00:00 John Daub: Welcome to the city of Tokyo. In this live stream we're talking about places to stay, accommodations, what is the best area in the city to stay at. I've been getting a lot of questions as many people start to consider coming back to Japan with more news coming out that tourism is starting to come back beyond the package tours. Now it's time to start thinking about where do you want to book that hotel. Some places are actually allowing hotels to be booked from the feedback I've been getting from those watching on Instagram. And in this live stream I'm going to take you inside the station. The places that are the best places to stay in Tokyo might not be the most obvious places and maybe this will give you some insight.

00:41 John Daub: Also, this is a live stream so I'm hoping that the live chat we're going to get some feedback from viewers that have stayed in Tokyo before. And we might even be able to share some diamonds in the rough, hidden places. Places that we didn't think existed. There's one caveat to all of this. Since tourism was suspended in 2020, a lot of the places that might have been around then might not be around now. So it does pay to give them a call, I guess, before you decide to go there. A lot of the Airbnbs as well have gone out. And that's not a result of lack of tourism. It's just a result of the city of Tokyo in the last three years tearing down old places that used to be affordable, building up these huge condominiums.

01:31 John Daub: In fact, one of the tallest buildings in Tokyo and in Japan is built not too far away from here. And another one just above the station. So let's go inside the station. We're going to talk about those spots. And I'll tell you about places where I think you might want to stay or consider staying at. Beautiful summer afternoon here. This is the Tokyo Station, Marunouchi entrance. And they have a map in here.

02:04 John Daub: And when you decide to stay at a hotel in Tokyo, one of the best things to consider is what is the proximity to a train station to public transportation. And for many of you who have a JR Rail pass, JR, Japan Rail, is probably the best option. Because you can use that on public transportation. Or you can activate that pass at a later date when it makes more sense. But for those that have a pass, JR might be the best option. There's also Metro and Toei. Here's the map right here, up above. I found there's one here as well. And it has the ticket fares listed too.

02:44 John Daub: Now I live in this area around Tokyo station. I love it. It's a great place to live by the river and the seaside. But that might not be the best place for you. This round one, this green one. Does anybody know what that is? That would be the Yamanote Line. Or basically the circle line around the city. There's also one for Toei which is called the Oedo Line (Oedo Line).

03:05 John Daub: And the best places to stay around Tokyo might be the Nihonbashi area. Or around Yurakucho. Or Ginza. But this area is quite expensive and it doesn't have the same kind of attractions. So it's not in my top 10. One of the places that is the most popular is this right here. Shibuya. Which is listed next to Harajuku, Ebisu, Ebisu Yoyogi. And Shinjuku and Ikebukuro are not that far away.

03:33 John Daub: So Shibuya is not even in my top 10 either. But for a lot of people this is the place to stay. Because it's so bright. It's so vibrant. It's so exciting. And it's so famous. There's a lot of shops. There's a lot of restaurants. But a lot of it is overpriced. And usually you get a lot smaller hotels in this area. Meaning the room sizes probably around 16 square meters. Which isn't a lot. But it's enough. And if it's all about location, location, location. For you maybe this is the best thing. But it's also maybe the dirtiest area of the city. And the loudest. So something to consider about. And one of the most expensive.

04:16 John Daub: Shinjuku is probably a better option. But again it's quite loud. But you're surrounded by places to drink. If drinking and nightlife is one of the things that you're interested in, then Shinjuku probably is the place for you. Roppongi is another place. But recently it's not been the same as in the past. Ikebukuro is another great place to consider. It's right on the Marunouchi line. And the Yamanote line here. This is a student area traditionally. So you're going to get a little bit less. More discount maybe. Or more for your money. It's also a little bit away. It's also a little bit in the north part of the city. So most of the attractions would be here and here. But Ikebukuro is a pretty amazing place on its own. And it's a great gateway to get up to Saitama in the north area of Japan.

05:14 John Daub: One of my top places to consider. The other one is Ueno. Which I think is a very convenient place. It's got the Shinkansen. You can jump on. Hotels are probably going to be 20% cheaper. Cheaper here than Shibuya. Just because everybody seems to want to stay there. It's a major hub. Meaning you can get on lots of different train lines. And for me the attractions around this area are great. Ueno is a better place to stay than Akihabara in my opinion. A lot of people like the appeal of Akihabara. But it's only a 15 minute walk from there. And you have the park. And it's a lot quieter.

05:51 John Daub: But I'm going to tell you maybe my top space. I'm going to say maybe because it's always changing here. If you take a look at this line. This yellow line here. This is the Sobu line I believe. Or the Chuo line. And it cuts across the city too. Akihabara is not a bad place to stay. But these areas here are really something that you should consider if you're looking for a budget. Because they're right on the train line. And they're so close to a lot of the attractions. You can cut across to Shinjuku really fast on this line. You can also get to Akihabara. And it's only a couple of stops away. Ryogoku maybe is. And Kinshicho are two places that a lot of people don't consider. I don't know why. But if you're looking for bang for your buck. And more space. You're going to get that here.

06:47 John Daub: It's also a very nice place to live as well. It's not too bad. But Ryogoku in particular has a sumo appeal to it. That's where the sumo events take place. In the national sumo ring there. And I would say it's kind of cool to walk around your hotel. And you see the sumo wrestlers going. It's also marked with lots of statues. And like sumo stuff. Which makes it pretty cool. But it's also a place that's not on a lot of people's radars. And it should be for places to stay.

07:18 John Daub: You can also switch up the accommodations. You don't have to stay the whole time in one spot. Other areas to consider. Shinbashi. I love this area. It's got a lot of personality. And the hotels might be a little bit older in this area. But next door to it are a lot of hotels in a place called Shiodome. Which is basically Shimbashi. Shiodome is a new place that was opened up in 2000. About 22 years ago. A lot of new hotels that are worthwhile of your attention. A lot of them are business hotels. You don't have the same kind of space. And the area is dark. Because the skyscraper area in Shiodome doesn't have a lot of light. But it's worth considering. Especially if you can find a deal.

08:05 John Daub: I think there's like some Prince Hotel. Or Crown Hotel. I can't remember what it's called. I have friends who stay there every time. But Tamachi, just next door, is another place you might want to consider. This Takanawa Gateway is a brand new Yamanote Line station. It's not one that a lot of people know about. Because it's not in guidebooks yet. It's so new. They had to make a little mark for it here. It doesn't have the same spot on the map here. So there might be some new hotels popping up here. But Tamachi has a hotel that overlooks the train tracks. And it's just right across from the station. And it's super cool to be right there.

08:39 John Daub: What's great about Tamachi and Hamamatsucho, which they're right next to each other, is it's near the monorail. Which is where the monorail to Haneda Airport is. And it's a really fast and convenient way to get back and forth. If you're staying there, it's pretty easy to jump back on and you're back at the airport. You don't have to go that far. No taxi required. So that's certainly something that I think you should consider when you pick up a location to stay at.

09:07 John Daub: But if you have a family, I'm going to have to say probably the best place to stay in the city is going to be right near Tokyo Disneyland in that area. If you take a look on the train line here. I'm looking at it right now. I think it's the red one. There it is. Maihama. There are so many hotels. And you can see it's close proximity. It's 220 yen to get into the city. Very close proximity to Tokyo.

09:38 John Daub: When you get to Maihama, there are buses that will take you around a loop of hotels. Those hotels, one of them is the Sheraton. There's the Hilton. There's a bunch of international hotels here. A lot of them book out because they have the Tokyo Disneyland. But you get more space and more bang for your buck at that Sheraton and those hotels around the loop there than anywhere else in the city. And it seems like it's really close to the city, right? You can get on the subway two stops at Shinkiba. This is the Yurakucho Line. And this will take you metro into the city. So you don't have to just take JR. You can take JR two stops and you get into such a fast connection to the Shinkiba Yurakucho Line.

10:22 John Daub: Maihama, the inconvenient part is that you do have to get on a bus or walk quite a ways to get to the Maihama JR station. But you're also next to Disneyland. Those hotels typically have pools. They have really good restaurants with buffets that families would really love that too. And they swing deals because those hotels are mega complexes and they're just really spacious. If you're flying into Narita Airport, which is way out here in Chiba, it also makes a lot of sense maybe to spend your first couple of nights here as you get over the jet lag. To be able to have access to the facilities is kind of cool.

11:05 John Daub: Are you digging this? The places to stay in Tokyo are endless. But it's worth considering. So I'll try to break down the top 10 spots here. Now the south area is going to be the most expensive when you come to hotels. And this area where Shibuya is is going to be the most crowded. You're going to get less bang for your buck. You're going to have a lot of hotels that are kind of old maybe. Failing infrastructure. It's just dirty. Maybe old pipes. It's harder to do construction and renovation work there.

11:31 John Daub: If you pay a little bit more. And this area too is worth to note. The Yotsuya area. A lot of cool and interesting places. But it's an older area. Probably going to be pricey. The further you go out from the Yamanote line, the cheaper the hotels are going to be. And there's not a lot of things to see in these areas. Because the tourist attractions might be here. But feeling like you're in Japan, probably it's nice to be out in the suburbs. There's no reason why you shouldn't consider Yokohama. It's one of the destinations too.

12:05 John Daub: So let me go back outside here. We can break this all down. I think looking at the map makes it really easy for you to gauge where you want to stay at. But here's the deal now. After I've gone through all of that, I'm going to break this down for you here. If you're on your first trip to Japan, and you've never been to Japan, totally stay in Shibuya for one night if you want to. Kameido is a very great place too. It's also on the Sobu Line and worth considering. Yeah, totally stay in Shibuya for one night. But if you spend all your time in Shibuya and in this region, you're missing so much of the city of Tokyo.

12:48 John Daub: My number one recommendation for first time travelers, I would split up where you stay in the city of Tokyo. I wouldn't even stay in Tokyo that long anyways. My first choice would probably be Asakusa. And I think I've said this before on the show. Asakusa has got everything. It's a massive tourist attraction. It's old-school Tokyo. It's near Sensoji Temple, which was built in the year 700. All of the places around there, they've had this amazing renovation work over the last 15 years. So the streets are pretty nice. But they retain this amazing charm that's Japan, that goes beyond the glitz and appeal of Shibuya and Shinjuku. There's something really special about Asakusa.

13:39 John Daub: Now the places tend to shut down early, so it's not great for nightlife. But if you're waking up early, and if you're coming from the US, you've probably got jet lag. You're going to want to be in a place like this. This is why Asakusa is the best place, because if you're waking up at 4:30 in the morning, especially in the summer when the sun is up at that time, taking a walk around Asakusa is amazing without the tourists. It's so nice to walk down the alleys and the side streets, because you have that charm that doesn't exist in Shibuya, I think. And in the middle of the night, when you come into the morning, Shibuya is kind of a dirty place. As I said, it's not even in my top 10.

14:21 John Daub: The second place I would consider is that place in Tamachi is really nice. Some of those hotels, they're a little bit pricey. My second choice might be Ikebukuro. Just because you're on the Yamanote Line, it's easy to get around. There's the Yurakucho Line, and there's lots of other connections. The Marunouchi and the Yurakucho Line and the JR Lines are all there. It's super convenient. It's easy to get around. There's a lot of things to see and do there. And when you pick a place to stay, you don't want to stay where the main attractions are.

15:00 John Daub: So if Hachiko Scramble is a place that you really love, it's kind of cool to be able to go there and spend the day there. And at night, you can go back to your hotel in Ikebukuro and see the things that maybe weren't on your radar because you're going to discover a lot more things if you're staying in an area that's not a tourist attraction. And the whole idea of coming to Japan the first time, I think, is to discover things that you don't know about yet. That's what makes it pretty exciting.

15:24 John Daub: The third place I think I would consider, off of this list and the breakdown I did earlier, I didn't write anything down. I'm going right off at the top of my head. Yeah, I would say the Tokyo Disneyland area is really nice. I have a lot of friends, especially from the United States, they don't like staying at those really small hotels in the city, especially for families. I can't emphasize this enough. Make sure you check at the actual square meters of the hotel that you're staying in because if you're staying in a hotel in central Tokyo, you're probably getting a much smaller room than you would get back in your own country. So you have to consider that. What you pay for, you may be paying a fortune and get a closet-sized room based on supply and demand.

16:13 John Daub: But there's no substitute to being in central Tokyo, really. It's really convenient. But with that said, that Tokyo Disneyland area, man, if you're going to be for the first couple of days with your jet lag, it makes a lot of sense to have a spacious room. If you consider going to Tokyo Disneyland, you might as well do it in the first couple of days anyway. And go to sleep right after the fireworks or whatever. Wake up early. Work out at the gym. Try to beat the jet lag. Probably the best way to go, in my opinion. And you get a pretty good bang for your buck. Really good price-cost performance at the non-Disney hotels around Disneyland. And there's a lot of it. I think it's just the competition there might keep the prices down. Booking off the peak times also helps, of course.

17:04 John Daub: The peak times in Japan would be the New Year's. It's hard to come at that time because a lot of people are traveling, visiting families and taking the time that they have from work to go to these tourist locations domestically. Golden Week, which is the end of April to about the 5th of May. Try to avoid that if you can, or book well in advance. Prices are going to be more expensive. And then Obon, which we just finished, which is in the second week of August, around then. Probably from the end of July to the middle of August. It's quite pricey, just about everywhere. And then there's Silver Week, which is a new holiday in Japan. I shouldn't say new. Maybe it's about 15 years old. But people who didn't want to take their vacations during Obon will delay their vacation time to keep businesses running. They moved it to Silver Week, which is in September. And there's a lot of vacation days in there, so they can put together a week. And a lot of people do travel because it's not as crowded at that time. So you might want to avoid Silver Week in September, which is coming up pretty soon.

18:11 John Daub: I noticed the flights. Peter von Gomm and I are going to Hakodate next week, and I noticed that prices are going up for them. You can look for deals online. You can look at deals on different sites. But a lot of the hotels now are having the same kind of deals if you book directly with them, trying to save them money. I know Booking.com takes quite a bit of money from the proprietor, but it just depends. There's some guest houses that have asked me. It's like, we're really happy, but if you could book off of certain sites, that would be advantageous to us. And I kind of like to help people out a little bit. But there are advantages to booking on sites like IHG, which is the site that runs Holiday Inn and Intercontinental Hotels. They often have a lot of deals that are different from Booking.com if you book through their association. Something to consider, too.

19:03 John Daub: I'll take some of your questions as well now as I finish my wrap. I'm going to be talking about the accommodation. It's definitely a cool thing to talk about and something I'm going to be talking about more on our Discord server as well as doing more live streams on this. Because getting the feedback from all of you really does help, especially those in the past who have stayed in really cool places that, heck, I'm not a tourist, so I don't know about all of them. So let me know here.

19:48 John Daub: Best hotel to see Tokyo Tower? Maybe the Prince Hotel. There's one across from there in Shiba Park. That's a tough one. I think if you have the cash, that Hilton Hotel, which is, I believe it's the Hilton Hotel that's at Odaiba. You have to take the Yurikamome line from Shimbashi to get there. It's not that inconvenient from Haneda Airport, actually. You could just jump in a taxi and get there for, I think, 3,000 yen maybe, about $30, which is not too bad. $30, $35, I think that's what the taxi ride would cost you. Maybe a little bit more if you take the highway. But that hotel has one of the most spectacular views, and I can highly recommend them because I had friends who stayed there during the Olympics. They came from abroad, media friends.

20:43 John Daub: If you remember, majority of the world media were staying at that Hilton Hotel in Odaiba for the Olympic broadcasts because I think it was Lester Holt of NBC News, he would every night be on the balcony for the evening news. They would set up a studio on the balcony of the Hilton Hotel to get that view of the Tokyo skyline in the background with the Olympic rings which were in the harbor, in the bay back then. So the view there is that good. So probably the best night view comes from Odaiba. So if you're looking to stay there, that Hilton Hotel and the, I think it was, there's a Nikko Hotel there that's pretty nice. And it's a great place if you want to just walk around and relax. Lots of outdoor cafes. Great in the spring and the fall. Hopefully some of those businesses come back because I did notice some of them had gone out of business on the decks there of Odaiba.

21:53 John Daub: I stayed in Ueno during my first trip to Japan. I took the local train from Ueno to Kamata, which has a link to the Yamanote Line, the Keikyu Line towards the central Tokyo. Ueno is quiet when in a rental house. Absolutely. I love this Tamachi area. All right. So I can say like the thing is there's not really a lot of hotels there. There's a lot of guest houses and youth hostels. I think it's worth giving that a serious look. It's totally off the beaten path. But if you're looking at places where you get a feel for the authentic Japan daily life, that's where you go. Up in Tamachi where things are a little bit old.

22:34 John Daub: For single backpackers, I should definitely mention that. Your options are interesting because it's kind of different here. If you're walking, if you are thinking of staying at a youth hostel or a guest house, an affordable accommodation, you have to put a couple of places on your map. One of them is Asakusa, which has a ton of budget places that have been coming up. But it's the station that is just next to there that you have to put on your map and circle it twice. It's called Kuramae. Kuramae is the Brooklyn of Tokyo. A lot of cafes and craft beer breweries have popped up there. But that's where a majority of the youth hostels and guest houses for solo travelers seem to be in Kuramae. And when you walk around there, you can find lots of backpackers. And it's so close to Asakusa. It's become a desirable place. I guess it's around 3,000 to 4,000 yen a night. And I highly recommend that over a capsule hotel.

23:51 John Daub: As much as the appeal of a capsule hotel to you is, I just don't think that that's a place for tourists with big suitcases, maybe for one night. But if you're booking out of a capsule hotel, you're kind of crazy. Those ones are, like the capsules I stayed in, I've never had in one. They didn't have a booger in it. Like somebody put a booger inside the capsule and they missed it or it got hard. And the TV stations in the capsule hotels are kind of available stations are kind of questionable. So you definitely don't want to have kids in those capsule hotels. Look, this has gone too far. Just capsule hotels are not clean, okay?

24:41 John Daub: I've been to one in Tokyo. What is it? One called the Airline one. There's a lot of really budget rooms, the small places, off of the theme. So I did a video on the Japanese Tokyo capsule hotels before anybody had really made a capsule hotel episode before. And after that, it seemed to really explode. Tourists were searching for the capsule hotels and they didn't understand a lot about it. From that, the business at that capsule hotel went up like 400%. And there was a demand for these kinds of really weird Japanese-esque capsule hotel accommodations. And they came up with these places that are like capsule hotels, just a little bit bigger. And if you're a solo traveler, they certainly do work well. And they're also in a lot of places that are quite convenient and they're worth considering for sure.

25:39 John Daub: The APA hotel chain has locations just about everywhere. You know, if you're a political person or an activist, you might not like what the hotel CEO has to say about people. But if you don't care about that, it's a pretty convenient place. They have a card that you can get more amenities from if you're a member of them. I have a card too. Sometimes if you don't travel with a reservation, you get stuck at an APA hotel. It has that kind of reputation. And I don't like APA hotels for one reason. They're small. Sorry, two reasons. They're small and they put all these advertisements, like these laminated pieces of ads all over the desk. And the first thing I do when I go in an APA hotel is I take all these ads and I just throw them behind the desk and I get disgusted by it because I paid. I don't want to look at ads in the room. And they're usually not wiped down, so I have to alcohol my hands and stuff.

26:36 John Daub: I think, though, you get your money's worth. If you're just looking for a 5,500 yen room, about $45 at the exchange rate now, yeah, APA hotel's not too bad. You could do a lot worse. It's a chain. It's reasonably clean. I like the fact that they have washing and drying machines in almost every one of the APA hotels. So if you want to do your laundry, you can just quickly throw it in. And the one I had, the new one near Hiroshima Station, I stayed there in 2017, so it's not new anymore. That APA hotel had the, I could leave my stuff in the dryer and it would give me the status of the dryer on the TV screen, which took up half the room because the room was so small. I thought that was pretty cool. So you have the washer and dryer options at the APA hotel, most of them. And they're easy to check in, easy to check out. It's just, if you're going to be spending a lot of time in the room, it's not, it shouldn't be in your top tier.

27:46 John Daub: Tokyo Stay is better than APA, I think. But APA's got a lot of money. And I'd say that most of the APA hotels are in better shape than the Tokyo Stay hotels. And I think that it's just because APA has more investors and has done a better job of renovating and keeping those properties up to date. And they've grown so quickly. Most of them are pretty new. And the Tokyo Stay hotels are a little bit older. But that doesn't mean, it just means that the toilet seat is shorter. You know, because people were shorter about 30 years ago. So everything just seems made for shorter people. That Lost in Translation where the shower is like up to here, that could happen in an older hotel. So you have to consider, is it a new place or an old place? Because the old places might not be comfortable if you're 185 centimeters, whether that's six foot three or taller. You're going to have a little bit of problems.

28:38 John Daub: Washington hotel chain is better. Washington hotel chain is not too bad. I've stayed in a lot of chains just because when I travel out to remote areas of Tokyo, they don't have that many selections. So you're stuck with what they got. And sometimes, yeah, Washington hotels in a lot of places. So is this the Comfort Inn. There's a bunch of other chains. But I often stick with IHG, which is what the Intercontinental, the Holiday Inns, and the ANA Crowne Plaza. They're usually about $75 to $85 a night. They give me free breakfast now because I'm a Sapphire level or something. Just because I've stayed in enough places where I got to Sapphire level. So I get free breakfast and free upgrades. And whenever Kanae Daub and I go out, they'll upgrade us to whatever we picked. And they'll give us one level higher or two levels higher, which is cool. So it does pay to stay at a chain or download the app for IHG.

29:55 John Daub: There's another one for the Nikko Hotel. Sorry, for the Ritz Carlton and this other chain. These are pretty pricey hotels. But they have middle of the range hotels too that I would stay at. And I think the Sheraton might be in that group. And you can get a pretty good rewards back for staying. So that makes a lot of sense too. But those chains are not in a lot of locations. So you have to consider that. Tokyo Disneyland has all of them, which is another one. Toyoko Inn is nice. That was the first hotel I ever stayed at in Japan, in Okayama. And yeah, these are business hotels.

30:46 John Daub: Tig writes in here, if staying in Nagano, can anyone go into Tokyo for one night and get back easily? Yes. Because Nagano City is on the Shinkansen line. This is the asterisk, right? And the last thing I'm going to leave you to, because I could wrap on and on all day about accommodations. If you have a JR rail pass, you can actually commute by Shinkansen and see Tokyo. Like you could stay at Shin-Yokohama and just take the Shinkansen and commute into the city. You could stay in Shizuoka, and it's a one-hour Shinkansen ride to get into the city of Tokyo. You can stay in Karuizawa, and it's one hour to get to the city of Tokyo. It's beautiful. So if that's something that you want to do, you can do that. The JR rail pass is a game changer. It really is.

31:42 John Daub: So if you have a three-week JR rail pass, there's no reason to stay in the city of Tokyo. It actually will pay for itself if you don't want to spend a lot of time here, and you just want to come in for shopping and meals, and you want to stay out somewhere else. Shizuoka would mean taking the Kodama, but it's only, I think, an extra 20 minutes or so. I don't think it's that big of a deal. You can't take the Nozomi anyways, if you've got a JR rail pass. So you can't take the Super Express. So you're stuck with Kodama or Hikari, and the Hikaris don't run very often either. You don't have as many options out there. But the Hikari will stop at Shizuoka Station. I think it stops at Shinfuji as well for some times. So you have to plan your trip out a little bit more if you do do that.

32:31 John Daub: If you are taking the Tohoku Shinkansen or the Joetsu Shinkansen, you have different options because you can get on all those trains. You could day trip from Osaka and back. You could day trip. I had a friend who was able to day trip to Kagoshima. He just wanted to ride the train. He left first Shinkansen and came back on the last one to Tokyo. And then he spent a couple of hours in Kagoshima. Ridiculous? Yes. Possible? Barely. I'm pretty sure he did it. This was about eight years ago. I said, why would you take the Shinkansen for a day trip to Kagoshima? He goes, because I could. He said he ate like six eki-ben and that's what he wanted to do. Look out the window and just relax. Got a lot of work done.

33:20 John Daub: That's all I really have to say about this. There's a lot of hotels that have left. There's a lot of new hotels that have come up over the last three years. I do know that there's a couple of new trains. There's a couple of new chains that came into Tokyo as a result of the Olympics that decided to stay. So the options are pretty wide right now. It was sad to see a lot of local chains go away. But without tourists, they weren't going to stick around anyways. There's not a lot that we can do about that. But I believe over the course of the next six months as tourism resumes, we're going to see more hotels come back online. You're going to see more options come back. So keep your options open.

34:05 John Daub: But just keep in mind in Japan, it's typical not to come here without an accommodation. Japanese always book their accommodations in advance. And if you're going to a ryokan or a traditional Japanese inn, book that in advance of you coming here. Don't try to get this last minute because you're not going to be able to get very good options. Most Japanese will book three months in advance. Three months in advance to go to an onsen, a ryokan stay. Three months in advance. Six months if you're going to a popular place like Ginzan Onsen. And if you can't find a way to do it, you're going to have to call them. Call them directly and try to book the room that way. But have an idea of what you want from the website when you book. And that's the only way to do it. We had to book the Notoya Inn, which is the most popular at Ginzan, the oldest one there. We only could book it by calling the hotel. Sometimes that's what it takes.

35:17 John Daub: Any last questions here? I might have missed a few. Yeah, the Edition Hotel has a nice balcony. Hotels have changed over the last few years. You're going to find some pretty cool ones here. A lot of them have been renovated. I think Shinjuku is undergoing renovations. Akihabara certainly has. So it's worth considering some of those. I don't know about the prices of the JR Rail passes. They might go up. But I would say that not a lot of things go up. Inflation is typically very low here. Right now we're starting to see a difference in prices. Just in October, beer prices will go up 10%. So that's a big deal.

36:07 John Daub: What places to go outside of Disneyland that is safe for restaurants and shopping? Outside of Disneyland? There's an Ikspiari, which is the shopping mall, which is right outside of Disneyland. So you can go to a shopping mall. They have TGI Fridays. I think they used to have Planet Hollywood. They have a food court in the basement. So you do have options around Tokyo Disneyland. You can go to a couple of parks. There's a bunch of parks around there that are open. They're family friendly. It's a cool place if you want to rent a car for a day and just drive around the Japanese countryside because there's not a lot of traffic in that area of Japan. So it's easy to jump onto the highway. You can see Chiba. Go to the beaches. It's kind of nice. Choshi, which is a coastline area of Chiba, which is beautiful. Some of the best sushi places are right there in Chiba.

37:26 John Daub: What is the closest and cheapest motel to Akihabara? I have a lot of ideas. As I said at the beginning, the cheapest probably would be out there in the Ryogoku area, which is two stops away from Akihabara. But then there's that. There are some budget places in Asakusa-bashi, which is a 10-minute walk from Akihabara and a pretty good and interesting neighborhood in its own. A lot of really small, old izakaya (Japanese-style pubs) and Japanese-style pubs. It's got an old-style feel to Asakusa-bashi. I think it's a lot better than Akihabara to stay in. But Akihabara has, since the tourism boom in 2014, 2015, a lot of hotels have come up there that. The airport hotel or the airline hotel. That one has these capsule hotel-like places that you could stay at for 4,000 or 5,000 yen. And that's pretty convenient.

38:24 John Daub: Do pubs sell food? Izakaya do, yeah. They sell more food than booze, probably. Izakayas are what Japanese pubs are, and they're really. Yeah, the food's usually pretty good there. You have a pretty good menu of foods at izakaya.

38:51 John Daub: Looks like we're done with the questions. Thanks, everybody, for watching. I'll be back. I'll be doing this episode again, talking about accommodations. I'll use the feedback in the comments to try to make a map and actually list out the top 10 places that viewers like to stay at, that I like to stay at, and might be budget-friendly and to splurge where would you go. So I'll make up a list of this and maybe make it a main channel episode. But your feedback is always appreciated. And it's kind of cool to do live streams where we can talk to each other and do it.

39:25 John Daub: Hey, Joshua, where would you recommend for a small family of three with a toddler? Disney. Disney. They have a pool. They have places to run around. There's usually a good kids area. In the center of Tokyo, it's too small. But if you take a look at Google Maps, you can look and see if there's a park nearby. Because in Tokyo, the great thing about Tokyo is even in the middle of the city, you can find a place with a slide and swing. For kids to run around in. That's really so cool. Even in Ebisu, it might be very small in Ebisu, but can be something to consider when you stay. Look at the Google Maps and see if you can find a playground around that area too. So that would be something to consider.

40:08 John Daub: But when Kanae Daub and I are talking about where to go for Leo's one and a half year birthday, it's a reason for us to go out too. Sheraton Hotel is on our list. Because they've got a pool that Leo can kind of swim in. And then also, here's my bike. I just had to get 25 more boxes for Patreon supporters to send stuff today. Yeah, just make sure if you have a toddler, you can book an accommodation that has a playground. Just look at Google Maps. And that'll make a huge difference. Especially if you have jet lag and you're waking up at 5 in the morning and the toddler doesn't want to stay in the room. You can skedaddle and go out to the playground, which is across the street from there. It's a good question.

41:00 John Daub: A lot of good questions here. Thanks everybody for watching. Leave a comment below and I will try to answer all of them. You can watch a train go by maybe. There's one. See you everybody.