00:00:07 John Daub: Hello everybody, welcome to one of the artificial man-made islands, Shiomi. I thought we would come by train so you get a better look. This is the Keio Line and that's Shiomi. We're going to be exploring this man-made island. I think it's kind of cool to see how Tokyo is expanding over the course of the next 30 minutes or so. Welcome.

00:01:02 John Daub: How are you doing everybody? Stand over here on the edge. This is the Keio Line. This brought me in here. You can actually take this from Tokyo Station. It'll take you towards Tokyo Disneyland and Shiomi is one of the stops. Not a lot of people get off here. The population is relatively small considering that this used to be landfill number eight, built on trash. Not the most attractive place to stay but it doesn't smell that bad. At least not yet.

00:01:31 John Daub: We're going to explore this area of Tokyo. So let's get going. Shiomi. Oh and by the way there is a brand new Prince Hotel over here which I think is really interesting because they have really good food there. So we might walk by there at the end and circle around this entire area. At the end of this triangle-shaped man-made island is a baseball field and there's a lot of history not too far around this area but not too much here because it's an artificial island. This station Shiomi was built in 1990 so it's relatively new, about 20-30 years now. Here's the Keio Line going towards Tokyo Station. Now the trains leave about three or four times an hour in both directions towards Tokyo Disneyland and towards Tokyo Station.

00:02:59 John Daub: Over the course of the next couple of months I'm going to be taking a look at Japan's man-made islands and you're going to be joining me as I scout these areas out for a possible main channel episode. Most of these islands were built or starting to be built back in the Meiji era so obviously this is something that the city of Tokyo has been thinking a lot about. Oh here's a map right here. Yeah I'm sorry you can see wow it is built up a little bit more than the last time I was here. You can see the map is pretty blank but there are some things to see and do here.

00:03:56 John Daub: We're going to start from Shiomi Station right here and we're going to walk down the Main Street here go all the way past the Tokyo Hydrogen Museum which is pretty cool and then to this baseball field. Take a look at this the end of it. Baseball is I guess you would say a national sport besides sumo and then walk back around this way seeing if we can walk along the canal here and really scout out and then come back around through the Prince Hotel to Shiomi station. So let's get going. Obviously I do have another phone which has a map here. Obviously you could see the kind of triangle shape to it man-made so it would fit in this part of Tokyo Bay and right now the city of Tokyo is starting to fill in even more of this with land and probably over the course of the next 30-40 years you're going to have more space for residents to move into which is pretty cool.

00:04:54 John Daub: All right let's take a look just around this side to see what businesses we have. Naka which is like a Yoshinoya but they have a much more diverse menu, 500 yen sets. There's a supermarket here now which is pretty interesting. I believe that's the Prince Hotel over there which we'll end up at the end of the live stream so you can take a look at the menu some of the restaurants there. Maybe you want to stay here. During the Olympics there were a lot of people holed up there from certain teams that decided they wanted to stay not in the Olympic village but in other surrounding hotels. This one was pretty far out there. Beautiful October afternoon. Now there's a lot of warehouses here obviously because the rent is a lot cheaper on this island and there's a lot more space and probably these factories they sell the land or move out after a certain amount of time and residential will start to move in.

00:05:54 John Daub: That's some of the things that's going on. This is Koto Ward by the way. Koto is one of the 23 wards of Tokyo and Koto like Chuo-ku where I live it has you're not allowed to smoke on the streets but this is pretty quiet. Here's a supermarket Maruetsu very famous chain in downtown Tokyo where you can get bento and all sorts of supermarket food.

00:06:31 John Daub: All right let's get moving. First stop this street that goes straight through to the Hydrogen Museum. Hydrogen an explosive material used in the Hindenburg now a museum. And there are quite a bit of hydrogen fuel cell buses that are now going around the city of Tokyo. We started to see them more and more with the buildup of the Tokyo Olympics as well as a lot of cars. The hydrogen fuel cell cars are also starting to pop up a little bit. The technology is evolving and this Hydrogen Museum is in a place that probably very few people will know about. It's probably they probably should have put it in a more convenient place but I'm quite happy that it does exist because I would love to learn more about our friend hydrogen which is you know in water H2O right it's also very explosive.

00:07:35 John Daub: I don't know how they do this but it's pretty cool. There are some residential neighborhoods apartment buildings here and these look like they were built back in the 1990s when the station was done. Shiomi Station again JR was built in 1990 and these mansions—we call these apartment buildings mansions strange but the mansions are condos really what they are in English—these condos were about 20-30 years old now. Shiomi according to history they started building this back in 1897 it's the Meiji era and then it was called landfill number eight. There's a lot of landfills here but they used the dredging of the rivers that old mud and gook they formed this land here and then over time they created the island. I guess the island was essentially finished in 1967 according to history and then from 1967 it was settled in the early '20s and then they moved out and residential areas moved in. Same history with Shiomi. Here's the Lawson's up ahead. There's also a church here and there's some history on the Wikipedia about this area with this church.

00:09:07 John Daub: You can see it's a Christian church there's Jesus up there I believe and then there's a church here in the middle of the area. I'm not super religious but it looks like Joy that's right I think it's a Catholic church. Catholic yeah it says right there in katakana Catholic. So it's a meeting place for Catholics here in Tokyo and I believe they moved from a different area up in Taito-ku up in the north down to here and they have a very large presence on this man-made island so that's kind of cool to see. But I was surprised the Wikipedia on Shiomi a lot of the history I would say maybe 25% of what's happened on this island has to do with this Catholic church here. It's pretty interesting so they do have I guess a really strong foundation on this island and maybe a lot of the people living in these apartment complexes or mansions they could very well be Catholic.

00:10:39 John Daub: I'm not on a trip anymore I'm actually right now in Tokyo this is Shiomi and I came back from Kochi after a wonderful four-day driving trip. Turn around here had a wonderful four-day driving trip from Kyoto to Kochi in a RAV4 Toyota RAV4 that I rented. That was an amazing trip I made a playlist on this channel don't forget to subscribe so you can go check it out and you can follow me in those videos on a driving adventure just a couple of days ago from Kyoto through Osaka. I got lost in the highway there's a live stream on that too crossing the great Seto Bridge which is one of the most wonderful feats of engineering in this country. You can see me crossing that bridge in a live stream and going to a service area in the state of Kagawa where I'm driving right now or rest stop in between the bridge which is super cool. That's all on this channel so certainly check it out if you haven't already.

00:12:01 John Daub: I came back a few days ago decompressing it was a lot of travel in a very short period of time a lot of editing. I tried to get some strobeys up some edited videos on this channel. Go to chas thanks for watching that. Wow so that right there is a storage space trunk room they call it so I guess you can rent more space. Japanese apartments are not too big so these rental space units are quite popular. We might have to get one because of the baby now I noticed that we've run out of space and have mountains of stuff which will be fun for the baby to climb one day. Some things that we can't quite use yet or we're done using so we have to donate them to new friends with babies.

00:13:20 John Daub: Good memory R90 the sideways live stream is not private but I accidentally or the YouTube app started the live stream sideways I don't know how that happened but I had about 1500 people looking sideways for several minutes I feel a little bit bad about that. All right I said a little bit back because it's kind of a unique experience. Whoa whoa what do you know what this is it says here please take this freely take what you like it's all for free. I've never seen this in Tokyo so they have pots and pans and plates no cost they just want to get rid of it they don't want to throw it away. They look pretty cool so take what you want. Gosh that suitcase would look nice we're going to the US but I think we're okay. Look at this this would be pretty useful for cooking curry for a thousand people or at least 20. All right you know what take I'm sure that there's somebody who's more needy than me and I don't want to carry a big pot around. I don't know how much curry Leo can eat anyways it's just three of us. I like that spirit though please take freely that's just like right there in the corner you can see the Keio Line cruising by right there.

00:14:28 John Daub: This is pretty neat look at this right on the side of the road here a little garden made of stones look at the froggy on there with riding another froggy. I bet you at night it's pretty cool this building looks definitely 1980s maybe look at the top of it it's got like a cone shape on the top of it. This is a fun looking apartment building it's got a Family Mart on the first floor and like I think there's some gnomes living up there. Let's go take a closer look I'm getting closer to the Hydrogen Museum too. What I so want to live up there yeah it looks like a party hat the whole building looks like a big party man. If I had to pick a place to live I would pick this green building it's pretty cool it's for rent too though Kanae is never going to go for it. Can I I found the perfect house it looks like a party hat it's called Arai House interesting looks like a party place. Dang I wonder who lives up there I promise you I will bring a six pack and hang out up there if you let me I'll buy a sixer just hang out for an hour in the party hat.

00:16:19 John Daub: You find some really odd things out in the middle of nowhere. And I guess it's just for Tokyo. This would be considered the middle of nowhere I guess. Not a lot of people know about this island. All right I guess the Hydrogen Museum should be around here somewhere. Might have passed it. Luckily I have another phone. Let's check out. Oh there's a Domino's. All right here it is here we are on the map here. I'll take you over here in the shadow of this pole. Oh so we just passed that Family Mart. Oh there it is the Hydrogen Museum right here. A little bit further past this it's on the other side of the Domino's. Oh smells like Domino's. Whoa I had that in another live stream the pizza rice bowl. That was pretty good. Hey if you buy it here you can get one for free if you do mochikaeri which is carryout. Interesting important to know these things.

00:18:08 John Daub: Right next to the Hydrogen Museum is a gas station so this is certainly a power spot. But unfortunately and I checked this too the Hydrogen Museum looks very much closed. All right let's just take a quick look see through here. This hydrogen museum looks like it's been converted from a warehouse into a Hydrogen Museum and I don't see it doesn't look like it's open but maybe it is. I think this would be pretty cool separate episode. All right give a lot of questions about hydrogen. Oh look it is open but it's open until oh look it is open. Okay this staff got Seth was like freaking out to like a person's here. This looks like a hydrogen car. Whoa. All right so I don't know what the hours are. Let's figure it out. So it's from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. and I don't have permission to film here but it would be pretty cool to go and see the Hydrogen Museum in the future. Am I allowed to film in there? I guess we can go check it out. You know what let's go take a look. I want to go and just take a look at the end of this place and then we can stop by the hydrogen museum. Let's see if we can get like a few hundred likes and then I'll go and check it out.

00:21:15 John Daub: So the tip of this man-made island is a very convenient point for the highway to cross through here I see that up above. Same price as the California Bay Area very cool. So we have Tatsumi Park which is 400 meters 450 meters this way and Shiomi station we walked almost a kilometer already in 20 minutes this livestream has been going on. So I just wanted to kind of look around the point here but the Hydrogen Museum is one of the big attractions of this island as well as a Catholic Church here. The Logos Library for the Blind is here that's really interesting I didn't know about that that wasn't on my Google map that I could find. So I was gonna come back on this street and walk through some of the housing just to see what that's like walk through some of the housing to see what it looks like and then we'll go back down the street and see what it looks like to go through the city block. It looks like these blocks are really really organized kind of reminds me of Almere in Holland really too perfect man-made another man-made island in the world.

00:22:21 John Daub: I remember my first trip to Almere with my friends that I met in Prague in 1996 they were on an Interrail pass and I was on a Eurail pass and we were hanging out in the second class the four of us in a room of the apartment and they knew this place a youth hostel in Prague at time Prague was super cheap it was a dollar a night to sleep on an air mattress in a college dormitory that wasn't being used. So we got there and in the one room there were thirty air mattresses you just claimed your own air mattress you gave some student a dollar and you got to stay in Prague and I believe it was like a pretty essential to near the science and technology area museum on the square there. And then the four of us went out and we drank too much I remember I hurled on some dude and then I was doing the worm break dancing in a Prague club and then my friend Eric he curled and he grabbed me and he got me out of there before somebody tried to fight me. I might have hurled on somebody he's very sketchy this is like 25 years ago but the great thing about that trip was I made some really great friends and I got to stay at their place in Almere which is a man-made island and you could see that everything was so perfect the trees were in a line the roads were so clean and the parks looked too pretty and that was one of the complaints it was too perfect they had you need some imperfections.

00:24:06 John Daub: Oh there it is right there see there's a really nice road to walk around it's a good place for jogging in the morning you'll find people relaxing. This there's a baseball field over there and Japan's history of baseball started in this area a lot of baseball fields some of them had to be moved towards the bayside towards these new lands because where the baseball fields are now are really expensive apartment complexes on more settled land. Yeah that's another really interesting episode the history of baseball in Japan is very fascinating really growing in the 1930s with all the all-stars from Major League Baseball coming here Babe Ruth and a bunch of others made the trip across the Pacific to Japan Babe Ruth being the star. All right let's go we'll investigate for a couple of minutes. Tennis is here a lot of these places are subsidized by the ward here is Koto-ku so you have to reserve these in advance. This is just for the parking lot usually you have to reserve these tennis courts in advance online or something and it's relatively cheap or free. But sometimes people reserve it and they don't come and it's kind of annoying because you just want to use it because there's nobody here.

00:25:35 John Daub: Yeah Koto-ku's two-hour blocks you can get the softball place. For two-hour blocks you can rent the softball field and on the weekdays it's 2,250 yen and on the weekends it's 3,100 yen so a little bit more. And I guess you can get it for the whole for nighttime with the lights it's about $100 for two hours to rent a softball field. That's pretty reasonable with lights and stuff. Let's go take a look at that softball field now. Really? So that's $100 I might just do that. Maybe we can get like an Only in Japan baseball game with all the people coming back to Japan. I can rent this from Koto-ku for $100 and we can have a two-hour game at night in Tokyo. That'd be pretty sweet. We'd need 18 people though can we get that? 18-person softball game. I guess you could do pro wrestling here you don't have to use it for softball. Let's see if we can have our viewer meetup pro wrestling extravaganza.

00:26:49 John Daub: Wow you've got to be kidding me so for two hours to rent this at night costs $100? This is massive for Tokyo? No that can't be right. Let's walk around here towards the home plate. Wow this is a massive area for rent. This whole thing is $100 you can rent it on the weekends with the lights on. Wow this is a home plate right there. I can see myself getting a couple of ground balls to the pitcher right there. Why? Because you can. There's a lot of stuff that you can rent here in Tokyo including the home plate. You can rent a train you can rent your own private tram car. It's on the other side of the city up in the north it's pretty amazing. You can rent a car for a couple of hours for an hour I think it takes you up the line once you can do karaoke on there you can do just about anything.

00:28:20 John Daub: I wanted to take you to the end of the island just to give you an idea what it's like. Good idea for a meetup but still expensive. Really? For Tokyo two hours of illuminated baseball for $100? I would head spring for that community charge for our wonderful Patreon supporters. Thank you! This is this month's postcard. If you want one you can go to Patreon and get one. This is Asakusa Sensoji Temple this is Kaminarimon. I sent this postcard out last week from Asakusa they're just starting to arrive. If you want one you can go and get one right now I put a nice stamp on there in the back collectible every month a new stamp that's colorful it shows a little bit of Japanese history on it. Try to send it from unique places. Kaminarimon is one of the symbols of the city of Tokyo.

00:29:24 John Daub: Rent it and they will come that's good. Well said UFO Bob. The Only in Japan softball tournament then we all get drinks afterwards. See? Look that's how it works. We'll go to yakiniku and have some drinks that's how you do it you have to work for it. Alright let's go back towards the Hydrogen Museum and say hi to those hydrogen people. It says it's a Tatsumi housing complex Shiomi Athletic Park. Alright back we go. I think guys all we need is a cornfield and they'll come. How about a rice paddy Jotty? Will that work? Oh is it green light? It's green light! Okay so this road just touches on the Shiomi corner here and then curves the other way around. A lot of trucks. Alright let's go around here towards the complex and we'll sneak into the sneak around the Shiomi Tokyo Hydrogen Museum. See if it's as explosively cool as they say it is.

00:31:09 John Daub: Technically that light that I said was green is blue in Japan. They try to use primary colors because people that are color blind can see them better which makes a lot of sense. Not sure why the West picks green as go blue would have been a much better color it's prime. Yeah that is a Honda fuel cell it says here. So that looks like a sorry a Toyota hydrogen car maybe. So I can't get up to the Hydrogen Museum this way but we're still 30 likes away from my hydrogen museum requirements so click that click that like button.

00:32:32 John Daub: All right these houses look like they've been here since this island opened and looks like from the early 1980s maybe. This side here and it could be from you know they had factories they had factories here it could be from factories. Oh there's a vending machine but slim pickings. Let's see what else we can find. Oh man could be homes for the workers at the factories and they move out and those buildings go cheap. These look a lot newer. Now my friend Akiko she used to call these pencil houses because they had a pointy tip on the top. And there are these prefabricated houses that you could build in like a couple of weeks just snap them together and you have a house. And that's what these are they're prefabs nothing wrong with that they look pretty sturdy and move quite well if there's an earthquake. Look at that this one's very stylish. I'm going to touch the cement here yeah that's not real prefab. All right I'll curl around now to the Hydrogen Museum. Let's go take a quick look-see.

00:34:07 John Daub: The problem with the Hydrogen Museum is that everything looks like it's in Japanese so I don't know scientific Japanese. It's going to be I can just make it up. Whoa! Studio Canal what? That looks like a fake house. I wonder if this is made for like some TV show like The Office wasn't even filmed in Scranton. I heard that they filmed it in California it's crazy right? Kind of ruins it when you hear that sorry. Wow this looks like a it's a studio there this looks like a more modern apartment building built in the last within the last 15 years. Bobby A's like no way sorry it's true. The Dunder Mifflin's office was filmed in California. I was really disappointed when I found that out too. Only when they went I think to the shopping mall in certain places that they filmed that in Scranton or nearby they didn't do that very often. That's an old looking forklift. Yeah Seinfeld and Friends weren't filmed in New York either that's a disappointment and Jerry's a New Yorker so is Larry David.

00:35:55 John Daub: Check this out here there's some open fields. Originally this is landfill number eight completed for people could move here I guess in 1967. But it looks like this plot of land never sold. Anyone looking to build a house? Get some soil here. JKO Adventure playing with the Karate Kid man who catch fly with chopstick accomplish anything from Yagi-san. All right let's go around here. I'm going to see if I can get a quick drink at this Family Mart and we'll curve around at that Hydrogen Museum. It's a pretty chill neighborhood look at this blue house here. Like if this is my house I'd want a lot more windows but I guess Japanese are very protective of their privacy. I don't really don't have any privacy come and see it all if you want so open the window that's what curtains are for. I once almost lived in a glass designer house in Sangenjaya the rent was just a couple hundred dollars more than the apartment I settled into but you know it's a couple hundred dollars is a big deal.

00:37:45 John Daub: Okay that's izakaya local izakaya interesting that's certainly local run looks like it's been here since the island opened in the 1960s. I'm sure this is pretty good history here. I wish I had some windows in this trunk writes in Chan it's too bad your trunk isn't you're not in this boxy car. There's a huge window in the boot there or even in that post office car look at the big windows on that Chan probably jealous sorry. All right let's see if I can get something to drink tea some Fanta sparkling water. Boy this green tea looks good jasmine tea. Oh that matcha latte was really good too oh that's a tough one. I'm just going to go with this I like this no label it's good for the environment. Butterscotch latte you never see that in Tokyo. All right I'm going to have to try that too. You know what I'm going to put the tea away and get that butterscotch instead. I'll get some water.

00:40:21 John Daub: Is this it? Yes thank you thank you. I'll use this fire extinguisher as a table thank you fire extinguisher. All right so I'd never seen this before butterscotch is not a flavor that's very popular. And I had a craving for butterscotch because I was watching the show called Fear the Walking Dead. And John something happened to him and his dad said that he had butterscotch drink and liked it so yeah I don't want to spoil it for anybody. 30 yen discount next time it was 200 yen different John. You have to watch Fear of the Walking Dead to know John was a cowboy he shot he was a good shot and his dad he had daddy issues but his dad said to his wife you know he used to drink John used to drink butterscotch. That's not butterscotch that's not the same. That's not butterscotch latte that's just butter. The butterscotch should have this other like taste like a sweetness bite so like in the back of your mouth or something. Like here I don't have the butterscotch bite to it it's not bad it's just not butterscotch. Starbucks you failed. For those who hate Starbucks you're going to like that one not that great it's very slight caramel. Butterscotch taste is like caramel but this is not. I think because the Japanese market probably wouldn't oh shake it okay that's good advice sometimes that's what it requires sometimes okay smart viewers are smarter than me. No no maybe it's different butter no. Michael thank you really good but it's not it's not butterscotch. All right here's a trash can oh the trash can's inside. Wait a minute yeah butterscotch doesn't actually have butter in it but isn't caramel made with butter and sugar? No? I don't know I don't know. All right I'm going to go just ask about the Hydrogen Museum and see if I can film in there if not it's all good I just want to introduce it to you and I have to get back.

00:44:02 John Daub: Shiomi's pretty interesting over the course of the next okay caramel equals sugar water and cream okay no butter so why do they call it butterscotch? Because it's fake butter and where's the scotch? Or were they people from Scotland made it? Is that what makes it butterscotch? And in Scotland they don't have butter I don't it's very complex all right because we got 300 likes I'm going to go and ask the Hydrogen Museum people they can just get a quick look see in Scotland they made toffee that were more buttery seeming than England interesting the little tidbits of info really that's why people watch the show certainly not for the charming host not for the info. All right we're back at the Hydrogen Museum so Scotland's more has more into Scotland than just Braveheart there's a lot of history there more than just haggis and scotch and golf lots of stuff up there. All right let's go take a look see and just ask and see if we can film I don't know if it's gonna be good I'm gonna say I want to introduce this to my viewers and see what they say.

00:46:06 John Daub: You are not allowed to have any alcohol that's always troubling to see that that's necessary you have to wear a mask you have to wash your hands it doesn't say anything about no filming oh you have to take your temperature okay it looks like we're okay let's go take a look. And yeah you know I don't know it's really not allowed to film in there yeah you know I don't know I know about that but it's just yeah and then we're going to go right it's just like no movie's gonna be good it's gonna be great so not allowed to film in there okay we're going to try and film our locations it's gonna be great yeah yeah we're gonna try to film in there yeah yeah oh yeah that's I don't I'm not quite if there's nobody there I'm not quite sure. But the thing is a lot of the places it's always good to just ask but these places there's nobody in there. The places that do quite well are the ones that understand social media. But like I started this live stream with Japan and people here in Japan this is one of the reasons why we have such a strict travel ban and why Japan seems backwards in a lot of ways. And I understand the frustration with a lot of people internationally especially the tens of thousands of students that are still waiting to come here I feel really bad for all of them but Japan is the oldest population in the world. There's more people over the age of like 60 than there are under the age of 30 which is weird well I'm not sure if that's exactly right but it's really top heavy. And those people the people that are older have a lot of fear about getting sick there's a lot of anxiety in this group if they get sick they're probably not going to make it so that's one of the reasons why they're a lot more conservative when it comes to this pandemic. But also things like this these rules and acceptance of social media and privacy totally understand it Japan's got its own way to do things. But I don't see museums surviving and doing well in this generation unless they're just an open policy of being able to film. It's about the people who are visiting there that don't want to be on social media and protecting those people and I understand that always try to ask. As you can see it's very strict about no graffiti no drunken revelry I actually kind of like this sign. Peso can you make this a logo for Discord server? And no peeing in public I love the shadow of pee it's pretty amazing they really went to the next level for this.

00:50:13 John Daub: Now this is never mind the Hydrogen Museum I think we found something better illegal activities were reported to the police. So wait was there more? Hold on oh there were other things no drones no fake goods sales it's like this what is this? What is this? What's he selling that's so happy? Shouldn't it be like a pirate face or something? And then no ticket scalping in this I guess this is for the Olympics what? This looks like Squid Game my god this is Squid Game. Oh so Squid Game was fake that's why Korea produced it and not Japan because Squid Game is banned here that's what happened to Squid Game. This is alright I just made international news Squid Game has been banned because of the no fake goods sales apparently Squid Game is a fake game so interesting just made international news I think. It's not fake information either it's probably true. Whenever you hear someone say probably when they're giving facts you pretty much count on that not being true. This building is a really lonely skyscraper but I'm going to walk on the other side not quite right now because I want to stay in the nice warm sun but there was a sign that said that there was a library for the blind and I'm quite interested to take a closer look at that.

00:52:05 John Daub: That postage guy he just walked on a red light okay there's like nobody here so I guess it's okay it's just kind of frowned upon to do that. That bicycle carrying Saad. Yeah Belgrade Sabu nothing yet about travel opening up to Japan but I expect more news on this after the election at the end of the month. The Prime Minister has called for a new election so after the political stuff is settled I believe they'll start to focus on this but right now Japan's political situation has been up in the air for the last I don't know month or six weeks. But there's been more movement now than there have been in the first 18 months which is good. There's nobody took that pot yet take this freely is what that sign says just take whatever you want from this. I think Kanae won't be so happy if I take that. This by the way this motorbike is not part of that it's separated enough where it's no longer under the jurisdiction of that sign you can't take that free you just have to tell people sometimes. This is odd usually the vending machines have real drinks this one has paper drinks don't see that too often. Oh I think that's it right there I should have crossed the street before so this is a library for the blind so they I guess it's a place where you got Braille and books and how much is parking? Um it's $13 for 24 hours that's pretty cheap for Tokyo 20 minutes is $2 and after 8 p.m. one hour is 100 yen or a dollar you can pay by credit card right there. Yeah I like that I like the fact that they have I just wish they put it in a better place where people are living I guess people are living here it's right at the base of a tower mansion. I wonder can Amazon's reading device also do Braille? Don't know that would be pretty sweet technology.

00:55:10 John Daub: Houses in Tokyo typically are somewhere between $300,000 to a million dollars it's very expensive the land is also quite expensive so you're not gonna see a lot of normal families living in Tokyo that's why you move out to the suburbs. All right let's take a look here you don't want to see my password pinch out here you don't see it. I think this is it here all right let's go let's cross the street. This is where the Catholic church is so if anything we'll get a closer look at that. Again on Wikipedia in Japan that's this Catholic church took up about 25% of the Shiomi town's space. For those joining us this is all artificial island this is a manmade island in the city of Tokyo you can see there's no skyscrapers the land is probably still pretty soft. A couple of convenience stores there's a place I want to go one day the cone you can see the cone apartment complex there. I don't know you find some pretty unusual things out here. All right Catholic Shiomi meeting space it looks like a beautiful church very quiet area I guess people can park in here on Sundays. I'd like to go to a service here Easter or Christmas might be nice I don't think you have to be Catholic to go to church. I have a friend who's Ukrainian Orthodox and he's invited me to his church I'd like to go I'd make a nice contribution maybe get Leo baptized I'm not sure I want him to be baptized in a river though you know if he's going to do it. Hey there's the Pope I wonder if it's blurry because of the spiritual power of this place I don't know. Wow the Pope is all over the news here I have a Pope bottle opener I got it at Vatican City it's my favorite it said Pope John Paul though. I wonder if the Pope has been here if he visits Japan if he comes to the Japan Catholic Kaikan I would hope so I'd like to meet the Pope I kind of almost did.

00:59:09 John Daub: I got lost in the Sistine Chapel many years ago and ended up in some hallway with like a really nice area and I think that might be where the Pope lives I don't know and they kicked me out I got kicked out once in the Sistine Chapel this is a true story okay. It's like I got kicked out of the Sistine Chapel the first time I visited and it wasn't really my fault although it was. There weren't a lot of tourists back then not as many as there are now but there were a lot of Japanese tourists when I first went in 1996 now it was mostly Chinese tourists but back then it was mostly Japanese tourists. And they would come in these tour groups and they would be snapping away at the pictures like crazy even though it says you know they're saying in Italian please don't use flashes please don't use flashes and everyone's using flashes. And then the tour groups would go out but there were these three people from Japan and after the tour group goes out I guess the staff also go with the tour group and there wasn't anybody in there. So the three people just laid down on the floor and I was laying on the middle of the Sistine Chapel on the floor looking up and I thought that was a cool idea so I did the same and I laid on the floor of the Sistine Chapel looking up and we were there for a good five minutes I think it was just the most relaxing thing. And then some guy said that you know got really angry I can see why because he was probably pissed off from everybody using flash photography then he kicked us out of the Sistine Chapel polite way but he didn't look happy. Did he kick us out or did I don't know if I'm embellishing it's a while ago I didn't know that was disrespectful I thought it was okay it's humble I don't need a bench or a bed I'll just sleep on the floor I wasn't sleeping it's easier your neck can hurt looking up you know Michelangelo took years making the Sistine Chapel.

01:01:21 John Daub: That Appa Hotel is also new and you know what let's cross the street and go underneath the track here. I wanted to take you to that new Prince Hotel just to get a quick look-see at the restaurant there before we end this live stream. Now you can't even sit on the floor it's it was last time I was there it was so full of tourists they put partitions and walls and everything there and it's really hard to you couldn't you'd be trampled. But when I went it was almost almost nobody there it was pretty crazy and travel in general changed. I was so lucky I know a lot of my friends were frowned on me for doing all the travel and spending all my money on travel after university but the reality is that I traveled at the best possible time when the world was a lot more peaceful in the 1990s and it was just easier to get around flights were super cheap and there wasn't as many people you know as tourists China wasn't such an economic power in the 1990s yet. Wow that's at the base of the Appa Hotel that's a nice sushi restaurant it's a kaiten-zushi go-round place. Yeah the best thing I did was to travel when I finished university and not wait till I retired because now gosh I think I did it right travel now travel while you can travel when you're young travel while you're healthy don't wait until you retire. This is a very new nice-looking Appa Hotel and I'm not a big fan of the Appa Hotels but I would stay there that's a really nice one. Alright the Prince Hotel which isn't even a nicer place is down this way so this is the backside of Shiomi Station. Whoa this Appa Hotel is stacked look at that they got wagyu beef in there that's a good-looking restaurant there's an onsen bath with a nice lady I think she's not gonna be there when you get there but you never know.

01:03:44 John Daub: Here's a taxi company has their cars parked underneath Shiomi Station interesting. Mike Chan has seen Robocop that might have been the first meme I ever heard 1990s or was it 1980s? Lot of hotels Fashion Logistics Center what? It's a fashionable building right LOI 821 deja vu alive you're coming with me. The first one it was such a revolutionary movie made me almost want to visit Detroit you know knowing that crime had been cleaned up by Robocop. But then I went to Ohio State and everything changed Michigan became a I shall stop right there. Hotel Kaie that's interesting let's just take a wrap around they've got some sort of Halloween thing going on the menu cake set 10 bucks it looks like a nice looking cafe seems like it's really really festive inside there see pumpkins and stuff. So I never heard of this Tokyo Eastside Hotel Kaie so all of these hotels I think that they were trying to cash in on the Olympics they were built in areas that there's nothing really here that would be a reason to build a hotel here. There's no attractions except for the Hydrogen Museum and those who want to run a softball court. Yeah Kate writes in here don't judge don't judge Detroit that's quite true of course I judged it as an alumni of Ohio State University anything in Michigan is actually not even allowed to pronounce the M word which is maybe one reason why Ohioans speak a little funny. I've been through Detroit many times getting to Canada where the drinking age is like 19 or something Kate gets it there's a sense of humor there's our Midwestern sense of humor we all beat up on each other but also we still have fun with it.

01:07:00 John Daub: Hey yo he's here greetings from Dubai awesome I'm so happy to announce that United Arab Emirates just opened up to airmail so I can send my postcards there again. Is this the Prince Hotel here? Looks like they're doing some rework on the writing up there by the way while I have you here the Kickstarter oh no this is another one the Grand Marina Shiomi there's a lot of hotels here what? All right I'm trying to find the Prince Hotel oh here it is right here. This is this is a really nice one that just opened up last year and this is kind of scary to be walking underneath it. All right this is probably the nicest restaurant on the island I heard. Okay there's a Family Mart here let's just take a quick look see at the restaurant here look at the doors it's like made of metal whoa so out of place. All right I'm just going to look at the lobby that's Winston Churchill is this a Banksy? The Prince Hotel is really nice hold on okay okay here's the restaurant check it out wow. All right so Kanae likes hotel breakfasts so I might come here for breakfast take her all right I'll be back here I think the menu is online but this is beautiful check it out. Prince Hotel does a really good job of giving a really high class stay I don't know if this is four or five star hotel but you can see just the spaciousness of the lobby they definitely want to make a very good impression on the people coming here. Yeah I definitely want to get Kanae a hotel breakfast she loves that like the hotel buffets and stuff. All right back we go through this cool brick room walkway this is an awesome entrance and it's got that smell of lemongrass that a lot of the new hotel chains are doing very stylish smell don't have to smell the butterscotch coffee anymore smell lemongrass butterscotch Jedi mind trick these are not the droids you're looking for move along move along. All right here you go Prince Hotel Tokyo Bay Shiomi that was fun. All right I'm going to wrap around now get back to the station fun afternoon walk temperature here in Tokyo is absolutely perfect it's not too humid I am wearing shorts and sandals but I could probably go with a t-shirt.

01:10:50 John Daub: Wow I like how the cop cars are vans that's pretty cool Chan if you were in that boot that a lot of the cars here are these little minivans what if they sell that as a Tommy car to get one of those by the way I got two daimyo packages still available on Patreon inside the daimyo package is a Japan taxi Tommy car among the snacks so everyone got a Tommy car I send them every few months to the daimyo supporters. We were seeing the Tommy cars on uh sorry seeing the Japanese taxis all throughout the Olympics with the Japanese Olympic seal on it so I thought yeah let's send a let's send this month a Japanese black special taxis that look like small English cabs so I've got two extra boxes this month this is really cool I just go on there sign up and I'll send it out immediately the moment I get home I'll probably send it out. Did you put a mini Chan in each of the time you're drunk oh that would be so cool not quite but I did give out these mini ducks that I received a thousand of thanks to Katayama I don't know how long it's going to take to get rid of all of those I could put a little mini Chan in there that could you're going to end up being on a t-shirt this is our new merch store I've been talking to our to my friend David the DVD guy he's got some pretty good ideas to help me set up a merch store. So whoa so this is where I go to learn some manners yeah the Chan emoji would just be a trunk I don't we can't even get him out to take a picture of him so in fact we don't even know what he looks like in fact we don't even know this is artificial intelligence of a car like Christine or KITT that has come to is pretending to be a human or if he's something like Men in Black where there's a little robot controlling a human a little alien I don't we don't know what Chan is actually. So that's a ladies room I can't show you that one but if the door is open I can it's the women's restroom it's clean no smell that's the one thing about Japan that and there's so many the restrooms are just so awesome. There's somebody in there I don't want to be one of those people all right let's get let's get moving across the other side yeah men's on the other hand does have a unique smell ariogono has got the toilet emoji rock in there for a member oh by the way uh hey hey they said John John John cool yeah you know for everybody who is an insider or a traveler um I'm going to be doing another 8K live stream and I want you to pick the next neighborhood that I do the 8K live stream at is it going to be Shibuya it's going to be Shinjuku is it going to be Akihabara I want your input I'm going to put the poll on in a couple of hours if you sign up as a traveler you'll be able to give me your feedback and I will use that and pick the next 8K live stream not really live stream but it'll be an 8K.

01:15:22 John Daub: Off to the station taking a Osaka ICOCA card wait so you're not allowed to bring snakes on the train there's some weird there are some very weird rules in Japan we saw like no no fighting no no Squid Game so this entire episode is based on weird signs here the guy looks like he's gonna beat up the staff no he dropped something on the platform so if you ever drop something they have this special tool that they use to pick stuff off of the platform okay let's just go up the station take the station and go to the station and then we're gonna go upstairs here yeah this is the live stream of weird signs and maybe Peso will or somebody will make an emoji out of that the Squid Game one Squid Game's trending in Japan too it's number one in fact oh look at the the kaki hoshigaki look at this they're drying persimmons here they take about six weeks I think to dry man they're so sweet they peel them and then hang them to dry and they the sour ones turn into super dry and they're like eating candy so it's going to taste really good super sweet. Yeah Korea is so amazing the way that their cinema has just I think in quality surpassed America.

01:17:10 John Daub: So there you have it Shiomi this is a man-made artificial island created in 1967 finished in 1967 landfill number eight is now looks like this so I don't know if you want to live here but maybe you want to sign off in the comments would you live here do you think that this is a pretty nice place would you stay here that Prince Hotel or would you go check out the Hydrogen Museum just as long as you don't for YouTube let me know and they're building something here too there's something going on. Nathan writes in yes so leave me a comment below if you're watching this to play back and I want to hear from you what do you think thanks for watching see in the next live stream here comes the train oh the other direction I guess I gotta wait a couple of minutes for my train but we'll end with the train coming in like it's just an Aerita Express wow there's like nobody on this I think that was the Narita Express see everybody.