00:08 John Daub: Greetings everybody, welcome to Tokyo. This is Ginza and in the center of your screen right now, that white area, is a new vending machine corner that opened up in July. I've seen it a couple of times and I thought today, it being September, I might cover it because it is a pop-up vending machine shop and it might not be here for much longer. But I think the concept is interesting enough to feature it on Only in Japan Go.

00:32 John Daub: How you doing everybody? It's September 1st and it seems always on the first day of September, autumn comes. It feels like autumn. I'm in shorts and short sleeves right now, but I could very well be in jeans and long sleeves, which is very odd. But it's just always like this. As soon as September 1st comes, the skies turn gray. Already Halloween stuff is out in all the department stores. It's a little bit of a surprise. It's kind of surreal.

01:10 John Daub: So here it is. It's run by this group called Schema Departo. Departo means department store. And it's kind of an interesting concept. What they want to do here, because I was reading up on their press release, is kind of bring Japan all together through vending machines, which kind of makes sense because the whole country is full of vending machines. I think there's one vending machine for every 23 people or something ridiculous like that. And here what they've done is, here's a map of Japan. In this one booth, you can find products from Hokkaido, from Aomori, Miyazaki, and Kyushu down there on the island. Shizuoka, which is right here, that's where Mount Fuji is located. Tokushima, three places on Shikoku Island. Tokushima, Ehime, which is where Dogo Onsen (famous hot spring) is. And then Kagawa, which is where the Sanuki Udon is. So each region of Japan in all 47 prefectures has something interesting, some sort of unique culture. And we're going to take a look at that through this vending machine corner.

02:14 John Daub: This one right in the front here is Aomori. And you can see Aomori very famous for its apples. I like the fact that they presented it and shown the culture of Aomori a little bit. This guy probably in Hirosaki picking apples. And right next to it is a vending machine with stuff in there. So I think some of these vending machines, though, the concepts are more expensive stuff. And I believe you order it and they send it to you using a key. You can also use a QR code where your address is automatically entered in. So vending machines on the corners will connect shoppers with customers. And the department store is no longer a physical location like inside of a building like all over Ginza. This is a wild idea when you think about it. It's not one of these big buildings like you would have a traditional department store. This department store is all vending machines. So you would order stuff from the vending machines on corners in neighborhoods.

03:12 John Daub: Look at what they have here. And of course, I'm going to be trying some of this stuff because I haven't seen this. Apple Shower is a very interesting looking drink here. Twenty-five percent fruit juice, which is very rare to see in these kind of canned beverages. Peach Shower, which they also grow. They also grow some pretty good peaches. It's also twenty-five percent. Does it taste like you're in the shower? I'm kind of in shock. It's a unique name. And there's some sparkling apple. I guess that's like apple cider. There's no alcohol in it. And that's 160 yen and down here is some premium apple stuff. Oh, that's about 380 yen or about three dollars and eighty cents. And the vending machine is two degrees Celsius, which is just above freezing. So it's going to be fresh.

04:13 John Daub: Just kind of wander around and decide how we're going to spend our money. Hey, Michael Sassano. Hey, John. So I'm stoked, so stoked that I made a livestream. I love your vending machine adventures. Here's something for some fun machines. Thank you. We're going to find some stuff to definitely try, Michael, with that. Well, to this one from Miyazaki, this is super interesting. They've got here salad dressing in this vending machine. Check it out. Like different kinds. This one is a vegan salad dressing. It has black garlic in it. What? This one has yuzu pepper, black garlic and hot sauce. So definitely like, OK, they're about ten dollars each. This one is thirteen dollars. You can tell just 100 yen equals about a dollar. But we're going to say 100 yen equals one dollar just to make it easy. This one all these are black garlic infused. This one has white garlic flavor. So I'm not sure, this is probably like pure garlic. You know, in a darker form, this is the ones down here are not so garlicky. That's interesting. You get salad dressings out of the vending machine from Miyazaki, all from the same place.

05:33 John Daub: This one here is Shizuoka, which is, you know, everybody knows from Mount Fuji. But instead of drinks and stuff, they put in oil sardines in different kinds of oil. That's interesting. This one has garlic smoked mackerel. OK. Not just sardines, but smoked mackerel and garlic, smoked sardines in cottonseed oil. Cottonseed spelt wrong, but we'll let it go. Sardines in olive oil and black pepper and then just natural. That's about 2,000 to 2,100 yen for a can of these. And I guess the Sendex thing is you can have it sent to you from the vending machine. That means if you don't want to hold this, you found something you like, they'll send it to you so it's kind of a neat system here and then you can buy them a la carte, just take the one that you want and I think you save a little bit of money if you buy it in a pack of four. Interesting so that's all from Shizuoka. Let's move on over here. I like they put in like mood music in here which is probably not royalty free but we'll let it go.

06:47 John Daub: This one oh okay also from Shikoku, which is the smallest of the four main islands in Japan. I'll be heading to Kochi Prefecture pretty soon. I've never seen this drink before it's called Home Up. I guess it's a Kochi only or a Shikoku only drink it's a cream soda. That's interesting I might have to try that but this one looks more unique here this yuzu drink with honey and that looks really good. And here's some gel with yuzu and sudachi and sudachi is a citrus fruit you find it mostly in Tokushima I found and then in Kochi you'll find yuzu so that would be pretty good to do but I'm guessing it's going to be super sour. And look here we have stuff from the farm. What? It's just like pickled vegetables and stuff in here they're about 1,100 yen. The olives look pretty appetizing in there and I like the lighting do you notice this they give it like this kind of soft LED from the front that just gives it that professional illumination glow. You can put this in a white box and take pictures of it it isn't a white box that's exactly the image that they were aiming for. It looks very appetizing in here.

08:45 John Daub: Kind of take a step outside I got a feeling it's gonna be raining really soon. It's just interesting to me that the concept of this vending machine corner it's not gonna be like a casual just take a Suica (IC card) and pay for something for a dollar fifty like a drink it's more about shopping experience so that's kind of new to me and they put in some products that are conventional like drinks but they made it special by like I've never seen these kinds of things in the vending machines especially not in Tokyo. All right let's check this one out here on the corner look at this just the presentation of it it makes it feel like you're sort of in a department store the products are in a window. We get somebody let me out of the booth. All right we got some alcohol here because if you touch the screen uh you want to clean your hands so here's the process here it is an online thing so you got to get to the QR code and you can buy wagyu from this vending machine what all right let's just all right it's frozen wagyu and I guess it will come out whoa okay it comes in like a package like that it's frozen and it's got a little bit of a code that you need to buy it and I guess they send it to you yeah or does it can it come out here I don't know it's a little bit confusing but once again you would pay by your smartphone and then they would send it to you is the typical way to do it so this is an interesting it's I guess the system is called Sendex I'm not sure a lot of these things don't take off but it's a good idea I've never seen anything like this before.

10:43 John Daub: So I'm going to go ahead and get some drinks here I can't drink them all because I'm going to be all bloated what do you guys think it's up to you here should I get something from the Shikoku machine something from the Aomori machine I'm not going to drink everything I'll just explode. Some of these this Apple Shower looked interesting the Home Up. PC Gamer rates Home Up so you're going Aomori maybe I'll get one I'll get one for later since that sounds like a pretty good idea. All right which one of these things should I get the premium stuff or should I go for the Apple Shower or go for carbonated sparkling apple drink oh Apple Shower rates in Tigra Hof we have to go oh wow okay there's a battle going on here within the livestream chat a lot of people going Apple Shower and then some people definitely premium. Apple Shower I think the Apple Shower is carbonated all right you know what there's only one way to find out all right at first I'm gonna go Apple Shower here I'm surprised I have a Suica button right okay hold on I'm surprised PC Gamer what did you want PC Gamer I think you said premium right all right stay here okay you can watch the experience from a distance this gimbal's not doing so good all right Apple Shower here we go.

13:07 John Daub: It's real you know it's funny DJI is going to be announcing a new gimbal so I guess this one will have to have a name Chelsea 2 Gimbo the gimbal Carlos I don't know about that one all right here we go Apple Shower I've never seen this drink before interesting wobbles all right Marty made a very good suggestion yuzu jelly looks pretty good too gimbal's a little rough there. Reading the live chat here all right let's try this drink.

14:07 John Daub: That's really good definite apple taste here hold on we're in a crowded location definitely good has a really really robust apple taste to it sweet not tart but more sweet slightly carbonated so you can't gulp it down real fast I like it that is an apple you know what that's an apple shower I feel the apple shower. It's 25% apple juice and then probably that's well I can just read it on the side here yeah apples is the number one ingredient and then there's carbonated water and there's a little bit of sugar in here it's made in Aomori in Hirosaki it's a local drink it's produced from Aomori apples wait a second but the company is Yamagata so it's a Tohoku company but they're making it from Hirosaki apples so a little Tohoku power there so let's go pretty good I actually do like this that's really good all right good choice guys thank you I appreciate a lot of you wanted the premium one I think this was Apple Shower a little bit more interesting but maybe if I drink Apple Shower it won't actually rain because I don't have an umbrella as you can see I was dressed for summer if you look around everyone it's like September 1st came and everyone stopped wearing shorts and I think this could be close to like light jackets weather it feels like that anyways certainly not hot anymore almost no humidity.

16:08 John Daub: All right let's go back in for that yuzu jelly sounds like a good one there it's just weird enough where I can get it although Home Up is just a wacky name right um yuzu jelly uh they put this in here these sudachi is a lot sometimes in udon you'll see this round citrus fruit in a bowl of udon it's usually this one but I can't pass up yuzu I'm a yuzu freak 400 yen what that's like four bucks for this all right it better be good number six interesting okay let's take this outside.

17:16 John Daub: All right it's definitely cold and ready to be drank it's just it's not a cold day these you know what these are the ticket guys who give bicycles tickets I'm in the corner of my eye making sure that they don't take my bicycle which is around the corner so if you see them on the move in the background let me know I don't want to get a ticket nothing happens but you don't want to get a ticket all right this seems like a good place to try it oh this is fun how much would that kind of ticket cost there's no price to the ticket it's just a ticket to say don't park your bike here my bike's right there so get it it's not illegally parked. But it's just, they have special places, but you don't know where they are. Peter von Gomm has the same problem, too, with his motorcycle.

18:28 John Daub: Yuzu jelly. Four bucks. Was it worth it? Oh, man, that's good. Oh! That is, that's a happy sour. That is not, it's not sour sour like you just stuck your mouth on a lemon. Like a ripped up lemon. This is more of a sophisticated sour with a slight sweetness to it. And if anyone saw the video of me down in Kochi at the yuzu farm, and the farmer ripped one open and said, try this. And I go like this, I go, ooh! That was sour. This is not that sour. I guess it's a little bit watered down. I think it's worth 400 yen. Whoa, check this out. Okay, hold on a second. I gotta, I have to be really careful with the gimbal. But if you look there, you can see pieces of, pieces of the fruit inside of here, which is really interesting. So it's from Tokushima, not from Kochi. But still good. Wow. The thing with yuzu is, let's mix that up with some Apple Shower. It feels like a fruit salad. Tastes like a fruit salad.

20:13 John Daub: The Kochi store is right here. So it's like, I could just go in there and there's about a dozen different kinds of yuzu products inside of there. And there's the Okinawa store right here. I love this. I love this corner. Sometimes I'll jump in here. You can get products from Okinawa and products from Kochi. These prefectural stores are opening up all over, mostly around Ginza, Nihonbashi area. But you can find them spread out in other areas too. That's the McDonald's where I ate the Hawaiian pancake, which is basically a McGriddle with berry sauce on top. There's a Shinkansen going by. I just want to jump on that. Tomorrow I will be.

21:03 John Daub: Hey, Okiro is here. Wagyu for later. I guess Kanae Daub knows what she'll be having for dinner. It'll be wagyu for sure. Thank you for that. I'm about to get my ticket to Chikoku. Sorry, to Nagano. I'm all over the place right now. I'm going now to Tokyo Station. I got to get a ticket because tomorrow I'm going to be riding the Shinkansen to Nagano City to film just for the day. And then I'm coming back. I had to take a PCR test. I've already been fully vaccinated. I had to make sure I was negative before I got on the Shinkansen. There's so many different steps that I had to take in order to be ready to travel around Japan. But I believe I'm ready. So I just have to get the ticket now. I'm leaving at around 7. Just before 8 o'clock in the morning. And I'm going to see if I can do another one of the Shinkansen runs for you. It's been a long time since we did one of those on the platform.

22:02 John Daub: Because I know a lot of you who would have been in Japan would be doing the Shinkansen run here with your JR passes. But, you know, there's almost no tourists here. Tokyo Station is straight this way for about 300 meters. So you just go straight there. So I'll do a Shinkansen run tomorrow morning. And then I'm going to do Nagano Station for Only in Japan Go. Which I've never done before. And Nagano Station is a little bit bigger. I think I might have transferred there. But I didn't show you around the station itself. So it's going to be pretty cool. You're coming with me to Nagano Station. So I'm going to see if I can livestream from Tokyo's Shinkansen platform to get you psyched up. And when I arrive in Nagano. And get off of the train. We will start from the platform. From exiting the Shinkansen. And then I will show you Nagano Station. That's the goal anyways. And I can do that in the rain. Because it doesn't matter. Actually, it's starting to Apple Shower right now. It's starting to apple shower as we speak.

23:16 John Daub: Nagano is going to be pretty cool. So what do you think about this? What do you think about the vending machine corner that they have here? I got a feeling we're going to be seeing more and more unique vending machines. The pandemic has put a lot of the businesses out of business. And I was just looking up there. There's some shops that I had never seen before. Because these windows are opaque. Oita Prefecture has an onsen shop right there. So I might walk up there a little bit later. But because of the pandemic. A lot of department stores are doing badly. And it's interesting that they're turning to vending machines. To try to spice up business. And again, you can get everything from wagyu. And salad dressings. And maybe even vegetables. Where you can just order it on the corner in your neighborhood from vending machines. But it makes me ask this one simple question. Do we really need this? We all have a smartphone.

24:12 John Daub: Hey! Hello, hi, 821. What is that? Oh, that's the Karate Kid. Nightbot! Exclamation point. Karate Kid will turn on different expressions from my past. Thank you for showing everybody that. And by the way, I think it's activated every minute or so. So you can't just... You have to wait a while. Alright? Karate Kid Karate Shot. I put that one in there. Alright. Words of wisdom to keep you entertained. The winds are coming in. I got a feeling that it's going to start to really pour.

24:53 John Daub: You know what? I think I will pick up that wagyu for dinner. That looked really appetizing. I'm just plain curious about it. But they don't take Suica, so... Peso writes it in here. First, learn stand. Then learn fly. Alright, thanks everybody. I got to get moving. I know that it's going to start raining and I don't have a raincoat. This could be really bad. If you want to check it out, I don't know how much longer it's going to be here. But this vending machine corner, I think it's pretty cool just to check it out and see the future and the evolution of vending machines. I think it starts from maybe this point of view. Of course, you have a smartphone and could order online. But physically seeing the vending machine... Is the best advertising for the service. Because it's a competition on the internet. It's very hard to find and this is a lot cheaper probably than online advertising. This works. See you everybody. Don't forget to click that like button. See you tomorrow morning. It's really showering. I think this worked. The people got the umbrellas out.