00:01 John Daub: Greetings everybody, welcome to the city of Tokyo, this is Shibuya. And this park is famous for one thing. Well, it's actually famous for many things, but we're going to be exploring in particular the toilet, which is right over there. You can see it right in the center of your screen behind me. Only in Japan would scouting out and looking at toilets as a theme for an episode be acceptable, perhaps. But I'm here to take a look at this. This is Nabeshima Shoto Koen, which is a link in the description here so you can get a Google map to find it exactly where it is. That's the object in question.

00:46 John Daub: Do you see all of this wood here? This was designed by Kengo Kuma, who is a very world-renowned designer, especially after designing the Olympic Stadium, which is just extraordinary if you get into the details of it. But Kengo Kuma as a designer has had an amazing evolution as well, going from cement to wood. And I'll talk a little bit about what I've discovered about him as a designer. And I've actually had a chance to meet him a couple of times, have drinks with him. So that was a really interesting experience. And I might divulge a little bit of that on this live stream.

01:25 John Daub: It's a beautiful day in Shibuya, and it's even more beautiful when you have a toilet in front of you. I'll make my mask on because there's some people around here. Brandania is here. Welcome. How are you doing, Wesley? Now, Kengo Kuma picked this toilet because this location for his designer toilet, because he liked the woods around it. Do you see this park is only less than a ten minute walk from Shibuya's Hachiko Scramble. And I don't think a lot of you know about this park. And this is the reason why it's become even more famous because of the designer toilets that they have here.

02:08 John Daub: I'm kind of excited about it. I'm excited about this to explore because I have a fan of Kengo Kuma's work. I went down to a place called Yusuhara in Kochi Prefecture about two years ago, and I saw his work at the public library. And actually, I have a live stream on his design for the library. It's quite extraordinary. You want to take a look at that. He uses wood in a very unique way. And it was Kochi, the town Yusuhara in Kochi. And it inspired him to change his style to more of a natural wood.

02:46 John Daub: Let's get a little bit closer to the toilet. This opened up on, I believe, June 24th. You can see he's using pretty good wood there. But it gives you the feeling of like you're walking in the park, walking in the woods. So I'm in the center of Shibuya and it feels very much like I'm just walking in the woods. There's five toilets here. There's even one for kids. Which I think is really cool. It smells like cedar, Japanese cedar, hinoki (Japanese cypress). It smells like an onsen (hot spring bath). It's kind of nice.

03:31 John Daub: Let's go inside this one. This one also is okay for kids. It's available. Wow. Again, these are all single use toilets. So you can lock the door. Look at the little TV toilet for the kiddies. This is like, it's about 30 centimeters off the ground. And it's extraordinarily clean. Look at the sink is really small. And then there's this little baby urinal for the kids there. Again, that's about 30 centimeters off the ground, which is pretty good for toddlers. I wouldn't know. My son's an infant.

04:16 John Daub: So that's the kids restroom. This is for, I guess this one's designed for older people. There's a cane here. It's available. So let's open the door and take a look inside. Okay, good. So there's a railing here, which allows people to hold onto it. And there's a pole post here. I guess you can hang your cane there or anything that you need. So this is good for people who need a little bit more accessibility.

04:46 John Daub: This certainly is more multifunctioning for a urinal for men. And there's even a peephole in there. So if you're doing your business, you can take a look and see who's outside. This one is for regular dudes like me. So I would be able to use this one and it's available. Let's take a look. Yeah, it's just simply a toilet. It's very clean. I like the wood design going inside of it. No spiders, which is very unusual for Japanese park toilets.

05:20 John Daub: This is the dust closet here. So this is where you would go to clean it. Let's go take a look. There's two more here that we can explore. One of them might be the ladies, which I'm not allowed to go into. You're gonna have to use your own imagination in there. These are all multifunction. So let's take a quick look. Oh, the light is out. All right. So it's just basically a toilet. It smells pretty good in here. It looks like almost a five-star hotel toilet. That's pretty crazy.

05:58 John Daub: Look at the designer lights behind the mirror. It gives you the feeling that you are in a five-star hotel. And again, these toilets have control panels. Oh, it's self-cleaning. And there's a control panel here for flushing. And there's this, is it Otohime (sound princess device to mask bathroom sounds)? Now, I guess you don't need the Otohime because Otohime is a thing that Toto designed. It's a good flush.

06:39 John Daub: So the one up there was an accessible one. I'm guessing that the one down here is accessible because you don't have to climb stairs to get there. I like this design very, very much. And the color of it, it doesn't stand out. Now, if you look at Google Maps, you can still get a look. The Nippon Foundation is the one that is putting together all of these really amazing toilet surroundings. And it's got a lot of stuff around the country. Look at that. It's got rope around the handle. I'm guessing the way it slides and the side of the door is much wider to allow people with wheelchairs in here. So I'm guessing this one is the one for accessibility.

07:21 John Daub: Wow. Now, this is the royal room, I guess you would say. Check it out. There's even a place for babies. So if you have to, you know, if you need to put the baby down somewhere, there's a place where you can do that and a changing station, I guess, this turns into. There's a sink as well. You can wash out the bag. I forget what you call people who have to have bags, can wash it in there. And it's extremely clean. And I love the space. There's a baby changing table there. And it looks very much like a hotel would look. Very clean.

08:04 John Daub: So I do have to say this is an extraordinary toilet. I mean, there's no spiders here. It's an extraordinary place. And yeah, that's it. If you have any questions, you can leave them in the live chat. We're going to take a quick look around this park here because I think it's an interesting park to explore and then document for the channel. And we're going to loop around. It's not a very big park. I'm going to loop around and then come back to the toilets here. How are you doing, Jack and gang?

08:44 John Daub: Ken Kuma, in an interview with the Nippon Foundation, said that he picked this location because it looked like a great place for a toilet to help change the image of public toilets. And in Japan, public toilets already have a pretty good image. That's even more incredible now. Look, see this hut? This looks very much Ghibli-ish. Seems so out of place because it is just a 10 minute walk from Shibuya's Hachiko Scramble. And a nice little pond here.

09:30 John Daub: Let me just loop around here. You can see there's a TV crew already for some, I don't know, interview or show. It's not Kengo Kuma. But there's a water wheel. Check that out. This is not the image of Shibuya. Take my mask off here. This is not the image of Shibuya that I have at all. This feels like the Japanese countryside. I've never been in this park. It's such a small little blip on the map. You're not inspired to come here with all the other eye candy in Shibuya. But literally, I walked from Bunka Mura and the Tokyo Honten Department Store, which is right next to that Mega Don Quixote, from there, five minutes to here. Crazy.

10:19 John Daub: And the deeper I walk in this park, the more I can understand why Kengo Kuma chose this for his toilets. It doesn't fit. Does this look like Shibuya to you? Listen to the sounds. I think there are still a lot of gems to explore and discover in Tokyo. No matter how many YouTubers and people and tourists and social media pictures of things that you see on the internet, there's always something new coming along. This opened in June 2021, just before the Olympics. The Olympics were a big bust. Well, for nearly everybody. The athletes did okay. But for the city of Tokyo, this project didn't really get a lot of highlight. And I'm glad that I can cover this today.

11:47 John Daub: Beautiful park. So now I'm gonna come around and just take a look at the wheel here. You can see it's starting to move. This doesn't look like Shibuya, people. It's bizarre. Brandania, thanks a lot. I saw that earlier. It's nice to have you here. Alright, we're gonna walk past this camera. I think they're doing a video for a navigation app. There's the Kengo Kuma toilet on the other side of the park.

12:35 John Daub: Toby (crow), I'm not gonna go for a swim. Is that a toy gun in there? There's a toy gun in there. You know, Toby (crow), this begs some questions. One, what happened to the kid that was holding that gun? Was he shooting them at crows? And did the crows take him? Fly him off into the sky and he dropped his gun on the way to their lair? I've got a lot of questions. All I know is that there's a toy gun in there. Something a kid would have and it makes you think the crows won. Something that happened in the middle of the night? Police should investigate.

13:33 John Daub: Look at the chat goes in here. PMX. Seems plausible. That's awesome. Irvin's here. Is this in Japan? It is in Japan. It doesn't feel like it is. It doesn't feel like it's Shibuya. But it is. Lost in time. Up here you have, again, there's no smoking. I like this. The city of Tokyo, especially with Governor Koike when she came in here, she really cleaned up the city. A lot of places are now non-smoking.

14:07 John Daub: Is that the creepy Shibuya mascot? It's kind of cute. Kind of creepy. Looks like something for Halloween. Could be something in Squid Game. Producers should explore Japan for new mascots. We've got a lot. Alright, let's take a closer look at those toilets once again.

14:48 John Daub: Some pretty cool information on the wildlife you can find in the park. Kawasemi (kingfisher). This bird eats fish. So that bird is here and it eats the fish? But these fish don't exist in this pond, so why are they here? And then there are some pretty old looking turtles. Nihon suppon (Japanese soft-shelled turtle). Interesting. And as we look for turtles which are not in the house, we know one thing is for sure. WRX Turbo is in this house and not that house. That could be where Chan is holding up after he escaped from the trunk. But there's no doors apparently. So I don't know how even he got in.

15:40 John Daub: Alright, let's look one more time, walk around the toilet. This is crazy. Walk around the toilet before these people report me to the police for filming the toilets. Still, despite the fact this is Japan, it's kind of an odd thing to do. Up we go, the stairs. Kengo Kuma says that this is very much like walking in the woods. He wanted to give that feeling. Even if you look down, I like what they've done with this. This is something I didn't report on earlier. The ground is made with glued wood chips. So it does look very natural, doesn't it? I think the wood chips give it like a forest floor look to it.

16:29 John Daub: And again, it's so well groomed all around here. At night, if you do come, they do have these lights. Do you see the lights there? They give off... I don't know, it's like going into Karuizawa (stylish town in Nagano), this really stylish town in Nagano. And walking around there, they've done some amazing things with the designs. So this is once again the kids' toilet here, just so you know. For those that weren't here earlier. Everything is about 30 centimeters high. I see Michael Sassano's in the house, loving the walk in the park livestream.

17:08 John Daub: Make your way to a nice snack and beverage. Let's see what we can find as I walk back towards Shibuya in a minute. Nice playground with a sandbox, I guess you'd call it. So there you have it. That's the Kengo Kuma toilet. Let me take you over here to the corner. That's a really nice playground. Some of these playgrounds are shaped like pirate ships. Which is probably not the best thing, encouraging kids to be pirates. What are those for? If this was a slide, that could hurt. Metallic stones. Yes, I know I'm too big. I'm trying to climb the playground. For sure the police would be called.

18:09 John Daub: No food trucks in the area. There is an app that allows you to find the food trucks. And if I do, I would definitely stop. It's lunchtime. Bob Joe Vending Machine Fund. I'm going to be doing another live stream in a little bit. I wanted to do... I asked our insiders on this channel. What would they like to see me film in 8K for the next 8K upload? And I have with me in my bag here. I have my 8K camera. I'm going to be filming that episode for about 25 minutes. And I'll try to upload tonight or tomorrow morning for you.

18:46 John Daub: People voted for Harajuku and Omotesando. Like 33%. And I believe Shibuya was second and Shinjuku. So I guess that's what we're going to be doing for the next live streams here in 8K. There'll be a premiere. So I'll just release this tonight or tomorrow morning. I'm also editing another video. Oh, by the way, we got two new Daimyo spots open if anyone wants a package. I put in a little teeny Tomy car. The Japanese taxi's in there. I'll put it in there as well with the goodies. And we still have a few spaces open for the Osaka lunch. If you live in the Kansai region, Kevin, Riley and I are giving a free lunch. You only need 5,000 yen and there's like a swag bag of another 5,000 yen. So I think it's like 10,000 yen worth of stuff you get. We're still looking for a few good men and women.

19:46 John Daub: The area is pretty nice. I guess that's a police station there. This tower reminds me of... I just made a Facebook post on Only in Japan. So the Facebook post has the application, but I'll put a link in the description or the moderators might put that in there. I do wish if you were here, you could come. But for those that are living here, we're kind of calling on you to come and say hi. We have about 22, 23 people signed up. So we're close to the limit. We might get more. If we do, we'll have to do a lottery. But right now, it looks like we're going to have a lot of space.

20:29 John Daub: Again, this is Nabeshima Shoto Park in Shibuya City. Just a 10-minute walk from Hachiko. Five minutes from the Big Don Quixote and Tokyo Honten. Super place to come. It's a surreal place. So if you do come to walk in this park, it might be worth holding it in for another five minutes and making your way here. To use the cleanest, one of the cleanest toilets I've ever seen in the world. In the city of Shibuya anyway. Right there. The Kengo Kuma toilets. I'll be back again one of these days.

21:04 John Daub: So as we leave the toilets... That's right. I just did a live stream on Japanese toilets. If you want to see it, watch the playback. I'm now going to walk you back to Shibuya Station where I'm going to be starting the 8K. And if I can find a vending machine on the way, I will. So then we can put the Michael Sano's Super Chat's good use. The neighborhood is very nice. It's quiet. This is not too far away from what would be considered Tokyo's elite property here is certainly going to be in the millions of dollars. This location between right next to Shibuya, which is a major hub for domestic train travel around here. Going towards Yokohama, Yamanote Line. It's pretty pricey. So if you see somebody with a house in this area, they got some cash.

22:12 John Daub: One day, when I'm 70, I might be able to retire here. Don't think so, but I don't think I would want to. Probably would go out to the mountains or the seaside. I think the crows took all that trash. These nets are... You put these nets over the trash so the crows don't get into them. But I've noticed more activity among the crows recently. Because the lack of people in the city due to all these state of emergencies, the crows have sort of taken over in some way. I've seen them more aggressive, claiming vending machines, hopping on the top of them. Being more aggressive towards people, including that little kid whose gun was found floating in the river. Please investigate that. I'm sure we'll find him. The crows dropped him off in Saitama or something.

23:10 John Daub: Look at that little portal. You walk through there, you go to Ghibli Land. I guess I can get one of these. It's a Pikachu vending machine. There's no Pikachu drinks. Hey, it's Go! Like, only in Japan, Go! Vitamin power, Go! Alright, I'll try that. This is Itoen (brand). Oh man! This is Itoen, which is very famous for making the green tea. Right there. One of the most popular, if not the number one. With katakin (youth-boosting ingredient), which is this really cool thing that makes you look younger. Which I could need to drink like two years worth in one day. Tastes like melted Pez. Why would they do that? I thought it was all natural or something. Ugh. They said there's jelly in here too. Nay. I like the logo though. But Itoen, I thought it would be tea or something. It's a carbonated sweet drink. Like Red Bull? Monster?

26:05 John Daub: Alright, let's see what else we can find. I just powered up. All of a sudden, there's a dozen fish that seem to be able to go upstream. Alright, at this light, you make a left and you're pretty much in the heart of Shibuya. I don't know why more people don't explore the neighborhoods around here. Some of the most posh, interesting restaurants are up here too. We just passed a couple of them. There's a bar. Good Faucets is one where there's a lot of expats like Peter von Gomm and some other people that I know. Dudes hang out. Ugh, bright yellow. Ugh! It's giving me the chills.

27:01 John Daub: Again, you can look up the street here. This is Shibuya. It looks like a small village. More subdued colors. More stylish. And then when you get into the center of Shibuya, it just becomes really messy. Look at that. That's a supermarket made of wood. Like wood outside. Very designer looking. I think people who live in this neighborhood, they don't want to live in the tourist places. This hill will lead you... And the interesting thing, this hill will lead you up to Love Hotel Hill, I believe. Maruyama-cho (town name), I believe it's called.

27:50 John Daub: Byron Bay, isn't that in Australia? That's interesting. The Aussies are planting the flag here. Here, cutlery. Wow! Look at the people lining up for this. This is curry shop. Little shop. Small curry shop. It says right there on the overhang. Look at the line of people! I can smell the curry out the window. It's lunch time. So I'm gonna have to make a trip there one of these days.

28:24 John Daub: I did spend two, three nights in Byron Bay. I was backpacking and I was living on Bondi Beach for a couple of months before the millennium in 2000. Met this surfer dude named Patrick, American. He was an engineer for six months and on vacation for six months. Kind of a dream job. Before he went, he wanted to go up to Byron Bay before he left to go back to Florida. So he bought, because he had a lot more money than all of us, he bought a yellow van in Sydney. Kind of souped it up and we put a bed in the back and four of us drove up to Byron Bay. It's a pretty amazing trip. This is the year 2000, right after the millennium. Or was it right before? 1999, 2000, I was living on Bondi Beach. Pretty cool time. That's when Tom Cruise got on his motorcycle and buzzed the beach. Everyone was talking about it because he was filming Mission Impossible 2 there. I got a lot of stories from that time. It seemed the whole world was descending on Sydney, Australia for the millennium. The Olympics were coming that year. It was a pretty exciting time to be there. I had a job working under the table serving shaved ice to sometimes topless people. Mostly men, but a lot of women on Bondi Beach. Pretty cool. I was the ice guy. So I went out drinking at Bondi Beach Hotel or some of the other places. They knew who I was. And if I recognized them, I gave them free ice.

30:12 John Daub: All right, there you go. Right in front of us is Bunka Mura, which is where a lot of theater and other really cool events take place inside of there. And in this direction is the big H&M. This is the Tokyo Honten, which is going to be torn down and built into something better. I think it needs the infrastructure changes and upgrades. And we have Viron, the French place. Don Quixote, which moved from this side of the street to the other side of the street for more space. That is a really beat up looking phone. Can't even open it. Oh my gosh. Only in Shibuya. Wow. Weird stuff.

31:12 John Daub: I didn't go skydiving in Byron Bay. I don't know. The only thing that happened was that. So I was with two Canadians. Patrick. And then me. And I was the odd one out because I wasn't a surfer. I was like the mother of the group. I took care of everybody because they were into, you know, stuff and I wasn't. So I would just have a couple of drinks. They were lost in a world. Oh boy. The stories I have really incredible from that time. I've lived six or seven lives up here. This is where all the clubs are. A lot of them are anyways, Womb and some of the other ones are along the street here. Club Asia and just over yonder. You see a lot of smutty love hotels, which would be pretty interesting. There's I think that's one right there. Hotel Plaza. That one might even have a star and we're back in Shibuya.

32:26 John Daub: So this is how you would get to the Kengo Kuma toilet. I think from here all of you get the idea. Here's the Vito on Mothership. Which is where you can get pretty good French desserts and pastries. I'm probably going to use those super chats and get something for Kanae. Here, click that thumbs up button. If you like these toilet live streams, I'm serious because there is a couple more that I want to show you. Besides the one I showed you last year, the glass ones they put in more and the Kengo Kuma one here is number nine in a series of toilets in the distance.

33:04 John Daub: It should be a Hachiko scramble. You can see on the side of the Shibuya Stream building or one of them over there. The monitor was shaped like an upside down Mount Fuji. It's kind of a cool look. All right time to start the 8K film over there at Hachiko. If you have any questions, leave them in the comments below. I want to say thank you to everybody. This is the directions. Here's the Shibuya Tokyo Honten department store and you would walk this way. You'd walk this way to get to the park. Leave a comment if you have anything to add about this. And I will see you in the next live stream. Maybe a little bit later, but there'll be an 8K upload soon as well as an upload on the main channel with Eric Berg. Eric serves six and I eating a lot of street food. I'm just putting a final touches on it. Got sidetracked a little bit for the Kickstarter fireworks project. By the way, I did start the Shako Dama so their add-ons you can get Shako Damas for our second festival in Yamanashi. The Shako Dama and the star mines are up for add-ons. And I'm going to add them on as regular tiers later today. A lot of stuff going on everybody. Have a safe and happy TGIF and weekend coming up. Thanks from Shibuya.