00:08 John Daub: Hello everybody. Welcome to the Tsukiji Ohashi Bridge. This is the Tsukiji Great Bridge, as you could say it. The city of Tokyo, over there straight in the middle of your screen, is Tokyo Tower. It's a beautiful view from here. We're above the Sumida River. If you look on the other side, this is also a pretty unique vantage point. You get Skytree in the same view. Check that out with Kachidoki Bridge right at the base. Very cool.

00:37 John Daub: I wonder if anybody at Skytree can see us right now. That would be Tokyo's largest, tallest structure. The tallest freestanding tower in the world. And in this live stream, we're gonna be crossing the Tsukiji Ohashi Bridge. Now it's called Tsukiji and everybody might know what Tsukiji means. There's the sign right there, the blue sign says Tsukiji straight ahead. Tsukiji is on the other side of this bridge. I'm on the Kachidoki side. And if you take a look down there, you'll see Tsukiji, the old fish market.

01:10 John Daub: The old fish market is no longer there. In fact, that is a large-scale vaccination site for firefighters, police officers, and first responders are all getting vaccinated down there. We're gonna get a chance to look in there. And if we're lucky, you might get a chance to see Space Boat, one of my favorite boats crossing underneath this bridge. I'm looking forward to that. Let's get moving.

01:34 John Daub: I don't know when we're gonna see Tokyo Skytree again. Maybe we'll see it from the other side. What I love about this design, this is the newest bridge and it's the first bridge, they call it. Not the first bridge to be erected over the Sumida River. But it's the first bridge before you get to Tokyo Bay. And some of the bridges here on the Sumida River are so picturesque, so beautiful.

01:56 John Daub: What they did with this is they wanted to maintain the beauty of the bridges. I don't know if they needed to put these arches here, but these arches is what makes this a real work of art. The arches are open, meaning they're not just erect, standing straight up. They're kind of leaning to the side. And they wanted to make sure these arches were here also because it is the first bridge. And it's very much in the same style as that bridge over there in a way. That's Kachidoki Bridge. It has arches as well. In fact, that's a drawbridge, but it closed up. They stopped raising it, wow, I don't know, a few decades ago. I think you could still raise it. I think I might remember seeing it being raised, but this is no longer the first bridge. So there's no reason to have this drawbridge. If the bridge, if both of them are still there, then the boats can't go underneath this bridge. There's no need for that one to rise anymore.

02:52 John Daub: We do have beautiful weather here. How you doing, everybody? Welcome to the city of Tokyo. I wanted to come to a place that I didn't need to wear a mask. I mean, I do have one here. I wanted to be a place where I could social distance. It's the weekend. A lot of people are out and about. This is the perfect place to be. There's very few people here on the weekend. So it's kind of cool like that. There's Tokyo Tower over there. So for those of you that I don't think this is a tourist attraction either. That's another reason for me to do this live stream because I don't see a lot of tourists coming, "Hey, let's go check out the bridge." I can do that for you.

03:24 John Daub: So Shiodome straight ahead. This bridge, I don't know for the longest time traffic couldn't go across this. I'm gonna give you a little bit of the history of this bridge, which is not very long. I'm also curious to get a little bit further down here and taking a look into Tsukiji market to see what this mass vaccination site looks like. I see it fact over there. So as we get closer, I'll be able to zoom in. Whoa, wave runners. Cool. Check it out. Take a taxi driver just got busted by the bike cops, man. Do you see that?

04:30 John Daub: DG22 sup John. Thanks for your hard work. Have some afternoon coffee or something. Thank you. Thank you for the bridge otaku. You know what I'm talking about and these jet ski otaku check it out. Sumida River is clean enough to do that. But if you go back to the 1970s, I probably would not be doing that Sumida River. According to Kanae's dad had a strange smell to it. Guess there was a lot of pollution back in the day. Kawasaki would be considered like the Cleveland of the 1970s. Just really polluted right across the river. Wow, beautiful bridge.

05:17 John Daub: Alright, so this bridge was constructed. They started this steel work, the base of it in 2011 I believe it was after the Great Tohoku Earthquake ten years ago. The main part of the bridge was settled here in 2014 in the Heisei era. I got a picture here. I want to show you. This bridge was prefabricated. It's pretty cool. I just turned off my phone here. Check out this picture here. You see that here's a crane bringing this bridge to this location. That's pretty cool, right? These are the arches that we're looking at right now and they could do that because this is the first bridge before Tokyo Bay so they brought it from this direction. That's pretty cool, right?

06:11 John Daub: So that over there cross is just on the base of Tokyo Tower right there. That's What is that Park? Which is a beautiful place to hang out the Space Boat does dock there. So I'm pretty sure we're gonna see her for me. I get pretty excited when I see that boat. Nice afternoon. So we're gonna cut across here see if we can go under and then swing back around. But I'm not really sure because I've never crossed this bridge before first time. First time to do that. Wow, it's a beautiful day.

07:08 John Daub: I guess there are places where you can run on the other side is a beautiful path that you can run for quite a ways. It starts right there you can go underneath. I think you used to be able to go underneath the Kachidoki Bridge and run all the way to the point where I hang out quite a bit with Leo and then wrap around the island here. This is an island on the other side of Kachidoki Bridge this bridge. Kachidoki Bridge was erected in the Japanese-Russian War. Can't remember the year I guess it was before World War Two. But maybe after World War One it was a while ago. It's a following that war they constructed this bridge.

07:53 John Daub: Yam for a welcome new traveler awesome and Curl, oh Vera. Love all your videos my kids Fernanda and Leto are fans too. Hey, Fernanda and Leto. Big shout out to my brother at views. Zack key Julio who lives in Shibaura Island in Minato-ku. I'm going in that direction as soon as I possibly can. I'm going to be doing I'm going to I want to cover Heiwa Jima. Which is where there used to be a POW camp. I haven't been able to make it. It's kind of a ways on a bicycle to get over there, but that's not too far away. There's a lot of little islands over in the Shinagawa area then I want to go and explore, but that's one of them. Minato-ku.

09:05 John Daub: From this point we can now see being bussed in. See those buses into the mass vaccination site, so that's where first responders police officers and firefighters are getting their vaccines right now. The general public can't go in there. But this I'm surprised they're not using more of this space. Why not get all of that Pfizer surplus that they have and just start? Make a line right out this door and get everybody single file jab them and let them walk for 15 minutes around and you can observe them. That's my idea. You'd be able to vaccinate like a million people in a day, maybe. Exaggerating I've got big big ideas. That's why I'm not mayor of Tokyo. Just a bystander.

10:04 John Daub: Tsukiji market is gone. You know my friend used to live up there in the Kachidoki Tower Plaza up there on the 36th floor this building here. And I would hang out on his balcony drinking a Corona and I would look down into Tsukiji market right across the river. Some days it stunk. But it was always interesting. There's always some activity especially in the morning now. It's a parking lot and it's going to be a parking lot for a while until the city decides how they want to develop it, but until the next month they're going to use this as a vaccination center and I think after the first responders and everybody are vaccinated maybe they'll start to use it for the general public.

10:50 John Daub: But I really hope that they have more mass vaccination sites because if they can hit that number of a million a day then we can get back to life. Get back to normal life this summer. The third week of August, although that's after the Olympics. All right, I guess I'm gonna have to loop around because I want to show you the sea of Japan side. I'm just gonna go back the way I came because now we can see it from another point of view. They wanted to finish this bridge also for the Olympics and you can see the Olympics and the Miraitowa Tomi, I forget his name the mascots hanging out right there doing archery basket handball basketball. Kind of neat. Yeah, but about 40 days away. Seems kind of crazy.

12:01 John Daub: This is Tokyo Bay. I was saying at the beginning of this. This is the first bridge and then you break out and get into Tokyo Bay. And that's where that's Tokyo Bay right there. Rainbow Bridge the start of it right there you can see if you squint you can see the cars going across the Rainbow Bridge. The iPhone 12 Pro doing a pretty good job of digital zooming that far. It's funny. I don't see Space Boat. All right from this angle you got a pretty good view of the openness of the arches here. It's like someone laying on their back and putting their knees up. Then you know I'm spreading a little bit there is that that's kind of what I see arms out.

13:09 John Daub: Do you get a lot of wind here? I'm using an external microphone always that Space Boat? Oh, I think we got a sighting again! Oh, but do we have enough space stairs here?! Oh, I know that boat. I don't know the name of that boat, but I see it all the time. That's a nice open boat. Sometimes Space Boat is not the best boat. Sometimes the open boats are nice. You get more air. Space Boat's all locked up inside. You can't get out until after this bridge.

13:38 John Daub: I wouldn't call it a vax boat. What's a vax boat? Space Boat. I think that's it. Do you see her? Do you see her? Yes! Oh, this is so epic. I knew that one of them would make a trip underneath here. So we're going to see Space Boat go underneath Kachidoki Bridge. Right there. U2 on Air 11. Right there. It's just a little dot. Oh no, the people are out. They let the people out already.

14:19 John Daub: Glenn writes in Zoom. Look at that. Space Boat's packing some people. Pretty party going on there. And there's Space Boat's competitor. They should have cannons on board and try to board one another. Victors go to the spoils. All right. We're just going to stay right here as Space Boat makes its way underneath us. Try not to drop the gimbal on them. Give them a broadside. Just rake her. Look at that. Get your cannons out. Oh, that'd be awesome. Ramming speed. That's right. Just make a turn right here. Turn left. I don't think it's going to happen. They're taking a wide berth. Both captains are eyeing one another.

15:32 John Daub: As we did see a little accident. There's a kid right there. Kind of fell off his little scooter. It's not the accident I wanted to see. Oh, look. Space Boat's coming right underneath us. We're going to wave to them. I want you to wave at your TV. Maybe they're going to see you. Okay. I don't know. It's not silly. Wave at the camera. I got my hat like this because the wind is going to blow it off here. Maybe they'll see you if you wave. I don't want it to be like one person. Whoa. They're not social distancing. That's not social distancing.

16:16 John Daub: Oh, look at that. She's coming right underneath us. I better position myself better. Oh, there's another fan over there. Submerge. Push the button. Push the button. Submerge. Oh, check it out. It's a double whammy. It's a double whammy. Look at that. Hello, people. Just a double whammy. I should have like dropped it dropped a message on there like, help me, save us. Let's see what happens, leave an email address. Don't know, just trying to have some fun here. Oh, I could have seen Space Boat through here. It's gone. That was pretty quick, that was pretty cool.

17:39 John Daub: All right, back to the bridge, let's move on. You two on Air 11, give us a little birdie dab. All right, so the bridge is along the Sumida River. If you do ride on one of these river boats, these are buses, and they go back and forth along the Sumida River several times a day. If you do ride one of them, they do have a narration in English explaining the history of all the bridges that you pass underneath them. This is the last one and the newest one, and I can't remember, I think there's like 20-some bridges along here, but each one has a story.

18:19 John Daub: The thing is, after the Great Kanto Earthquake of 1923, they, there was a lot of people. There was a reconstruction program, and a lot of these bridges were redone, so they kind of have a somewhat similar style to them. Chuo Ohashi is the next one after this, sorry, there's Tsukishima, then Chuo Ohashi, that's one of my favorite bridges as well, then Eitaibashi, which is a beautiful bridge with neon blue lights at night with the Skytree in the distance. But I do like the English narration explaining the history of the bridges that you go underneath because the bridges are a significant part of Tokyo.

19:04 John Daub: Oh, there it goes! I love the fact that they let you outside onto the boat, and then you can just take in Tokyo Bay, and then you go underneath Rainbow Bridge outside. That's awesome. I actually have a livestream doing that from 2018, I believe. You can see on this channel, just look back to three years ago, and I livestreamed going underneath the Rainbow Bridge from Hamarikyu Gardens (Hamarikyu-en), which is across here. This one's going straight to Odaiba. Interesting. I wish I was on that boat.

19:48 John Daub: Well, that may be some fewer people, but still a pretty boat. That's a nice hotel there too. Is that the, that one on the corner, I believe that's the InterContinental, and it's an older InterContinental, so the prices are somewhat reasonable, but you have a beautiful view looking out at Rainbow Bridge. And one day Kanae and I rented a room there and just spent a day kind of relaxing and looking at all the boats going by. It's a nice hotel. Oh, that means we just saw all three of them! Check it out! There are three Space Boats. Space Boat number three is right there. It just took off from Hamarikyu Gardens. So now you've seen all three in one livestream. We've done it. All within five minutes of each other. It's pretty cool.

20:47 John Daub: It's kind of creepy seeing those spaceship-looking boats on the river. Something evil's coming up. All right, that's about all that I have here. The Olympic Village is just on the other side of these tall skyscrapers. So when the Olympians come and get quarantined and not be able to leave their house, this is what the outside looks. So I'm talking to the Olympians right now. This is what the outside looks like. So it's a shame that you couldn't leave your village.

21:30 John Daub: This bridge is very accessible. I like showing that. When they built this bridge, they made sure that it was accessible to everybody. You can bring your bicycles into that elevator, or if you're in a wheelchair or have a problem getting up the ramp, you can ride this elevator to the top. I like that. The fact that they're making everything very accessible. Here's a ramp. Again, the cones are very high. The wheels are here. So the bicycle wheels are on the left side and the right side coming up. So this in the middle here is just so that the bicycles don't try to ride down it because people have gotten hurt from like crazy people trying to ride down there.

22:13 John Daub: Benjamin's singing a crisscross song from the 1990s. So just a shout out. I got to get back to Kanae. Just a shout out. I have some postcards here for the Postcard Club on Patreon. These are going out in the first mailbox that you'll find on the way back here. That's me and Kanae at an onsen, a hot spring looking over the Pacific Ocean on one of Tokyo's islands. So hope this goes up on your refrigerator and gets you excited about coming to Japan. I still got a bunch of them out here. So this is going to Tanjin in Singapore, Sean in North Carolina, Jefferson in Alaska, and Mood in Singapore. There's my bike. There's a picture of Kanae in a bikini on the backside, just so you know. Mr. BA Sins, he has some love from Toronto. Here's some love from Toronto. Your video is awesome. Thank you. Pretty awesome.

23:23 John Daub: All right, thanks so much for watching. There's the elevator in action. I like to focus on the infrastructure of the city because each one of these projects is a mega project. It takes years to make them come true. And I think this is a beautiful bridge. And yeah, each one of these has a story. And if you pick the right angle, you can find some pretty neat photographs of it too.

23:53 John Daub: If you have any questions, leave them down below. If you like these infrastructure live streams, click that thumbs up button and encourage me to do some more. There's about three more bridges that I would love to cover. I know it doesn't sound like such an interesting topic, but it's another way to see the city of Tokyo, which is always in motion. And that motion is really seen in the bridges because the history is in the designs of them too. This is a newer design, but they wanted to keep the arches because it is a significant bridge, the first one on the Sumida River. And I like what they've done with it. And they've made it super accessible for everybody. Look at the ramp for the bicycles so that the elevator can stay more free for those with wheelchairs. Cool. I'll see you in the next live stream, maybe tomorrow. Have a nice day, everybody. Smash that like button and don't forget to subscribe. Onwards to Kachidoki.