00:00:00 John Daub: Hello everybody, welcome to Okachimachi in Ueno. That there is Ameyoko Market, the infamous Ameyoko Market. We're going to walk around here before it opens and gets really crowded on the weekend. I'm going to come over here to the corner and talk for a little bit. This is going to be a very interesting episode, I think, for those that are thinking about coming to Japan, because Japan has reopened June 10th, according to Prime Minister Fumio Kishida.

00:00:25 John Daub: He made a really big speech in London asking people to invest in Japan, who is the current Prime Minister of Japan. In order to do that, he needs to reopen the country. It's quite loud out here, so it seems like I'm shouting. It also might be because the microphones have switched because of the YouTube app. He announced that on June 10th, a couple of days later, the government did, Japan will reopen.

00:00:50 John Daub: And people on packaged tours with a chaperone would be able to go around the country like tourism was back again on a bus tour or something. Now, that started on June 10th, and the numbers are in for June 10th to June 30th. This just has been out for a few days. A grand total of 252 people came into Japan as packaged tourists on this deal between June 10th and June 30th.

00:01:26 John Daub: I've been looking at the airports around the streets of Tokyo, looking for anybody that was considered a tourist here on one of those package deals, and I could find nobody. Although recently, I'm starting to see what looks like could be tourism, but they're not Western tourists. The data that I got in recently is from the Japan Times, actually. I'll put a link in the description. It states that, I think it was the most international visitors, not tourists, visitors came from Vietnam.

00:01:57 John Daub: Then from China, South Korea, and the United States. Vietnam had 22,000. Last month, I believe the United States had 9,700 international visitors, which I guess could include me since I'm returning. I don't know how they decide that, but most of the international visitors are foreign students coming here to learn Japanese or study at Japanese schools. Which is a great progress because this was suspended for years. So that's actually working.

00:02:29 John Daub: Business travelers? I don't think they've ever actually really been here. They've really stopped. Because I've seen foreigners that were here and they were business travelers. I keep doing this because it's confusing to know who qualifies for what. And the others could be family members that are visiting, residents who live here in Tokyo. But for packaged tourists, and tourism is what most of you would be coming here as, that's a really bad number. 252.

00:03:00 John Daub: The reason why is because I believe it was Wada-san who was in charge of this program for tourism in general. I'm not sure who he is, but according to the article, he said this is the early days. So you can expect it to be slow. And I think that that's possibly true. Let's not be too hard on the guy, on the government, because it is not an easy thing to restart tourism. Especially in Japan. People are a little bit older here. It's the oldest population in the world. But things just move slowly.

00:03:33 John Daub: And I found that, according to the article, 17,000 or 18,000 people have signed up for the packaged tourists for July. So it's now getting to the end of July and I'm still searching for those packaged tourists. Getting the visa for this tourism thing is so hard. And the hurdles are so high. You have to do PCR tests. You have to do all sorts of vaccination proof. It's confusing. Because the policy just started. Anytime something starts off in Japan, it's confusing as hell because you don't know all of the steps.

00:04:11 John Daub: I don't think they even know all of the steps. They've announced the steps and the government institutions, including the embassies and consulates, might not be up to speed. So there are some consulates and embassies that are several days behind. That when they get the news, it doesn't seem like it registers in the staff members' minds that, yeah, you can accept visas for this situation. Because I have people telling me that they can't come and visit family members. It's like, what? You people have been doing that for the longest time. So there's not really an excuse for that. So I'm as frustrated as a lot of you.

00:04:42 John Daub: And I'm going to, in this livestream, kind of show you around the town here. This is a place where a lot of tourists would typically be. And we're not seeing that. Joe writes in here, I get Japan has its own way of doing things, but it seems pointless keeping it shut to foreigners. What do you think? Are there any cases arising regardless of foreigners or not? That was one of the biggest issues that people have been discussing for a very long time.

00:05:08 John Daub: I said, this pandemic doesn't care about your passport. And if you've got business travelers coming in, what the heck is the difference? There were 120,000 people who came into Japan as international visitors. That means students. That means people, interns for technical jobs. That means business travelers, investors and whatnot. Not tourists. 252 were package tourists. 120,000, which is a big increase from 2021. I think it was like 5 or 10 times the massive amount compared to 2021.

00:05:42 John Daub: It works in comparison to 2019, which was, I think, 3% of the tourism numbers. 2019, 31.8 million international visitors came to Japan. Last year, it was like 0.01% of that. So 2022 is supposed to be a bigger year, and we're not seeing that. You can see, as this light's about to change, there's almost no people at the crosswalk. And on a weekend at Ameyoko, there'll be a lot more people.

00:06:12 John Daub: I think has to do also because of the seventh wave. We had a record number of people getting infected in the city of Tokyo. It's over 100,000, which is a mind-boggling number when you look at the other waves that we've had. So it is real, but hospitalizations are down and whatnot. But it's not really a point. People are just going to get infected, and people are vaccinated. We have access to the vaccines. People are wearing masks. Okay, we get it. It's time to move on.

00:06:40 John Daub: So I'm going to go for a walk now as the Keihin-Tohoku Line pulls in right above us. That's Okachimachi Station. Let's go down Ameyoko Market Street here just to get a quick look. This store is typically open at 11, but some are open to 10. You can see here they're still setting up. I came here early on a reason because I'm trying my best not to get it, even though I'm probably going to get it. But I don't want it before a trip.

00:07:08 John Daub: We're doing a Hokkaido motorcycle adventure on Kickstarter right now. You can back that. I'll put a link in the description because it's going to be pretty awesome. Ten days of motorcycle and RV camping, and we're making a documentary on that. It's going to be awesome. Panda. There's a bunch of new stores. Panda Yaki. So this is Panda Ningyo-yaki, I think. Interesting.

00:07:33 John Daub: And thank you, Ho, for signing up. If I see any notifications for supporting the Kickstarter, I will read them out. Ho, thank you for 1,500 yen. I think that's the postcard level. Really appreciate the support. Jennifer French is here. Can we all intern from you and come? Yes, I do, right? Yes, please. I would call you all family. If I could. I don't care. I have a lot of cousins. Leo has a lot of aunts and uncles. It's true. It really is.

00:08:08 John Daub: Eric Johnson is here. I read in the Kyoto Times the government will allow individual tourist visas this fall. I cannot confirm that because right now what I've read, I don't know what their source is. The Kishida-san recently in a speech said that despite the wave, he does not think he's going to be decreasing tourism. Closing the borders again. There's no state of emergency. The Governor Koike got online and said they're not going to declare a state of emergency despite, I think it's inching up on 200,000 a day nationwide that are getting the virus.

00:08:43 John Daub: The hospitals are now starting to get overrun. I'm not sure why. Japan has a really high vaccination rate, but not a lot of the people got the booster. So immunity is waning. There's a bunch of reasons, but nobody's really dying from this anymore. That's the point. Alright, so Willem writes in here, I was supposed to go to Japan for a business trip to TGS Tokyo Game Show, but sadly can't because of the business visa is so complicated to obtain. I know that's part of the issue.

00:09:20 John Daub: And Bradshaw Studio, always great to see you here. Thank you so much for being a member, Willem. That means a lot to me. This shop's closed. I'm social distancing. So I only removed the mask even though I don't think this has much purpose. Basically, I think what we're seeing from Japan is despite the dismal numbers is a good thing. I'll turn around here. There's a shrine up above the store here, which is pretty cool.

00:09:44 John Daub: Despite the dismal numbers in June, I believe that tourism will return in fall because they're not doing anything despite a massive amount of infections. It's a tidal wave compared to all the others. And they're not closing the country. They're not going back on anything. They're just moving slower. And that's a good sign, believe it or not. What is frustrating is that Singapore has increased tourism greatly compared to Japan. And Thailand's on a completely another level. They had 7 million visitors compared to Japan's 500,000 this year. So Thailand is rocking it.

00:10:23 John Daub: Thailand had 700,000. Oh, they got it. This is what I wanted to get for the Daimyo supporters today. That's one of the reasons I'm here. They have the lemon, salty lemon Kit Kats. So I'm going to get that for $1.50. And I'm going to buy a new one. I'm sending it to the backers. I'm sending those packages before I leave to Hokkaido, by the way. EMS for the US. Backers. And the UK is back on. Germany, Portugal, Canada, Australia are still off the books for a year. It's crazy.

00:10:51 John Daub: I'm always coming here to look for snacks. And this area has a lot of them. What can I say? They come before the crowds if that's even possible. So what do you think? I want to hear, I want to hear you all sound off on this as I'm gonna walk around this direction to the main point of Ameyoko. Do you have book trips for books planned for the fall and are you worried about it the fact that the numbers seem low how concerned are you has anybody changed their destination from Japan to another country because Japan just doesn't seem like it's open to tourism does anybody in the Japanese government watching what I had a comment here Sean greetings for NYC we're wide open here so come on come all yeah New York City the US has always been wide open and yeah I kind of had a culture shock when I went back last month I was really happy to not have to wear a mask but I was freaking out for the first couple of days because I didn't have to wear a mask because I'm just so used to having to wear a mask.

00:12:05 John Daub: Hey Natasha thank you so much for backing the Kickstarter we're just passing 2.7 million yen which is awesome. People keep backing the project of course we're gonna see if we can and by the way we're getting close to three million yen so that's probably the goal for the first goal so it's super exciting we're just like six days away from that trip uh Franco's here John please have a supper on me you're i absolutely will but not here it's a little bit too early it's like a little bit too early for beer maybe a juice but i will have one tonight i hope by may 2023 they will absolutely be open there's nothing that could stop it is that marilyn monroe or a look-alike i i can never tell these amioko t-shirts are weird i didn't know she had tattoos there must be somebody else.

00:13:33 John Daub: Archong 89 also from nyc here might switch my destination from japan to malaysia since japan tourism doesn't seem to have open i love malaysia singapore malaysia thailand malaysia has amazing food too especially up there in the north i remember some of the best indian food i had was in malaysia i believe it or not k l is a pretty cool city so i don't blame you i would i just always hope that maybe you add in japan with malaysia maybe change at narita and hope that they allow it um well that's funny they still have some places i've noticed that they still have like olympic stuff it's a year ago today that the olympics right i think it was is it a year ago today or very close to that the olympics had started that's pretty crazy that seems like 10 years ago to me now all right we're back on amioko here.

00:14:27 John Daub: Natasha Ford writes in here do you think japan will reopen by february 2023 the answer is yes i don't know how what it'll look like the reopening but they'll be quote unquote open they're reopened now just not to independent tourists so everything moves in a step but i see despite the pandemic is no longer open at the moment it's not opening again the pandemic is no longer an issue and you can see the trucks are here because it's just early in the morning earlier than normal I'm not gonna walk down here but I love Ameyoko and in about two hours it's gonna get five times more crowded the signal is probably gonna get a lot weaker you can see Ameyoko Okachimachi station in the center of your screen and it's also very accessible to Ueno station which is just around the corner there quiz does anyone know the name of this character right here he's been here for ages it's getting hot as well.

00:16:03 John Daub: Sunny can I and Lee are visiting grandpa today I'm going back to finish editing the video to upload very shortly I got a lot of work to do before I leave to go to Hokkaido next week like I don't anybody to despair I do these live streams it's not a waste of time some people who are not interested in coming Japan just watch this to go why are you doing these up it I've been doing these travel updates since January of 2020 before it really hit because we could notice that this was gonna come as a wave to Japan the diamond princess a cruise ship created international news in 2020 by docking in Yokohama and the Japanese government not letting them enter Japan that was also not kind of pointless at the time because as you can see the pandemic doesn't care about your passport but we've seen Japan's response been different that's the best way to put it without being critical or is that critical different than other countries and there's not much that you can do about it.

00:17:02 John Daub: I'm a resident here I had a chance to leave and come back I know a lot of you have family here or you really want to come here and just can't and I'm gonna continue to do what I do bringing you with me on adventures around the country until you could come and even then afterwards we'll be doing meetups then and that's what's exciting hey Tam has pledged Thank You Tam has pledged eleven thousand five hundred for the Hokkaido trip I think that was the solo rider or the family pack I appreciate that we'll be sending you some teine goe which are the Karate Kid bandanas as well as a echo bag from Hokkaido for the with the trip logo on it Dakota's design for the postcard is freaking awesome it's Peter and me riding through furano lavender on one side cow pastures on the other and a big Oni which is really famous in parts of the onsen areas in Japan especially in the bide bets in Hokkaido which we're gonna ride through is chasing us down with a spiked club Toby's in there as well lots of trees I think it's yo Tessen I think that's the mountain and me seko is in there and maybe some background mountains for dice it's con National Park which is near us like kawa so he's kind of adding in a lot of the elements we're wearing yubari melon and Densuke watermelon helmets I believe.

00:18:33 John Daub: So it's gonna be a lot of fun this postcard that just represents the trip and I really appreciate you guys backing especially the documentary and the postcard these are digital rewards and the postcard will be sent pretty quickly right after the trip so I appreciate everybody making this trip possible Susie you're very welcome I'm just glad you guys are watching I'm trying to find new areas to go to but because I'm taking it really easy and I'm just at home editing and packing and preparing with Peter von Gomm.

00:19:03 John Daub: I've got an Insta360 camera, so we're going to be doing some pretty interesting shots from the motorcycle. So we've got to do that safely, as well as the drone. We have a cameraman that we've hired. Did we hire? I don't know. Peter knows more on that information. But we have a cameraman coming for two days to help us out a little bit. And yeah, because it's not easy to film ourselves, so we have to have somebody do that for us.

00:19:33 John Daub: It's going to be a pretty awesome documentary if you've seen the travel documentaries that I've made before. They're usually full-length movie length. Like an hour and a half to three hour only in Japan episode, which is a lot of work. But Peter's going to help me with the editing this time, and it's nice to have a buddy along. Hey, Juha H, welcome as a new traveler. I'm happy for those that are joining us.

00:20:06 John Daub: I'm still going to be doing live streams up in Hokkaido next month. I think I can hide in here. Oh, the shade. I'm still going to be doing live streams on this channel. If you're an insider or a traveler or a Patreon supporter, you're going to get a lot of photos as well. So you don't have to worry about not being left out if you don't want to join this project. It's cool.

00:20:27 John Daub: My goal for the project isn't so much about money, but more about having as many people want to come with us on this adventure as a backer. I set a goal of 500 backers. We're at 300. Almost 300. Now, I think we're going to be 300 after this live stream. So we're hitting that goal. That's super exciting. We had 750 people backing my hitchhiking project in 2017. So we can get 500 because I know that it's getting harder and harder. But yeah, let's see if we can hit that 500 number. I'm super excited. We still got 20 days. I think we've got 20 days to go. And we're doing. Pretty good. Doesn't matter if it's a buck. I just really would like to have 500 people back this project. Everybody gets their name in the credit. I think maybe from the postcard level. I'll talk to Peter.

00:21:31 John Daub: I used to do these kinds of jobs like modeling in Japan, and I was in a couple of big magazines, but I never got on a billboard or something. I thought it'd be fun if I was there on the side surfing. But a lot of these people do it as a second job with these agencies. They take headshots. This dude looks like he really got the gig of a lifetime surfing on a UFO. But that suit could fit better. I know that they probably said, bring your own suit. And it was an English teacher. None of my suits fit. That's what I'm saying. Oh, look, you can get Tokyo 2020 T-shirts on sale. That's pretty cool.

00:22:30 John Daub: All right. I'm back where I started. I got to get the T-shirt. I'm going to get this candy and then get out of here. I hope that this is useful, everybody. Please comment. Leave me your thoughts below because it helps other travelers. You can talk about your travel plans, too. Everyone's reading the comments. This is also a live stream, so you can activate it. If you're asking why isn't it 4K, it's because it's a live stream. Ask YouTube. And I'll be back in the live stream tomorrow. And I think Peter's going to join me tomorrow. We're going to talk more about the trip, how we're setting up the bicycles. I think I'm meeting him in Akihabara in the morning. So there you go.

00:23:06 John Daub: Oh, this takoyaki is really good. They took away the Korean stretchy cheese place and turned into another Korean restaurant, which looks pretty good, too. But the takoyaki place, I think they're making it now. Oh, yeah, they have some. So I might bring some back with me. He's on the move here. Takoyaki. This is the most affordable takoyaki in the city, I think, with the biggest takoyaki because they sell so many of them. It starts at 200 yen for four of them. That's awesome. Awesome deal.

00:23:47 John Daub: All right, everybody. Thanks so much for watching. Give me a like button and I'll see you in the next like click. I'll see you in the next live stream tomorrow as I finish up the daimyo shopping for the packages to send off on Monday, Tuesday. Bye, everybody. That's on the other side. The train's going by.