00:00 John Daub: To Tokyo. It is now midnight. And when it's midnight, sometimes people, you know, have a snack. That's what makes this a special night, because it's time for a midnight snack ride. And I haven't done this forever. How you doing, everybody? Long time no see. At this time of night, the east coast of the United States is just waking up. Maybe they're actually preparing for breakfast or lunch. And here we're about to go to bed. At least I thought I was until I decided I think it was time to have a midnight snack.

00:33 John Daub: And I. I already went to the 7-Eleven, and I got one of these here. And if you've ever had Black Thunder, this is amazing. This is — what is it? Chocolate mint. So in the summer, you start to see some mint flavors popping up because it cools you down. Black Thunder is like the Oreo on steroids. All right. It is so good. You know, if you're American. Oh, we get Oreo. We're so cool. Yeah, I don't think so. This Black Thunder, just — it destroys it. It might not even be Japanese. I don't know where Black Thunder comes from. So I'm gonna pop this open here. I'm gonna cool off, because cooling off with ice cream is always way, way better.

01:36 John Daub: In this live stream, I'm going to be taking you not just to the 7-Eleven here, and I might pop inside just to show you really quickly the ice cream selection, but I'm going to take you to another convenience store, the FamilyMart. That's where my bicycle is. I'm walking around a little bit. And then we will end this live stream looking at the Tokyo SkyTree with another ice cream. I don't even know if I'm going to finish this because I'm technically on a diet. But as promised, because we nearly got a thousand — a thousand comments on the last live stream we did talking about the awful situation with Japan not opening and whatnot. 750 people commented, that's crazy. So I made a promise, and I'm going to keep it. Astro Boy also was making sure that I did not break my promises here. Thank you, Astro Boy. He's an Australian, and he's probably asleep. Oh, my gosh, I can smell so good. Everything smells better at midnight.

02:08 John Daub: Look at this Black Thunder. Serious business, right? I mean, let's take a bite into the Black Thunder. I'm not going to eat this — all I know, it's wasting food. I'm going to chuck it because I'm saving my appetite for something that might even be better. I get a feeling that FamilyMart has it. So Itadakimasu. Oh, wow. It wouldn't be Only in Japan if I didn't start a food episode with "oh, wow." Oh, wow. I got sensitive teeth. I have to pre-melt it and then I can chew it. I don't even taste the ice cream. It's basically mostly the cookie. There's more Black Thunder than there is ice cream and that is a good sign.

03:44 John Daub: More cookie is always good. Just enough ice cream. Got that Klondike bar, chocolate wraparound. Oh, yeah, that's nice. Black Thunder. Oh, my God. I don't even know how they do it. It's just so much better than an Oreo. I don't know. Black Thunder. It's got like this crunch to it. It's a superhero candy bar. And you can get these little nuggets of it. They're only like 25 yen. What is that? Like, like 19 cents? Which is insane. Oh, yeah. Black Thunder. I need sensory dye. George, you're right. No little ASMR. Thunderstruck. Oh, man. This is all cookie. It's all cookie. There's like — I can't even — there's a little bit of mint and it's all cookie. This is awesome. All right. I'm going to throw the rest away. Just can't be helped.

04:45 John Daub: I'm going to get my mask on. I want to show you the ice cream selections here and then we're going to skedaddle. All right. I might need a water. We still wearing masks on the inside, people? All right, let's go get — let's go take a quick look. See here. Hey, Natalie. For the FamilyMart. Fun. You got it. That ice cream is going to be on you. All right. Combustibles here. So what was the other ones that they had here? So they had here, right here, the jumbo. But I don't know. Oh, they had another Black. Black here. There's a melon cream soda. I don't see it. I didn't see what I was looking for here. Just to confirm. I didn't see what I was looking for. So that's okay. I know the signal might not be good inside there too. That's another reason to get the heck out. 7-Eleven. I like their ice cream setup because because it's just an open freezer. They're the best. Like there's no windows or anything. It's just this big open freezer section and you walk in, you don't have to open touch any doors. They know what you want. In the summer you're gonna stick your hand in the freezer and you're gonna get your ice cream.

06:20 John Daub: Ice cream on a stick are more fun. And to walk around. What was it? Mini Stop is another — another convenience store chain here. They're famous for having the best soft serve ice cream. Or just soft — sofuto kuriimu, I think they call it. Right. That's really good. Mini Stop is famous for that. I don't think that the 7-Elevens and the FamilyMarts don't have soft serve ice cream. What a waste. They should have this from June to the first week of September. They make a killing. All right. This is the Hachiobori area. I love this area. In fact, I might actually live around here. I'm not gonna tell you where I live, but I live in Chuo ward and this is my ward. I love it. Right on the river. That smell of the sea close by. This is one of the locks. So this will close if there's a tsunami or something or an earthquake. It turns red and shuts — shuts down and helps to keep the neighborhood safe.

07:24 John Daub: Dave, don't I see it? Boom. You see the FamilyMart down the street? That's our next destination. All right. You know what? This is gonna be awesome. Midnight snack run. I can't believe I'm doing one of these. This is crazy. I'm in Crazy Eddie, by the way. Something else that's really insane — check this out here. We have 13 hours to go. We — we need — we're on one backer away from 650 and we're getting close on a 5 million yen. I don't know if we're gonna get there but I think Peter said he would do something crazy if we got the 5 million yen. We did something crazy already. But a third stretch goal. I think 5 million yen would be pretty good. We get 13 hours. I don't think it's gonna happen, but it's crazy. That's beautiful line. We hit the goal in 10 hours. There's the goal right there. That's so awesome. 13 hours to go, folks. The — I put the Echo bag design. We're adding a bear into it by the way because we get some comments like it's a little bear on the backside. So Dakota is actually on vacation but he's going to try to put a bear or something in there and we're going to try to make it a little bit better. So thanks for the feedback on that and the taina gui, the Karate Kid bandanas. We got those on the store. I even opened up another Toby seat, which is joining us for lunch in Hakodate. We just add that in so we could, you know, try to get the 5 million. I'll be perfectly honest with you. It's a self-celebratory tier where somebody, you know, if they want to, can join Peter and I and sit in a chair while we eat and tell you about it. And maybe you can make a bowl of ramen yourself too and eat with us and we'll talk about the trip. That's what — that's the only reason that position goes. So I don't know, maybe somebody will snag it.

10:01 John Daub: Bradshaw Studios in the house that. Guys, this is gonna make this next ice cream even cooler. It's my version of cooler, which isn't very cool. We're here, FamilyMart. After I get this ice cream, I'm gonna walk out to this Tokyo SkyTree and show you the amazing lasers that are just like flying away from it. Tokyo SkyTree is the highest, tallest freestanding tower in the world, and it's just over there. And I'm gonna read some of the comments that were left in yesterday's livestream. Some of them were pretty interesting, and I want to say thank you to everybody for leaving the comments. It gives me great insight and I hope that some Japanese media pick up on this because if whatever answers the government's looking for, they're there. If anyone wanted to do research on what foreigners were thinking, that's — it's all in that stream. All right, so if you have 30 minutes, read that. Read the comment stream on the last video. 8,000 foreigners visited Tokyo in June and July, which is ridiculous, even though 20,000 are allowed to come in per day. That's mostly Japanese returnees. I guess there's a quota, but my gosh. All right, let's go do this. There's no beer ice cream. Who wrote that? Daniel. Daniel. That's a good idea, though. All right, let's go in and get this ice cream. I think I know what I want. Technically, we, you know, shouldn't be filming, so I'm gonna put the camera down. Oh, this one's got a glass window here. There's some chocolate mint. And there's the kuri, which are tubes of ice cream. Oh, there it is on the other side. Oh, nice. Okay, well, they have melon, so over there. Oh, waiting. Hi. I got two. I got two. There's my bicycle right there. All right, stay there, bicycle. You're locked, you're loaded. You say you're locked — you have to say you're locked and loaded, right? This is sort of a — sort of a thing. You're locked, you're loaded. All right. That's why I walk up here. It is windy here.

12:46 John Daub: I do have the mics, the wind mic here. So maybe I'll put it up a little bit closer and shield it. If I walk around like this — it's a little odd at midnight. Yeah, I'm in Hachiobori. That's where I am. Oh, my gosh. The wind is gonna — the wind is blowing. I gotta go — I gotta go in reverse. All right, you know what? I'm gonna have to shield this. Let me go up — let me go up and show you the SkyTree. As promised. I'm gonna bust into the ice cream cones. There's nobody on the streets of Tokyo. This is awesome. Again. Another reason why Malaysia rocks. I just saw Malaysia. We hold this. Malaysia is hot right now. It's warm at your place too, now. It's kind of cool. The weather has cooled off. Okay, hold on a second. All right, this is Chuo Ohashi.

13:51 John Daub: Wow, the camera is great on this iPhone 12 Pro. it'd be even better if it was the iPhone 13 Pro, which never came. Thank you, Apple. The iPhone 14 is like, right around the corner. What the heck? All right, are you ready? Introducing the world's tallest freestanding tower in the world. I just said that. To your left. Ladies, gentlemen, and the rest of you, I present to you the Tokyo SkyTree. That green light over yonder. That's right. It is big. It is powerful. It is basically a supercharged Kit from Knight Rider times two. That was not a great British accent. That was just — that's like a fusion of a bunch of idiots. Kit ejector seat. Did he do that? It was James Bond movie. I was up — see that second deck where the light is going? I was up there on top of it, outside, held by a cable as I filmed the window cleaners of the Tokyo SkyTree doing their job. And it's going to be a main channel Only in Japan episode coming probably in the beginning of September because I just got so much damn stuff to edit. Gotta be honest with you. I'm underwater, but there's a lot of cool stuff coming. I'm not kidding. It's so cool. All right, let's get — let's get down — down by the river. Let's go down by the river. We can go eat our ice cream. Told by Abe. How you doing? Nice to see you again from Indonesia. Ah, this — actually, this area — probably the nicest right nearby the pylon here I can do right here. Yeah, let's eat it right on the river because the wind is a little bit better here. How's the signal? If it's crappy, let me know because I can move. I am going to be up for a few hours anyways. How you doing? I'm gonna be up for a few hours anyways because I think if I turned this way, I'm brighter. Yeah. Hey — that scared me. Yeah. All right, so right here, there's two of them, and I thought — I think you saw one of them. This is the big Suica bar. The big Suica bar. It's like eating a watermelon. I didn't — I didn't see this at first because I wasn't looking for it, but it's basically — I guess in the summer, watermelon is — it's a must. Doesn't have to be a square watermelon. It can be this and it can be big. And I know I'm not gonna eat. Oh, look at that helmet. That looks like the helmet from the postcard from the Only in Japan from our Kickstarter. Peter, are you looking at this? We should have made your helmet like this. Oh, that's so awesome. Has anyone ever made a real watermelon helmet? You eat the watermelon — you just carve it out. We'll see how — how does this compare to a real watermelon? The taste of summer. Is Peter in the house? Peter, we should have had this. Peter, we have like — was it 13 hours to go? Whoa. Hey, Alex, Shozo's here. Alex, our moderator. We hardly see him. I just woke up here in the U.S. Peter, it's like kind of late. I thought you'd be up at like 5am with jet lag. Look at how it looks like a real watermelon. This — turn it this way because it's got better — better camera lens. My gosh, look at this. Do you think that the green part tastes like — like this? The rind. I was eating the rind when Peter and I were doing our melon challenge. Peter didn't even eat most of the melon. He just was like eating it like a — like an elitist. Like, elitist. He had his pinky up too when he's playing with his little spoon. I totally hamstered the thing. I went — right, see these two teeth? When I was like nine years old, they were huge, these two teeth. I grew into the teeth. The teeth grew big, and then I grew into the teeth. I got teased a lot, bullied. So I know it's like to get bullied if you have big hamster teeth, but there are times — if you have big hamster teeth, there are times where they will come in useful. When you get to be an adult like me, you get to eat all — you can eat melon faster because you can just grind it out. It curls on the inside of your teeth. And you can either hamster it and pocket it here, or you can completely down it. That's what I did. Oh, my gosh. This is bizarre. Number one, does not taste like watermelon. Number two, it melts very quickly. So before you start talking up a storm, take a bite. Number three, how does the — how does the rind taste here? Oddly like melon. Like — like melon. Melon. It's watermelon. Doesn't make any sense. And the black dots in this is — is chocolate. So that's enough of that. Oh, my gosh. Cold. It's not that hot right now. Best time of the night. The best time to be outside in the summer is at night. And like, the sun comes up at 4 in the morning. Hokkaido, even earlier. It's like 4:29 when Peter and I were there. And Peter couldn't sleep that well, so he was up usually quite early, remember? And that was good, I guess, because it was sunlight at 4 in Hokkaido. So — and you're gonna see it because all of you are gonna go over right now to the Kickstarter and purchase that documentary so we can get the 5 million yen and Peter will do something crazy. I think he's gonna stand on his head on the top of a volcano. Can you do that? I've seen you, Peter. I've seen you doing like some kind of yoga pose. Peter's gonna take off his shirt and he's gonna do a yoga pose on his head on the top of a volcano. If we get to 5 million yen, he can do it. I've seen him. He does it on the top of his balcony. Peter, can you confirm if you're watching this? Yes, please. I'll do anything at this point, really. Audience, as I open up this, can you please suggest to Peter some stretch goals that you would like to see? I think you could do better than me because while you — while you recommend to Peter, I'm going to be opening up this Matcha Kuromitsu Walnut, Häagen-Dazs ice cream bar. This is the cream — the Cadillac, the top cream of the crop ice cream bars. Because it says Häagen-Dazs, which means something to people in Denmark who said that. It doesn't mean anything. Häagen-Dazs isn't — I guess it's like a Danish name or something that doesn't mean anything. Apparently. There's no meaning, just marketing. And I don't think it's even Danish. It's like American company. I don't know. And Kuromitsu is black honey. Matcha is matcha. And walnut is basically walnut. And it's oozing. Look at that. All right, this is going to be an amazing, amazing bite. Check this out. Oh, look, you can see the walnuts there. What? Oh, my gosh. Look at that. Chunky. It's gonna be crunchy. All right, I eat for you guys. And thanks for buying this for Super Chats. I really appreciate it. Is it — oh, my — oh, wow. Wait, hold on. Eric. Grade's in here. There's a recall of Häagen-Dazs recently. Don't write that now. Wait until I'm finished. All right, first off, number one, Matcha. Excellent matcha. Very good cream. You can tell good cream and bad cream. It's good cream — creamy. You can put too much matcha or not enough matcha in it. You can also use cheap matcha. You can tell this is really good matcha. The walnut is incredible. Oh, man. The center is the Kuromitsu. The black honey is in the center. And it's so black. Honey is the best. It's not caramel. I don't even think it's real honey. I don't know what the heck it is, but it's not caramel. But it's got like that same kind of like a utter sweetness, but it's more balanced. It's hard to explain. Kuromitsu black honey. But I guess you have to be a bear, which is in the documentary. Buy it. Go now. You got 12 hours. We saw three bears — we saw three Japanese Asianic bears crossing the road as we were driving in Shiretoko park in Hokkaido. And you're only going to see it if you go by the documentary. Do it now. Oh, man. Best ever. Oh, my gosh. Look at it dripping down there. Look at this. Oh, I'm gonna be licking my fingers. Look at the walnuts. I've exposed them. Ah. The inside is just this beautiful green. Do you see this? Do you see it? Of course you do. Bite it. Wait, don't — it's mine. I don't — John does not share food. Now, the downside to this — oh — oh, there's a — the wind blew the ice cream and it went inside of my shirt right there, like into my armpit. What a weird feeling. Ah — it's oozing down. All right. Oh, my God. So good. Oh, God, I could eat that all day long. I just want to savor it. You don't want to eat it — you want to just lick it. Like, one lick every 20 minutes. You have to live in like north Hokkaido to do that. And by the way, north Hokkaido is in the documentary. So get it. You have like 12 hours. I was once in — up in — in Rikubetsu on my birthday, February 2020, and the temperature got down to minus 28 degrees Celsius. And I was staying at a roadhouse right next to the thermometer. And I kept on going outside in the middle of the night just to see how cold it would get. It got cold. Let's get out of here. I got ice cream melting down all my hands here. That's not gonna be good for the gimbal, Richard. Thank you for the gimbal, by the way. I appreciate it, Richard. Richard knew that I left it in — I left my gimbal in Nemuro on the easternmost point in Japan. If — if my gimbal that worked pretty good was ever going to have a resting place. And it was quite old. It was over 200. I get so much use out of that gimbal. It had more life to it, though. It's a sad ending, but if it were gonna have an ending, why not have it at the — it was literally at Peter, right? It was at the — literally the easternmost point in Japan. So that's where, if you're lucky enough to go, you might be able to find my OM4, which is fully charged, by the way. Hey, Rainer, you're — you're up at 1:38 — 1:13am, wow. Hardcore. I'll be up — I'll be up till 2, finishing up the script. I gotta get this melon video out. It's just — it's my arch nemesis right now. Such a good video.

27:32 John Daub: Wow. The wind is crazy strong right now. Whoa. That's why it's cooled off, I think. You know what? I brought some wipes with me. I have my alcohol wipes. I always travel with wipes, as Peter learned. I always wanted to be that guy who had something that everybody wanted in the age of COVID — I'm the wipe guy. I always have alcohol wipes. Unless I don't. But more often than not, I've become that wipe guy. The wipe guy. I always wanted to be that guy, like a guy who had something that people wanted. Never had anything anybody wanted. Now I get alcohol wipes. Oh, you touched a pole, you touched a trash can. You touch a chair, you touched a train. Public transportation. Well, I got wipes. I got wipes. I'm that guy. Okay, there's my bike. I'm also that guy that hangs outside of a convenience store at midnight talking to a smartphone. I'm that guy. Oh, before I go, let's go to the corner here because this is — go to another corner. I don't want to look dodgy hanging outside the convenience store. I wanted to read some of the comments that that were left because they're pretty interesting and very relevant here. Okay, I want to say thanks. There's 700 — just 20 hours ago there's 750 comments just across the street here. I pinned my comment to the top here. Please leave a comment.

29:08 John Daub: Canada here. Been waiting for almost three years since my last trip to Japan. I'm ready, willing and able. Just open it up. Let me in. There's 750 comments like this. The tour package only is like a tourist trap. That's the reason why no one's going to Japan. Mask and vax as well. I'm sure Japanese officials — print quotes. Won't be reading this. Well, they might be. You never know. You never know. Let me tell you something, all right? I'm not the biggest YouTuber in Japan. I don't want to be. That's fine. But I'm big enough where people sometimes take notice of things that I might do. And four or five of the — there's an aggregate like Japanese Internet sites that will pick up on things that foreign foreigners living in Japan say about the country and translate it. One of the sites, I think it's DNG 65. People definitely read that. And they translate your comments into Japanese. So a lot of you that comment regularly, I'm almost positive that it's been translated into Japanese. So Japanese can consume what you're writing about their country, because I cover topics that have to do with this country. So I don't know who the biggest one — I'll tell you what, it's not a Japanese-based YouTuber. There are some foreigners here that are not doing Japanese vlogs and stories that have 4 or 5 million views. You know who's one of my favorite — one of the videos that have been popping up? He's a — he's a Japan-based YouTuber. What I've learned, what I learned, he's based, I believe in Shibuya. Really nice guy. I've never met him in person. Really nice guy. Doesn't vlog about Japan and things like this. He's got like 2, 3 million subscribers. Just because you're blogging about Japan, who's the biggest? That's not a question. I think that really matters. What really matters is do people actually watch your content? Do they actually watch it? How long do they watch it for? YouTube is all about these three things. Do they click? If they click, do they watch to the end? Right. If they watch to the end, your video is going to go viral. If more people click and more people watch to the end, what's the watch time? That's how it goes viral. Just put it out there. If you want to be a 3 million subscriber YouTuber, it's very easy. Make content that people want to watch and click on and make sure that they watch to the end. Very, very easy. It's hard to do in execution, isn't it? I'm from the U.S. — we have canceled two trips to Japan during the pandemic. Oh man. We will not travel to Japan until we are truly welcomed. I welcome you. Hey. We do not want to go through visa process or travel group. Well, you're gonna have to wait for a while. Just, just so you know, Japanese have to get an ESTA and register online and all this other stuff. So a little bit not good there. We want to come to Japan as individual tourists. I'm on — I'm on board with that. When Japan is welcoming tourists and open arms in the pre-pandemic way. Well, I don't think the world's gonna go back to the way it was exactly, but we might get close. Also, PCR tests are dropped. No quarantine. I don't mind masks. Yeah, you know what? You can come in. I find it very sad how Japanese Japan has shut out everyone. Yet Japanese nationals can travel in and out as they please. A lot of them did this week. The airport is busy. Obon holiday. I pray the Japanese government makes changes soon because people are growing weary and tired of the rejection. I totally feel that frustration. I'm — I totally understand. That's how I felt yesterday. I feel better now because I eat ice cream. We are originally from North Carolina but recently moved to Singapore. My family and I have been to Japan a total of three times — at least four weeks each visit. Four times if I count the time my wife and I with — it's quite long. Oh my gosh. It's a lot of places. We actually prefer the southwestern parts of Japan. I like that too. Yeah, southwestern meaning Kyushu. Yamaguchi Ken is so underrated. Hiroshima and Tottori Shimane. Although we — we do like going to the touristy areas. We prefer exploring on our own. We are a mixed Japanese American, same gender married couple. We have not seen our Japanese family, some elderly and ill, for almost three years. Oh gosh. You've been — you've been hearing a lot of ambulances going by too recently. I'm sorry to hear that. I hope that you both can make it to Japan really soon. That sucks, you know. And I was afraid to go and see my family in the US because I didn't think I'd be able to come back to Japan. Was — but it felt great to finally go from New York City. Alex, I'm sure you're gonna be here before you know it. From New NYC, New York City. Everything is going up. We don't have disposable income like before. If I'm going to travel, Japan has to drop all restrictions. Yeah, inflation has been going up, but I want to put it just — I'm point blank here. Japan's on sale. It's 133 yen to the dollar. Almost as high as 139 yen to the dollar. That's like 30 to 35% off. All right, so inflation might be bad — you just get here and let the cool prices keep you going here because it's so cheap. You can upgrade your hotel with that. You can get — you can get toppings on your ramen for free, basically. So yeah, inflation is very subtle here. You can't tell that much on everyday stuff. I've seen the price of milk go up, price of eggs. I've also seen consumer products get a little bit smaller — stay the same price. Crafty — 1 liter things of milk — the Meiji milk is now 900 milliliters instead of 1 liter. So just little things you start to pick up. Yeah, just — just keep in mind that the exchange rate is pretty favorable for you right now. I'm still having issues getting my flights changed from September. Oh man. I'm from Australia. While I do want to come back to Japan, I certainly don't want to go on any guided tours. I want to be able to explore and do what I want where I want. Whoa, that sounds criminal and cool. I want to be your friend. Danricse writes in here. Saya, I am from Singapore. I wanted to travel to Japan three years ago. However, the timing on that one's bad. However, COVID happened and since I — I am disappointed. I couldn't go to Japan again. The tour is lame. Every country is opening up as long as you are three times boosted. But Japan is playing it safe, which I understand. But the economy is not doing well. Then what? I hope the tour thing is gone and I could travel free and easy and go to USJ and Disney and not end my time after two hours. That's true. How do these tours work? Do they — does the chaperone make you leave when you're just starting to have fun? What a party pooper. I like very — exactly. You're going to be here in no time. I feel like October. Next step, start a tour group company. I'll be your first customer. Hey, you know what? That's not a bad idea. I've been thinking about this for a while. Only in Japan Tours. I will take you on a tour and I might — I might act — I might just step away for two weeks and I will meet you again at the airport. How does that sound? I'll just step away and lost. You have to — but in order to make this work, you have to bring stuffed dummies that look just like you. So anyone ever seen Escape from Alcatraz with Clint Eastwood? Just saying, if you have one of those — I mean, how — how sharp are these tour guides? I don't think they even want to be there. I mean, do you want to — would you want to hear foreigners incessantly complaining about not wanting to be chaperoned? If you can make one of those Clint Eastwood dummies of yourself, I think they will never know. Fernando writes in here. You never know how you will respond to a situation like that. Especially the rise for okay, I'm not sure. And the red tape absolutely on that. I'm from Australia. I want to visit my friends in Japan. I've been to Japan more than 10 times and I've lived in Japan. I have no interest in a package tour. I want to book a flight, but without the visa waiver program and it would be a waste of time. Japanese government would just say when the visa waiver program will be reintroduced. I could make bookings. Oh man. I can feel the frustration because I'm getting frustrated. On top of that, JAL changed the 787 servicing Australia and now there's no premium economy. What? Oh my gosh. I live in premium economy. It's so nice. It's worth the upgrade. Japan ANA has economy flights for — that's crazy — for which I paid for business class. You got a Jetstar? That one they used to have Cairns to Australia, Cairns to Tokyo to Narita for like $300. Hey, King Wong is here. I'm from Singapore. I know. King, I just sent your postcard. By the way, I've been to Japan multiple times. I know. I want — I'm talking to King like he's here. I wanted to come back to Japan. In fact, I have a two month planned in November. But if the current policy — visa tour group, PCR needed — is still in place, I will have no choice but to cancel the trip. King, that would be a tragedy because I'm looking — I'm looking forward to seeing you. I have no problem with the mask wearing or even having that track — that app track me all over Japan. That's true. There's an app that tracks you too. No one tells you about that. So they know when you're in the restroom. I don't — I just made that up. As a photographer, I can't even take pictures if I'm supposed to stick with some tour group where I am. Well, that's true. But I think if the tour guide can take pictures, he might be useful as like a tripod. King. Very disappointing. Oh, by the way, here's the postcard. I don't want to upset King. King, I think I'm pretty sure by this time you will be able to go. Cairns to Tokyo and Osaka on Jetstar has come back as of last month. There you go. Just don't bring a lot — buy all your stuff here and then send it back because they're shipping now to Australia. That mail came back. This is this month's postcard and the colors are — freaking awesome. Not great at midnight, but I printed this up. I didn't add any saturation or anything. The only thing is that I kind of helped make the smoke come out better. But that is Mount Tokachi from Daisetsuzan National Park and it is giving off volcanic gas. And that's in the picture. And that volcanic gas and volcanism — is that the word? Helps to give the soil lots of minerals which make these flowers really colorful. It's not me, it's not Photoshop. It is the soil and there's the lavender right there. And we hit just the last week, I believe. And this is this month's postcard. And on the back you have Peter and I in a lavender ice cream cone. And the stamp, which is not here, is the 100 years of the Boy Scouts in the Japan stamp. And there's two dudes, two people who look like Peter and me. It's a set of 10. Not everybody gets the same postcard. But there's two — there's two — there's some of the stamps have — one stamp has a hat, another stamp has a campfire. One stamp just says Boy Scout. How cool is that? Just says Boy Scout on the stamp. That's so awesome. So these — these went out today. Julie, I sent you one too. I sent Jim one, I think I sent all the moderators one if I have your address. So this is the — this is the postcard. It's on the way with a Boy Scout stamp. It's cool because Peter and I — we were like Boy Scouts in a camper peso. Your card's on the way too. See who — let's see who gets there first. Phil, first time commenter, long, long time watcher, American from Croatia. Oh wow, we're in Croatia. Some of the best memories I had was hitchhiking around Croatia. I came in through Split from Italy back in 2000. Wait, when was this? Oh my gosh. Seems like I can't remember the year. 2001. 2002. And then I — we hitchhiked to Slovenia. I met these two girls in Zagreb. I met the two girls and I met the two girls. Oh my gosh, this is bringing back — wow. I wonder how they're doing. Maya and Victoria, I met them in Budapest, these two Croatian girls and I told them I'll come to Croatia and meet them. I backpacked through Romania, Bulgaria, Turkey and I think I came in through Italy, back up to Brindisi in Italy and I went up to Split and I finally got was at this different trip and I met them in Zagreb and we started hitchhiking all over the place. It was the best time. All right, back to this. Maya, if you're watching, find me on Facebook. You have some pictures — you never sent me — reason for not coming. I do not want to engage in any hand holding preset tours or monitoring when wandering through Japan and doing what I want to do and what to spend money on, where I want to spend it. I am patient. I have been waiting since 2019 to come back. But I will not return until all of these limitations are discarded. It's simply a pointless endeavor. Otherwise I will not spend my money or my time in Japan if it's like that. I don't think it's gonna be that bad. Is it? What if there's a bunch of really cool people on there in these tours? I don't know. I always tend to look at the positive side. But this makes the tour look like North Korea. What I don't understand — almost everything. The rules continuously change on a daily basis. And most of them are unreasonable from a foreigner's point of view. That is true. Nothing has been clearly explained or even attempt to match requirements which to me feel arbitrary and continuously volatile. Would never take that risk. How can they be clearer, clear, concise, longer lasting rules and help and encourage tourism to visit? That's true. The rules just keep changing. And the policies. It's too chaotic. And Japan does a bad job when they change something because it takes ages for them to troubleshoot it. What I would like to see change — just do what almost every other country does. Make an attempt to revert back to the normal method of travel. Ease on the restrictions and requirements. An issue with C19 is that an explosive will not miraculously dissipate soon. And protecting from it has seen a massive improvement since the outbreak two years ago. There is no logical reason to create a security theater outside of political and therefore redundant reasons. This is very well written. Dude — dude. I just want to go back and take my 2am walks in Shinjuku listening to music. That's what I'm doing right now. But it's getting closer to one. Meet people, make friends and spend my hard earned money on some wonderful food and specialize in great folks and collaborate with fellow artists and storytellers. This sounds like my kind of — cat here. It's been an experience beyond expectation the last time I went and feel like the government is constricting such a unique and beautiful country to an assembly line McDonald's Sightseeing Circus. That's so well written. Really heartbreaking. Oh my gosh. That's a great comment. Hi, I'm from the Philippines waiting for news on Japan opening up its borders since the lockdown. I understand the concern and maybe the need for holding. Yeah, actually I'm not connected to the Internet so I'm from Mexico and been waiting to go to Japan since 2008. Not going until everything returns to 2019 normal requirements. I'm from the USA. I would love to visit Japan but unfortunately I cannot afford it right now. If I could, I would not visit right now because of the group tour thing. In the UK you have to either visit the Japanese embassy in London or the consulate in Edinburgh twice to get a visa. What? That's insane. That's why if you change the rules, it's stupid at the beginning and then they make it better but takes forever. From Portland, I was planning on visiting Japan in February to celebrate my 60th birthday. Hey, I'm an Aquarius too. Linda, Happy birthday — belated. I love lived and worked as an English teacher in Toyama. Oh, that's a beautiful place. In the early 80s it was an exciting and fascinating time. Wow. Boy, I want to hear some of these stories, Linda. Japan has emerged as an economic superpower and the world was curious how Japan ticked. Personally, as a third generation Japanese American, I wanted to explore my heritage and honestly why my grandparents emigrated to the US. My two short years in Japan has was a profound experience. I have very beautiful fond memories of living in the pure and innocent Toyama countryside. It is innocent, but I also have not found so fond memories of being ostracized as not being of real Japanese background.

50:21 John Daub: Sorry I ate the snacks. If you're joining me now, 50 minutes in, I had three ice cream. Watch the playback now. Sorry as we get a bunch of queries chiming in here. I'm just reading the comments to end the livestream to say thank you. We had over 750 comments on the last live stream. It made a big impact. I read most of them and I think if you have some time, it's pretty interesting to read through what everybody is thinking, how everybody is frustrated and how everyone is dealing with it. How each country feels about it too. Because I asked people to write in where they were from. It's fascinating read. So take a look at that last live stream and read the comments. If you read it, I don't know, 12 hours ago there's another 500 new comments which is pretty cool. I'm not getting any more snacks and get — I don't want to become diabetic before I go to bed. That's insanity. But if you're going to demand something at least like super chat — I'll consider it. All right. Cheese Sugar coma. She's like go and eat a snack. And — those tires — I could eat one of those. I'm pretty impressed with this FamilyMart. They put the trash cans right outside. All right. King Wong — Wild King appear. I hear my name over YouTube. I hope Japan opens up soon. King, I read your comment. Yeah — it will be really hard to arrange a two month trip again if I cancel this time. King, I don't think it's — I think it's going to be just fine. And Singapore is like such a look, you know? Katayama, stop it. All right? Look, I got — I have the almonds. I have yogurt. I want to eat healthy, you know? Gosh, it's like one. You're just egging me on. And by — and by saying that I feel like an egg sandwich. Damn. I can't do it. I can't do it. No, you don't want to know. You want to know why? Because at the supermarket, I found that they had Costco tiramisu buckets cut into quarters. I guess the supermarket had some collaboration. So I had a quarter tub of tiramisu with Kanae and I wasn't even that hungry. You ever see those — those Costco tiramisu buckets? Well, Japanese — Japanese don't want to eat that much bucket. Okay? So they — they subcontract it out. The ones they don't sell, I guess to Japanese supermarkets and they cut them into quarters. You could tell because it says Kirkland on the label. It was good, but yeah, I'm not — okay, I'm just gonna go. Joy just — Joy's smart, just telling me to go. Kathe, I'm taking your money — just gonna save it for tomorrow. Yeah, all right. You know what? You know what's even better than food? Empty streets of Tokyo. Look how scenic and beautiful it is. Gosh. And so clean you can eat off of them. And taxis can go straight through, take a right turn at high speed, and no one will know except for us because we're live streaming. Tokyo Midnight snack run. Mid snack's finished. All right, thanks, everybody. Have a good night. Do you see this? I shaved and I was shocked at what I saw in the mirror. I got a third chin. I'm not going back in for more. There's a reason why — there's a reason why I don't do midnight snack runs that much. Okay? This is special. Special night. If you want to see us eating snacks, go buy the documentary. You got 10 hours left. You want some snacks, go buy the documentary. You know what I'm talking about. Moderators, show them that link. Let's see if we get the 700 backers — 5 million yen by morning. I'll be so proud. Peter will do — Peter will do a handstand on top of a — on top of a volcano naked. Oh, by the way, Peter, you did not jump in the lake naked. You said you're gonna do that. We're only half naked, so you have to redeem yourself. I don't think the people will be will be happy. 12:20:43 left. All right, let's get some — alright, everybody, see you tomorrow. I'll be back with — right before this project ends, I'll be doing a live stream promoting it and counting down the end of the project together in hopes that maybe one last person will purchase it. At exactly one second to go, they'll have the button. I wonder if anyone's going to do that. Only one way to find out. I'm sure people are going to have some sort of pledge. At the last second, they're going to push the button and then we're going to have like this massive influx. There's always some stinker out there that does that. Because that's what I would do. That's what I would do. Totally would do that. All right, everybody, have a good day, have a good night. I'm gonna go this way and I will see you tomorrow. Oh, did that just happen? Jerry Lewis telethoning. That's right. The world was close to 4.7, Peter. Oh my gosh. All right, see everybody tomorrow. 12 hours and 19 minutes away.