00:00:19 John Daub: How you doing everybody? Welcome to Ginza Ichome. This is the start of a small adventure where I'm going to take you around the Ginza on a rainy day. Typically would start in the rain. Today I'm starting from the subway because I'm not riding my bicycle out here. So goodbye to the metro line. Thank you Yurakucho Line for bringing me to Ginza Ichome. So we're going to start an adventure. We're going to start this adventure underground because it's not raining here.

00:00:43 John Daub: It's been raining all day here in Tokyo and with the wind of the subway trains going by you can hear that right now. It's been, I don't know, in the middle of the night it just turned cold and the rain started coming down. We're not in the rainy season yet. Usually starts around June 10th but who knows but the weather has been just all weird over the last year. In fact the cherry blossoms were the earliest ever I believe. I think they were 12 days early this year and getting earlier every year. So let's get out of the station here and we're going to explore some Ginza. I really like the streets of Ginza in the rain too.

00:01:30 John Daub: There's a reflection that you get especially at night. It's even better but during the daytime it's not too bad. I also wanted to use this time to announce tomorrow I'm going to be doing a live stream at Tokyo Station in the cafe there with the permission of Japan Rail which is awesome. Peter von Gomm's going to join me for a studio-like shoot in one of the cafes inside of the station. One that is owned by Japan Rail. So it's going to be totally awesome. Let's get out of here. Exit one to six. I don't think it really matters but might as well just give you a quick overview while we're here.

00:02:14 John Daub: There's the station area. We're now right here so we're going to walk anywhere. It doesn't really matter. Let's go to exit number six and I'm going to take you around this area for the next 20 minutes or so. One of these days to travel back to Tokyo is going to commence and you'll be here with me too but until then I promise I'm going to take you around. I don't want to be in the middle of the country so that you can kind of get that vibe. Either to prepare for your trips—oh this way. I like exit nine. Laugh out loud. Yes, that's right. This is live. I usually get out of a different exit from the subway. This is weird.

00:03:03 John Daub: Indolent Auto D-Dy-Dak writes in here. Hey John, hope you're doing good. How you? I'm okay. I'm doing okay. Just got a haircut. All right there's exit five. That's our target. Little Luke. Stay on target, says Obi-Wan Kenobi. Now these are pretty interesting. These are for people that are disabled. It will pick up wheelchairs and help them come up the steps. This is a stopgap measure before they started installing a lot of elevators into the stations over the last couple of years, but they're in use.

00:04:13 John Daub: So it's really important to call the stations in advance. Every single metro station has a phone number. All you got to do is call them, tell them the time you're arriving. They'll have staff there waiting for you like a VIP to help you up onto street level. Here we go. Whoa, it is raining still. Get your lightsabers out, a 70 centimeter umbrella, and welcome to the back alleys of Ginza. Boom, you're here. There's the Loft, one of these stylish pop-up stores that come in here, Ageta. Nice. I like Ginza Ichome.

00:05:01 John Daub: The Ichome means the first block, or first town, first intersection. They call them chome (blocks). Cho meaning kind of like town. The big intersection in Ginza is Ginza Yonchome. That's where some of the world's most expensive real estate used to be back in the 1980s. You can hear the rain pitter patter on my umbrella right now. It's wet. I see Jennifer French is in the house. How you doing, Jennifer? This is a new Milano Italian sandwich. It even says Milano, but you got to look at the small print. Don't know. Looks good.

00:06:12 John Daub: All right, let's get to the main street here. I prefer the alleys, though. You know, I've been here to Ginza on many live streams. This might be your first live stream, maybe not, but these alleys here, I wouldn't call them alleys either. They're just side streets, I guess, but within the side streets are different alleys. So I thought I would take you to some of those. The alleys are made of brick, or the side streets are, and you can see how it, when it rains, it reflects off of the street some of the light. Again, I'm not sure if you can see it, but it's a little bit of a different kind of street. It's beautiful at night and during the day.

00:06:51 John Daub: Wow, check this out. Look at that dessert shop. Yes, please. Wow. This looks like a historical place. How has this slipped my radar? Look at that blueberry tart. Whoa. Something to shovel right in my mouth, please. I'll be back here. All right. I got to come here with Kanae Daub. They have an entrance that comes off of the subway as well, it says. The subway entrance. Oh, they do. It's true. Here, right here. Here, Asahi Ginza. There's a staff member here to take your order, I guess. Very cool. Ginza, no expense is spared. It's like John Hammond from Jurassic Park. Spared, no expense in Ginza.

00:07:57 John Daub: Thank you, Paraman in the house. Gotta go back there. No one is left behind with the Super Chats. I really appreciate the support, everybody. So, in this episode, as I explained, I see more people coming online. I'm just gonna be walking around Ginza, sharing the experience with you. In the rain, it's very unique. And a lot of people ask me, is it worth coming to Japan during the rainy season? The rainy season is called tsuyu (plum rain). Tsuyu. And at this time of year, usually around June 10th for Tokyo, but maybe it started earlier. It rained. It's almost every day.

00:08:43 John Daub: But actually, that can be a good thing because you get some really cooler days. And it's like this. And if you're a photographer, rain is something that can be really good. Maybe not for your equipment, but for your photos. Because you have more characteristics. The lights, sunlight casts a lot of shadows, okay? But with clouds, just kind of gives it more color. It takes away those shadows and gives you more details. Except in that guy's face right there. These days, mannequins don't have any expressions whatsoever. I guess they want you to be this guy. Kind of embarrassing without any pants on. But he doesn't seem to show it.

00:09:32 John Daub: Hey, Michael Sassana's in the house. Always love your walking tours. Just in case you come across any gachapon. Maybe not in Ginza, I'm sorry. But if we see some, I will stop for some. Oh, I think I might know a place with one. All right. I'll see what I can find, brother. Akiomori. Oh, look at the jewels here. Window shopping in Ginza is always one of a kind too. You'll see some amazing things here. Look at that rain. Kind of a UK theme going on here.

00:10:13 John Daub: But the value of visiting Ginza is not on that main street. As Mr. Clayton writes in here, rain ASMR. Hey, PC Gamer 18's here. John, buy something warm to eat or drink. You got it. All right, I'll stop somewhere on the way here. Again, tomorrow morning, everybody. At 9:30 in the morning. I'll be streaming with Peter von Gomm at Inside Tokyo Station. Mark your calendars. Actually, you don't have to. It's just tomorrow. It's at 9:30 in the morning Japan time. What is that? 8:30 at night in New York, maybe. 5:30 in California. I'm just, I don't know if daylight savings time is over or what. But 9:30 Japan time AM. Inside Tokyo Station. Studio shoot. At a cafe. The Japan Rail Cafe, which is pretty awesome.

00:11:14 John Daub: I'm just so happy to have access to and a chance to work with Japan Rail so much. It's pretty cool to get access to the Shinkansen train. That episode might be coming tomorrow or over the weekend. I'm pretty excited to release that on the main channel. Just yesterday, I released an update explaining what was going on. All right, I'm going to take you to the main street here. Just enjoy the quiet sounds of pitter patter for the next minute or so while I know when to bow out a little bit.

00:12:01 John Daub: All right, it may be blurry right now. I think we're going to get a clear screen in a second. We're blocked by the Apple store. I think they siphon off all the 4G. Hey, Jotty. All right, you just heard the bells of Wako Department Store chiming. Hopefully, the signal is getting a little bit better. Refresh your browser if you watch it on a PC. I'm doing all I can to stay to the main roads and away from my home block out areas that I know about. Maybe it's my umbrella. You think my umbrella might be taking away the signal? I don't know. Hey, Chicago Africans here. Get some food.

00:14:20 John Daub: Get Kanae some food during the livestream. All right, there's Akebono, which has really good daifuku. I was going to cross the street and just take a look and see what Akebono is doing. I'm sure they don't have a lot of customers today. So maybe we'll throw them some business because I always appreciate the artistry that they have. They put in emoji. It's really cool. And I will, on my way back to the train station, get something for Kanae. Akebono is right there. It's the name of a famous sumo wrestler. No relation. But this is not London. Those taxi cabs that have a style of an English taxi cab.

00:14:55 John Daub: Those taxi cabs came about five years ago. I started seeing them slowly as something to accommodate more foreign tourists, the bigger suitcases, and bigger people. There's one go by right there. The cabs got bigger to accommodate bigger people. I'm being dead serious, too. That's what I was told by one of the taxi drivers. There's one right there with the Tokyo Olympic Paralympic logo on the side of it. Hey, Asharv. Asharv Sano. Hi, John. Second time. Got to catch you live. Never get bored with your content. Thank you. I don't get bored walking in the rain, either. My shoes are kind of wet, though. I should have came prepared.

00:15:56 John Daub: Enjoy some of the crowd. Cracks in the street. We crossed the street to check out Akebono for some mochi action. Got some cash in my pocket right here. Thank you so much for the super chat. Let's put that to some good use right now. Get something nice and sweet to eat as we walk in the rain here in Ginza. There's the Nissan building. They have some pretty cool experimental cars down there. So we'll get a chance. Whoa, there's something racy looking in there. All right, I'm going to go and check it out. But first, let's go get that Akebono mochi. You want to see some more mochi, click the thumbs up.

00:16:49 John Daub: Wow. It is getting wet. My feet. All right, here's Akebono. What do they got now? The Ichigo mochi with strawberries is a winter thing. But now they have Yomogi. Oh, wow. Look at this. They have one for the rainy season. Check it out. That's like translucent mochi. All right, we got to try that one. Some translucent rainy season mochi.

00:18:15 John Daub: The rain is really coming down. It looks like it's going to be one of these all-day rain jobs. All right. Hello. I'm going to have tsuyu. It's not daifuku, right? Oh, that one. Yes. I'll have it. [Ordering dialogue and payment sounds continue briefly.]

00:19:36 John Daub: This is so cool. This is a rainy confection for the rainy season. Ah I gotta get the tripod out hold on a second this is so awesome. They knew that the rainy season was coming so they created some confection for this season and it's translucent like water. All right I can use this box here thank you NTT you've just made a tripod stand. All right you guys okay stay dry this is awesome. Well we're gonna figure out what it is but it looks like they have it in a leaf here. Just don't drop it thanks everybody for the super chats and the shout outs. Check this out i'm gonna turn the camera around. Uh Scotty H do it nom nom try it for us you got it Scotty H.

00:20:56 John Daub: It is it's kind of translucent right it looks like water like rain and there's some beans in there they're the same beans that they use for anko or the red bean paste. You want me to just pop it in is that crazy i can't eat the whole thing just like one bite that's all right let's go one and one just in case here wow that's not mochi that's like a yokan you know yokan um that's made from uh beans i think but it's very gelatinous like um like jello but it's not it's um sweet but a natural sweetness not overpoweringly sweet uh the beans give it an extra texture something to bite into the beans are sweet maybe the sugar is coming from the beans that were good. Ah srep it's agar agar i believe thank you for that.

00:22:16 John Daub: This is my view looking the other way let's go walk down some more alleys shall we let me get my mask on oh man that was so delicious. All right here we go oh i can smell the butter oh it's so good the butter from this shop here. It's Belgian waffle time but i'm not going to get one of these because it's i don't know it's not good for my my diet. All right let's go down the street here that looks like Kanae and for those who don't know how to how to spell Kanae Daub's name it's k-a-n-a-e k-a-n-a-e just like this one which is hanai but Kanae Daub's name is Kanae but if you're looking for a place to eat Kanae you can go to the store and get some of these things.

00:23:41 John Daub: You say it in english really quick with an american accent it starts to sound like Kanae it's really hard right so i can see a lot of people if you do it but if you write in Kanae it's apple spell correct changes it to kanye so some people say tell kanye i said hi like what really i don't know kanye oh no look this one one of my favorite shops the nagano shop the nagano shop is closed what they got good stuff inside there hope the signal's doing okay everybody. Hey the beatles here melbourne is going into seven day lockdown so i'm off to japanese meal definitely live it up a little bit before the lockdown but be safe out there i'm sorry to hear that you guys are going into a lockdown again.

00:24:36 John Daub: We don't have lockdowns in japan we have what's called a state of emergency which sounds serious but it is but it's not. I chan thanks for writing Kanae Daub's name properly but Kanae actually understands that people aren't going to get her name right. Just like in japan look at that armor dude oh look at the knives in here i've been past this shop a few times you can buy those things you can buy a sword. All right i'm going to contact the shop um i've talked to the owner a couple of times the older guy and see maybe i can get in here and do a live stream the katana shop that's awesome i wonder how much it is i wonder if they have swords with names on them like violins stradivarius sword.

00:25:35 John Daub: Like i want a sword but only if there's a zombie apocalypse like that's the way to go if you're gonna if there's a zombie apocalypse you know guns run out of ammo and you shouldn't be playing around with those things anyways but samurai swords that's all right i know that's so cool like yeah man i have a samurai sword guess what it has a name too the hiroshi whoa i got a friend who's a samurai sword i'm gonna go get him i'm gonna go get him friend named hiroshi too whoa that's awesome i'm moving back over to the main street here now a lot of the restaurants in Ginza are underground in the basement level do you see that across the street it's a pasta place that's been here for for decades.

00:26:30 John Daub: I'm not gonna make that light so sometimes the restaurants that you go to aren't um on street level they're either above or they're down underground in the basement. I remember um there was a really interesting restaurant hey divide right side you are Ross thank you there's an interesting a German restaurant chain called schmatz and schmatz PR people contacted me and Peter von Gomm and I did a couple of live streams at schmatz restaurants a couple years ago that was a lot of fun but their restaurants are often in places with no signal so I hit it really hard I had to survive off of their Wi-Fi but not all of the shops have Wi-Fi here.

00:27:09 John Daub: I'm panning around this is going towards Shimbashi this is Ginza Gochome we've walked from Ichome to Gochome so from the first intersection the first block to the fifth block up there in the corner is the Ginza 6 building and it's because it starts at at Ginza Rokuchome that's why I guess it's called Ginza 6 and from that corner you have an amazing view if you go up and actually I might have to take the thumbnail from up there that'd be pretty sweet there's Wako you heard the bells going by about 10 minutes ago in this live stream if you listen to the playback I didn't say a word which is rare in this livestream for like almost a minute as all the bells were ringing.

00:27:51 John Daub: Jari says he heard those they were pretty cool for those that have visited Ginza it's real nostalgic to hear the the sound of the bells ringing thank you to the new member we just got right here indolent auto did act thank you welcome and I have some more traveler content coming tomorrow or the next day uh travelers and insiders get early access to the new videos actually i think just the insiders but you'll have you'll have the first peek at the video when i upload it um uh tomorrow i think i'll upload it tomorrow and i might release it over the weekend i'm not sure but um thanks so much for that i appreciate it and welcome you've unlocked a bunch of emoji.

00:28:58 John Daub: All right we're back here at ginza yonchome man i wanted to come this way just because i promised you some experimental cars that you would see on on an asphalt uh ios game like these are pretty cool look at that test car whoa now i'm not a big fan of nissan because of the drama and their executive board but i still think it's pretty cool some of the cars that they make here that style of car right there it looks like an suv it's sort of like a hybrid of something or other they're everywhere in japan right now a lot of people when they buy the new cars are looking for this car which is unusual usually they're very small um box cars i say like kei cars (light vehicles) i think you get a special discount off of the license.

00:29:51 John Daub: Whoa that should be on that asphalt asphalt nine asphalt eight game i'd love to drive this thing do some nitro boosts on this thing look at that look at it kei car right whoa like to ride in that thing like to ride in it through ginza i don't even care if we're doing like 40 kilometers an hour there's a cop thank you for for keeping us safe sir whoa that look at the car zooming by with the jaguar i just saw a jag you can stand on this corner for a couple of minutes and you'll just see every single amazing car that has ever been made drive through the intersection in fact let's do that right now let's just watch for a minute i bet you we see something really cool if you see something uh let me know in the chat this is called the ginza intersection car watching episode now i just changed it rather look out for some pretty cool cars as i get my feet really wet.

00:31:19 John Daub: For those that um just joined us tomorrow morning at 9 30 japan time i'm going to be doing a live stream inside tokyo station at the japan rail cafe they've given us access to do some cool stuff in there internet connection and a special private tatami looking room to live stream from and we're going to do that tomorrow at 9 30. I think it's uh um evening in in the united states late afternoon in california all right comes an ambulance i hope that person's gonna be okay traffic stopped hopefully that person did get oh that sushi zama on the side of that bus can get some medical help really quick there's hospitals all around the area including st luke's where leo was born anybody see anything cool yet not yet no mafia cars sometimes you see those.

00:32:34 John Daub: I gotta put the camera on for you guys down for that a mercedes passed by says joy i didn't even see that joy's eyes are sharp well there's a there's a toyota century no no it was behind the taxi car i'm not lying that's the most expensive car in japan or the most luxurious car in japan the toyota oh i missed it it was totally like shot was blocked that is the rolls-royce of japan that went by folks we missed it a lot of people with money that are getting driven around here and then the rolls the toyota centuries will stop um in front of the shop uh the shops so they get their luxury goods get the luxury goods on um mitsukoshi's closed too that's rare so the department stores are off.

00:33:30 John Daub: Here's the mitsukoshi lion hanging out with a mask custom made um we're still we're still pretty deep in this pandemic here folks um in fact it's probably worse now than it was a year ago at this time when we had another state of the emergency oh oh my gosh all right oh my gosh all right i'm gonna just hide in the corner here because i don't want it to be a muffy look at this bad boy that just pulled up what is that car what is that car oh my gosh it looks like a rolls-royce suv looking thing rolls-royce cullinan. All right i'm gonna i don't wanna i wanna give them some privacy here i don't that guy might have some back in heat or something i don't know the light's gonna change in a second we're gonna see some rolls-royce go by this is awesome seriously you could stand at this intersection and watch super amazing cars go by all day long.

00:34:51 John Daub: That's an interesting looking car too is that a volkswagen rolls-royce has an suv what oh here it comes here it comes this is a bad boy look at it whoa that's got to be like total luxury inside that thing can i should i knock on the door is that creepy i don't know yeah it's a rolls that is so awesome i've never seen a car like that before calling on we have confirmation wow how much does that thing run anybody know and probably in japan you could tack on another 20 on that whoa speaking of of that style of car there's a there's a porsche version of it too that style of cars everywhere in japan to um when one style becomes popular everybody wants that car so that car style is everywhere now even rolls-royce has a kind of suv looking thing.

00:36:08 John Daub: There's kimuraya pan right there very famous place with the best ebi katsu sando in japan maybe it's one of the first bakeries in japan the emperor it was the first place to make an anpan i believe and the emperor ate one and gave it its thumbs up like in that movie gladiator the thumbs up or thumbs down i don't know if they did that exactly but i do know the emperor did approve of the anpan liking western food back in the 19th century i think and then after that baked goods started to become a little bit more popular than just rice this there is some history of bread in japan wx turbo's here welcome nice to see you.

00:37:16 John Daub: All right there's the um 4g sucking apple store right there gonna have to go around it i don't have any great coupon but i do have the the qp version qp is the mayonnaise company that makes a lot of condiments all right let's go this way off of the main street follow it down this is matsuya dory on your left side you're gonna see here um not just a post box oh by the way we got four postcard club members thank you i am sending out those postcards um right as soon as i get home i forgot to bring them with me today that is japan's first starbucks a little bit of starbucks coffee history 1998 the year i arrived here is the year that they started.

00:39:00 John Daub: There it is right there our first store in japan that's all i wanted to show you push you're welcome i didn't i didn't buy anything it's a true story 1996 yeah i was a little bit they didn't have another store for a while though they grew kind of slow and then they exploded on the scene i i know because i lived in nagoya at the time they didn't have a starbucks there and i had to travel um seven hours on the seishin yacho keep local train to kaido line to uh osaka to get a cup of starbucks and i traveled that far just because it it was a it was a goal and it made me feel pretty happy to get a get something that i couldn't have in nagoya so you know mid and late 90s that was uh when starbucks was growing so was i right here in japan.

00:40:00 John Daub: It's interesting some sort of depot center for the department store all right now we are yeah they do have green cones i just saw somebody japan is very diverse with its cones they're not just um orange and yellow but we do have green cones it's kind of cool very natural looking one of the reasons why as we go past a uh what is that a flower store looks like a plant shop that's a pretty cool looking plant shop must be old even the roof has like a jungle on the top of it um ginza neighborhood has a lot of rules here one of them is that you don't stick out or look bad and sometimes these orange cones can look pretty bad so what they do is they have uh different colored cones that are that stick out but don't stick out too much.

00:41:06 John Daub: John, thanks for joining us, Papa Dot. I showed you that first Starbucks. This is a Starbucks roastery, and this is the Kit Kat shop where Peter von Gomm and I came at the beginning of 2021. I got really angry because they didn't have the aged whiskey Kit Kat, a busted live stream. So I'm not a big fan of these confectionery stores from Kit Kat. That's usually a big ripoff. That looks like a Rolls Royce looking old. Let's look at that car for a second. That looks like one of those Volkswagen cars that the Libyan terrorists were using in the Back to the Future movie. Just stating a fact. Look at that thing. Look at the windows on it, too, in the backseat there. It's pretty big. If I was a kid, I would love to play in this car. Screw you, Mom. I'm sitting in the backseat. It looks like one of those Star Wars vehicles, right? Transport units. Oh, wow. And it's so compact. Look at the little wheels on it. That is a sweet ride.

00:42:51 John Daub: Yeah, this used to be where I taught a lot of English lessons back in the day. The ones that I did not report to the English school. My rate was 5,000 yen an hour. About $50 an hour. And I think I had about 10 students, private students on the side back in the day. My lessons are pretty fun. It's quiet on this side road here. It's a lot quieter here. I'm walking back to Ginza Ichome. This side of Ginza. Thank you, Alan. I was one of the best teachers. I was the PR. I was the one using all the posters for the English school, too. They put my mug on their posters. I don't know why. GABA. That's where I was working.

00:44:10 John Daub: That company started as like a pizza delivery service for English teachers. In Ikebukuro. They used to give all the teachers free suits. They don't do that anymore. And then a student would say, I want to have this teacher delivered to me at 11 o'clock to your house. So the teachers would get the call. The command center would send the teacher to that house at that time. And then you would get paid by the company. Very cool. But they don't do that anymore. GABA is a totally different company. No, I would not work there again, ever. They could not pay me enough. But starting off as an English teacher, I think almost everybody starts off like that. Because it's the one job that is very prized here in Japan. And teachers receive a lot of respect. Except for maybe by your employer. But it's okay.

00:45:07 John Daub: Oh, is that Torafuro? Yeah, that's Torafuro. Okay. Let me just take you look. This is a pretty interesting restaurant chain. They've got a couple of them in Ginza. But what I like about it is usually inside of Torafuro, the restaurants have a really... Oh, that's not Torafuro. It looks like Edo period Japan inside. They've put a lot of effort into making it look super cool inside of the restaurant. The menu is also quite nice and traditional. Of course, tofu is their main staple. But they've got a lot of stuff that is not tofu like this right here. Carrie wants a pizza now though. That's far from what I'm showing you right here. They've got soba. It's usually quite healthy. Um... Different kinds of sake, I guess, are shown there. Oh, highballs. Different highballs. They even have bentos now on the menu.

00:46:01 John Daub: But take a look inside the restaurant right here. Check this out. It looks like Edo period inside. They have a bridge in there. You can take pictures. I brought my... I brought my neighbors from the US came to visit. They just were in Japan. They called me up to hang out for an afternoon. That was so nice to see them after like 20 years. We were all a little bit older. And I took them here. Not to this one. One in Shinjuku. And they loved it. Our staff assistant was our waiter. He was... All right. He was a guy. But he didn't look like a guy. Very feminine looking, which is... I mean, I got no problem with that. But they were obsessed with it. Like, boy. He's... You know, that's a guy. But he's so pretty. That's what they said.

00:46:49 John Daub: So, when we left there, I was smiling with them. And I was smiling with him. The staff assistant. The waiter. And at the end of the day, he said, okay. And then he let them take a picture together. And that's the best... That their favorite picture is the picture with the waiter. Because he was so good. He didn't have to give him a tip. And he just was an interesting character. But in Japan, people are... People are all Japanese for the most part. But they're all very different. Just the subtle differences in... People are seen in the way they dress. Or their hair. Or their shoes. In Japan, you'll see people with very interesting shoes. That are just a mark. If you can't... For your work or school. You have to wear a uniform. So, they find different ways to kind of break out. And add personality. Whether it's like clothes. Or the way that they wear a belt or something. You'll see that.

00:47:43 John Daub: Which is why Japanese styles... Unique stuff to take root here. Because people are so much into a box with society. Roots will still sprout. Leaves will pop out. And you see some really... Genius level stuff. I'd love a hot bowl. But a lot of stuff is quarantined off right now. I think it's gonna be about a month before... The state of emergency is called back. Now, I know that yesterday... We're getting close to ending this livestream. I gotta get back home. But yesterday... Japan's second biggest newspaper called to cancel the Tokyo Olympics. The Asahi Shimbun. Circulation is what? 5 million or something. Newspapers are so well respected in Japan. And I don't know if that's actually gonna make an impact. It looks like the Olympics are going ahead anyways.

00:48:42 John Daub: Again, we're in the state of emergency. This is the worst now than it was a year ago. When they decided to cancel because of the pandemic. The situation in Tokyo is worse now than it was when they decided to cancel or suspend it. So, I'm not sure how they're gonna handle it. But I'm pretty excited to find out what happens. And if they hold the Olympics, I'll support it. If they don't, I'll support that too. I think for the most part, most people in the city of Tokyo don't care anymore. Because the economic impact is no longer there. So, there you have it. I love the Olympics. I love the challenges. Not so much the business side of it. But it gives a chance for athletes to compete. And that's kinda cool to watch.

00:49:34 John Daub: I had a poll on Instagram stories asking everybody... Write in and tell me if you're excited about the Olympics in two months. 56% of the people said yes. But I was surprised at the high percentage of people who said no. So, that's gonna be the vibe. So, the Olympics has a very low bar. It's a pretty dress. Yamato8125 writes in here, I lost the hype. Sorry, I lost the... yeah. That vibe, that excitement that I had about two years ago. Of course, it's not the same.

00:50:20 John Daub: I see you right there. Locked and loaded. How you doing, sir? Excuse me. Do you live here? Are you a local? Where can I find the nearest chicken restaurant? Can you point me in the direction of a deep fried chicken, please? Anything? You're gonna take me in person? Okay. This way? Really? Really? Oh, you decided not to... Okay. They don't know where they're going. Nice to see some locals here. He walks to the edge and says, not worth it. He walks to the edge of the curb and sees a bunch of water there and says, no, not for me. Get out of the road. Dudes, I'm saving your life. All right. Good. How did they do that? Pigeons are walking in the middle of the road. You've lost too many of your friends by doing that. Come on. Pigeon society should have record books or something. School. Learn. Pigeon cross the road, get hit. Just saved two lives today.

00:51:43 John Daub: I remember 10 years ago, a friend of mine, all she wanted were UGG boots. I don't know if they're still popular though. Are they? Interesting. Yeah, Talking about the vaccine, I don't want to do that too much since we're about ending the live stream on Back to Ginza Ichome where we started. There's just not enough people to give the vaccines. We don't have a lot of doctors here enough for people. When it comes to beds. I don't know. Japan has the most beds, I think, in industrialized countries for sick people. But the problem is none of them have ventilators that are set up for handling virus type of pandemics. They're all for other illnesses. So Japan has a lot of challenges and they have not expanded enough of it to get ready for this. There's not much they can do.

00:53:05 John Daub: My personal feeling, I thought that they would have more robots working on vaccines. Okay. Let's be honest. Japan is the land of robots. I thought that they would have more. Here's an appointment. In fact, you don't even need an appointment. Okay. They need these boots. All right. Come to the corner. They need to have these walk-in booths. You sit down. You get stabbed by the needle. You get, you come out. Out comes your confirmation slip with an appointment to come back for your second shot. You exit the room and the room disinfects. Hello. Why isn't anybody working on this? Next person comes in. You get jabbed. You get your thing. There's a video. You exit. You go to another vending machine to get explained what's going on for observation. The machines and sensors observe if you're having any problems. Boom. There you go. Off you go. Everything's printed out. It doesn't seem so hard to do for Japan. It's the land of robots and yet it seems to be really hard. But we don't have enough doctors and lawyers. And in fact, just a couple of weeks ago, the government said that dentists can start to vaccinate. So. We'll have dental offices starting to give the vaccines out. But the rollout has been slow and painful for the public. But they'll get there. I'm going to stay positive and hopefully by 2022, Kanae Daub and I will be able to get our vaccines.

00:54:35 John Daub: All right. So I hope that you enjoyed this episode. This is the back alley here of Ginza. Thanks so much, everybody, for watching and clicking the thumbs up button if you haven't already. All right, I'm going to go and check the comments on. If you come this way, there's nobody here. I can go maskless, get some fresh air. If you haven't already, check out the channel update I just put on the main channel. It's about the direction channel. And I also put the viewer submissions. I think I got about 100 or so. Maybe no less than that. Submissions of people going only in Japan. And I put that up there on that episode. As well as some supporters that have been longtime supporters talking about just saying hello. And I thought that was really nice because the back the backbone of every single YouTube channel is the viewer. If you don't have a community of people, subscribers and people who like the content that you put on, it's very hard to build anything. It's very hard where people will want to click that subscribe button. And for YouTube creators out there making content that people want to see more of is not easy to do. You might have one or two videos that go really big, but you need to be you need to make content that people want us to feel like they see the value in subscribing to the channel. And I hope that that's something that only in Japan is for you.

00:56:03 John Daub: I'm talking about the only Japan that I'm doing. I love the Toby message. All right, Yamato, big shout out to our friend, Tony from the Minnesota area who got into a tree. I don't know if Tony's here. But the story is, I guess. Tony wore a crow mask, got into a tree to record that and fell out of the tree. But he did not. He did not record that the falling out of the tree. So I said I'm going to send him some natto umai bo to make sure he sticks more to that tree next time. Yeah, I have a message from Toby (crow) in that video, too. It's pretty funny. Thanks, everybody who sent me something for that. Look, when we hit another channel milestone, like 250 or 500,000 subscribers, I'm gonna do another milestone. I'm gonna do another one of those. Okay, I'll ask the audience to send me in some clips. It just takes a lot of time to accumulate to get them all together and edit up. But it's so worth it. So hopefully by then the channel will be running really well. I'll be able to make more income from that channel to hire some people to help me edit it because it's the name of the game now is is get content out there once a week. That's my goal. And I got to get back to doing that new episode coming in the next I believe 48 hours. Okay. About that time. The episode is done. You saw it in the background. Actually, the next episode was in the background of that update video yesterday. So the whole episode is was behind me blurred out in the background as the Shinkansen train was going by.

00:57:49 John Daub: Thanks so much, everybody who who is here Chicago African. Did you forget to get kind of some food? Oh, I did. All right, I better go and do that. Thanks. Thank you. Make sure I go and do that. Thanks so much, everybody. I do have to get back. So that means I'm going to probably go home from the other station. If you do want to leave me a comment, I love to hear from you. Leave me the comment down below. I do read the comments. I'm even the bad ones. I'm not offended by anything ever. It takes a lot to offend me. That's why I have moderators to block you and ban you. They helped me out there. So extended live stream. And I do have an insider's update coming. I've been seeing that for a couple of weeks. But I have a Insider's update for everybody on the supporting as a YouTube insider here. I really do appreciate the support, everybody. Super appreciate. I wish I could get people's addresses from the insider level because I'd love to send them something. YouTube doesn't quite do that yet, but I think we're getting closer to more stuff like that.

00:59:06 John Daub: Joy writes in Discord. Absolutely. We got almost like a thousand new people sign up to the Discord after that episode, too. We're well past 12,000 now. All right, I'm going to put the camera away so I can move. I'm going to move faster. Thanks, everybody. I'll see you tomorrow at 9:30. And thanks for reminding me, Chicago African. I'll see you tomorrow at 9:30 a.m. I'm going to put the live stream up about maybe before I go to bed so you can you can see the live stream up and you can you can click a reminder so you can join us on that day. But my goal is to get as many people watching and asking questions about Tohoku. That's our goal to introduce you to the Tohoku Shinkansen, and Peter von Gomm and I are going to be talking about the foods that we ate. And some of the food that we ate. And some of the experiences from that day. And whenever Peter von Gomm gets together with me, madness ensues. Things in conversation is pretty interesting. So I hope you do join me for the Japan Rail Cafe live stream tomorrow, 9 a.m. Friday in Tokyo, which is, I don't know, something like 8:30 between 5:30 and 8:30 p.m. in Pacific time and East Coast time tomorrow. I'll see you then, everybody. It's going to be a lot of fun. Stay dry. Make sure you take your umbrella out. I have it put away here. Stay dry. Those girls do not. Smarter than me and that guy. See everybody. Thank you. Live to love, to lose. Please get something sweet for your family. That's where I'm going right now. Bye bye.