00:00:00 John Daub: Foreign hello, everybody. Greetings to Shimbachi Station. This is a very special day here. The sign just to the right of that one proclaims this day being the 150th anniversary of the launch of the railway, the Tetsudo here in Japan. That's today. On this day 150 years ago, which is October 14, 1872, trains started here.

00:00:31 John Daub: And ever since then, train called has been pretty crazy. And in this episode, I'm going to take you around the event commemorating 150 years here in Japan of trains and also learn a little bit more about that train and talk about how trains have evolved over the last 150 years. 150 being a big number today. How you doing, everybody?

00:01:03 John Daub: This is kind of a fun event. And I didn't realize this was taking place until I saw on the TV news this morning. So I ran out here and you know how I'm a big train geek. I love this. And they're holding up. They're holding some press conferences, some information sessions, but let's have a look around and see how they're celebrating, or I guess you could say more commemorating this special day.

00:01:42 John Daub: Let's go. What I love about it is that there's just a lot of people here right off the bat. Oh, here it is. Here's a poster board here. I guess you could take a picture in front of it. It declares this 150 years ago. Boom. And there's the original train right there. I guess It's a class 150 British steam locomotive.

00:02:12 John Daub: It's pretty cool. Let's move on around here. Wow. What is it? Ekiben We've got here as well. Is this the first ekiben that was started Shumai? That'd be pretty cool if that were the case. I don't think that is the case, though. I wonder what was the first ekiben. There's some history behind that as well. Right in front of us is the new Shimbashi building.

00:02:47 John Daub: It doesn't look so new anymore, but it's. If you Compare it to 150 years ago, the 1960s would be pretty new. Oh, wait, they've got japon. Let's see what they got here. I'm going to take you to the stage in a second so you can get a closer look at that. This gachapon has some train history in it. Interesting. I'll consider getting that.

00:03:19 John Daub: And they have trained beer today. Look at that. I might just have to get one. That's interesting. Thank you. So it's a 650 yen, not 150 yen. I. I guess they didn't laugh at my joke. Oh, check this out. They got some things on sale here. Oh, like postcards. Check that out. Of the old train lines. Wow, this is really cool to see.

00:03:51 John Daub: Check it out. They're like, there's a lot of people here. For some people who are here, like in the 1950s, that might mean something to you. I love the colors, the style of all the old train lines here, Ohio, Tochigi. That's. Was that a train going to Tochigi? I'm sure Michinoku. There's some Kokeshi, so probably something going up to the Fukushima, maybe.

00:04:26 John Daub: And the Toki. The Tokiwa probably going over to Niigata. Sato Island. Perhaps these are the old logos for the trains. I'm guess the he body. I. I don't recognize any of these. I guess I'm not as big of a train otaku as I should be. This Saza's Nami. This one looks like it's for Ski. For Ski. And probably. Well, because the Khiji.

00:04:58 John Daub: To hope in line. I wonder if they did that on purpose to shock us into train culture. Ellis is here. Get yourself a souvenir. Thank you, buddy. I think I. Let's make our trip. Let's make our rounds and see what we can pick up here. Michael, Susan is in the house. Hi, John. Looks like it's going to be a fun live stream.

00:05:29 John Daub: It already is. I'm glad that you're here, Michael. Got a little bit of copyright jazz going here. I'm just going to have to skedaddle around here. Let's see who. What? VIPs. VIPs, come here. There was a. There was a kind of a little bit of a scandal going on with Prime Minister Kishida at an event that I was at at the Wagyu Olympics a few days ago.

00:06:02 John Daub: He was at the finale, the closing ceremony. I left before he came because it was just too much of a hassle, but he went there maskless. So he's trying to promote and get Japanese to stop wearing masks when you're in other situations. But, you know, that's harder said than done. And it's a confusing message because more than ever now, Japanese want to wear masks.

00:06:37 John Daub: And you've seen just about everybody has them on here, including myself. Although it's not really. It's a pretty light mask. Check out this memorabilia here. Wow. Here's the 25th anniversary. They're really getting. Oh, my gosh. I'm so Gonna get. Get something, Ellis. For sure. Look at that cool towel, man. Every Shinkansen's on there, I think, including the Maglev.

00:07:13 John Daub: Isn't that the magnetic levitation train that's going to be coming out in a few years? We got some cups here. Check that out. Commemorative cups, including the coffee mug. That'll look good. I like the magnets as well. Are these magnets for the refrigerator? These are can openers. Okay. I guess they. They go around the can.

00:07:44 John Daub: These look like stickers. These are stickers. Wow. These are really old looking. So retro. WRX Turbo in the house. Wow, this is so cool. Oh, they do got T shirts over there. Oh, that's a. The hula beer. So I guess they're the commemorative beer. Comes from. I believe it's Fukushima, which is a pretty darn good beer they got there, actually.

00:08:17 John Daub: Excellent water. This is from. Yeah, I guess this is actually an Iwaki. The Hawaiians. I did a live stream there. They're also promoting Iwaki right here, which is really great. I used to live there. So a lot of this stuff is coming from Fukushima Prefecture. Very cool. Here's some information on. What is this?

00:08:47 John Daub: I guess this is. I'm not quite sure, but there's the first train right there. There. We'll get another picture of it. That's the Steam class. Oh, there's information there actually. If you are a. If you are a postcard club member of mine on Patreon to help us support the channel. Here's this month's postcard. You can see the Shinkansen streaming by at top speed.

00:09:23 John Daub: Kind of blurred there. Mount Fuji going over the Fuji River. It's a pretty sweet postcard. This is actually James from Rochester. This one's going out from Shimbashi Station. I sent these out yesterday. But they're gonna have a commemorative stamp on it from Japan post to celebrate 150 years of train travel. And I will send it from Shimbashi if you order in the next couple of days to.

00:10:00 John Daub: I'll just have to come back here. Hold on a second. I got the stamps. I get the stamps here. Check this out. So Japan Post is doing this. This is the first train here. A black wood, black print of it going from Shimbashi station. And there's 10 stamps here. And you'll get one of these. The Shinkansen has been the most sought after stamp and I had several people ask me for it.

00:10:36 John Daub: And in the end I couldn't. I have to say it has to be random because it's just not fair. Everybody was asking me for that one in particular. All of them are pretty cool. But never mind the stamp. The stamp is cool. But the postmark is going to come from Shimbashi. This is where it all started 150 years ago. And Shimbasi station.

00:11:08 John Daub: I talked with the station, the postmaster, the manager of that post office just down the street from here. And he's putting starting Today a commemorative 150 year anniversary cancel mark postmark on all the postcards coming from Chimbashi station. So I think that that's kind of pretty cool. And I don't live too far away from here so I can just run all the postcards over to that post office.

00:11:46 John Daub: It's like only it's across the street from where the first station was. Pretty co. There you go. Those postcards are on the way on the back of it. I don't want to show James's here on the back of it I have a picture of the old. The first old train and a message about the postcards here. That's. That's pretty cool.

00:12:17 John Daub: I talk about the train line and how fast it goes, etc. Etc. Because I love history and I love festivals. All right, here we go. Let's get back in here. Check out there's like a model, a model of the first train. Check that out. That's pretty sweet. So what I've read from the compartments, there is some information on it.

00:12:48 John Daub: There was a first class and a second class. And then the rest are all third class trains. Train cars. And a lot of them were. A lot of people couldn't afford it. I think it was like 1 yen to ride in first class and 1 sen which was like 1 100th of a yen or something to ride in third class. And the train line initially went from Shimbashi here to Yokohama and it took quite a long time.

00:13:25 John Daub: Almost an hour I believe. Wow. Break right here. That's a break van. Yes. Oh, how cool is that. How much was third class? Do you remember the original ticket price? Sorry, I don't know. There's like Ichi san or something like that. Yeah. I think much more expensive I think. Yeah. Oh, this is so cool. So there's no brake of these coaches.

00:13:58 John Daub: And here is a brake one. This bar has a brake only this one has a brake. Wow. So there's no brakes on the train, the whole train. Locomotive and brake van. These two cars are all brakes of this train. Oh my gosh. What was the top speed of the train? Around 60 kilometers. 60 kilometers per hour. So it take about 50 minutes.

00:14:29 John Daub: Yeah, but 50 minutes to get to Yokohama today. You can do it in 24. Thank you. That's very interesting. Wow. Well, that was. That was really cool. So he could speak a little bit of English. I noticed him. Hold on a second. I noticed. I noticed when I'm like talking to you about the train and bending down at the train, he's nodding, so he can understand everything I was saying to kind of confirm, but I did not.

00:15:09 John Daub: About no brakes on the first. On the first train in Japan, there were brakes in the. In the back, I guess, the caboose. And there were brakes on the locomotive. So that's. Wow. Hey, the technology was a little bit different than back then. Oh, here we go. There's something commemorative here. There's some sort of.

00:15:39 John Daub: This is. That's the new. The old Harajuku station that they're rebuilding over there. That was built. I think it was. Was it 1911 or 1912? And the history of the stations in Tokyo are also quite interesting. Losing Harajuku station was a loss, a historical loss, but it just wasn't stable enough for the earthquakes.

00:16:10 John Daub: It was a hazard. And it was built for the number of people going through the station in like, the early 1900s, not in 2020. There's just too many people streaming through there. So the new Harajuku stations were in tune with, I guess, today's use. I remember some traffic jams at the old. The old Harajuku station.

00:16:40 John Daub: Pretty cool to see that. Those are sugar butter sand tree cookies. Wow. Very cool. Hey, guess who that is dancing on the stage. Do you guys recognize Suica? He's on the cars, but he's actually. He's actually a Uticata, The penguin. He has a very unique walking style. Bye bye. Penguin stays in character. Look, he's got the little shuffle walk.

00:17:13 John Daub: He's still shuffle walking. I guess you're not allowed to break character ever if you're a Yurikara. I saw one yesterday in the live stream. Let's see. Let's see where he's going. Oh, he's got his own little tent. He's got his own tent. Oh, he's got, like a VIP tent. Man, I'd like to be a fly on the wall in that tent.

00:17:44 John Daub: I bet you there's another penguin inside that penguin. Like six penguins. So this STE locomotive that's in the front here, SL stands for our steam locomotive. And in Japan, they kind of abbreviate just about everything. So this is the SL Hiroba in Shimbashi. This is one of the big meeting points and I've. I've done many live streams here.

00:18:17 John Daub: This wide plaza today is an event commemorating 150 years in Japan. It's kind of neat to see this. I'll probably end up getting a cup or a towel over there. That's really cool. Thanks Alice and everybody else. I wish they had like more ekiben. I'd like to see what was the first ekiben in in Japan. Maybe they should serve that like a nori Ben which is a nori seaweed on top of a bed of rice.

00:18:55 John Daub: Josie Devs 2000's here. I've heard the regional JR museums in Saitama, Nagoya and Kyoto are also really impressive. They are. I've gotten a chance to see the one in Oniya which is in Saitama. Super awesome. And I'll probably go back there and and take Leo with me because he's really in the trains as a 19 month year older.

00:19:26 John Daub: But by the way, today Leo is is celebrating his 19th month on Earth. It's pretty cool. Oh, this is Sri Lanka curry. That looks really good. Wow. And then over here there's another food truck. Looks like there's roast beef, jerk chicken. Wow. But more importantly there is a photo opportunity to take a picture. I should try to sneak in on there.

00:19:59 John Daub: But I don't know who's going to take the picture. I like that. 150 years. Check this out. What do they got over here? You check this out. Are these the original clothing from 150 years ago or the. Wow. So this is the uniforms for the Japan Rail staff. Wow. So in the center here. Hold on a second. Is that better?

00:20:29 John Daub: It's a little washed out in the center. That is the uniform from 150 years ago. Check it out. Looks like. Hold on a second. It's the lens. Maybe that's a little bit better. That's what. That's what they wore 150 years ago. Right here. Let me pan up here. It's pretty cool looking uniform. I like the snazzy buttons.

00:21:00 John Daub: The hat kind of like a sailor's hat maybe. I don't know. They get a little bit better over the years. But I guess the current one is here on the right. Oh no. They have it over here. Hold on a second. So they're different companies here. This is the one from the beginning. This is the. The Tokyo subway. Tokyo Chikatetsu.

00:21:31 John Daub: This is the Tokyo Metropolitan Subway. Toei Metro. This is Junior from Meiji 5. Wow. The Meiji era station chief. This is East East Japan's railway outfit. And then this is the Yurikamome outfit which is the. The monorail train. How cool is that? So Higashi Japan. Higashi Nihon's uniform is right there to the 150 years information's cool.

00:22:04 John Daub: And this is Yurikamomi. I never see anyone on the Yuri Komome because it's a driverless train. And these are the trains that are. Oh, now you can see on the hat of course, the logos for it. There's the junior logo, I guess. A o this. That's a that. That symbol on there. Maybe A for a something. I don't. There's Tokyo Metro hat.

00:22:36 John Daub: Now it's clearer than. This is the Toei hat for the city subway. There's two subway lines in in Tokyo. One run by the city, one run by private company. Now I know what I want to be for Halloween. I want to be. I want to be train worker. Train staff. All right, let's keep moving around here. Here's the Yur line.

00:23:06 John Daub: That's Leo's favorite train. Cuz you can sit in the front. There's no driver so you get this amazing view as the train cruises through. Here's the toy subway. I think. Now I. I noticed some debate here. This is it. The seat has an M here, but the post office uses an N. So you can use them interchangeably. There's no right or wrong way.

00:23:38 John Daub: Actually the right way is using the kanji and the hiragana. The Romaji, the romanized version of the Japanese language is always going to be up for debate because the actual way to write shimbashi is this. You say shimbashi, you could say with an M or an N. It really doesn't matter that much. But I've seen it both.

00:24:09 John Daub: Even Japan Rail has used both. I think the sign up there uses an N. So that's something I always wondered about. But you think in the wrong way. Most of it is in Japan. The kanji and the hiragana. That's. That's the actual official one. So the English is not that important. I guess. These are some things that the kids made to display.

00:24:41 John Daub: That's cute. The love of trains. Kids start really early. I know a lot of Leo is starting to get into Thomas the cartoons on the Internet and every time he sees a train he's starting to say train, train. But right now, buses and trucks are a little bit bigger in his world. All right, let's come in here. Wow. So they got photos of the.

00:25:14 John Daub: Of the first SL train steam locomotive. Wow. This is History. I'm gonna have to come back here and get some shots for archival use. This is the first train ever in JAP. Look at that. That's so cool. Top speed of 60 kilometers per hour. And this is the second station. This is the second Shimbashi station. The original wasn't as big.

00:25:46 John Daub: I think it was more or less. It was the first station built really fast in 1872. This is the second one which is so much grander. So the trains didn't have. Actually Tokyo Station was not an actual end of line. Shimbashi was for the longest time Tokyo stations. The exterior was in the. Was it like 1910 to 1913 around that area.

00:26:17 John Daub: So for about 20, 30 years, Shimbashi was the terminus for Tokyo. Here's the actual terminus right over there. Check that out. Now you can see a replica of this. It's about 150 meters away from here across the street. They've recreated the old Shimbashi station with the old Shimbashi terminus. So there's a marker there.

00:26:48 John Daub: I think that might be the original marker from 150 years ago up here. That SL train that we saw in the. In the plaza. Let me move around here. This picture is the celebration of the 100th anniversary history. This is 50 years ago. They had a similar event. Check it out. This is awesome. This is so history. So 50 years ago would have been 1972.

00:27:22 John Daub: So this is 1972, August 14th. On this day 50 years ago, they had presentations. No, no tense or anything like that. It looked more like an official event, less of a celebration. And there's the SL train. They launched this train train in 1972. And this meeting place with that train has become so famous ever since.

00:27:52 John Daub: It's interesting. And look at the old shop in the background. I love that it's a Gyudon shop like Yoshinoya. Oh, it is Yoshinoya. Wow, look at that. That's a massive Yoshinoya. Used to be on. On the plaza. I did not know that. And then you can see there's a shop here. What is that? I think that shop might be there.

00:28:23 John Daub: Let's go see. Non Tokimu. I don't see it actually. No, it's not there anymore. Here's that SL train from 50 years ago. Wow, it really hasn't changed. I'm glad that that they. They keep it there because such a. It's such a reminder of the past. How big and powerful the trains are. In fact, one of the stamps. Hold on a second.

00:28:54 John Daub: One of the stamps on the postcard for this month's postcard club, I believe, is that train. Hold on a second. So here's this month's. This month's postcard club for only in Japan. Let me look at the train set. It is right there in the center. Right here in the center. This is the same train that's on there. So if you get that stamp, it actually has a pretty cool meaning to it.

00:29:31 John Daub: Wow. Check this out. This is in front of the old Shimbashi station. And you can see the horse. Is that the horse is pulling the train. What? This is Meiji era. That's so cool. So this would be maybe the first Shimbashi station. Yeah, the original Shimbashi station. Oh my gosh. And then there's the terminus again.

00:30:01 John Daub: I think I showed that to you earlier. That's awesome. I love it. Love that. Oh, check that out. That's so cool. This bread is made like a train. Wow. Should I try one? Let's get. Let's get one for Leo. Wow. We got some train break. All right. Let's go get a. Let's go get a coffee and we're gonna have ourselves a little tea party here.

00:30:33 John Daub: Can I actually made. Made lunch. Made some pasta. I'm not really hungry. But I had leftover shepherd's pie too. So that was pretty robust lunch. Here's the ukiyo e pictures here. Woodblock prints from I'm not of the old Shimbashi station. A train pulling in here again. The people were fascinated and it was an event to ride the train to go to Yokohama.

00:31:07 John Daub: Even if you weren't really needed needing to go to Yokohama, people would ride the train just because it was. It was something to do. It was like an event. There's the. The original Shimbashi station right there. Thank you, UFO Bob, for taking care of. Of the bots. All right, let's go get some coffee. And then we're going to have ourselves a little.

00:31:41 John Daub: Try some of this bread. I got one for Kanai and Leo as well. If I remember correctly, there was a vending machine for some coffee around the corner here. Oh, yeah. These have Pokemon drinks here. Just gone. What do we got? What do we got? What do we got? Oh, the. None of it are. None of them are hot. Let's see here.

00:32:12 John Daub: They're still kind of cold. You know, they're not quite there yet. Hold on a second. What do got we got here? This is new. A Taiyaki shop. What? And then there's a McDonald's across the street. The line is long. Yeah. There's a pronto coffee. But to get a takeaway coffee would just take forever. Is a really good shoe cream shop.

00:32:44 John Daub: You can get some pretty nice confections. There's some more vending machines on the other side here. I just don't want. It's like it's right on the border of them getting. It's right on the border of them getting hot coffee. They change. It can be the vending machines to hot around this time. Usually around the 15th, which would be tomorrow of October.

00:33:18 John Daub: Because no one wants a cold coffee when the temperature is this cool. I even have a jacket on which is the first time since spring I still got. I still got shorts. That'll never change. Me and one of the founders of Tokyo. Tokyocheapo.com Greg. We will wear shorts until like November because we. We prefer to. Nope.

00:33:48 John Daub: We're the only people in the city that might be wearing shorts today. Here's another vending machine. Temperature is chill. This is very comfortable. The temperature right now in Tokyo. And by the way, I do have you found me card. So anyone who finds reminds me. Come and get it. What is that Shot and break Royal milk tea.

00:34:19 John Daub: I'm scared. Why is it 100 yen? I don't like. I don't like the hot drinks. Plastic bottles. I think it is something. I don't know. There's something wrong with that. So we're hunting for a hot coffee. Whoa. Steak Meshi. Yeah. If they see a hot rainbow boss coffee, I might go for that. That's a good. I'm so happy that tourism has resumed in Tokyo again.

00:34:54 John Daub: In Japan again. More people. More people have already started to watch the videos again. Which is great. People weren't that people lost interest in Japan. And now that it's come back a little bit, I've noticed that there's an uptick in videos being watched too. Which is a good sign. There's one across the street.

00:35:24 John Daub: I think I see some hot ones. Gotta wait a second. We're gonna go back to the train event. Yeah. You know what? They did something strange on YouTube. I guess it's a good thing. But they gave us handles like AT signs. So I this morning got mine, which is at Only in Japan. Which is what you would expect. So the main channel is now at Only in Japan.

00:35:58 John Daub: And this channel is at only in Japan. Go. No, it's still cold. What's up with that? All right. You know what? I'm just gonna have to go with the cold one then. Thanks guys for the not quite as good but. So this is the original. You can't go wrong. That's. That coffee's been around since I've been in Japan, probably a lot longer.

00:36:29 John Daub: That's cool. Right? You see that outside, there's a vending machine for you to take your order. Order. You get a ticket and then you hand it to the. You pay outside, you hand the ticket. You sit at the counter. You don't have to say anything to anybody. It's speechless eating. I like that Matsuya might be better than Yoshinoya, but it would be fun to do a video comparing the best gyudon in Tokyo.

00:37:08 John Daub: In Japan. Matsuya, though they're Shiobutta, is. Is amazing. All right, let's go back to the event. I've got a Chicken Miyazaki chicken episode coming as well in the tank. I filmed that last week, actually a couple days ago. So good. Oh, my God. Gosh. I learned so much about chicken from the president, the owner of the restaurant there, which is an establishment in Miyazaki's Kirishima area, which is considered the best chicken in Japan.

00:37:50 John Daub: Maybe the world chefs, world renowned chefs prefer to get their chicken from that region. I don't know why, but from what I learned, the weather, the temperature, the breeding, everything plays a part in it. And unlike in the Western countries, they. Their chickens actually are. What do they. What would they say?

00:38:21 John Daub: Up to 150 to 300 days. Where in the US chickens are. Are moved to the meat processing after just 55 days. That's called wakatori. I think wakai meat and some dishes are better because it's more watery, but he prefers the flavor of the chicken, and that comes with matured chickens, chickens that are a little bit older, up to a year old or more.

00:38:54 John Daub: The chicken industry is one I don't know a lot about. I know a lot about Wagy, but researching this was super fascinating. And why Japanese chicken is just a little bit tastier. Ah, I learned a little bit tastier. I learned. Learned a lot. All right, let's eat this thing here. We can. We're gonna use. We're gonna use this really cool statue as a tripod here.

00:39:29 John Daub: Sorry. From the lions. Lion's. Wow. And they also have. Here, check it out. This will be here when you come to Japan. There's graphics of the first train in Japan. That's kind of cool to see. So these are the images we just saw. They're. They're always going to be here in this monument across the street from the station.

00:40:00 John Daub: All right, let's let's try this bread. Let's try this bread here. Interesting. So they've made these. Wow. They burned it in with chocolate. Chocolate. And the front, there's a front of the train. In the back of the train. They burned it in. That's awesome. This has matcha cream. A kocha cream. Kocha cream. So it's a.

00:40:31 John Daub: A tea e bread. Yeah. So this is a tea. A tea cream bread. Let's try it here. Part of the festival food. Oh wow. Oh yeah. It's burned on there. Check that out. Train bread. Like a mini loaf. That's so good. That's so good. I should have gotten royal milk tea. They have a information sheet about it too. So if you want to.

00:41:02 John Daub: If you want to visit this cafe, I guess you can go there and get some. Maybe Souza Bistro. It's. Is it here? Near here? Telephone number 0807-361-8863. And here's the A QR code for Instagram. If you want to. If you want to find them here, just pause the screen. Yeah. See what they got. It's interesting. Yeah. The billboard ads, the J blog here.

00:41:35 John Daub: The billboard ads are. Are quite interesting, aren't you? That was good bread. All right, let's walk around a little bit more here. Hey, Scotty H is here. Big spot in my heart for trains. My grandfather had a 40 year career on the US railway. Awesome. Yeah. This is such a long history of trains. And check out they've got some events going on on the stage here.

00:42:10 John Daub: I love the fact that Japan has this long, really strong train culture that it's so different now in Europe. I noticed that a lot of trains in Europe are starting to decay because more people are taking airplanes than long trains. So that's kind of sad. And the high speed trains have always also caused a reaction that where these local scenic trains that go slower are less used.

00:42:47 John Daub: And that's kind of sad. When I went to Europe, I'm not sure what this is, but looks like they're gonna do a D. Did they perform 50 years ago at the 1972? Maybe they performed dead. All right, let's see. Wow, this is loud. This also sounds monetized. Let me get over. Let me go over to the other side here. I might have to just show you just a little bit of it because it seems like monetized music.

00:43:25 John Daub: But you can see a little bit of this performance. I. I'm guessing they did this in 1972. So we're just gonna have to find out later on. But this is a. This is a really nice performance going on. There's some. There's a God. There's a guy in there too. Yeah. This is definitely gonna be copyrighted music, so I gotta keep talking.

00:43:57 John Daub: I'm sorry about that. But yeah, this is. Gets me in trouble. So let's. Let me pull away a little bit and maybe I can get away with this from a distance. Oh, gosh. I guess they got permission from the artist to. To do this in the background. It's probably unavoidable. So 150 years ago, probably not going to find anyone that's still alive that was here at what the first trained.

00:44:33 John Daub: But I think 50 years ago is doable. And I wonder if I can't confirm it, but it seems like they would have been here in 1972 and they're back here again 150 years later. I love that. And I hope they have some young people that dance here and are in the 200th anniversary. That would make me like almost 100 years old.

00:45:04 John Daub: So if I'm still around and kicking and I'm here in Japan, I'll be bringing to you on only Japan go. The 200th anniversary of train trouble in Japan. I'll have this long white beard and white hair or no hair. Me and Peter. Peter will be like 120. And we'll be right there watching the ceremony like we did 150 years ago or 50 years before.

00:45:37 John Daub: I love that the transition of. Of time. Pretty cool. Lot can happen in 50 years, though. Not sure if I'll be. I'll still be around. That was some music that I used to use in my. In my Weblish videos from 10 years ago. Awesome. Yeah. Very unavoidable to get this. The music out of this. I might have to do some editing in this so the music is cut out of this.

00:46:11 John Daub: That's why. But I'll show you a little bit from the side here as I talk a little bit about train travel. Over the last 150 years, train train has really, really changed. Of course, we had the Shinkansen that came in 1964. And that act in itself changed the way the Japanese travel because of the time that it saved by going on a.

00:46:43 John Daub: On a super express train. And since then, the trains are just getting faster and faster. And though airline traffic has also gotten a lot cheaper and more people do that. And even in Japan, still people will take flights over trains. People still get on the trains. And Japan, a big country, like, it's about the size of California, but it's so well connected, I guess California all the way up to Washington State through Oregon.

00:47:24 John Daub: But it's so well connected with trains that it is possible to travel just about everywhere on a train. So I think that that's a really cool. That's a really cool thing. And I'm glad that we still. We still commemorate trains in Japan as we watch. Watch the performance for a second here. In Japan. We still commemorate trains by.

00:47:56 John Daub: Every now and then, you'll see the steam locomotives. They dust them off and they let them ride the rails once again after decades. And when that happens, you'll see the media and all the train otaku just swarmed at one location to see those steam locomotives. The big plumes of smoke coming out as they heat the wood to build the fire to get the steam going.

00:48:31 John Daub: It's really amazing sight to see. I've gotten a chance to ride on some steam locomotives years and years ago, but it's been a long time since then. That'd be cool to bring you live and ride that with you. But I hope you enjoyed this. We got a chance to kind of walk around and see what the event is like here in Shimbashi.

00:49:02 John Daub: We were here on the 150th anniversary of train travel in Japan. And this is a big marker, I think, in history for Japan. Japan. And we. We've been all here together on this live stream to commemorate that. And that's pretty awesome. You. You guys are here with me. Despite you being in Japan or not, whenever you're on this channel, you are here with me.

00:49:36 John Daub: And if you want to celebrate this more, you can join the postcard club on Patreon, and I will send it out to you from Shimbashi from this spot. Well, the post office nearby. And I'll have a special commemorative stamp. But do that as soon as possible because, like, this postcard ends at the end of this month, which is in.

00:50:07 John Daub: So there you go. Thank you, Nightbot. All right, everybody, let's walk to the station. I'm gonna do one last thing before we end this live stream. I'm gonna. I'm gonna walk you over to the first. I'm gonna walk you over to the first train station across cross the street because I know exactly where it is. And then we're gonna say goodbye to this live stream by looking at what the original station looked like.

00:50:47 John Daub: And I want to show you where that spot is. So if you guys don't mind another seven or eight minutes of live streams, stick with me. We're gonna walk through Shimbashi Station. Say goodbye to the event. Bye bye event. Leo does that too. So I. I started to do that as well. I wave at everything. Wave at strangers.

00:51:17 John Daub: I thought the guy was waving at me. Checking his time. So if you want to get to the first Shimbashi train station or the rep. Sorry, the replica. Let's see what's. What's happening over there. Wow, look at that. There's a big. This bread. It's got to be something good. This entrance or exit to Shimbashi Station has been newly renovated, so it looks really nice.

00:51:52 John Daub: And you can see Shiodome. There's tall skyscrapers in the distance. That was built in the year 22000 as a new site for development right next to Shimbashi, which is technically considered a really old area of the city. There's the. The new Shimashi junior Exit. By the way, Hooters is still here. If you're wondering.

00:52:23 John Daub: Last time I walked by here, Hooters, who had filed for bankruptcy, but they still have one in Ginza. Just wanted to, you know, point that out to fans of the chain. Best chicken wings in. In Japan. Move on through. I also. I'm going this way for another purpose. I gotta deliver Michael's postcard. Michael and Rochester, was it Michael.

00:52:55 John Daub: Sorry. James. James, this is your postcard. It's going out. I'm taking it straight to the Shimbashi post office where I sent all the other postcards. Let's see what stamp you got. Okay. You got a. A red train on the stamp here. That's pretty nice. Yeah. Just across the street, right over there is the commemorative train station.

00:53:27 John Daub: I think that. I think it's still the first post. Like there's the post zero. The marker zero for Japan Rail is there. So we're gonna go check this out here. The light should change the moment we get there, which is gonna be a real convenient. If you do get a Shinkansen stamp, take a picture and send it to me. I wonder who the.

00:53:59 John Daub: Who the people who got it are. There's a 1 in 10 chance to get that one. They also have the first trip train ever in Japan. That's that Steam Class 150 is one of the stamps as well. Let's see here. Right there on the top. So you get one of these ten stamps. All right, so we're right behind Shiodome. There's the start to Ginza right there.

00:54:31 John Daub: Ginza. I think that's Hachuchome, the 8th. 8th intersection. And if you want to see more from this, I'm only going to briefly touch up on this replica station, but I did a live stream stream here about two years ago and I was very impressed with it. Across the street is Don Quijote. And about one minute from here is the.

00:55:02 John Daub: The pit that used to be the new Shimbash, the Nakagin Capsule Tower, which is no longer there. It is literally just a pit right now. Kanai and I walked by that yesterday and we were shocked. Like what? No, not nothing there now. Not even construction crews. So they finished their task. Here it is. The replica to the old, new old Shimbashi station from 1918 72.

00:55:37 John Daub: The Meiji era. Meiji 5, I think it was Meiji 4 or 5. Was it? Mei era started in Meiji 4, right? 1860, 1886, 1868. Gosh. I'm getting my. Getting the dates all wrong, but there's a lot of people here. A lot of people don't know about this replica station because it's. It's like hidden in the. In the tall buildings around here.

00:56:09 John Daub: This is a replica of the original shimbashi Station in 1872. There's some cafes, restaurants, and a. I think there's a replica inside there. Hold on a second. What? Let's check this out. It's been a couple of years. These dress stones are the remains of the top steps of the central front entrance of the station building, which period photographers show as having had nine steps.

00:56:46 John Daub: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9. Interesting. All right, let's go around the back and you can see the marker there. Hope the signal stays strong. Lot of people are taking the pictures today. Does that say what. I can't read. Hope game mode. What. New era graffiti Pikachu was here. All right, here's the marker zero. And this is pretty cool.

00:57:18 John Daub: To see where the train had originally started from. And to go from the Hiroba where they celebrated. Celebrated it to now. That's kind of special here. This is the original terminus to the train. Yeah. Let them take the pictures here. And that marker that that gentleman over there is taking a picture of is has a zero on it.

00:57:49 John Daub: And I think that's the original. But they had that there as the marker 0 where all train travel took off from. Pretty cool. It is a mile marker zero. This spot is where the first stake was driven at the survey starting point point on 25 April 1870 was when they started this. In 1936, the Government Railways reproduced mile marker 0 with a short section of the rail of the original track as the birthplace of Japanese railways.

00:58:31 John Daub: The former JNR designated mile marker zero as a railway memorial on 14 October, which is this day in 1958. So October 14 is a big train day. Very cool. And it's conveniently hidden from most people in Shiodome. Do not enter. You know what? I might have done that two years ago and then saw the sign later and then apologized profusely.

00:59:03 John Daub: Although on that day there was nobody. And today we've got a ton of people. This is the Shiodomi style city center where ANA has their headquarters, I believe. I used to go there to meet with them to try to get only in Japan on their airlines, but they kept saying no to me, even though I was like giving it to them for free.

00:59:34 John Daub: I don't know. Let's just say I was able to even get a meeting with them, which is. Which is cool enough. I always thought like, hey, you know, why not use only in Japan as your in flight entertainment? It's family friendly and didn't really go anywhere. But that was like 20, 2015, I think 2016. Had four meetings with them and they always gave me a really nice bottle of water.

01:00:11 John Daub: They sat down, listened to me for an hour left. Nothing happened. Should take them to hostess clubs. Something sort of real business takes place. I don't know. Peter got the gig. But by the way, he. He's no longer the voice of the ANA safety video. They changed it. So everybody's riding ANA into Japan now. You're going to be slightly disappointed that there's no pvg anymore.

01:00:47 John Daub: However, you can still. Whoa. You can still touch that car. You can still hear it on the Internet as that safety video. The Kabuki safety video is still available on YouTube probably forever. That was cool. I don't. I didn't even know that Peter had voiced that over. I remember getting on a. On a. Peter's a friend of mine.

01:01:18 John Daub: He's a. On this show quite a bit. But he's. He's the voice of a lot of things here in Japan. And I remember getting on the flight, I go, wait a second, I know that voice. Brace for impact. I was like, what? That's Peter. What? Only Peter would say, brace for impact. Although I think that was in the script. PBG lives on in other work which is abundant.

01:01:52 John Daub: If you ever have a Nintendo Switch and you play the game Arms, he is Spring Man. The characters. That game's main character is Peter's voice. And everybody knows the story. But I also auditioned for that and I was in the. I was a finalist. I went into a booth and started punching myself to try to make the sound effects.

01:02:23 John Daub: And I ended up bruising quite seriously. It was worth it, obviously. Spring man. Peter got to go to Nintendo's Age headquarters in. In Kyoto and voice over the game, which is cool. I've never voiced over any games, just only Japan. Go. All right, everybody. This is the location of the first Shimbashi station. And it was cool.

01:02:55 John Daub: The post office is. Is just. Is right over there across the street. And I gotta go. I guess I could just keep walking there. Should I just keep doing the stream? All right, James, I'm gonna just keep going. Okay, buddy. I'm gonna deliver this at the post office for James. And thank. I'm gonna thank the Shimbashi postal workers for.

01:03:27 John Daub: For sending the postcards. I gave them several, several hundred postcards. I don't have many. I gave quite a bit, and they were very, very friendly and said, no, it's our job. We love it. We're gonna double. They doubling, double stamping them just for us. One is the Japanese commemorative stamp, and the other one is the international one that says Shimbashi in Roman letters.

01:04:04 John Daub: So you know exactly. So you know exactly where that is. The details of are what make these postcards pretty cool. The stamp, the cancel stamp. Postmark. The people, motorbikes. Oh, that's what that smell is. The ginkleberries. Look, smell it. Remember I started whenever I changed Leo's diaper when he did a number two, I would go, which means, like, it stinks.

01:04:39 John Daub: And he starts laughing, and I look at, like, a cringy face and go, ksai kasai. And now he's saying, which is probably not good. Kusai means stinky Japanese. So if someone says that to you as you walk by, probably best to take a shower. Kusai is a word that you want to be giving and not receiving. I guess it's a way to look at it.

01:05:10 John Daub: We're just, hey, there's a post office truck. Let's wave. Wave to the post office guy. I wave back. He waved back. Way back. Awesome. We go on the river and a space boat goes by. We used to wave at space boat, but there was nobody inside of it because there were no tourists, so no one would ever wave back. But recently, the space boat is getting crowded again, and it's nice.

01:05:47 John Daub: We can wave at them, but they wait. There's actually people to wave back at us. All right, let's go. We get to go deliver this to the post office. Wow. Boy, James, you're getting it hand delivered here. Special trip. We were here Yesterday with everybody's. But today you're getting it. Just one sign up yesterday.

01:06:17 John Daub: I'll be back here. If we get some more signups, I'll come back and hand deliver it to this post office too. They kind of know know me now. We were there for five minutes trying to get them to do it, and they finally said yes. And they're really friendly. All right, let me go ahead and do this now really quickly.

01:06:47 John Daub: It. Okay. I told him I was here yesterday and delivered a lot of postcards. And I have one more. Could you. You do the double stamp thing? And he said sure. They're nice about it. I just hate giving them extra work. But that's their job. They never complain. Where's my iPhone? It's not them. It's another first office.

01:07:18 John Daub: All right, here we go. Go. Thanks, everybody, for watching. That was fun. I'm evil. This is a special day. I hope you enjoyed it. I. I certainly did. I'm gonna go back home and start to edit. I got a ton of videos to get out there. By the way, my Only in Japan handle, which is a new thing for YouTube, is at only in Japan.

01:07:49 John Daub: One word. So you can now get in touch with me on YouTube just by going at Only in Japan, which is a cool new thing. This is where all the buses from China would stop right there. And there's still nobody here yet. So it's. It's just a little bit too quiet for my taste. I'm really looking forward to more tourists coming, even if they're, you know, from the country right across the Sea of Japan.

01:08:28 John Daub: Hey, Akiva Ahabat. Thank you. Enjoy lunch with our wife and with your wife and Leo. We are new to the channel and enjoy. Enjoy your videos. Thank you very much. I think I definitely will. We'll do that this weekend. I'm gonna take them out on a date and really appreciate that. And we'll be thinking about you and your family for that really wonderful gift.

01:09:02 John Daub: Thank you so much. That's. That was. Wow, what a great way to just to end the live stream. Maybe with that. That kind of money, I could take them to the place where we had our. Our wedding. I'll take Leo and Kanai to Tiwai harbor, which is where we had our wedding celebrations after ceremony, and have dinner there.

01:09:33 John Daub: Wow. Thank you. I'll just give you a quick pan around here. This is Ginza, the main avenue. Right now. You can see there still aren't as many tourists here, but most of the tourists coming from China would. Would have tour buses that came through here just to shop the bus would drop them off I'm serious the bus would drop them off at the end of the street and they'd walk down here and be full of luxury bags and then the buses would pick them up right here and they'd get on the bus and go to the hotel that was I'm serious that was was fun to watch back in 2010, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19 and then a little bit of 20 before they tourism just ended.

01:10:35 John Daub: Now it's back. Thanks everybody have a good day. Thanks for celebrating train day with me October 14th. See you again tomorrow for another live stream. I'm guessing it's going to be a midnight snack run I think it's time to do another midnight snack run which area? Shinjuku maybe Nakano. I'll think about it but I'm looking forward to it I'll it take see everybody See you this weekend Have a good day.