00:00:09 John Daub: Wow! Look at it go! That, my friends, is the 700 series Shinkansen. And it is rockin', sort of. At least in a circle. That's right! For Christmas, we got this Play-Rail, which is a Shinkansen set. It'll take you all around Japan in blue plastic rails. Made for children 3 and up. So, you have to question who this present is actually for.

00:00:37 John Daub: For me, or for him. Where did he go? Ah! Merry Christmas, everybody! How you doing? So, it's now the 26th of December. And all through the house, only Leo was stirring at 5 a.m. And he woke us up and we got a couple of presents underneath there. Santa Leo, are you ready to destroy the Shinkansen again?

00:01:20 John Daub: It is for kids 3 and up. I realize that. Like, I just didn't want to get any more toys. So, we got Leo also this, like, really fun game controller. But I'll be honest with you. He gets tired of it in like 5 minutes. This, he's never gonna get tired of it. Either destroying it, trying to eat it, watching it from a distance. It's perfect!

00:01:40 John Daub: And in a minute, you're gonna get to see Kanae's gift. Yay! Leo, look at this! It is the Shinkansen. It will take you at speeds of 300 kilometers an hour all over the entire country. And I've even put it on stilts so the little people can walk underneath it. Not you, because you're not that little, actually. You're quite large. And in the world of this train, you are Godzilla. Alright, release Godzilla. Dozo. Merry Christmas, Leo.

00:02:16 John Daub: So, what do you think of your Shinkansen train, Leo? He's watching. He's watching it. That's what you're supposed to... You're not supposed to actually grab it and then put it in your mouth and taste how plastic is moving. No, no, no, no, no, no. Okay, hold on a second. Just, you wanna watch it. He's making a move. He's making a move. Alright, see how nice and peaceful the world is? When Santa is nice and not naughty.

00:02:51 John Daub: And there could be passengers in there too, Leo. The Play-Rail's pretty cool. They have all these different kinds of trains too. They even have the Shimakaze (Shinkansen), which is just... Oh, that's what he wanted, my phone. They even have the Shimakaze. They have the Pokemon with U train. It's kinda cool. And I bought a bunch of extra tracks, so we're gonna wrap this all around the house. Is that okay? Daijobu? I don't know. Yeah, you know, she's actually not that happy about it.

00:03:20 John Daub: What Kanae got for Christmas is over there in the corner. She got a... Ow! Leo, there's hundreds of people in that train! That's not a tunnel that I wanna go through. Leo, your armpit has become... Oh, no. Spachinko. Alright, this happens quite a bit. Dun, dun. No! No! Ah!

00:03:58 John Daub: I think this is very good for Leo to sort of learn and understand why sometimes when the Shinkansen is late, could be from problems of great proportion. But in this case, just made of plastic. The great thing about the Play-Rail is that it's easy to fix. Oh, yeah, this block go underneath the... Underneath there. Yeah. It's a pylon. And you can just go like this. Leo's nickname is now Leo the Destroyer. Leo Godzilla. Leo the Merciful is not one of them. Leo, be merciful!

00:04:54 John Daub: So this is why three and up is an important number. Nine months and up is not one of them. What are you gonna do? Leo-zilla is rocking it. So, Christmas in Japan, everybody. It's not exactly the ideal situation that we were looking forward to. We were looking forward to going to the United States. We had plane tickets and we had to cancel that at the very last minute.

00:05:11 John Daub: Is that RXR Turbo in the house? Yes, he is. RXR Turbo, welcome. At TDSDR, thanks for a great job delivering gifts last night, Santa Leo. He was actually, I think... All right, so the official story is I was up at midnight and I was trying to stay up to try to catch Santa. Santa Claus, as I do every single year. And I went to the bathroom at around 12:45, before 1 o'clock. I was gone for just like 15 seconds. I came back. The presents were already underneath the tree. I don't know how Santa does it.

00:05:46 John Daub: My hypothesis is that he turns into a gassish form and he comes in through the cracks or something. Because in Japan, we don't have chimneys. But the presents were there and this is one of them. And I, you know, I asked Santa for a gift. I don't know if the gift is for me or for Leo because the label, I couldn't read it very well. I'm guessing it was for both of us. This is just a start, everybody. If you look at the box, there's an entire city that we can build. Yeah, it's pretty cool.

00:06:24 John Daub: So like, Kanae's Dyson vacuum cleaner is sort of... She's kind of shy. At first, you didn't really want it. You said, you know what? Yeah, but... I understand. This is the best vacuum ever in my life. There are a lot of good vacuums in the world. This is a really good one. Yesterday, we went to Peter's house. We went to my friend Peter von Gomm's house for Christmas time. And lo and behold, in the corner of his tree was a box that said DYSON on it. And it was a vacuum cleaner for somebody special in his house. And we got the same vacuum cleaner, I think. So that's pretty cool.

00:07:08 John Daub: So I guess this is sort of the gift that everybody got. One of the gifts that everybody got this year. Peter's doing pretty good. We'll see if we can get him on a livestream. We wanted to do a livestream yesterday at his house. Where he read The Night Before Christmas with a professional narrator, which is on his channel. But, I don't know. We just kind of wanted to relax and take it easy a little bit. We'll save it for the 26th, we said. And thus, here we are. Oh, I think the cookies are done. I smell something burning.

00:07:44 John Daub: Hey everybody, what was your favorite present for Christmas? For me, it was Play-Rail Shinkansen. For Kanae, it was a vacuum cleaner. How about you? Leave me a comment below. Or right here in the live chat. Tell me what your favorite Christmas present was for the year. It doesn't matter that I'm in Japan and you're somewhere else in the world. Joy writes in sleep. Joy, sleep is not a present. Although I can understand.

00:08:06 John Daub: Alright. So, I also made cookies. And it's a tradition to leave cookies out for Santa Claus. Just a note, he only ate one. Alright. I left two cookies out. He only ate one of the two. I'm guessing they weren't very good. I have a habit of burning the cookies. These are slightly one minute past the time it should be cooked. Nevertheless, it's still a cookie. So, Santa should have eaten it. I don't see anything that is bad about these cookies. They're not the best, but... We don't have brown sugar in Japan. It's very hard to find the same brown sugar. It's different here. So, cookies in Japan never taste quite the same. Hmm. Maybe Santa didn't like the milk I left him.

00:09:16 John Daub: So, in about 24 hours, we're going to have this train wrapping around the entire apartment. We kind of move things around. I want to see if I can put a tunnel in here and have the train come through the tunnel. We're going to do a bunch of stuff. Jason, it's not like the same brown sugar. It's a different kind of brown sugar. Michael Susano is here! Merry Christmas, John, Kanae, Leo. Loving the Shinkansen toy. He's growing up fast. And Ron Barr. Thank you. Merry Christmas, Ron.

00:09:45 John Daub: Yeah, this is kind of Leo's play area. You can see it's got high walls. I don't know how his chair got in here. This is his bumbo chair. He sits in this when he's watching Kanae cook in the other room or whatever we're doing in the kitchen. Yeah. It's kind of a mess right now. This is his favorite book. It's called Where's the Duck? And he really likes this. He stops whatever he's doing if you read this to him.

00:10:17 John Daub: Leo, look! That's right. Leo has made friends with the ducks. Where's the duck? Here it is! He's kind of excited. We're in a livestream. It's not quite the same. He's like, Daddy's acting different in a livestream. Slightly different. Yeah. This is a good book because the last page is like a mirror. Leo, where are you? Here you are. That's you right now. That's what you look like. A phone.

00:11:09 John Daub: Leo didn't say duck. Leo can say like four words, right? He says banana. Nene. Banana for banana. Nene. Mama. Dada. Dada. He likes to say dada. And Leo has this roar. He goes like this. And I know a lot of you are like, oh, that's scary. Don't do it. He's just a baby. He does that. He goes, he does it. Because you do it. I don't do it. He did it. Leo is a lion.

00:11:52 John Daub: He's still shy. This is near his, he's got a nap time at 12:30. The thing is like over the last six months, it's been really hard to have any kind of a schedule that's not around his schedule because his schedule is really hard. His schedule is on the wall and it's regimented. It's like the military. Leo has to wake up, milk, lunch, nap, walk, sleep. He's pretty much the emperor. He's in charge. So don't make him upset. But he's merciful.

00:12:33 John Daub: Look, it's, everything is almost okay. Well, the track is bad. Leo, we have to make sure that the, we have to make sure that it is, it's right there. Okay. Oh, we don't want the passengers. Japan Rail is very proud of its record of being on time, safe passage from one place to another. Yeah. Kids, you know, babies, I discovered they need to have a very predictable schedule. Leo, be merciful.

00:13:13 John Daub: Leo is considering what to do with the Shinkansen. Will he give mercy or will he seek retribution for ancestors that were forbidden from riding the Shinkansen for some reason. See, I'm telling you, I know it's for ages three and up, but it's fascinating, isn't it? Look, he doesn't, and he won't destroy it. I told you he's merciful. Breaking news. Shinkansen has derailed on the track underneath the Christmas tree at exactly 12:18 in the afternoon due to mysterious earthquakes. Also called Leo. Too bad they don't name earthquakes.

00:14:18 John Daub: He picks up the tracks like it's nothing. You know, in the world, Leo, this would be so massive. And you're just picking it up like it's nothing. Now you have to taste it. That's the next step. You know, it's complete when he puts it in his mouth. Leozilla has spoken. So it looks like a lot of you got some really good Christmas presents. I just wanted to say hi. I don't have any songs. I'm not going to give Leo a guitar and then try to play a song. He's nine months old.

00:14:48 John Daub: I can't do what all the other YouTubers are doing, but I can do what we do, which is just have a lot of fun. And I hope that over the next week or so, you all during your holiday breaks have a really good time and have a chance to relax. This year has been, I don't know, there's been some buckles for me. There's been some hiccups. There's been some tough situations. But we pulled through this 2021 year. Not the greatest, especially for those that are waiting for entry into Japan. You can't get in here. How about that?

00:15:16 John Daub: However, I believe everything's going to change and you're going to be able to get into Japan around April of 2022. That's my prediction, my crystal ball. But when we come into January, I will do another travel update and let you know, because I hope that you put Japan in your travel plans for 2022 somewhere in the year. Even though 2021 has been a wash. I think we've ran out of the corner, everybody. Anyways, there will be another live stream.

00:15:47 John Daub: And actually, oh, my gosh. And you know what? He uses this as like a sword, too. So there's like a samurai way inside of Leo, too. Look, he wields it like a sword. Impressive. Not only is he merciful, I mean, he didn't destroy it in the first ten minutes of this live stream, but he also knows how to DIY a sword. This is pretty incredible. Now you can use this also to butter or to cut the Christmas cake that we have. Very nice.

00:16:16 John Daub: Space Junk writes in here, the train station is under control. I'm not sure if that's a construction. Yes, it is. I do have a train station and I have a bunch of other stuff. I didn't know about Play-Rail until about last month. I'm sorry. I started looking for toys for Christmas and I found Play-Rail. And there's some YouTube videos that are absolutely incredible of creators making worlds of Play-Rail. I don't know. Have you guys ever... Do they have Play-Rail in the United States? America? I don't know. Only for Japan. I think it's only Japan.

00:16:57 John Daub: It's Takara Tomy, which makes Tomy cars. It's a very famous toy. It's very famous in Japan, but boys and men. Men? Yeah. Well, because the guy who has a YouTube channel, he makes an entire city out of these things. It's absolutely incredible. And I got inspired by that and bought it myself. But I also learned that it's for ages three and up. But with parental supervision, yeah, it should be okay.

00:17:25 John Daub: Now, the Shinkansen, you know, I think this is the one that's going to be retired soon. And we'll have to upgrade to like the Tohoku Shinkansen or something. But with great power comes great responsibility, writes in Samuel. Absolutely. These are the lessons we should be teaching our children. I think when you become prime minister, Leo, please be merciful and think about the others. And do not behead them with the sword that you wield. He's got a shield now, too. It's pretty incredible.

00:17:56 John Daub: He's not as talkative. Kanai needs to supervise John then. Who wrote that? What? It's true. There's three children, two children in the house and one responsible adult. It's all okay. It's all okay. Thanks for sharing the Christmas presents you got. Tomorrow, in, I don't know. 27? Yeah, 20, this month. So there's not a lot going on here.

00:18:25 John Daub: I'm editing a bunch of videos right now. And I know how YouTube works. If you can't release a video once every month and then say like you're going to grow a channel, you have to be very consistent. And if you're going to take a little bit of time off, you might as well take the time off and then come back roaring. So I do have a video to release this year. And in January, I'm going to be at a very famous onsen in the north. I'm going to make another wagyu episode. And I've got one on the cleanliness of a train station in Tokyo. There's a bunch of content. And I just want it to come really consistently.

00:18:55 John Daub: Because my goal for 2022 is to make Only in Japan just explode on the scene and get back to what I've been doing. But even more so than in the past. And look, you know, I buckled a lot this year, but I'm still here. So we have a very exciting 2022. And we won't have any booster shots until about March. I think the government's talking about speeding all of this up. But we're going to have a pretty good situation in Japan once these boosters come out. And we learn that maybe things aren't as bad as we thought they were. People start to get healthier. The weather turns warmer. 2022 is going to be a great year. Stay positive, everybody. That's all I can say.

00:19:42 John Daub: Right, Mona? Happy Kwanzaa. Happy everything. Happy holiday. This isn't a baby seal. Where am I? What? No, it's not a baby seal. And a big shout out to Samantha and to a lot of people who gave us a bunch of gifts. Check this out. This is what Peter gave us here. Peter's present to Leo. Leo wore these cowboy boots. These are pretty sweet. And they go with his Christmas outfit. Look at that. That's a really nice gift.

00:20:06 John Daub: This is a Smoky Santa from the Bavarian Christmas markets. And then Silver Fox drew us this picture. Little Leo. And I guess Totoro is very close to me since I do dress in gray a lot. And I have a very ever-expanding Christmas stomach. I call it Jolly because it jiggles. There you go. Leo, any final words for everybody? Leo, say something. Hey, Diana's here. Get something for Leo to destroy. Diana. Leo, look, say hi to Diana.

00:20:44 John Daub: Leo's too big for the Mamaroo now. We put him in there and he was so heavy. It started to buckle under the pressure of Leo's 9 kilograms, which is pretty amazing. I'm at his age. So, yeah, we will find something to destroy. Now he's destroying the TV remote control. Look at this. This is our lives. For the next year, he's going to be taking over completely. That's pretty funny. And a lot of hard work.

00:21:14 John Daub: He loves remote control. He has his own remote control. I know. Kate writes in here, Merry Christmas, John, Kanae, and Leo. Your videos helped me get through 2021. So thank you so much. Cheers to 2022 and a better year ahead. Merry Christmas. Thank you, Kate. Yeah. And Donna F. Merry Christmas. Kanae, Leo, and John. We love watching your journeys. All the best. Donna and Mike in Massachusetts. Thank you, Donna and Mike. And Fomp. Merry Christmas to you three. I see Leo's hat. Hat hair training had started with the Santa hat and hood.

00:21:48 John Daub: Yeah, he's got this hat with little ears on it. Now we got this outfit at the baby store. I saw him like, yeah, we got to get that. Are you going to show everybody you can stand up? All right. I'm going to hold this down. Show your power. He's got like little sumo legs too. Wow. He's going to be walking soon. What did you say? Did he say woppa? He said wow wow. That's a pretty good word.

00:22:26 John Daub: So that's what it's like in our household here in Tokyo. We have a really nice day. The weather's going to be turning cold. I've got a bunch of travel starting. Only nine months and he's already standing. Space junk. He started standing around over a month ago, actually. But now if he can grab onto anything, he wants to stand and he tries to be an adult. So he basically imitates everything that I do. So I have to be careful with what I do, first of all.

00:22:57 John Daub: And if I'm brushing my teeth, he doesn't like to brush his teeth. But if I do it first, he will brush his teeth too. And now he's picking up his milk and he's trying to drink it himself. So he's a very independent baby. Can you go to the bath? Yeah. Oh yeah. Yeah. That's another thing he does. So about two weeks ago, we have to. So in Japan, we take a bath at around seven or six or seven p.m. And we don't take showers in the morning in Japan. That's just part of the culture. But I take a shower in the morning sometimes.

00:23:29 John Daub: So we take baths at night and Kanae takes and Leo takes a bath with me. So we get him almost naked, pretty much naked. And sometimes we leave the diaper on. And he does his crawl all the way from here into the bath. But I crawl too. So he follows me. And I might just be almost pretty much naked here. I hope there's no web cameras here that are broadcasting live except for this one. Yeah. And he'll follow me. If I crawl, he crawls and goes all the way into the bathtub crawling. It's pretty crazy.

00:24:01 John Daub: That is the mark of an independent man. He wants to be out there. He's going to be in space one of these days because, you know, all the kids are going to be in space. Our generation, we're not going to see it. But his generation will be in space. And when he is there, they think about Papa who wanted to go to space one day. Just think about that. I'm going to make a little figure of me like a little figure that you can put in your pocket and then put it on the window of the spaceship and take a picture and put it on social media. That's what people are going to be doing. Space junk. No joke. Absolutely.

00:24:38 John Daub: I think that the kids are going to be in space. First, it's the billionaires. Then it's the millionaires. Then it's us. What happened? I spent an entire year. I spent an entire five minutes putting that together. All right. It's time for me to get back to my burnt cookies and coffee. That's my lunch. Yeah. So Merry Christmas, everybody. Hope you and your family have had a really great holiday season.

00:25:02 John Daub: It starts for us. It started about ten days ago. But for you, Merry Christmas. We have the Japanese New Year coming up. I still am going to be live streaming. I'm going to be doing a walk tomorrow. Maybe as soon as the weather is nice. I'm going to walk across Tokyo just because I need to get some exercise. And why not? So I'll see you in another live stream really soon. I'll try to do a secret live stream for insiders. And we'll do a Patreon Q&A as well. But still got a lot of content to do. And still look for the main channel. We got another episode before the year ends. I know. We'll get there.

00:25:38 John Daub: Leo, the destroyer. We have to rebuild what you have destroyed. Do you have any final words? No. Oh, Peter, by the way, I lost your sock you gave me yesterday, Peter. Just so you know. I don't know if he's watching. I don't know where it went. It's like watching a fire flicker in the fireplace. You don't know in what direction it's going to go. It's very entertaining. Until it starts to cry.

00:26:26 John Daub: All right, Leo. Merry Christmas. Give us a big ho, ho, ho. Ho, ho, ho. Ho, ho, ho. He's freaked out like the Christmas story. You're going to shoot your eye out. Tony P., Merry Christmas. Best wishes from our family to yours. TIG, thank you. Thanks, guys. Look, he's on the move. I locked those wheels so you see if I've got to move anywhere. Next up, childproofing the entire apartment. That's a completely new thing. Childproofing the entire apartment because he's on the move. Bye-bye, everybody. Merry Christmas. If I do that, boom. See you. Bye-bye.