00:00:00 John Daub: Hello everybody, welcome to Tokyo Station. This is the Yaesu exit or entrance, the Yaesu entrance of Tokyo Station. And for the last few years, it's been undergoing some amazing development right there. You can see a brand new high-rise skyscraper that, wow, for this area, that is super tall. And there's some very old 1950s, 60s era buildings right in front of us. And then as we pan over to the left, you'll see some buildings that just wouldn't sell out. They wanted to keep that, and I have some information on what they're building here. This is a discount ticket booth here, and it's so out of place, isn't it? The owners just won't sell. They're making too much money. And I guess they see the benefits of being right in front of a brand new super skyscraper, and I don't blame them.

00:00:55 John Daub: How you doing, everybody? Welcome. Sunday afternoon here in Tokyo. And I thought I would go around Yaesu Ichome and Nichome, the first and second blocks right in front of Tokyo Station, which in itself, in 2013, completed its renovation. So if you haven't been in Japan in the last 10 years, a lot of stuff has happened on this side of Tokyo Station. And yeah, I researched this a couple of days ago just out of curiosity. And wow, it's pretty interesting to know what they are actually putting up there and what is already up there, which opens next week, the basement shopping area of it. And I'll talk about the stores there as we walk around this side of Tokyo Station. Let's go on an adventure.

00:01:39 John Daub: But wait, before we go, I'm going to miss this light on purpose. I want to show you what this building looked like before. Check it out. This is what it was like in 2015, I believe this picture was taken. And you can see just two of the six buildings still remain. This one here, you can see right there in the center. It's one of the smallest of the buildings. It's still here. It looks so blank. These streets have not seen sunlight from this direction probably in about 50 years or more. This Yaesu project was also quite delayed because of the pandemic. And again, I printed out some information from the designers of the building as well as the real estate companies.

00:02:36 John Daub: Let's look back at Tokyo Station here. And there's these wings here. Do you see that? That's the new design of Tokyo Station's Yaesu side. Before that, it was this really ugly late 50s, early 60s, I guess, design for the new Shinkansen in 1964. It looked like the backside of the station. It was the only one in English that said Tokyo Station in Roman letters. And it was quite popular until they redid it. And now it's even more popular because it's just so more open and beautiful now. The way it catches the wind in a typhoon. I always thought it would blow away. It hasn't yet.

00:03:19 John Daub: So what exactly are these buildings going to be? So they've broken it apart into three districts here. Check it out on the map down here. There's a District A, a District B, and a District C. This email comes from Nikkei Shimbun from like 2014, October 2014. So it's like eight years old, seven years old, but there's not a lot of information on it. District A is supposed to be just a district. It's supposed to be done in 2023. I believe it'll be done in 2025 now. District B is done two years later. And District C, I believe, is part of District B. And we'll go around there at the end and go take a look at the finished building there, which is going to be called Yaesu Midtown. And if you've ever been to Roppongi, there's a Roppongi Midtown and a Hibiya Midtown. So I guess it's the same group, which is interesting. It's fascinating, isn't it?

00:04:14 John Daub: So this discount ticket place, I've actually bought tickets here many times. Not too often, because I just need a business receipt. But you can get that here, too. Basically, a Shinkansen trip to Osaka, if you don't have a JR rail pass, you could save 420 yen, is it? Which is pretty significant if you go back and forth for quite a while, or you just want a free beer. The tickets are bought in bulk from that company. And yeah, they pass the discount along to you, and they make a few hundred yen off of it as well. They sell books of 10, and they make a couple thousand yen. See what I'm talking about?

00:04:52 John Daub: So this is the Daimaru, which also I believe was finished in 2013. Inside is a very famous department store. It's a beautiful skyscraper. The first, I guess it's the 12 floors? Are like shops and stuff, and the rest I think is a hotel or something. I'm not quite sure. Office building? The rest of... These were also redone recently as well. Tokyo Station has never been taller, and it's about to get taller in 2028, but what is it called? The tower? Torch Tower, I think it is? Can't remember. Fire Tower? There's one. It's supposed to be Japan's tallest building, or one of them. It's a really cool department store, and it's a great place to get gifts if you're on the run, getting to your Shinkansen.

00:05:39 John Daub: Alright, let's walk down Sakura-dori Avenue. I've shown you this avenue before, and it's a huge disappointment, because there used to be a Starbucks here that a lot of you might have gone to, because there was none inside the station for the longest time. That's gone. They've torn down all of the buildings except for the ones in the front there, and yeah, they also cut down quite a bit of the sakura trees, which line this street left and right, which broke my heart. I don't know why they couldn't just transplant them, but I guess they were quite big, and I guess you're looking at cost, and I don't know. A tree is just a tree, right? To them.

00:06:16 John Daub: And on the right side here, you have all the things for the construction. Now, this is going to be a luxury hotel. Let me read some of the information here as we get to the end of the street. This whole project started like way back in 2013, and they wanted to do it because it's an interesting story down here. It says here, following World War II, this area underwent rapid and perhaps careless redevelopment, which resulted in a jumble of buildings and small shops lining narrow alleyways. Yaesu, like Marunouchi, is a densely packed area of eight acres of land, with aging and deteriorating post-war buildings. Head down a back alley, and you will find closed mahjong parlors, adult video stores, and loan sharks. Basically, the back streets of Yaesu had lots of izakayas (pubs), bars, karaoke places, and a lot of dodgy places as well, and they wanted to clean that up.

00:07:26 John Daub: Nihon Sekkei is a massive construction company. They have a lot of old buildings, like the Yoyogi, Obayashi. They're really, you know, it's going to take a lot of time to get this thing built now. Again, they broke ground here 2020, right before Halloween two years ago, and it's set to complete in March 31st of 2025. So what exactly is going to be in this district? Like, this is old information. I can't find anything lately on this. District C, District A right there on the top is where we are. It's two years behind schedule. This is going to be a major hotel, a luxury hotel. I'm kind of interested to, I mean, for the longest time, nobody would tell me what it was, so I had to go back five years to the initial planning, plans of what they were going to build here.

00:08:19 John Daub: This is a five-year-old image, and there's nothing new from it. Maybe they even changed it, but it's supposed to be the Bulgari Hotel. I don't know if you've ever heard of that. And then in front of it is this other building. I'm not sure if that's already completed, but this one is what they're building here that's slated to finish in 2025. And it looks like a beautiful building. And this is the only information comes, I'm sorry, for 2018 was the last information they had, two years before they broke ground and nothing since. What is interesting about the project is the residential is indicated for the penthouse floor atop the low-rise building. So these are going to be residential apartments. For luxury people. Interesting.

00:09:06 John Daub: Japan's tallest building in the Azabudai area, I believe, is also slated to be luxury apartments for the super wealthy. Basically none of us. Maybe one or two of you. The project includes a 240-meter tall, 45-story commercial building that will include the Bulgari Hotel on floors 40 to 45. So only five floors of this is it. Office spaces from 7 to 38. And retail and elementary school on the lower building. And the building is a multi-level building. I wonder if they move this from here to the other side. Because this is supposed to be on Yaesu Nichome redevelopment. Sounds like they moved this to another building, perhaps. Sounds like the same idea as the one that's being built on the other side of Tokyo, doesn't it? The exterior has been designed by Pickard Chilton. The total project is estimated at 240 billion yen, which is 2.1 billion dollars. And it's probably a lot more thanks to the exchange rate. It's 142 to the dollar. It's craziness.

00:10:12 John Daub: Yeah, you'll still find some of the nasty alleys. I think they're just saying that because it makes them want to redevelop the area. But I got a lot of good memories here. I didn't think it was nasty. I think it had character. I don't want to say the Showa era was kind of, you know, suspicious. A lot of unusual characters out there. It's Japan. Unusual characters now just hide in different places, like in front of their computer. But, oh, this is new. They're starting to see what's going to be the base of the building. So when you watch this livestream in 2025, people are going to have their mouths open going, Whoa. Probably no one. Maybe like two or three architects or a couple of construction company, mid-level people. Please comment if you do. I'd love to hear from you.

00:11:04 John Daub: So this is Site A or District A. And we still got three years to go. Thank you, pandemic. What's interesting is that, like a note, I think it was about a year ago, I was livestreaming at a pop-up restaurant corner. And that pop-up area is gone. So they've started to... They've made really good use of this space. While they're still planning it, they wouldn't let the land stay dead. They put stuff up there. And that's, you know, to me that was a dream. This whole street is sad that it's gone because I remember seeing really nasty karaoke places, old restaurants. Some of them chefs had made their name. There were some good restaurants as well. And now it's all history.

00:12:01 John Daub: I'm a little parched. What do you think? Let's take a quick break. Get ourselves a drink. CC Lemon pineapple mix. The big Boss coffee. No. Corn soup? No. And maybe a Pocari Sweat. But this is the fake Pocari Sweat. Not that it's bad. It's probably the same thing. Yeah, you know what? I'm going to go with this one here. I just like carbonated water. Tansan sui. That's how you say carbonated water. It's become really popular lately. And hey, want to lose some weight? Stop drinking Coca-Cola and sugar drinks and just get tansan sui (carbonated water).

00:13:14 John Daub: It's not seltzer. There's no salt in it. There's that club soda. I'm not sure exactly what it is. There's no sugar in it, basically. I think seltzer has sugar in it. This is just carbonated water. No salt added, I think. If you read the labels, and I do, there's some of these carbonated waters add salt into it, so you get thirsty and want more. That's pretty deceitful, like crazy. Or they say it gives you more vitamins, but I kind of don't think it's a soft-drink maker's strategy. Add salt, get you thirsty, drink more. And with all the vending machines Japan has, people make a habit to stop in on it, and then they pop 100 yen. You're spending more on vending machine drinks than you would at Starbucks. Soda may be good, but it also makes you, I don't know, I think it's, for me at my age, it's not good.

00:14:48 John Daub: All right, we're coming to the end of this project, District A. And, yeah. If you just look down the street, it just doesn't seem the same. Now, there are still some karaoke parlors along here in some old 1960s era buildings. But what's happening, more or less, people are just selling out naturally. This is a brand new restaurant and hotel. They put a restaurant on the first floor because that makes a lot of sense. And then a new hotel, which either just really doesn't make sense. They rebuilt it or just put in a new exterior. That was not here a couple years ago that I can remember. But they're going to certainly take advantage of the fact that everything in this area is new. This one is also, looks like they've redesigned it. It's an old building atop, but you have a new looking modern first floor. Yeah, it looks like a boutique hotel.

00:15:58 Passerby: Are you from all in Japan?

00:16:00 John Daub: Yes. I was watching your live stream. Then I saw you. You were here.

00:16:05 Passerby: Oh, great. You guys live streaming too?

00:16:06 John Daub: Yeah. Oh, hello. I met you before at the opening ceremony.

00:16:09 Passerby: Oh, right. On the Olympic day. There were so many people that day. Yeah, yeah.

00:16:19 John Daub: Yeah, what are you streaming here?

00:16:22 Passerby: I'm streaming at Ginza. Because there are many pedestrian-only streets. Yeah. So you can walk in the middle of the road. At Ginza. Yeah. So I was streaming there and I was walking to the Tokyo Station to do another streaming there.

00:16:36 John Daub: Oh, cool. Then I saw you doing that. Oh, thanks for stopping by. This is a new development they're putting in for. Yeah, the building right? Tokyo Torch. Yeah. This one is part of the Yaesu redevelopment. They finished it in 2025 here.

00:16:51 Passerby: Oh, yeah.

00:16:52 John Daub: The Torch, not the flame, is over there and it's 2027, I think. Yeah. It's going to be a different area. Really cool. It's going to be the tallest building in Japan, right?

00:17:02 Passerby: I think.

00:17:03 John Daub: I think that one is over there near Azabudai. Yeah. Maybe it could be Torch. I don't know. They're competing. But it's interesting.

00:17:13 Passerby: Yeah. Thanks.

00:17:13 John Daub: Yeah. Thanks for stopping, guys.

00:17:15 Passerby: Yeah. Thank you.

00:17:16 John Daub: You're welcome.

00:17:22 John Daub: Yeah. I think because of the pandemic and the suspension of so many projects or the redeployment of certain projects, I don't know. Money has changed. Budgets have changed. So it's hard to know for sure, you know, because the information is not there yet. The information is not updated because we're on a need to know basis. And I guess we don't need to know, but I want to know.

00:17:51 John Daub: So there's two sides to Tokyo Station, Yaesu and Marunouchi. This is the Yaesu side. From this angle, we have a really good view of Tokyo Station front. Underneath here is a basement shopping center underground. It's really cool. There's a lot of good shops, including Eric South Indian Curry, which is a very famous place. There's a Bubby's New York restaurant with American comfort food.

00:18:38 John Daub: All right. This is the Super Hotel Premier Yaesu. And this Midtown complex also has a Yaesu. Sorry, a Hibiya Midtown and a Roppongi Midtown. I think there might be even more Midtowns. There's a lot of shopping areas and office spaces called Midtown. And I guess this group has done a pretty good job of buying up really expensive properties and modernizing it, which is something that's part of the redevelopment of Tokyo. What was here before? I think it was like some kind of shipping company's building. So there's the official seal of the Tokyo Midtown Yaesu. That's how it's said. The basement area will be opening up next week. And among the amazing things in this building, check it out. It's kind of cool because you can already see it. It smells like a new car on the other side if you keep walking around it.

00:19:52 John Daub: This is what the building looks like. It's 45 floors tall. Is this the same building or a different building? This building says it has the Bulgari Hotel. So this could be the building before. Again, it's really confusing. Because some of this information is 20 years or more. But I got a pretty good idea that they've got a map right here. And they do. So downstairs in the basement they have 13 shops. And 10 of them were restaurants. But that might have changed since then. Frijoles, which is a burrito place that was born in Japan from some foreign owners. It's kind of a go-to that's in the Azabu. Oh gosh, next to Roppongi they have the first shop there. The City Bakery, which is a Union Square New York thing. I guess they're opening up a chain here. Starbucks. And some other stylish places. Potama, which looks like Okinawa soul food. Comfort food. And then there's an anchor store, which is the battery. If you've ever had a smartphone, Anker has pretty decent batteries.

00:21:06 John Daub: So I guess this is the one that's... The buildings moved over to Site A from here? I don't know. So it makes me wonder, like, what the heck is going to be over here? But I searched and double searched and I couldn't find any information. Except that it was supposed to be the Bulgari Hotel. But maybe that moved over to District B? I don't know. And nobody knows. Do you know? Send me a message. I'd love to hear from you.

00:21:40 John Daub: Speaking of awesomeness and buildings. This is the world's largest freestanding tower in the world. The Tokyo Skytree. And it also happens to be this month's postcard. So if you want, I'm going to be sending these from the Tokyo Skytree tomorrow. I was at 240 meters up into the sky on the outside, chained in, looking down as they washed the windows. And that's me waving right there. And I'm going to put a stamp on this. And I'm sending this from the top of the Tokyo Skytree tomorrow. Or Tuesday. So if you want one, send from the Skytree. Get on my Patreon. Help to support the channel. And you're going to get one with the... I guess it says, send from the Tokyo Skytree and the cancel mark over the stamp. Which is pretty cool. And helps to fund the show.

00:22:31 John Daub: Because I'll be making a lot of traveling trips. Going back to Kagoshima and Miyazaki for three episodes. I'll be filming the start of October. And I have two episodes planned to come out the rest of this month. And a bunch that are queued up for October. I really appreciate the support. And I'm glad to share a little bit of Japan with you.

00:23:00 John Daub: There you go, Tokyo Station. That's the Yaesu side. Thank you, UFO Bob. If you have any questions, you can hit us up. This is what it was before. Yanmar. And it had a really kind of, to be honest, ugly early 60s design to it. I guess they kind of maintained that bizarreness with these poles around it. It doesn't look... It sort of looks like it was before. But it's bigger. Like a grill or something. I think Yanmar is like a shipping company, isn't it? When I first came to Japan and I saw this, I thought it was a national airline for Myanmar. For Yangon or... I didn't know what Yanmar was. Agricultural equipment, right? I'm not quite sure. Learning something new every day.

00:24:01 John Daub: Tokyo Midtown Yaesu. There it is. Wow! Check it out. Look at the new sidewalks. It smells new. There's new mulch. New trees. I wish these were the transplanted trees from the other avenue, maybe. I don't know. Got a lot of questions. So this Yanmar is a brand new redone skyscraper. They had a site building here on the site. And this is the brand new Tokyo Midtown Yaesu. This is supposed to be District C, I believe. Yeah. And looks really nice. This doesn't officially open until March of 2023, which is when tourism might fully reopen, but I think it's going to be sooner than that as the government takes on a lot of pressure to reopen normally like a civilized country.

00:25:02 John Daub: Some of the commenters. You know, you could make an argument that it's just ridiculous to do package tours. It makes the country look like some sort of money grab or something. I can't figure it out. This is going to be some sort of iconic meeting point, I believe, and they made some structure that looks like the original Superman. Inside there is not Clark Kent, but what was his name from space when he was on Jor-El? Or was that his dad? Well, in the original Superman 1978, I believe he was sent in something that looked very similar to this. Yeah. And people are going to be meeting here. I'll meet you. Yeah. Kal-El. Gosh, it's so long. So Kal-El was sent in one of these, I believe. Wasn't he? And a little baby came out in Indiana. I remember that movie. But I'll meet you in front of the Kal-El capsule.

00:26:24 John Daub: It's going to be a blast. It's going to be a big meeting point, new meeting point for the city of Tokyo. It is pretty cool. The Roppongi Hills has a big spider you can stand underneath. I'll meet you in front of the big metal mess. That's not wrong. I mean, it just depends on your perception of what is art. For me, if this was hurtling down at me, I could just see it like it would be painful. But look at it. It is very much like Superman's crystals, right? And maybe that's the image they were going for. The original Superman is still by far the best. Maybe the spider is for Spider-Man.

00:27:27 John Daub: But it's really fascinating to see. Like, this is across the street from the buses that were coming into Tokyo Station. So, this is going to be an eyeful when you arrive now in Tokyo. Before, it was these really old 1960s buildings. And I think a lot of redevelopment after World War II. They probably put up some shacks and then those were torn down and they started to build what we have here. Probably before the 1964 Olympics or when they announced that the Olympics were coming here, there was this massive development of the city of Tokyo. And they did a decent job of it. But there's so many issues, especially with the highway, the Shutoko (Tokyo Expressway), around the city of Tokyo. It's just an eyesore. And they're doing something about that too. I guess we can credit Mayor Koike with some of this. And just people who love the city that wanted to make it look a lot better.

00:28:22 John Daub: Now it just looks a lot higher. I don't know if it looks better. Let me know in the comments what you guys think. Yeah, it's not as high as the Skytree. 634 or 643 meters high. We're going to walk around it and then I'm going to go back to my bicycle and call it a day. But it's so interesting to see the city change at such an amazing pace. This has nothing to do with the Olympics either. It just has to do with the desire to make Tokyo competitive with other worldwide cities. I mean, if you're going to be picking Asia as a hub for your Western business or if you're just going to pick a place to put your company, Tokyo is one of those places. Japan wants to be the place. But got to tell you, with the immigration policy, the entry ban, and the way that they're doing it, they're not giving that impression. They're just telling a lot of foreign businesses there's a lot of risk.

00:29:56 John Daub: I'm sure that a lot of the U.S. food chains are scratching their head because they relied on tourism. I mean, I'll be honest with you, when you first come to Japan, go into a Japanese restaurant, you don't speak any Japanese, it's kind of intimidating. I have a lot of friends who just go to McDonald's or they go to a place that they know because they're hungry.

00:30:26 John Daub: All right, check it out. Hey, Bradshaw Studios in the house. Long live Christopher Reeve as Superman. Absolutely. Gosh, I love that movie. I have it on a 4K Blu-ray or something. I should have just bought it on streaming. So as I said to you before, next week, it'll be opening in the basement. And I'm going to go and try some of those foods. Probably not as a live stream, just as a hungry person. Really cool. And when they do open, all the businesses around here are going to get a jump.

00:31:10 John Daub: Let's walk through here. There's a couple of restaurants already open on the other side. It smells like a new car. Everything smells like a new car. Just smells new. Wow, even the parking lot looks new. Wow, look at these rocks here. One of the neat things about new buildings opening is the art that they put around them now these days. And I'm glad that they kind of put a little attention into having such things. Because it gives the building a lot of character, for sure. Look at the way the weeds or grass is growing out of it. To make it look so natural. And then, you know, of course, it's made out of rock and steel. Cement, probably. But it is pretty to see a garden here on the corner.

00:33:36 John Daub: Mountain Range. What we got here. Here's the artist. This is called Mountain Range 2022 from Kuribayashi Takashi. Cool. The area map here. Boy, the flashing isn't really helpful. Let me summarize here what happened. What did I show you? So here's Tokyo Station. Right here. And this is District C, District B, and District A. I believe that's apparently what it's supposed to show you. Honestly, because of the pandemic, it's just everything got so messed up. With the planning.

00:34:36 John Daub: Oh my gosh, I'd love to live here. Check it out. Wow. There's apartments across the street. Are these apartments across the street from Tokyo Station? Really? I would absolutely love to live around here. Like right at the station. For me, it's still a 10 minute bike ride. This is all new back here as well. Redesigned. Again, there really wasn't a lot of successful businesses on this alleyway here. So I bet you they sold pretty quickly. Some of them were somewhat abandoned. Most of the entertainment was on the other side. And they just had some old buildings on this side. But now, what is this? A school? What? This is some kind of prestigious Chūō-ku. That's the ward that I live in. Chūō City Jōtō Elementary School. What? That has got to be a very luxurious and pretty pricey school.

00:36:00 John Daub: I showed you in Yurakucho, the other school, where they required the students to wear Armani suits. And they were about, what is it, a couple thousand dollars a piece. And a lot of the parents were complaining about the cost to go there. But when you think about it, it was just ridiculously expensive anyways. I don't know. I just thought it was weird that they required you to get Armani suits to go to an elementary school. That story's been a while.

00:36:36 John Daub: Alright, so there's another YouTube streamer that's going on. That's pretty cool. I'm just about to end. Got to go home and edit the butadon (pork rice bowl). Oh my god, that looks good. That looks so good. And this place is open. And there's not a lot of people who know about it yet. That would be quite a meal. This is part of the Super Hotel. Interesting. Yeah, Kelvin, exactly. That's some pork belly. And Japan does a good job with it. Very savory sauce on there. Had a bunch of that when I was up in the Beppu at the hotel. Man.

00:37:43 John Daub: The funny thing with a lot of these buildings are that they just don't want to sell out. Would you? I guess you would have to really hold out a little bit. But did they hold out too long? This looks like a really small hanko (seal) shop. They're doing hagaki postcards, business cards. Why would you keep this property unless either you live there and you were insane, you didn't want to sell out, or you think you can get a better price. But this is part of the problem with Japan and the... Maybe part of... Maybe it's a good thing. Where property is respected greatly. Personal property and real estate like this.

00:38:41 John Daub: So if you are here and you have a property from your grandfather and your grandfather has passed away or something, and you don't want to sell, you don't have to sell. You can keep it, of course. A lot of people do that. It just gets passed down in the family. But I have to be honest with you. It's kind of crazy. This old pink building. Right? Some of the other businesses are the same way too. Again, you saw on the other side. A ticket discount ticket here. Ticketeer didn't want to sell out. Yeah. There's an akiya (vacant house) problem. If you all know what akiya are. Akiya are abandoned houses here. And out in the countryside, the problem isn't that, you know, there's not enough people who want these akiya or empty houses. The problem is that the owners who have the abandoned houses don't want to sell. And they don't want... And there's no reason for it either. And they could probably find a way to profit off of it. And they don't want to do that either.

00:40:13 John Daub: And it was my friend Alex Kerr who in Kochi found a way to make it work. But took a lot of effort. Where he renovated some 300-year-old Edo period houses. That you can actually stay in there. You might want to check that out. It's called the Chiiori Project. C-H-I-I-O-R-I. And he doesn't actually own those houses. But he has a way, a business way to work with the original owners that everybody wins. So they're not his houses. But that's what you got to do sometimes. To make Japan work. Because it's such a complicated place to do any business. When you have such old, like ancient laws and stuff. Maybe it's just a backwards way of thinking. Or maybe it's just sentimentalism. I don't know. I probably wouldn't sell either.

00:41:15 John Daub: And you're looking here at District B. Of a building that's supposed to... I guess it's District B. Because this is what it's supposed to be. This is what it said on the map. Across from this... Yaesu... Is it District A or B? I don't even know anymore. A lot of the people don't sell their akiya or abandoned houses. Because once a year, they go back to Grandpa's house. And they want to keep going back to Grandpa's house. Even though it's abandoned for... Sometimes they miss a year too. They miss a year. But they still want to be able to take their kids and show them where they came from. Here's the map here. This is the only one that explains. District A, District B. So this is District A. And we're not sure what's going to be there. Because the information keeps shifting.

00:42:24 John Daub: So Ken had... In that episode... If you have and you're interested in this topic. Go check out the one where I said... Leave Tokyo, save the countryside. Which is a true story. And people are starting to leave Tokyo and go to the countryside. But in that episode I went to Kochi Prefecture. Which has a ton of akiya. And they're finding ways to work with those people. To bring in not just foreigners. But to bring people from other areas into there. And to do that... They had to work with the original owners. Who didn't want to sell some of this land. Which is not generating taxes or revenue in these towns that are falling apart. So... We'll see how it works out. Kochi is a beautiful place. It's off the beaten path. So I could see myself one day moving there. But... Right now... Tokyo for a little bit longer.

00:43:36 John Daub: Alright. Tomorrow I believe I'm going to do another travel update. Or I'll be trying some fast food. Because they just changed the menu. It's up to you. What do you think? Is it time for another travel update? Because we got some new information. I just came through the airport yesterday. Or... Should we try some of the autumn... The wonderful autumn foods being introduced by places like McDonald's, Moss Burger. They have a... Moss Burger has the most bizarre... They have some weird burgers. They have a very bizarre burger that's debuting on the 16th. It's not out yet. But tsukimi (moon viewing), which is the harvest moon. This is this time of year. Some really bizarre burgers. Probably McDonald's the most weirdest burger when I first came here. Was a tsukimi burger. Which was... Had like a poached egg on top. Like what? We don't get that in America. McDonald's Japan is just so cool.

00:44:39 John Daub: Here's the airport buses. This one is the one, the big site. And this is the one that goes to the airport. The airport bus is located here. Part of the project is they're taking the airport bus and they're moving it underground. This is one of them. I'll be honest. The buses to Narita, they really scaled back. They weren't making enough volume to keep charging a thousand yen. I don't know how they stayed afloat or if they still did. Some of the companies might have just suspended service because this is not profitable. You'd have to take a train there or something. But there are some buses that go to Narita and Haneda from here. And here's my bike. That's probably not in the best place to park it. Little Leo rides in both the back and the front. There's a detachable seat in the front. It's pretty cool. There's a battery. I go at a very constant pace of like 15 kilometers per hour or something. But it's a lot easier to ride with the battery.

00:45:48 John Daub: Any questions? Hope you enjoyed this live stream. Just walking around the Yaesu area. Again, if you haven't been in Japan for several years, you're going to be shocked at what you see on this side come that day when tourists eventually come back. Already the Midtown is complete, structurally wise. They're probably just fixing up the inside a little bit. And maybe I'll meet you in October in front of the Kal-El Superman original orb sent from his destructive planet to Indiana. And that's just across the street where you can hang out there in that mall. Any last questions? Anything? No? No? Yeah.

00:46:48 John Daub: Leo's 18-month birthday is in a couple of days. What day is it? It's in a few days, and we're going to Tokyo Disneyland, hopefully, weather permitting, to stay there for a night with Leo. And hopefully he can recognize it. Disney's got a rule. You're not allowed to live stream in there anymore. You're not allowed to broadcast inside of Tokyo Disneyland. We'll see if I can still do that. I don't know. But apparently they're very strict on it. You're no streaming or broadcasting whatsoever inside of Disney without letting them know. In fact, I might even give them a call and then see if I can do it. Let's see what they say. I'll give them a call, see if I can film at Disney. But if they have some liaison or they make me pay or something, depends how much they make me pay. But I'll be curious to note all of this for you guys.

00:47:40 John Daub: But we'll probably do a live stream at least from the hotel. We're planning to stay at the Sheraton or the Hilton. I'm not sure what can I put in there. Or the Okura, one of those three, just outside. And that'll be pretty cool. Leo's having his 18-month birthday. He's saying more words. He's recognizing Mickey Mouse. He's doing stuff that little kids, like toddlers know, kids know. And he's less like a baby and more like a kid. Which is awesome and scary because it happens so fast. Right? And got some more. Trust me, we have food episodes coming like crazy. So that will be, there's a lot of food episodes coming. One of them I'm doing down in Miyazaki next month is one of my favorite Japanese dishes with a very good history behind it. That's going to be a lot of fun to produce that episode. Again, I don't want to say too much because something nice and having a surprise.

00:48:40 John Daub: Cool. And they removed the bullet train display from inside of the station too, which I live streamed there a couple of weeks ago. It's pretty cool. They put the bullet train, which takes place in Tokyo Station, a display with original memorabilia inside there. That's gone now. Oh, hey, while I'm here, there's a mailbox. Cool. Just a shout out to Paolo in Italy. So Paolo, I got two back postcards because Italy's mail was suspended. Here's two postcards heading back to you from earlier this year. And this is going to the Lion in Hamza in Saudi Arabia. Here's two. Sending you some cool and some warm. This is from spring and winter. I've been saving some of these postcards for two years and I'm just sending them out little by little. Thanks for waiting. Italy and Saudi Arabia were suspended for an extremely long time. Don't know why. Pandemic.

00:49:39 John Daub: See you, everybody. Have a good day. Have a good night. And it's your last day. If you really want me to, if you really want to get this sent from the top of the Tokyo Skytree, which is one of the most unique views, you're going to want to jump on this in the next 24 hours because I'm taking it to the Skytree tomorrow or the next day, Tuesday maybe, depending on Kanae's schedule because she's coming with me. It'll be pretty cool. Sent from Skytree. No? All right, bye, everybody.