00:00:02 John Daub: Greetings. Hello. Good evening. Welcome to Tsukishima Station. Yes, this is Tsukishima Station. I was just here in the area about two weeks ago in the middle of the night. And Kanae's hospital is not too far away where she's been recovering from giving birth a couple of days ago. And I thought I would come back here in the middle of the night because it is just stunning. Some of the alleys I'm going to take you down are very, very old. And I don't know how long they're going to be here.

00:00:34 John Daub: Tokyo over the last 10 years since the Great Tohoku Earthquake has been knocking down a lot of the older buildings that could be a risk from a big earthquake. And I think that sometime soon this area might be on that chopping block where they destroy some of those buildings. So I thought it really important historically to cover this area. And at night, there's no better time. Check it out. All right. So this is the station, Exit 6, I believe, six or seven. And then we're going to walk down Monja Street and it's completely deserted.

00:01:04 John Daub: But what is most impressive? Not this street right here, but the streets on the left and the right of it is amazing. These houses are called nagaya (old row houses) that I'm going to show you. They're like old row houses. And you're very close to the neighbor. In fact, the alleys are very narrow to walk through. So it's going to lead to some pretty interesting sights over the next 20 or 30 minutes. I hope that you enjoy this. So take you down the amazing alleys of Tsukishima here in Tokyo.

00:01:39 John Daub: Hey, Edo's here. How you doing, Edo? Edo loves alleys. Tony P's in the house. Hope you and Kanae are still doing well. She's coming home tomorrow, Tony. Yay! So marching forward, Lamsuke Senior, you traveler, welcome. Really appreciate our new members here. Here we go. Please find a tiny flat cap for the wee baby, Toby. How dare you call him Toby?

00:02:15 John Daub: Now, Tsukishima is one of the older islands of reclaimed land. This is actually reclaimed land that we're on right now from the 1890s. I think it was 1892. And they connected it with an actual island called Tsukishima. Shukuda (Tsukuda?), which is where we were a couple of weeks ago, that was an actual rock in the middle of the Sumida River, Tokyo Bay. And they just filled it in this way in 1892. So you're going to see a lot of the alleys here. This one is a monja (savory pancake) shop.

00:03:09 John Daub: And in fact, Tsukishima is famous for two things, monja and monjayaki (savory pancake). And all the shops on the left and right are monjayaki and they're all closed because it's like quarter to 2 in the morning. Now, one of the reasons I wanted to do this live stream right away was if you pan up, check this out. That's a brand new high-rise skyscraper. This just was finished about, I don't know, six months ago. And it's really sad because what used to be in these alleys were row houses from 60, 70 years ago after World War II. Now, totally different. I'm in a hurry to do this episode.

00:04:14 John Daub: Okay, this is what I'm going to be taking you through. This is what you're in for for the next 20 minutes or so. Air to the Ron is here. Power naps. That's right, being up in the middle of the night. Something I'm going to have to get used to. Hey, there's Ranjit. There's a little something for baby Dom from Uncle Ranjit. Thanks, brother. I'll hear first. Now, I'm going to wrap up here. Television's sad. Hey, Ann Dugan's here. Awesome live stream on my birthday. Happy birthday.

00:06:21 John Daub: Thank you for the entertainment. Doesn't feel like entertainment being out here. It's kind of creepy. Alleys here. Tourists never come. A lot of tourists will come to this. The tourists never come to this part of the island. And it's like it hasn't really changed much in a decade. Alley after alley is so scenic. The thing is, I don't know how much longer it's going to stay like this. I just get a feeling that in the next 10 years, this is going to completely change. And we're going to lose some of these alleys. They're just going to build high-rise apartments because that's what they do.

00:07:12 John Daub: And then you'll find houses like this one. I know it's low light, but there's no audio. All right, I'll take the mic off. I wonder why there's no audio. All right, now it should be audio now. Are we back again? It's not windy. It should be fine. All right, let's walk a little bit further. All right, we're going to take a left here, go back towards the main street. That last alley was pretty creepy, because I'm going to have the TV on. And it startled me, because it's so quiet when you get to a place where there's any sound at all. It's kind of startling.

00:08:59 John Daub: All right, let's go back to this intersection. That in front of us, though, is a koban (police box). It looks like something made after World War II. They took some cinder blocks and made a box out of it. Some alleys. I came about the microphone. I don't know why it's so low. I apologize for that. Now I'm using the iPhone mic. That in front, that's just a police box called a koban. It's a pretty basic looking one. It's kind of scary. There's some music playing.

00:10:12 John Daub: This does feel like a zombie town. Like time has stopped. Oh, there's a supermarket there. It's open 24 hours, I think. Oh, it's a Daiei. There's not a lot of Daieis around Tokyo. Hey, Robsy, congrats, John and Kanae. Love the midnight walks. Nice time to watch from the UK. Hey, find a vending machine before they all disappear. I think we're going to be okay with the normal drink vending machine.

00:10:56 John Daub: The last live stream a couple days ago, I think yesterday actually, I was near the Olympic Stadium and I got a press release that they're going to be ending all of the 24-hour hot food vending machines. The ones with takoyaki and things. I think they had hamburgers in there because Nichire (Nichi-re?), which is a big frozen food company, decided not to make the food anymore for it. Which is, oh, we gotta go down this. I'd like if this was a zombie apocalypse. This is totally being an episode of Walking Dead Japan.

00:14:02 John Daub: Those alleys are so creepy. You have no idea. Maybe if you're watching it on your TV at home, you're fine, but there's a chill that goes down my spine walking through there. Just somebody hiding in the corner. Put their hand on my shoulder. That's all it'll take. They really creep me out. It's a nice looking alley right there. Let's curve around. The streets are very, very quiet.

00:14:45 John Daub: Tomorrow is Saturday and then the next day, of course, is Sunday, which follows Saturday. But the point of me bringing that up is that the state of emergency ends on Sunday in Tokyo, so restaurants will go back to being open later. They'll still have protocols in place, but I think Japan wants to get the economy going. This part of Tsukishima that I'm walking towards, in front of you is, I believe it's Chuo Ward, which is part of the city office for this ward, Chuo-ku. They have it here in Tsukishima, so you can get paperwork done and birth certificates and forms and resident registration and tax and stuff like that in this building here. But this is the main street that goes through the island of Tsukishima.

00:15:37 John Daub: In fact, if you were to go straight this way, you would get to Kachidoki in about, oh, I don't know, five minutes walking maybe? That's quite a big street. We're going to go straight a little bit and then there's going to be more creepy alleys. We're going to loop back around and I'm going to take you back towards the Sumida River, which is even creepier. Yeah, that's right. It's the middle of the night. I can't sleep. Tomorrow, Kanae comes home with the baby, so there's that.

00:16:10 John Daub: Tsukishima means moon island. But historically, the Tsukishima, the tsuki part of it, the kanji was different and I believe it was like constructed island is what it meant. Then they changed it to moon island because I couldn't figure out why they called this moon island. It doesn't look like a moon. It looks more like a bunch of creepy alleys. Oh, I just saw a rat. Do you see it? That looked like a cat. Do you see that? Big hamster. Or a small cat. I couldn't see it very quick. Somebody's going to have to go back and look at the playback. 17 minutes and 30 seconds.

00:17:54 John Daub: Okay, let's go back and check out the playback. All right, I'm going to go past this alley mark and then we're going to go down some of the alleys coming up. But in the middle of the night, it's so peaceful, except for the rats. That rat bites me. I can get rabies and then I'll be foaming at the mouth running around this area. It's like that movie Wolf with Jack Nicholson. Starts foaming at the mouth and eating people and stuff. Don't want that to happen to me. Baby comes home. Everything's fine. Then I turn. Daddy's still walking dead.

00:18:44 John Daub: If I was in a zombie apocalypse, I would jump in here. You could see the herd around you. You'd never get out. If you were in a zombie apocalypse and all the herd was around this booth, you're a goner. You're better off on top of the phone booth. Alleys, enough of this. I think the next alley's going to be a zombie apocalypse. Better. That's a thin one. Vending machine.

00:19:11 John Daub: He sold the Blackbird 1989. Welcome, new traveler. Might have had another new traveler. Might have missed that. Thanks for joining up. You've unlocked some pretty cool emoji. Soon there'll be a baby emoji, probably. Do it. Gun it. Do you think he's going to gun it? How fast do you think he's going to go? Yeah. Gun it. Gun it. Oh, there's a Hawaii bakery. Hold on. There's a Hawaii bakery that I wanted to go to. I'm pretty sure. They're closed now. Let me just see if I can find it right here.

00:20:45 John Daub: Hey, is anybody from California watching? Probably not. Maybe. There's like a California bakery here. Oh, is this it? Oh, yeah. This is it. Ohana Bakery Kitchen. Anyone know this one? They said this is the only store that they have in Japan. It's a pretty good one. All right. I'm going this way. What's that truck? Oh, it's a street cleaner. Awesome. Clean the streets. Tokyo streets are really clean. They do a good job. These street cleaners, you only see them in the middle of the night. Looks like a train locomotive. I wonder if they have a horn. Somebody honk the horn, dude. Oh, it's only got one tire in the back. Look at that.

00:23:13 John Daub: You know, if I had a city job, I'd want to drive around in that thing. Hey, Alvaro Acosta. Welcome, new traveler. All right, check out these alleys. These are so cool. We're going to walk this way. This is actually not an alley. This is just a road. We're going to go down an alley. It's creepy. Pretty well lit. Again, these are called nagaya, very old row houses of Tsukishima Island in Tokyo. Been around since after the war. Those are quite old.

00:24:08 John Daub: The fact that they're only two stories high, and you can see the wires, the electrical wires above. But this is really cool. Really expensive property so they're probably gonna knock these down to make earthquake-proof sky-high-rise buildings and then give everybody a residence in there. I don't know if you do like these midnight walks please click the like button because I've been taking... I've been recycling the bottle caps taking them to the supermarket. Creepy stuff creepy alleys it's a creepy alley oh my gosh that's creepy all right let's go see that tree it's like 2 a.m if i drink that i'll never get to sleep look at this tree's like going through the through the telephone wires that's pretty amazing all right i'm getting out of this creepy alley let's go another creepy alley.

00:27:07 John Daub: This one on the other side it's creepier nothing bad can happen down this alley it looks a lot safer oh a creepier smiling lady here that is so great friday freddie at fridays or that creepy game sean m is here robin thomas thank you robin thomas oh light sensor here be careful just snoop at night too it's true story it's laces of japan hey sean congrats for listening to you and good night on your baby thank you for all the marvelous live streams you're very welcome thanks for joining us.

00:28:38 John Daub: At that old house most of these houses are uh well they're all two stories and um over the last over the last um 20 30 years they've been knocking these out and then you can see that the high-rise one buildings this one is a high-rise um apartment like really expensive condos in there each one of those might cost seven hundred thousand dollars for one apartment in that building and uh they've been taking over so i'm just really sad because i think in the next uh 10 15 years all of these are going to be going i don't know if i'm going to be sitting in one of these johniford huge later ones it is a very big apartment in my neighborhood so i almost don't see this i see this neighborhood because it's only 10 minutes away from ginza right this is 10 minutes away from ginza this is crazy right this is just five minutes away from tsukiji market they usually turn the refrigeration off in the middle of the night.

00:30:46 John Daub: Oh that's a creepy alley all right i can go this way i do like the alleys of tsukishima a bit better than sk measures where we were the other night these are longer but they're bicycles right in front of the door Hey David, SP Rhapsody. It's a shame they're knocking out the old houses. I know. It's like crap. These alleys are so creepy. Where's the... one of my favorite shops is around here. There's that new skyscraper that they built there. Do you see that up there? This is brand new that just opened but in order to make this they had to knock out so many of those alleys for that one building and that that was a heartbreaker.

00:33:27 John Daub: Whoa. Oh that's too narrow. Somebody could reach out and grab me. Should I do it? Alright we need to get to like 700 likes. I'm not going down there without 700 likes. I'm not going down this alley. Make that woman happy. Come on. Just click like. Do it now. I'm going down this alley. Alright. 583, 597, 612. Look at this. You're making a difference. 620. Get there. 622. That's pretty weak. 637. That's pretty good. Alright 650. Okay we did it. Okay. Just keep pushing the like button. There's a big clearing in there. That looked like 1950 back there. Didn't expect that. We're like 10 minutes away from Ginza. It's really weird.

00:36:10 John Daub: Alright I can do one more creepy alley. We didn't even get to... we didn't even get to 700 likes. It's a travesty. Hey Champagne Sumo. Watch out ninja zombies behind you. I did that just because you told me that there was a ninja. This is not true. This is a new Café. This was not here when I was last here last year. They used to have some... a couple of bars here. But because of the state of emergency which is still on right now... Bars, even the bars have to close early in Tokyo. But the state of emergency... That's pretty creepy, don't it? The state of emergency ended...ends tomorrow. Or day of kind of rudimentary. after tomorrow sorry actually tomorrow since it's already Saturday I'm sorry it's Friday today oh yeah that's right finally caught a live chat congratulations to the baby thank you Dennis that is in Denmark appreciate it and Robin Thomas I really really appreciate it thank you Robin oh I hope this streams not freaking you out too much because it's freaking me out oh there's a supermarket all right you know what let's do a ride by the supermarket okay I'm gonna cross the street here we're going past Daiei which is a supermarket chain I don't see them in Tokyo very much I gotta get Kanae some flowers so when she comes back tomorrow morning all right back to the house there's some nice flowers waiting we'll find something better tomorrow morning.

00:38:50 John Daub: Get out here that looks like a shrine back down sometimes in these buildings you'll find something interesting watch your head it's a lot of hidden shrines in fact there was a hidden shrine in Shukuda I showed you a couple of weeks ago at 3 a.m. and I thought I did see a ghost because there was some dude hanging out in the shadows took him a while but he eventually came out of the shadows I was just that dude it's a police box nobody's here hey Liz and thank you happy days new baby and they're coming tomorrow hey Peter von Gomm all rights in here wish I was there so I could jump out and scare you hey anyway congratulations and ring that Bell I'm not gonna bring the bell um you know what I was thinking of coming back here that's windy I'm gonna get into an alley this a 2 a.m wind is not a good sign look at me this I never heard coming this way a million zombies walking I think would smell worse it doesn't smell too bad right let's go down this alley that sensor I need like a thousand like to walk between these.

00:42:23 John Daub: That's a creepy alley in there it looks like the alley from the exorcist from the 1970s shouldn't even say that word can you imagine some woman in a pajamas crawling upside down across the street right here and going bad remember that scene from that movie Rosemary's baby you know the exorcist where she's going like this and dude crab walk upside down go I had in fact I'm creeping myself out by bringing that scene up why would I do that it's awful scene even if I needed help there's nobody here to help me I'm going back to the station this is too much for me I gotta get this get some sleep maybe I don't know PC Gamer 18 watch out for yokai I'm watching out for everything please run if you see run real fast movie called The Shining oh Ron bars here thanks Ron there's something real peaceful about the color of bright orange right kitsune writes in here congratulations for a family two years John our three-year-old Eric says hello hey good luck with the sleepless nights to come laugh out loud hey really maybe the baby will be one of these babies who doesn't cry at all why is there a wind I don't like this at all oh car everybody keeps clicking the like button I keep doing these crazy alley ones okay.

00:48:06 John Daub: I told you if this after the playback are you listening after the playback if we get 2 000 likes on this I will go to Shibuya and do a late night Shibuya stream tonight is not gonna like it but I don't think I'm gonna get a lot of sleep anyways might as well do some exercising in the middle of the night and to be honest with you the middle of the night is probably the safest time to be out I mean social distancing it's pretty easy Susie writes in wow why is that man pink this is like the um I think this is like uh the pool this is a city city property yeah they do have a city pool here this is a really nice place to live Tsukishima how you doing all right I'm gonna hang a right here I think there's a 7-Eleven should we cut through the 7-Eleven I'm gonna need a mask so there you have it Tsukishima station you can get here on the Yurakucho line or the Oedo line which is that E up there two subway lines in Tokyo one is the Metro one is the Toei which is a city one that's the city of Tokyo and that's the company interesting huh mcdonald's is closed what's up with that when donald's takes every form of payment all right where did i leave my bicycle oh so this starts uh tsukuda island this is where this connects up with another middle of the night alley walkway and there's even more scary alleys next time i'll take you to uh yeah i guess we're gonna get to 2 000 likes but if you don't like these live streams then i'm not gonna do anymore it's all up to you it's up to the people if you speak i will listen so shibuya i think would be pretty cool nighttime live stream on a sunday night what do you think i think so so i gotta do that i know my friend danny in canada he said that there's a picture of baby metal in one of the alleys uh one of the in the station so i gotta go see baby metal posters there for him if you have any questions leave them in the comments below ron barr and uh robin thomas i really do appreciate it tomorrow is and everybody else who supported i really appreciate it tomorrow oh it's a green light.

00:55:12 John Daub: Tomorrow is uh Kanae is coming from the hospital um back home she's gonna stay in a maternity hospital a special maternity stay for another week which is subsidized by the city but maybe because it is actually it was completely full so she can't stay there she's got to come home I'm not complaining but the nurses take pretty good care of her and if it's only a fraction of the cost might as well stay there right but I guess it's not gonna be possible the baby boom is real people there's so many babies that there's no more space in the maternity hospital and that's crazy that guy didn't even have his headlights on alright thanks so much for watching I appreciate it this is fun I'm gonna do more of these if you like them because for me I'm up anyways know that I I'm cleaning the house for Kanae say return tomorrow so I've just been doing the laundry and stuff it's actually been a lot of work but if you have any questions or suggestions even below I have a 100,000 thank you everybody episode coming up on the main channel we had viewers submit a video it would be a huge help like subscribe and hit that notification bell and I will see you next time on to submit a video to me and I put it together in a mock-up thank you to the community because we got it we got a hundred thousand subscribers a few days ago and now we're at 101,000 and getting to 102,000 so that episode we coming next as well as three new episodes on the main channel I've just been editing and the fireworks video for the Kickstarter I know I'm like way behind on that too but we're getting there.

00:57:23 John Daub: So if you do come to Tokyo I want you to mark it down on your plan come to this area this is Tsukuda and Tsukishima you can spend a couple of hours here especially at night it is a really really amazing it's a place where you can stay work at Tokyo station this is this is ten minutes by taxi to Tokyo station okay it's two stops on the Yurakucho line from Ginza two stops away and you're in this very historical place with amazing alleys and old row houses and really old buildings and you can see the beautiful view of the city from here and there's a lot of old family businesses you're not gonna find this too in too many more places around the city of Tokyo that makes Tsukishima Tsukuda and Kachidoki too pretty special places so I hope you do make it here's a map since I'm here you can see the Sumida River where space boat goes by you see that there and then you'll see these old old row houses all through these alleys here and it's really special straight this way will take you to Tokyo station straight this way take you to Ginza pretty easy.

00:58:32 John Daub: Is he gonna gun it gun it there's nobody around just do it that map this map does look like it's from the 1950s doesn't it well we just got a thousand likes on this video that's crazy three two one three keep doing it until it does it three two one go three two one go three two one go go go do it now go go yes go go yeah take that turn faster yeah good very cool very cool so I like to end on a high note that was exciting do you see that do that three-wheeled bike go almost wiped out all right thanks everybody for hutch just we don't watch this that's that that actually that's the real Tokyo Drift. This Tokyo Drift thing is just a rumor. That's what it's really like. With green light, you just go. Drifting is just a right turn. We got more. Do it. Do it. Tokyo Drift. Tokyo Drift. It's pretty lame, actually. It's pretty lame, actually. Drift. Drift. Drift. Drift. It's not easy to do on a bicycle, I guess.

01:00:39 John Daub: Alright, everybody. I gotta go to bed. Thanks so much for watching. I got some other really interesting episodes coming up pretty soon. Hey, Chicago African! Good morning! John, you should do a yearly fan meetup on Spaceboat. I know! Actually, Chicago African, before I go, I was actually going to do that before COVID hit. In February, I was thinking about renting in the springtime for a cherry blossom meetup, renting one of the boats on the river. And getting people to meet up and then actually having a, you can barbecue on the ship. But the pandemic hit and all tourism died and that was the end of it.

01:01:22 John Daub: However, in 2022, I will definitely be renting a boat or something. We're going to make this really fun. The comeback is going to be really amazing. I'm so excited about it. The more that this channel grows, the bigger the meetups are going to get too. Alright, I gotta go find my bike. I left it on the other side. I gotta get my bike. But thanks so much for watching. I will see you in the next livestream tomorrow. And look for some main channel episodes. And ask me questions. Kanai's going to be here tomorrow. By the way, we finally have a name for the baby. And I will tell that to you in a livestream. Probably called, we just named the baby. Because that would be pretty fun. We actually have, we're like 90% sure. But it could change. And you know what? I think somebody had suggested this name. So, we named it after something somebody suggested. It's pretty cool. And it's not called Akachan. And no, I didn't call it Toby. I see that Glenn and Hardy. Alright? But I appreciate it. Jim, don't encourage them. Bye guys. Stay safe. Bwaah.