in Japan, a country that loves licenses. So, thank you. So, I hope that answers your question. Bye now.