00:00:01 John Daub: Hey everybody, welcome to Nihonbashi. There you see in the middle, the Olympic rings. This is one of the spots where you're going to see a little bit of Olympic spirit here in the city of Tokyo. Looking around, there is kind of a crowd here. It's kind of neat, they're all taking pictures in front of the rings. This is a lot less crowded than in front of the stadium, that's for sure. There's a Russian TV crew over there doing a broadcast. How cool is that?

00:00:31 John Daub: How you doing everybody? I'm in the shade and in this live stream, it is a hot one. I'm going to take you down Nihonbashi where they have several Olympic exhibitions going on. A lot of them are free. I have a ticket for one to see if I can get in there. A lot of the events in the city of Tokyo because of the pandemic have been cancelled. So we're going to get a chance to see the ones that are still available. And they're here, a lot of them anyways. So first we're going to start here at Nihonbashi.

00:01:02 John Daub: This is a very historic area. So I'm kind of glad to see the Olympic rings here. There's a little sign down here we can take a look. Nihonbashi Bridge. Nihonbashi is a bridge over the Nihonbashi River in Tokyo's Chuo Ward. That's where I live! My neighborhood. The first Nihonbashi Bridge was built in 1603 when Shogun Tokugawa Ieyasu set up the Shogunate in Edo. And was designed as a starting point of the Edo 5 routes, the main routes in Japan. That's pretty cool. And it's nice to see this place getting some love here.

00:01:38 John Daub: I can tell they're Russian because they have the big microphone there with acrylic on there. So in the center of Nihonbashi there is a marker that designates this is the start of all the five highways going from that point in the center of the bridge there. But we're going to go this way. Hey! Behave yourselves. Olympic birds. Off we go.

00:02:12 John Daub: On the other side, in one of the buildings, there's a 10 meter high Olympic gold medal that I want to show you first before we go into the buildings behind. It's quite a windy day. The tennis matches have been chaos. Sometimes the ball will be spinning to the left or the right. Good luck to the tennis players. Sadly, Naomi Osaka lost today I heard. There's a lot of buzz in the city of Tokyo just in people's houses. Not that many are out and about.

00:02:53 John Daub: Nihonbashi is a really old market town. But since the Great Kanto Earthquake of 1923, it's been rebuilt mostly in a western style. A lot of these are stone buildings here. And a lot of big department stores moved in here. So there's a lot of money. And a lot of foreign businesses are also here. Many of them are finance, financial based companies all around because the Bank of Japan is just over there.

00:03:26 John Daub: Congratulations to the Philippines. Andy, how you doing? First Olympic gold medal in like a hundred years or something. It was quite a long time. There's the Niigata building. Hey, I see WRX Turbo is here. Look at that kimono store. Beautiful. I think for window shopping, Nihonbashi might be better than Ginza in many ways. 97 years since the last gold medal. I'm so happy for the Philippines.

00:04:07 John Daub: After we take a look at this 10 meter high medal, we're going to go into the back streets there. Take a look at some of the designs that artists have come up with to make this. Oh, there's the building up there. It's a tall building. And inside there is that 10 meter high medal. Artists have captured the Olympic spirit in their designs in the back over there. That's where we're heading next.

00:04:36 John Daub: Who's watching the Olympics at home right now? I have to be honest. I haven't turned it on too much. I'm not as interested as I used to be. I don't know why. I just feel a little bit exhausted with this whole thing. On the building across the street, I think this is pretty interesting. You see some of the logos from the past Olympics. There's 2016. There's the Rio logo. There's Beijing 2008. There's Athens 2004. Wow, I remember the Sydney one.

00:05:10 John Daub: I was in Sydney just before the Olympics. I was living on Bondi Beach. I remember that. In Sydney back in 1999, 2000. Saw the Millennium come in in front of the bridge at downtown Sydney Harbor. That's pretty cool. Here's the other Mitsukoshi lion and a very fancy department store. This is Mitsukoshi. The doors are open. Look at that. Beautiful inside there. Nice cool wind coming out too.

00:05:50 John Daub: Here's the rest of the Olympic banners on the Coredo building across the street. Let's see if we can see it. Can see that before we go in for the medal. Atlanta 1996 representing awesome. Does anybody remember these logos, these designs? I like that Barcelona 92. I was there backpacking about four years after Barcelona when the Atlanta Olympics was going on. I was in Barcelona which is pretty weird. And there's the 88 Seoul Olympics. I did go to the Seoul Olympic grounds 12 years after and it looked like a ghost town. Not a lot of people were visiting the special Olympic village there.

00:06:39 John Daub: 84 was Los Angeles. 1980 was Moscow, those games were boycotted. Goodwill Games were going on at the same time. 1976 Montreal. Whoa, Bruce Jenner, remember the decathlon? I was two years old, just have faint memories. And then 72 Munich. Mario writes in here, I remember the Seoul Olympics, the taekwondo was quite intense.

00:07:07 John Daub: All right, this event and I have a ticket to go in here, a digital ticket is going on between July 1st to August 15th and I'm going to see if we can get inside. I have a ticket from 1 to 2 p.m. I can go in there after we take a look at some of the exhibitions. But because of the pandemic you need to go online and make a reservation and I did that. So I'll see if I can take you in there so I want to go in there and see if we can, your high Olympic medal.

00:08:01 John Daub: So let's go in and see if it's inside this building, the Nihonbashi Mitsui Tower. There it is, this way. Oh this is awesome. Wow, look at how big this is, 10 meters high. Now the ribbon starts, it's massive. Hey Matthew Norris, welcome. I'm gonna pan down again. I don't think I can do it. Bite it, it's the girth of it is too wide. I don't think anyone can wear it. This is like a Godzilla sized wow.

00:09:45 John Daub: Large-scale reproduction of the Tokyo 2020 medal. Large-scale reproduction, uh the Olympic Agora which I have a ticket to go into this event. The design of the summer medals comply with strict rules. From 1928 to 2000 the medals barely changed. Nike, the Greek goddess of victory was always represented on one side of the medal holding a palm in her left hand and the winner's crown in her right hand. Since 2004 this figure shown on the front of the ancient stadium in Athens has been depicted with wings. The medals must also show the Olympic emblem, the full name of the games in question, the names of the sports or discipline and the emblem of the organizing committee. Additionally they should reflect the visual look in the culture of the aesthetics elements selected by the OCOG.

00:10:31 John Daub: And there's something about the 2020 Olympic design, interesting. Okay I didn't know that. Nike. Whoa check out how wide that is. In Japanese Nike is pronounced ni-ke although it's probably nee-kay because of branding but in Japanese we would say ni-ke. It's pretty cool to be behind it. Just like Nikon is nee-kon in Japanese, the camera company. King Kong's pachinko coin. What Plinko? Oh Plinko yeah from The Price is Right. Oh that's pretty cool.

00:11:34 John Daub: All right let's go see some of these other events outside before we come in to the museum. This Agora has all of the Olympic torches from so many years and I have a ticket to go in this event. The ticket is starting now so I have to do this really quickly. And then there's some other events that we can go including this baton pass which I believe is on the other side. Check it out, this looks really cool.

00:12:11 John Daub: Japanese pronunciation is consistent. They never changed the a i u e o. That's it. If you can say a i u e o all the vowels are pronounced the same way, it never changes. So I think it's on the other side of this. How do I cross the street right here? All right we can run and do this quickly. Come on. That's a nice umbrella. Okay did it.

00:12:57 John Daub: That's an Olympic sport I've been watching. The news broadcast from the United States and every time they say Tokyo, the Japanese cringe a little bit. There's only two syllables in Tokyo. So Japanese kind of cringe when they hear To-kyo but it's not a big deal. I don't cringe because sometimes I say it too. You kind of just say the way everybody else says and then after a while things get lost in translation. But today in Tokyo. Oh really, today in Tokyo.

00:13:57 John Daub: My friend Teddy Wilson who's the narrator for Mighty Trains which Peter and I and Tabi Eats and Kanae were on that just broadcasted yesterday on the Smithsonian Channel. It was an awesome episode except me and Peter were really kind of cringing with the pronunciation of some of the words. Teddy just call us Teddy. Hey where's the exhibition? I thought it was around here. Guess not.

00:14:36 John Daub: Here's the Olympic Agora again. Walking around the street, see where Olympic all the art stuff is across the street. Well guess what, you got a little tour of this area. This is one of my favorite places. I love between the Coredo buildings here. Chochin, you see these lanterns up here called chōchin (Japanese paper lanterns). And now we have lanterns, Japanese lanterns that have an Olympic symbol on and they're kind of, I don't know, have the Olympic colors on there which is kind of cool right.

00:15:18 John Daub: Japanese sake is pronounced sah-keh not sah-kee and you know I got foreign friends who'll say sah-kee and I know what they're saying so don't want to be that person who corrects everybody all the time for their mistakes. Nobody likes that person. All right I don't like that person so I won't correct you if you say Asakusa or Kagoshima or Oita. It's okay we're cool. Japan it's all good.

00:15:53 John Daub: I guess it's on the back side maybe. Just one of the things that anybody can do before they come to Japan, oh we can make this light sound like applause. Blocks. One of the things that you can do before coming to Japan is make some flash cards and study hiragana and katakana alphabets. By the time you land in Japan you'll be able to read signs and understand the pronunciation. Seriously it's so simple. Same with Hangul in Korea. If you study Hangul the alphabet hit the ground in Seoul running, be able to read menus and stuff.

00:17:02 John Daub: Oh there's the exhibition across the street. Okay one of two. This is the Mandarin Hotel. The side that I'm on we're going to cross over to the other side of Coredo. Caracho Terrace and then I have some postcards to send from here. It's pretty cool.

00:17:40 John Daub: Wow so this first exhibition, this first art exhibit. Let's see here I have some notes. Again you won't be able to see this because you can't come here. This is almost, I'm here for you. This is The Audience. It's called The Audience and it was made by Xavier Veilhan from France and was commissioned by the Olympic Foundation for Culture and Heritage. It's a colorful creation that shows five people of different generations each one in the color of the Olympic rings. So these are different generations in time. I am definitely not the young one or the old one. I'm kind of in between. This is maybe the generation that's in charge. These dudes here I'm probably the green generation maybe that's Gen X. These are millennials here I don't know. They're supposed to be generational.

00:19:19 John Daub: Art is about interpretation so you can interpret it any way you like and that's what's really cool. I would agree with Gen X being the best since I am part of that generation. I think 1974 grew up through the 80s. I like this. I like the colors of the Olympic rings, but generations. Like I'm having generational problems right now with some of the things I say. I'm just out of touch with all the movements going on in the United States. If you don't live in the US you really don't know a lot of how the culture has changed. Same with Japan. Japan has changed not so drastically, but just the other day in a post I said I was in a horror truck and I screamed like a girl and somebody got upset. I can understand but I said that not because I'm looking down on girls. I said it because my pitch was quite high and it sounded like a girl. I don't know how else you'd describe it, but I changed it to kids. I screamed like a kid just to be understanding.

00:20:25 John Daub: This here this design is called Podium Memories by digital art group Moment Factory. It consists of three screens arranged like an Olympic podium. Do you see it now? Showing clips of victorious moments from the games. I don't know if these moments, I don't remember seeing these particular moments. If you stand in front of the artwork and move your legs the screens will start showing dynamic figures of your movements. Okay, if I stand here and move my legs it'll do something. All right, let's see. Ah.

00:21:11 John Daub: The Olympic podium absorbs dreams. Explore the podium's memories by stepping on the rings. Oh yeah, look check it out. Go back to the center. Oh wow, London 1908. All right. Do I step on the ring, step on the circle again? Oh this is pretty neat. Hey David Kimura, moderators are doing a good job. I would agree with that. Let's step on the next one here. Sydney 2000 looks like a runner. Is that Michael Johnson? I like Michael Johnson.

00:22:05 John Daub: Stepped on another one. Let's see what they got here. Whoa nude guy Stockholm 1912. I guess they didn't have any cameras back then. I stepped on it again. Let's see what we see. Stockholm 1956. Let's just, Stockholm had it twice too. Very cool. All right, I'm gonna go a little one here. You know what? Kind of slow. That looks like fencing there. That's 1996 Atlanta gold medal winner. Always Flojo, I think. Isn't it? Stepped again fencing 2012 that looked like a fencing event. Fencing is a cool sport.

00:23:19 John Daub: A pictograph. Should I make the same movements as the pictograph? I just did it again. I stepped on it. This looks like the first Olympic poster from 1896. Check it out. That's the first Olympic poster. That's pretty cool. I never saw that before. So it says here this summer visitors are invited to step on the podium. So I did that for you and trigger visions from the past. Pretty cool. So this is a pretty digital art exhibition here in this Nihonbashi.

00:24:24 John Daub: See my son button exhibition. I don't go near you. Hey hi. She got a new oriita. Secret I didn't they got a little bit. Thank you. That's cool. He was from Sri Lanka I think he could be Japanese better than me. All right, let's get inside here.

00:25:03 John Daub: 37.5 is considered to be a fever so you have to check your temperature. So follow the floor and he said go down the escalator. I hope the signal stays strong everybody if there's any disconnections then 4G will connect so just be a little patient. Hit that like button if you want to see more exhibitions.

00:25:39 John Daub: I have gotten my vaccination shot and I get the second one tomorrow morning. So tomorrow I might not be doing a live stream based on that. And then definitely the day after I'll be taking a loop. And we've connected on to 4G. I'm in the Mitsukoshi my subway station now and I'm looking now for the exhibition. Seemed to have lost my way.

00:26:19 John Daub: All right, here's something let's go check this out. Dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun. Where is the joy of future? I like that. Dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun. That's what to touch it. Just look at the images. Dun dun dun dun dun dun. Just go to the end of this here. I think there might be at the end.

00:27:26 John Daub: Crowds right now because a lot of people are either working or watching the Olympics at home. I guess we took a miss. I think we're gonna do some kaizen. John's greetings from Canada by something refreshing on us from MJ. Hey thanks MJ. Chans in the house. Did the torch runners get to keep their torches? I don't think so. I think they get taken away. I don't think they made 10,000 torches.

00:28:01 John Daub: There are posters as I walk along all over the place showing some of the history of it. This is really sad because a lot of people are just not going to be seeing this stuff. The state of emergency runs through until August 22nd, so this exhibition will be gone. So I guess this is sort of a historical exhibition right now for Only in Japan Go because once it's gone, it's gone.

00:28:33 John Daub: Right, I guess it's this way. I made a mistake. My ticket expires at 2 so I have to get into the exhibition.

00:30:07 John Daub: Hi, all right, I got in so we're in guys. How do you do everybody? Welcome? I'm not allowed to talk too loudly so but there's nobody here actually all the tickets are available. There are only about six people who came here today, which is a shame. This exhibition is open to the public. There's our friend Thomas Bach. We have learned one important lesson from this crisis. We need more solidarity, more solidarity within societies and more solidarity among societies. This is also true for all of us in the Olympic community.

00:31:17 John Daub: Alright, so let's take a look at this. A pretty cool museum here going over Olympic history that is in the city of Tokyo right now. I guess the Olympics started. I didn't research the history of this but just from memory 1896 was the first event in Athens. Bummy goats got my number. So this is the first stadium which looked more like a racetrack but they had races here. That is pretty cool. That's the first Olympic Stadium. What? That looks like Ohio Stadium. Like a horseshoe design. Go Bucs!

00:32:14 John Daub: This is something I'm so looking forward to. The Olympic spirit. I haven't felt it being an Olympic host city. From one edition of the games to the next, there are champions. There are moments of extraordinary success and even of disappointment carrying athletes and spectators through it all is the constant of the Olympic spirit. Olympism is more than just a series of sport competitions. Its roots reach back to the sacred festivals of ancient Greece reimagined at the end of the 19th century by Frenchman Pierre de Coubertin. It draws on tradition yet it has built its own meaning and symbolism over more than a century of the modern games. I guess it has. And you see some lovely Grecian ladies.

00:33:02 John Daub: I had a sake that was very much similar to this in Kanazawa. It's pretty good. They burned the sake with fire. You can see that on the main channel. All right, let's take a look deeper into the Olympic Museum. The Olympic posters going back in time. There's 1896. That's the one I showed you before in Athens. Oh, this is so cool. And this is Paris, 1900. Turn of the century. That's the original poster. Maybe not the original, but you're not allowed to touch it, so I figure.

00:33:46 John Daub: Here's St. Louis had the Olympics. 1904 was St. Louis. I didn't know that. In the United States, the first American Olympics was St. Louis. What? This is the 1908 London Olympics. Hey, Antwerpen? 1920? Antwerpen had the Olympics in Belgium? What? That's so cool. I had no idea. And then Stockholm, one of many Olympics. Paris again in 24.

00:34:24 John Daub: I guess Antwerpen would have been like the summer and winter games, maybe. Chamonix. Yeah, the Winter Olympics looks on the bottom there. Amsterdam had the Olympics in 28. 32 was in Los Angeles. Is that the beach volleyball outfit? And then the Winter Games, Lake Placid in New York 1932. I've been to the Lake Placid Olympic Village a couple of times since my family's from up there.

00:35:18 John Daub: Hey, Garmisch. We had a drink there. Check out Only in Japan Go from two years ago at the Christmas markets. My friend Tom and Kanae and I had drinks in Garmisch. That was awesome to see the Alps. I didn't know they had the Winter Games there. Berlin 1936. This is the poster for the Berlin Games right before World War II. Surprise. The Brandenburg Gate. London 1948.

00:35:51 John Daub: Bag oat. Thank you. I'm going to get a drink right as soon as I get out of here. Find a vending machine. I'll take you with me. St. Moritz again. Oslo 1952. Helsinki. Now, just take notice that the 1940 games are missing. Tokyo had the 1940 games, but not because of World War II, but because Japan wanted to put the money into other things. That's why they pulled out of the Olympic Games. It's a kind of misconception. I'll be honest. I'm reading a book about those 1940 lost games. And then 1944 was also canceled because of World War II. And the next games were in London in 1948. And they were very significant, kind of bringing the world together.

00:36:30 John Daub: I like the Parliament building, Big Ben right up there, symbolizing the 1948 games. And then 1952 in Helsinki. Melbourne. Melbourne Stockholm. That must be an interesting story. So Australia had the games in 1956. They did? I didn't know that. So was it split? Does anybody know the story? Rome 1960. I remember this was, I don't remember, but I remember stories that this was so hot. These games, it impacted the 1964 Olympic Games, where the athletes didn't want to have to go through the same heat. So they scheduled this in October instead of July. They were pretty smart in 1964. And I love the design of the 1964 Olympic poster. Just simple.

00:37:35 John Daub: Mexico City in 1968 has a beautiful design. Look at this. I love this. It kind of makes you think. I'm going to stand back, you can see it clearer. It's like 3D art, looking at the Mexico City logo from 1968. Munich in 1972. And Montreal in 76 are up there. This is where Japan had the second Olympics. Sapporo in 1972. This is the Winter Olympics from there. It's very cool. Innsbruck. Kanae and I were here on the same trip. You can see us at the Christmas market in Innsbruck, which is so beautiful. In 2019, right before the pandemic.

00:38:26 John Daub: Montreal in 1976. Psychedelic. Wow, Moscow Olympics looks like the Atari logo. That's so cool. Look at that. Doesn't it? Sanzo's laughing, but I think it does. Lake Placid. Sarajevo. I remember that in 1984. Los Angeles. This is my childhood. Seoul in 1988. Barcelona. Calgary. Albertville. Canada sure gets a lot of winter Olympics. Atlanta. We saw these outside earlier. But it's just kind of cool because every time you see these names and you see the dates, it takes you back in time to when you were alive, when you were a kid, looking at this for the first time. I love the Nagano one. It's really beautiful. It shows Athens and Beijing, London, Rio. And guess what that is? Welcome to the present. That's Tokyo 2020.

00:39:52 John Daub: All right. I don't know if I can live stream here, but I'm just going to go in and out really quickly. I'm sure I'm going to lose a signal in here. Oh, these are the Olympic torches through the years. We're like in a locked in room. So I don't know if the signal is going to go out. But if it does, I'm going to come back to see you. I'm going to start from this end. Oh, there's the one. My friends Dan and Lincoln cut this one open on their channel, the What's Inside channel. They cut this torch open and showed you what's inside. The technology in it is pretty crazy. So if you want to see that, check out that.

00:40:42 John Daub: This is the first torch. Berlin 1936. Check out this torch. It's so basic. They ran it from Olympia right there. That's amazing. Here's from the next Olympics in London 1948. Because 1940 and 1944 were canceled. Tokyo and Helsinki. And the 1948 Olympic torch. Check this out. It looks like you could drink from this. I bet you they had like real gasoline or something in there. What was the fuel? That looks like the Holy Grail.

00:41:27 John Daub: George Lopez, you got it right. Let's keep on moving here. We're going to have to go a little faster. I think the earlier torches are fascinating because I wonder how they kept it. They didn't have the same technology that we have today. Kerosene, maybe. This is Helsinki 1952. This is a beautiful cup. Look at this. And this is the design of the Olympic torch that they used and ran with through to Helsinki. Here's Melbourne, Stockholm. I don't know how they did Melbourne, Stockholm. Especially this design. This looks like the same design as the London Olympics, doesn't it? Wow. Very cool.

00:42:16 John Daub: I hope the signal's holding in there. This is Rome 1960. And I'm going to be really emotional when I see the 1964 Tokyo torch. Because I know there's a lot of people here in Japan that remember this. Here's the 1964 torch from the Tokyo Games. That looks like a lightsaber. It's the tallest one of them all, 64. They should totally light these up. Like once an hour, light them up.

00:43:08 John Daub: Here's Mexico City. It's very Aztec-looking. I don't know what Aztec-looking means, but it seems like it. It seems like there's a consistent theme to the designs of the torches. This one looks very similar to the 1964 torch. And this is the 1972 Munich torch, which is very similar to the one in Japan. This design comes from Sapporo. Yeah, Sapporo 1972. The Winter Olympics had a torch. And this one kind of worked on the design of the 1964 one. It gets a little bit creative in the 70s because the 70s were pretty cool. Disco and all that. This torch is red. And it looks more like something that you put in your backyard. Right? Look at that. That's pretty cool.

00:44:07 John Daub: Moscow 1980 looks very tough, very strong. Very cool. It's a very nice design. There's the top of it here. Los Angeles 84. Does anybody remember the 84 torch design? I'm sure when we get to Atlanta, we'll have more people remember that one. Seoul in 1988 right here. I like the Korean design. There's a very nice look to this one here. I love the dragons. Barcelona, Spain representing right here. This is 1992. Just finished high school. I remember watching these games right before I went to college.

00:45:04 John Daub: And here's Atlanta 1996. Atlanta representing here in Tokyo. I love the way. I just want to grab it. Look at the handle to it. It's beautiful. Here's Nagano 1998. I like that. Looks like a sake cup. I don't remember this at all. This is the year that I came to Japan. 1998 was the year that I came right after the Nagano Olympics. They take place in the beginning of the year. January, February. I came in July. But the Nagano Olympic one is awesome. It's so simple. Looks like it's made of bamboo tied with rope. And then on the top of it, this glorious large sake cup. I wonder if they used sake as the fuel. That would be pretty wicked.

00:46:05 John Daub: And then the Sydney Olympics. I remember this. It has a very didgeridoo look to it. Kingi Times 3. Long time fan from Singapore. Do they sell the replicas for them? I don't know. I wonder. Here's a Sydney torch. I love the design of this one. I remember when they were talking about it on the news when I was in Sydney on Bondi Beach watching TV there. Getting ready for the Olympics. Many Sydneysiders, the people of Sydney, wanted to leave the city for the games because they didn't want all the noise. And those that left later told me they regretted it. A lot of my friends that I made in Sydney. Here's Athens 2004. Very simple design. I like that. And then they kind of get more elaborate again.

00:46:52 John Daub: Once we get to 2008, new materials start to make an appearance here. The design of the 2008 Beijing torch. I remember this. And it's so elaborate. It really doesn't do it justice because of the low light. But the design and the patterns of it on the side of the metal here is just really beautiful. With my own eyes I'm looking at it right now. And the flame would come off of the top here. Wow. I love this. The London one looks like something that was raided from the crown jewels. Stolen from the Queen's vault maybe. This is London 2012 here. Wow this looks like chain mail from armour. Knights of the Round Table made this in gold.

00:47:57 John Daub: And then the Rio Olympics. It's a beautiful torch too. I love the Rio one. The white with the color design in there. Again cut open by my friends What's Inside. They got a hold of one and you can see the tech inside of it. A lot of the tech was recycled for this torch I believe. But Tokyo 2020. They're using a lot of recycled materials in the torches here. We got a chance to see this in a live stream about five days ago right before the opening ceremony. A little bit before then. Somebody had a torch and was holding it on the street. I mean Peter had a chance to hold it. He said it was pretty light. But the top of it has a cherry blossom pattern. If you look from the top down. But the torch exhibition is beautiful. Look at that. Just kind of absorb it for a second.

00:49:01 John Daub: Wow. I'm starting to feel a little bit of the Olympics now. Now each Olympic game people have their own kind of traditional dress that they wear. So they made an exhibition here on. This is Mexico City in 1968. You can see the dresses here are very representative of the culture. This one is Los Angeles 1984. Atlanta 1996. Athens 2004. I like that. Looks like a princess. These are beautiful. This must be Beijing. Yeah Beijing. Look at the detail. China being a very ancient city with a lot of history to it. A lot of beauty in that city. You can see it represented in the designs of these dresses here.

00:50:20 John Daub: This is again Beijing 2008. Some more of the costumes. This is London 2012. This one looks like could be from London Tower. One of the Yeomen. Beef eater. This looks pretty funky. This is kind of Austin Powers. What's going on here? 1970s costume from London 2012. This looks like Austin Powers. What? Doesn't it? This is so funny. I approve. Some more London 2012. This is the Mary Poppins costume from London 2012. This is a very dark Mary Poppins dress. And these are from Rio from the last Olympics. Very elaborate kind of carnival looking. Wow look at that green one. A spoonful of sugar writes in Sanzo. Well said. Eye sugar.

00:51:49 John Daub: Alright I like this. And I like the exhibition that they put. You can kind of see the Olympics opening ceremony. Some of the dresses there are outstanding. A lot of work goes into this. So it feels good to see this.

00:52:13 John Daub: So these are the Olympic medals. These are the Olympic medals for Athens 1896. There's just two of them. So you didn't have a bronze medal. You had gold and silver I think. There was no, doesn't look like there was a gold medal in the 1896 Olympics. But that is pretty neat to see the first Olympic medals from so long ago. And then Paris medals were square. Extraordinary. St. Louis medals had, they were a lot smaller. They look about the size of a half dollar. United States half dollar with John F. Kennedy on it. That's about the same size. Same as the 1908 Olympic medals are half dollar sized.

00:53:13 John Daub: Stockholm 1912. So the Olympic medals didn't get bigger until you get to Antwerp in 1920. Antwerpen. And Paris 1924 is the gold medal. Could be budget. It could be. Amsterdam 1928. Los Angeles 1932. Very cool design. Berlin 1936. Jesse Owens from Ohio State University had a bunch of these gold medals I believe. So this is the gold medal that Jesse Owens would have from the Berlin Olympics 1936. As a Buckeye I am so proud of. When I see the old footage of Jesse Owens schooling the entire world on running. A lot of stuff on Ohio State's campus is named after Jesse Owens.

00:54:24 John Daub: 1940 and 1944 Olympics were skipped because of the war. And 1948 Olympics. The medals are more vivid. More golden. Helsinki 1952. Melbourne. The Aussies representing. They're getting bigger and bigger. That's right. The medals are getting bigger. Stockholm 1956. Rome. Well the Roman ones got like a border around it. Rome it started to change a little bit.

00:55:15 John Daub: Here's the 1964 Olympics. Very elaborate. You're starting to see the colors are more vivid. Mexico City not as much. But between 1968 and 1972 the Olympic medals did get bigger. And then from 72 starting in Sapporo we start to see more. It looks like part of the medal the gold was in the ribbon holder there. For the 1972 Sapporo Olympics. That's the Winter Games. Montreal. Again it's even bigger. Moscow 1980. If you didn't get the gold you got the one with the Atari symbol on it which is pretty cool.

00:56:06 John Daub: Los Angeles 1984. These are about the same size. Seoul 88. Barcelona's are bigger. 1992. They're really starting to get bigger here. Atlanta 1996. These have kind of a little handle on the top of it for the ribbon. Nagano 98. They're much much bigger. Nagano has pretty cool Olympic medals here. Check it out. The colors on it are really nice. They have a manhole cover in Nagano City in front of the station that has the colors of it. It's still there. I like that. Kind of brings me back to the year that I arrived in Japan.

00:57:44 John Daub: Sydney's medals are a little bit smaller than Nagano's. But you can see that they all have they put the ribbon holders in metal here. There's Athens in 2004. And Beijing 2008. A really elaborate design for the ribbon holder. And then London. The medals got way bigger in London. Check it out. That is really big. That's 2012. And then Rio. And then you see the medals for today. The gold one as Nasha Broad said earlier is made of recycled gold from electrical appliances. Everything, every electrical appliance somewhere in there has some sort of gold I believe. And they've taken millions and millions of them. Taken the gold out and recycled. But the design is really beautiful. So that this is the medal that everybody is getting right now. The gold medal. The design is not too different. That's Nike on the front of it. And that design hasn't really changed much. And then the gold and the silver and the bronze are pretty similar. Just different types of material.

00:59:07 John Daub: Where is the exit? Thank you. There are some artifacts here from Ethiopia. You can see he's got an award for cast of legend Abebe Bikila. Marathon runner from 1960, 1964. Pretty cool. All right. Let's go. I want to see the torch relay. The baton. You can get a photo in front of this.

01:00:26 John Daub: Interesting. So they have all these smartphones showing the social media like TikTok type of stuff here. The impact of smartphones has been pretty huge on everything. Just the way it brings attention to things. You see the Olympics represented through social media here. You can see some of the images in this movie here. Brings you the feeling of the Olympic games. There's so many different sports. So many things that are necessary. All these skills that these athletes learn in order to compete at such a high level. Different disciplines.

01:01:33 John Daub: You know, one of the things I like about the Olympic games is when you do see that opening ceremony, you remember where you were. You remember who the people you were with at that time. Where your family, when you were a kid watching the Olympics with your parents, or when you get older watching the Olympics with your son or daughter. You remember these things. That seems to be the end of the exhibition. I have to take off my sticker and put it here so they know that I left.

01:02:28 John Daub: There's one more thing here, I believe. The baton exhibition. I want to see this here. Where is this one? The Tojiki Makoto exhibition. Oh, there's some flyers. Okay, I'll take one of these. These live streams are supported by you. All the wonderful super chats we got were okay. All right, let's get in the outside here. I want to see the torch. I can't get out of here. I'm trapped in a bookstore. Japan's got a lot of bookstores still. I'm glad.

01:03:56 John Daub: That exhibition was very camera friendly. You're allowed to take pictures in there. There's certain areas where you're not allowed to speak. So I tried to use a very quiet voice. But just be mindful of the people around you. I picked the time where there was almost nobody here as well. You have to get a ticket for that event. It's a digital ticket to go in there. They want to control the numbers of people that come here. But right now, that's not much of a problem. But these exhibits are open. So this is a state of emergency, but it's not a lockdown.

01:04:32 John Daub: Oh, very cool. We have some Olympic merch here. So T-shirt is $30. $30 for a basic T-shirt. That's kind of pricey. Hey, Kanae, what did you want? Send me online. Let me know. Where did that Olympic torch thing go? Hold on a second. I'm not done. Hey, Rob. German's here. Thanks for the live content. You're welcome, Rob. Thanks so much for joining us and Britania's in the house. Thanks so much for being a part of this. Again, I bring you here live because I love to share. I want to make sure that you get a feeling of what Tokyo is like during the Olympics. It's quiet. Again, like there would be so many more people here if it was not for the pandemic.

01:05:24 John Daub: Where's that exhibition? There's one last thing I want to show you. Maybe it's out this way. Maybe it's this way. I'm seriously lost. No, I'm back where I started. What? Hold on a second. I want to see this Makoto Tojiki Solidarity. Solidarity, Diversity and Collaboration Exhibition. But it doesn't say exactly where it is. It's in the orange zone. Oh, that's not even in this area. Okay. This is back where that's across the street. All right. So I guess you're going to, I'm going to take you a little bit further. Extended live stream because I should have. I thought it was over there, but I didn't see it the last time. Moderators a little bit longer. Sorry about that. I do have two postcards. Postcard Club. Thanks so much for joining. I'm going to put these in the next mailbox that I see. This is going for Anastasia in the United Kingdom and Dean Newcomb in Canada. Thanks, guys. There's a mailbox across the street, so I'm going to put that in there for you from Nihonbashi.

01:07:21 John Daub: I do have the Pikachu stamps here. Check it out. So these are your stamps. Pikachu coming right at you and Pikachu in the rain. It's kind of cool. So if you want to get one of these postcards, join up on Patreon and I'll send it to you today. Go in the mail and be on its way. Get to you maybe a little bit after August, I think. So this is Nihonbashi. This place has a lot of history. I love to come here and walk around, too, especially at night. Kind of comes alive. But this is where the old fish market is before Tsukiji Market, before it moved to Toyosu. It was here in Nihonbashi, the old fish market. After the Great Kanto Earthquake in 1923, everything was renovated. And you can see it looks very Western because they set up these old marble buildings. Whoa, that's a Rolls. A lot of money here. You see that Rolls Royce? It's awesome.

01:08:29 John Daub: All right, Dean Newcomb and Anastasia, here you go. United Kingdom and Canada on the way from this box. What an exhibition. I want to go back there with my A7S3 and get some shots of the torches and stuff for a video. Like, I want to film it in 8K. Right? Beautiful exhibition. Well done, Tokyo. The exhibition is free. The tickets have no cost to them. The only thing you have to do is make sure you reserve it online.

01:10:02 John Daub: Our exhibition is here behind the shrine. All right, found it. How long do you think the exhibitions will be going? I won't tell you how long I think. I'll tell you how long I know. From July 1st until August 15th. So the chance of everybody coming to see it is very not good. So that's why it's important that I do a live stream of it. It's important that you subscribe and encourage me to keep going to these events. Thank you also to our Patreon supporters. I got on Discord the recommendation to come here from our supporters. So big, big thank you for making that a reality. Because I might have missed this. A lot of these places were canceled.

01:10:59 John Daub: This baton exhibition is stunning at night. It's made up of a lot of squares. Do you see that? I'll get a closer look at it in a second. Japanese artist. This was commissioned by the Olympic Cultural Department. It's called Solidarity and Collaboration by Makoto Tojiki. And the Japanese artist is known for using light as his primary medium of expression. And he's created an original illuminated work for the Olympic Agora. Standing more than 4 meters tall. The installation was inspired by the 4 by 100 meter relay race. Through this representation of shared responsibility and team play. The artist also highlights the importance of passing the Olympic values to the next generation. The sculpture is the largest installation created by the artist to date. So he's never made anything as big as this before.

01:12:07 John Daub: Yesterday I was at the amazing Jiro Studio. And he did something for the Olympics too. Making a massive life-size human body. And he makes horror and makeup designs for movies and commercials. And in his studio yesterday that I filmed had that. You can see all the little squares that make up this design. It's pretty unique. And in the back there's like a skeletal structure of metal. That is the skeleton for the other white squares around it. And it's pretty stunning. At night it lights up. And it is really, really beautiful. So I would come back at night. And I might do that. If I come back to this area again.

01:13:00 John Daub: So the city of Tokyo does have some exhibitions. It does have some places where you can kind of feel that Olympic spirit. And that makes me really happy. I'm glad it's in my neighborhood. This is my backyard. Nihonbashi. About a 10 minute bicycle ride for me. And I'll be back. So if we can get to 650 likes. I will take you back to the Olympic rings. Look at that beautiful bamboo stick dripping water here in the center of Tokyo. If we can get to 650 likes right now. I'm going to take you to the Olympic rings at Nihonbashi again. And we'll end the live stream there. It's up to you. Click that like button.

01:13:53 John Daub: Wow. It's nice and cool. This is behind a shrine here in the city. This is just a public open space. That's right. This Coredo department store that opened up a few years ago is just beautiful. And inside of there, there is a goldfish exhibition. They have all these goldfish in like beautiful goldfish. And they have these beautiful tanks making up art. And I've been in there a few times. And it's such a beautiful event. I think Dassai Nihonshu, Japanese sake maker, was one of the sponsors. The president invited me to go to that exhibition. And I got to drink a lot of sake when I was there. That was a lot of fun. That was maybe 4 or 5 years ago. And that exhibition is still going on today.

01:14:41 John Daub: Alright, we're about 30 likes away from 650. Can we get there? I know we can. I love it when we do something together as a community. Get to the next level. There's a lot of foreign media too. Taking images for their background news coverage. So they just turned the lights on for the Chochin Lanterns. They're in the Olympic colors as well. And boom! We got it at 650. See what we can do as a community. Very cool. Hey, Darvois! Follow that FedEx truck. Alright, off we go. We're heading towards the Olympic rings right now. We're going to take one more look at Nihonbashi, which is the historic center. It's where the five main paths from the Edo period that went from Tokyo, which was known as Edo back then, the capital, branched off from this spot right here, Nihonbashi.

01:15:55 John Daub: So the art exhibits are here. And in the basement here. And the medal is inside of here. A 10 meter high medal, which is extraordinary. Inside of there, which is the Mitsui Nihonbashi Mitsui building. So let's go take a look at the Olympic rings. About 150 meters this direction. If I was Michael Johnson, I'd be able to get there in about 22 seconds. I think it's going to take two minutes. Yeah, apologies for the wind noise. It's a super windy day in Tokyo.

01:16:54 John Daub: Alright, that's it. There's Nihonbashi straight ahead. So for the next couple of minutes, just enjoy the sights and sounds of this area without yours truly polluting it with a voiceover. Oh, this is the Niigata store. So you have a lot of confections and lots of rice from that area. And it looks like they're not bonsai trees, but they're very small trees similar to bonsai trees, I think. Oh, check it out. It's Olympic Hello Kitty. Hahaha. Ah. Tokyo. Wow, look at that grape machine made from grapes. They have a lot of dessert craftsmen, artisans that make amazing desserts on this street. And a lot of the shops have been there for generations. This is Nihonbashi.

01:19:21 John Daub: There are the Olympic rings right there. So we're going to walk over and check them out. This is about a 10 minute walk from here. And Tokyo Station too, by the way. We're not that far away from Tokyo Station. So you can get off the Shinkansen and walk here pretty quickly. There's the Toyama Prefecture store. So if you want to get something from Toyama Prefecture that you can't find anywhere else in the city of Tokyo, except right here at the Toyama Nihonbashi Toyama store. One of my favorite prefectures. Beautiful. Got the Japanese Alps there. Such clean water. The Tateyama Pass and the Kurobe Dam. Beautiful area. Just north of Kanazawa, which is Ishikawa Prefecture.

01:20:39 John Daub: Treks make that noise when they're turning. It's pretty cool. Sometimes they even talk to you. So here we are! The Olympic rings! We're back where we started! How cool is that? You can take pictures from the other side through the rings. And if you do through the rings, you get this. Check it out. Nihonbashi right there. And there you have it. It's pretty cool. I think that was worth waiting for.

01:21:25 John Daub: Thanks everybody. I hope that you enjoyed this livestream. We walked all around the Nihonbashi area. Checked out the Olympic venue exhibitions. I thought that was cool. Got to learn a lot of the history of the Olympic Games. But more importantly, for me, is there anybody around? For me, I think it was really cool to feel the spirit of the Olympic Games. I think that's something you can only do when you're around other people. You see their faces and you feel their happiness.

01:21:55 John Daub: And for me as a resident of the city of Tokyo and someone looking forward to these games since 2007, when I first heard about them, running the marathon, getting a pin from a candidate city pin from the governor, Ishihara himself, saying that we want the Olympics in 2020. You know, we finally got it for 2020 and it's just been really hard to enjoy it. But with exhibitions open to the public like this, it does make up for it. And I can feel some of that spirit that is missing from these games. Admittedly, even from the athletes themselves. Stay safe everybody. I'm getting my second shot tomorrow and I'll be able to travel around the country. I've been in Tokyo for a long time due to the state of emergency and just safety reasons to stay in my own prefecture. But I'll be traveling again really soon after I get my second shot and vaccination passport from Japan to be able to get around a little bit easier. And hope that you and your family are doing well. I'll have another livestream really soon. Peter von Gomm and I did not talk about the opening ceremony the other day. It was mostly my fault. But I will have him back maybe tomorrow after I get my jab and talk about it. Because he was the voice of the Olympic opening and that was awesome. And I want to hear his opinion about it. Thanks everybody. Have a good day. Have a good night. Don't forget to subscribe and I'll see you again in another livestream tomorrow.