00:00:01 John Daub: Hello everybody, welcome to the city of Tokyo. This is Nihonbashi, and in this episode we'll be talking about the exchange rate right now between the USD and the Japanese yen, and will it return back to 150 yen to the dollar, which is a crazy rate that happened last year. It was kind of exciting to see for a lot of travelers because if you came here at that exchange rate, you would be sort of richer here, and you'd be able to do a lot more with your money, even upgrade your hotel, eat better, see more stuff, just upgrade. And that reality might not be the case, so in this episode we're going to go over that and take you through some of the history of the Japanese yen, what happened last year, what could potentially happen this year, as you see a really cool motorbike right there, that's so cool.

00:00:53 John Daub: Alright, this is Nihonbashi, this is where a lot of the Japanese banks are, they have their headquarters here, there's a lot of money in here, because just over there is where the first, before the Tsukiji market, which is now the Toyosu market, there was the Nihonbashi market, which was the biggest in Tokyo, that collapsed during the Great Kanto Earthquake back in the 1920s, and then it moved to Tsukiji, so there's a lot of old money here.

00:01:19 John Daub: Right now, the exchange rate to the Japanese yen is $1 equals 131.42 yen, you can see it reflected right here. And at the start of the pandemic, it was 109.7 yen to the dollar, so that's a pretty big increase, and you can see that mountain on the right side of the screen, as soon as 2022 hit, we started to see the yen just plummet in price against the USD, and it peaked around the end of summer in 2022, where it got to 151 yen to the dollar, which is just a crazy price when you think about it, because I moved here in 1998, the price of the yen to the dollar, check this out here, this is crazy. It's like history repeating itself. So when I got here in 1998, I got here in July, it got up to about 147 or 148 yen to the dollar, and over the last 25 years, since this, I have not seen those totals until the last couple of years, and you can see the trend line for the Japanese yen versus the dollar going all the way back to like the 1980s, where it was like 260 yen to the dollar somewhere around 1986, and then the bubble burst, you can see the yen came back to normal, I guess you could say, which is the total that we saw it for the longest time.

00:02:52 John Daub: And then there was a time I came to Japan represented by this market. It was like a little mark in the middle. And since then, we had not seen the totals at this before. I believe Japan intervened back then, I'm not sure, but there was a financial crisis going on in Japan and the yen had plummeted, and then it came back down. And then it just kind of fluctuated for a really long time. Around 2008, I think, during the financial crisis, the yen became a safe haven, so it got super strong. When there's uncertainty in the markets, people seem to invest in the Japanese yen, so the strength of the yen goes up, and then you'll see something like 78 yen to the dollar, which is the exact opposite. It's actually doubled since then. And, you know, the Japanese yen has always been a safe haven, but trust me, the Japanese yen has a lot of its troubles as well. There's a lot of debt in this country, just like in every other developed country right now.

00:03:52 John Daub: Let me just go to the news here. This is from Reuters. Back, this was just confirmed. Nobody really knew for sure for the longest time. But Reuters confirmed this last week, saying that Japan did indeed play around with the market back in October. When it got to 151.94 yen to the dollar on October 21st, they did, like, spend billions of dollars to prop up the yen. I wouldn't say prop it up. It only made a decrease about, like six points or something. So all that money changed the market just by a little teeny bit, okay? Just that bit. But it stopped the trend of it going up. And so the way that the market works is a lot of the traders will influence the market. There's a ton of money out there betting back and forth between these two currency markets. And back then, everybody was going against the yen. The dollar was getting strong. I don't know if it was artificial or not, but it definitely plays a huge impact on tourism and the way we spend money here in Japan. So I thought that that was interesting that they finally got confirmation on that. So that's why the yen went down. So we've seen that the Japanese government and Kuroda is in charge of the Bank of Japan. He's going to be out either this year or the beginning of 2024. I can't remember the news exactly, but that's going to play a big part of it because he's had a different monetary policy than a lot of other people in the past. And all these little changes make a huge impact.

00:05:36 John Daub: Let's cross the street into the Japanese currency market, right? We're seeing it, right? On top of this, the Japanese inflation rate right now is just skyrocketing. It hasn't done this in a very long time. You can see, of course, in the mid-1970s, we had massive inflation here in Japan. But from that time, do you see this? It's deflation, baby. It's just going down the trend line. Everything was getting cheaper, not more expensive. The cost of living got cheaper all the way past 2002. It kind of went up and then boom, it hit. That was during the Koizumi years. Kind of went up and then boom, it plummeted again. A lot of uncertainty with the tsunami and earthquake back in 2011. And the markets crashed in 2008. You remember that? So we had some more deflation and it kind of came up a little bit. But then it went back to the levels. It went up a little bit in 2015 and then crashed back down again, inflation. And now we see it going up higher than it has in 40 years. The last time it got this high, over 4% inflation, was 40 years ago.

00:06:43 John Daub: And I'm noticing at the bank, at the supermarket, at the convenience store, at places all around, I'm starting to feel it. I went to get a liter of milk. It was over 400 yen for the milk that I usually buy. It used to be 280 yen. It's now 400 yen. That's like a 40% increase or something, right? It's almost, not double, but it's quite a large increase. Eggs have gone up quite a bit as well. Meat, everything. And you can feel it. It feels like 35% more expensive than a year ago. That's what it feels like to me. But of course, the reality might be different. 10,000 new products are set to get more expensive within Japan. But I want to focus on how the Japanese yen impacts tourism.

00:07:31 John Daub: Thank you, Bradshaw Studios in the house. Thank you. I don't think a lot of YouTubers would tackle this. So if I get, I'm pretty sure I got most of the information correct. I studied economics in university, but that doesn't mean anything. It just means that perhaps I'm more fascinated by numbers and the history of the economy than perhaps other people are. But it's important to talk about. So I've noticed over the last, I don't know, six months, hotel prices have started to go up since Japan reopened in November 2022. Just a little bit. It's a supply and demand thing right now in Japan with tourism. There's a lot of people coming in. The numbers, we're now in the millions now visiting Japan again, even without China here. And that's going to happen within the next few weeks, I believe, when more Chinese are going to come in here, which is good for the economy. So there's not as many hotels as there were back in 2020, before the pandemic. A lot of them went out of business. A lot of them downgraded, turned into something else or sold those buildings up because they couldn't pay the rent. So in Tokyo, there is a shortage of accommodations, of affordable accommodations. A lot of the youth hostels and guest houses in Kuramae, in Nihonbashi, this region, went out of business or they're under. Affordable accommodations like in the 3,000 to 5,000 yen range per night in the city of Tokyo are kind of squashed. There's, of course, capsule hotels, but even they raise the prices. And they're not really for tourists because you don't have a place to put a lot of your luggage. It's just an inconvenient stay, I think. Might be nice for a night. Definitely not for a family.

00:09:35 John Daub: Inflation has played a big part in tourism here in Japan because these are things that don't impact domestic tourism so much. These are impacting more foreign tourists because when people ask me where to stay in Tokyo, I don't know exactly where to stay because I live here. Right. I pay rent. I've noticed that the rents have been going up, but just marginally. But the price of the hotels are definitely, I would say, like 30 to 40 percent more than they were in 2022. I checked this out. Let's go down in this direction. I checked this out yesterday because Leo's birthday, my son's birthday is coming up and we're thinking of going to Tokyo Disneyland to look at hotels there. Where should we stay? And I remember in 2019, we stayed there and the price was about for the Sheraton. It was under 20,000 yen. I think it was 20, 19,000 between 19 and 22,000 yen. It's now 32,000 yen. So that's a 10,000 yen increase. This is not the high season. All right. This is sort of a low season before the cherry blossoms. There's not a lot of tourism here. Right. But it's over 10,000 yen more a night than it was at this time before the pandemic. So we're seeing hotel prices about 30 percent more than it was when tourists were here before. I'm guessing it's just a supply and demand type of thing, but it could change over time.

00:11:09 John Daub: These costs do impact you so 2024. What's the outlook going to be like? That's really hard to predict with the crystal ball. That could mean many things. I'm going to say like inflation is going to be pretty bad, but we've seen that the Japanese government has a line in the sand where they won't allow it to get back up to 150 again. I don't think it's going to happen again. So if you change your money like a couple of people that I know, you've probably got a pretty good deal. I think it's going to hover between 115 and 135 to the dollar for a long time. It's better than it was. And 115 is about what it was when the tourism stopped in 2020. So 115 would be it's still a pretty good deal if you compare it to 72 back in 2011. Just crazy. But if you're visiting Japan now, I think you're getting a really good deal. Some of you might say, oh, it's more expensive now because it used to be 150. That was like a special thing. I don't think it's ever going to get to that again. It's going to stick around 115 to 135 and it's going to fluctuate, I think. But I see that as a peak 151 and it just seems like it's just going to go down. So if you locked your prices, your hotel prices in at 151, you got a good discount. And I was telling people to do that. If you can book your flight now, book it now. Get one, you can get a good deal.

00:12:41 John Daub: Flight prices. This is a little bit more difficult. There's a lot of market forces going on right now that I can't see all of them. There's a lot of market forces going on right now that I can't see all of them. So it's hard to see how 2024 is going to shape up the price of gasoline, jet fuel, the price of, you know, the demand. The amount of flight routes that they open up eventually that's all going to play a huge part in the prices of the tickets. I think Japan is going to be a big destination in 2024. I honestly think it's going to go back to the levels of 2019 and if that's the case I think airlines are going to be slower to ramp up routes so I'm thinking 2024 the first half is going to be a little pricey and then by the second half of 2024 prices are going to settle down a little bit. I think they're just going to want to make money market forces so they're going to open up more flight routes that's my guess.

00:14:45 John Daub: Vintendo hey John going back to Japan in September should I exchange the yen now it's a tough question if it's over 130 I think you can't go wrong man it could but then don't blame me if it goes up to 140 it's hard to see the market forces and you know I think it's going to be a little bit of a challenge but I think it's going to be the effects of the wars going on around the world and all this but 130 is still a pretty good deal 135 you should definitely change it I don't see it going back to 140 even but I know that the Bank of Japan is they've had a more loose policy and I can exchange it like this I can explain it to you like this I'm not gonna exchange your money in Japan people tend to save more than they spend they're much more save conscious than consumer conscious compared to the west if you go to the post office or you go to the bank and you have a savings account do you know what your exchange your savings rate is it's like 0.01% um you get for your money that you put into a savings account per APR annual percentage your percentage rate that's awful like who would save money like that but Japan had deflation meaning you were losing money by holding your money right so that exchange rate was really good I haven't seen them for a long time but it doesn't seem like Japan has changed their exchange rates much over the last uh their interest rates over the last decades because of deflationary pressures so people Japanese tend to just save the money there was a stimulus package that happened when the pandemic hit people didn't spend people didn't use that money to spend they put it in the bank man stimulus packages in Japan are like pointless people get them they get a check for five hundred dollars they don't buy an iPad which you can't buy for that price I don't think they put it in the bank for rainy day they just save in fact there's a philosophy I wonder if anybody knows what it's called back in the 1920s there was a woman who came up with this uh way to uh become more budget conscious by writing down the expenditures and this is like a philosophy of uh spending money in Japan that has helped a lot of westerners out to budget their money more effectively does anybody know what this is called it's sort of a big thing some YouTubers have been harping on this.

00:16:22 John Daub: I suppose it's a smart thing um people just don't spend as much so the interest rates stink here uh so you don't save money Japan doesn't want to raise the interest rates which is one of the things that if they did that they would uh bring down the yen would get stronger thus naturally causing Japan doesn't want to encourage people to save even more money they want to encourage people to spend more money if people start to save more money because they're scared that prices are going to rise because they're scared prices they're going to want to spend more money but if they want to save the money because you know the exchange the the interest rate goes up then no one's going to spend money they're going to save it because that's what just people tend to do I'm sure there's somebody who's going to explain this better than me but I'm giving you just the basic my basic knowledge on on how Japan works over the last 25 years don't get me wrong though Japanese spend money the the millennials and the younger people they do spend money and everybody spends money here but just not like you'd think and uh there are people that are over the age of 70 that are you know like working poor that are paycheck to paycheck that are dependent on their their um social security or pensions and it's not a lot of money and there's a lot of shoplifting going on with the elderly a lot like it's increasing I should say um because they can't afford like meat and things like this out in the countryside so there's a lot of hurt they had people who didn't save effectively or they lost stuff I'm not sure why but for the most part Japan's top heavy demographic and I mean that like the majority of the country's over the age of 50 they have a lot of there was this rumor going around back in the 2000s when I got here that if one percent of the Japanese uh seniors just consumed one percent more that Japan's economy would be super strong and stronger than any western economy just one percent of those savings went into purchasing they don't do it and the Japanese government's incentives to spend money they're like they're not not good.

00:18:46 John Daub: It's no fault of the politicians, I suppose, because they do this by consensus and nobody has an idea. Like, they make too many compromises. There's no leadership in it. So you get like these watered down ideas that don't exactly work. Irvin writes in here, going there soon, should I get a famichiki or nana chiki? If you do, buy it soon. Exchange rate is good. Maybe famichiki? That's where I am right now. So there you have it. I hope this is helpful to a lot of you guys. Because I know that this is something that's in your mind here. This is the chart once again, the historical chart of the Japanese yen. It peaked when I first got here 25 years ago at 147, I think it was. And now it got back up there, but it's going down again. So for all purposes, it's going to fluctuate between these two numbers. But I still think it's going to be around 115, 130 by the spring. I don't have the same confidence. That's it. Yen is going to be 150 again. It's not going to happen. I don't think Japan's going to let it happen.

00:20:09 John Daub: Yeah. When tourism stopped, that was the exchange rate right there between February 2020 and February 2023. The last three years, the yen has gotten stronger to the dollar, US dollar, by 19.79%. And even super high if you go back to last October. It was like 27%. It was crazy. It was sort of normalizing. But you can see there's an uptick again a little bit. But I think that that's another valley, another hill, and then it'll go back down again to normal. That's my guess. If you look at the data, it's fascinating to see this. History sort of guides you in this. You don't see 150. You're not going to see 150 again. And watch it happen that it does. I'll take some questions from you guys here if you're interested in talking about currency. I can't help you with the family-mart chicken, which is really famous. I can't help you with that. But I can help you with currency questions. Shoot.

00:21:18 John Daub: First time I've seen this live. Zoof boof. Thank you. It's gone down quite a bit. It has more to normal levels, which is good. I buy my CDs in Japan. Interesting. I haven't bought a CD since, I don't know, 1990s. Are you talking about certificates? Deposit. I'm not sure. This is why I don't look at the chat as much. It's mostly all of you talking to one another. So probably I should go to an ATM and get some yen from my euro savings while the exchange rate lasts. Well, if you're here right now, and I know you are, and last time I was here, I think it was with you, Alex. I don't think you need to rush. But I think it's going to hover around 130, 125 to 130 for the next while. But I don't see it going up like it did before. Again, the conditions can always change, but I don't see it going like that anymore. The ATM fees at 7-Eleven are free, I believe. They just want you to go in there depending on the time of day. Or is it? I'm not sure. It depends on your bank as well. So I have a MUFG Tokyo Mitsubishi UFJ Bank, and they charge at 7-Eleven, depending on the time of the day, like 100 to 200 yen from the ATM machines there. It's like free for me. But that's my bank. It depends on your bank. Usually, if you get in touch with them, they might even have a deal where if you register for something, they'll give you like 10 free transactions a month for free or something.

00:23:05 John Daub: Some good questions here, but they're not coming in hot and heavy. Really? Is the Internet data inflated? Yen was 130 the dollar, but back it was 122. Why the big difference? I'm not sure what you mean. Right now, the exchange rate is 131.42 to the dollar. This is for the last since they stopped tourism pretty much. You can see between 2018 and 2022, there was almost no real massive spikes in the exchange rate. It was pretty constant. And then 2022, we started to see the dollar weakened and the yen getting higher. And then the dollar was going super strong because the monetary policies in Japan, the Fed was raising the exchange to tap down on inflation. The Fed was increasing interest rates. Japan should do that, too. That makes sense to tap down inflation. But Japan kind of wanted inflation. Japan hasn't had inflation for, I don't know, decades. So they're trying. Japan does everything it could to encourage inflation for price reasons. They're trying to encourage prices to go up so people, so companies can earn more and wages can go up to be more competitive in the world where inflation is going on. You don't want a country with deflation. You're purchasing power outside of the country goes down. Right. Back in the 1980s, the Japanese who traveled in the late 80s were kings. You know, the yen was so powerful. Now the yen is, it's good, but it's stable. You know, I'm not sure what your internet prices are. It could be your bank. They're taking a percentage out. But when you do, that's the rate that the official rate and you might get two or three percentages off of that based on your bank. But if you're getting 122 to the dollar, you're getting, I don't know, hustled.

00:25:19 John Daub: I'm going to take you on a trip here. I left a super chat earlier. If you missed it, Phil, I might have. I'm on another software that makes it hard to see these things. So, OK, here. Honestly, I don't care. I'm working two jobs this year. So I'm going to take you. I can stay two or three months. I just went away, Phil. Oh, what? I might buy a bike or a cycle around. Phil, I hope you do cycle around because that'd be pretty, pretty off. By the way, Japan said that they're amending the mask rules. There's no mandate. You don't have to wear masks. They're amending the mask rules for the people in Japan who continue to want to wear them because they think it's part of the rules. On March, I think was 13th. Even the prime minister is taking off his mask. He's going to be an example for the people. But I have no problem. People want to wear them and no problem. People don't want to wear them right now. The rate is way down. So it's from compared to a month ago. It's like, yeah, it's like over for now.

00:26:36 John Daub: There's the Niigata. You've got the bridge store. It's interesting. I might stop in there. If I go into shops and ride on public transportation indoors, I will put on the mask. But even that mask. Is like pointless. It's like a foam mask or something. I don't know. All right. Does anybody know where I'm going? I hope so. This signal might cut out because I'm between the buildings. This is where Anjin-san's house used to be. I think I did a live stream here about four years ago. Anyone who's read the book Shogun will appreciate this. There is. It's actually a really real story. He used fictitious names, but the John Blackthorne. But there's an actual statue here. But where his house was. Ieyasu Tokugawa gave him a house here in Nihonbashi, which was probably pretty valuable property. Wow. This area has changed a lot. I wonder if it's still here. Maybe I'm on the wrong street. I don't think so. That wasn't here before. In 1970s was 100, 360 yen to the dollar. Insanity. I could have sworn it was here. Oh, there it is. Okay. It just looks a little bit different. All right. Let's go to the next store. It looks like this rock. You'll find rocks like this all over Nihonbashi with some of the history. Like, rocks that have been here for centuries. It's pretty cool to do that. It's gotta be around here somewhere. Maybe it's the next street over. The name of the street is Anjin Dori, I think. It's just crazy. Like, you read a book, and you think it's fiction, but it becomes true. Like, this story really did happen. I think that's just so cool.

00:29:12 John Daub: I am gonna go in the next alley here. Oh, I see Joss is here. Joss, Peter and I were like, scratching our head, like, wondering how do we shout out your name. By the way, the project is done. There's a few issues. Some people have missing packages. Some packages haven't arrived yet. But the project is done, man. It was an incredible Kickstarter. The documentary's been done. Packages have been sent. Postcards, everything. It's just really exciting. The alleys of Nihonbashi are more fascinating than that street I was livestreaming on for 30 minutes. It's an art exhibition.

00:30:17 John Daub: It's said, but I don't think so. That's gotta be that restaurant. Not that corner shop. There's like a chef outside. Tonkatsu. Oh, this is some kind of famous tonkatsu restaurant? Did it just open? Nihonbashi. Tonkatsu. Is that what's interesting? I don't think so. The Aussies watching might be interested in this. David Lee writes in here, When you pay with credit card at shops, do you pick your own currency or U.S.? Everything's in yen. I don't think, I've never seen it with a foreign credit card, the ability to pick a currency. It's not like Europe. I'm pretty sure you're paying in yen and your bank has to, your bank changes it. Or is it this shop? Okay, let's just take a quick look. Sorry, the wind picked up. I'm like in a wind tunnel here. Like a famous tempura shop. There's another line here. It's a different, different restaurant. Hold on. Some of the best, some of the best restaurants in Japan, if they're in Tokyo, are in these alleys of Nihonbashi and Ginza. A lot of them are not as expensive as you think. Some of them are. But for lunch, usually we're going to go to a restaurant. You can get a pretty good discount. And I'm seeing even more, more new ramen places opening up. There's a soba place in the corner. I'm wondering, like, maybe I went too far. All right, let's go down the next street this direction. I wanted to show you guys this. And I like to pay homage to that site.

00:33:03 John Daub: When I use my U.S. credit card, they ask me if I want to pay in U.S. dollars or yen. I think you better pay in the local currency. Always. You want to know why? Because why leave it up to the store to do the conversion for you? Why would you do that? No way. Pay it. Let your bank do the conversion. All right? Never. That's like, you know, like Amazon does it and the exchange rate's always awful. If I do buying things from Amazon, here's another line. Always pay in the local currency and let your bank do the exchange rate for you. Don't let anybody else do the exchange rate. Because you know they're going to. They're going to take their cut. Like YouTube takes their cut. Super Chat, it's about 30%. How do I get to the other side? I'm going to cut through here. This is another tempura place. Wow. You can smell they use a sesame oil. I'm just going to walk through here. Walk this parking lot. Wow, they're using a sesame oil for the tempura. Smells awesome in the street here. Okay, here it is. I'm almost positive it's between here. Went one street too far. Almost positive. Almost positive. There it is.

00:34:45 John Daub: Everybody who's ever read Shogun, the book, one of the books that got me interested in Japan way, way, way back when, a miniseries by CBS in 1980 will feel this here. In memory of William Adams, known as Miura Anjin, the first Englishman to settle in Japan. Coming as pilot on board the Charity in 1600 who resided in a mansion built on this spot. Who instructed Ieyasu Tokugawa, Ieyasu the first Tokugawa Shogun on gunnery, geography, mathematics, etc. And constructed for him several ships on the European model while rendering valuable services in foreign affairs and married a Japanese lady, Miss Magome, who died on April 24th, 1620 at the age of 57 years old. Rebuilt by some Japanese. May 1951. Right. No, we thought Richard Chamberlain was the actor. It's not the... William Adams. Who was John Blackthorne in the miniseries. But this exists. Come and touch it. I'll touch the top. That's what I did here. Give it a rub. History. William Adams. Get there. Touched it. It's cool.

00:36:29 John Daub: We can't thank you enough for the 1080p streaming. Thank you, man. Yeah, this app is a game changer. YouTube added a couple of really interesting features to the app. Let's see if they got something interesting here. The ability to have a friend call in. But it's like a gimmick. I just want HEVC really clear, low bandwidth, 1080p video. And this app can do that, thankfully. I can also add in media like exchange rate and old videos and stuff. So, is that a match? Matt Yellow Audi? That Matt Yellow is awesome. That looks like a toy car. Yeah. The only thing that people wanted, YouTube app go live people. We didn't want no gimmicks. We just wanted 1080p video with HEVC encoding, low bandwidth so we can get that 1080p. That's all. They couldn't do it, so I used this app. It's not perfect, but it's a lot better. It just takes forever to set up. I'm going to set up a stream comparatively. Alright, we're back on the street here.

00:37:58 John Daub: Yeah, despite Japan having the best trains in the world, this is, make no mistake, a car culture. Okay? This is a car culture. Nissan, Toyota, Honda, Mazda. Think about all the major companies that make automobiles here or in your country. Because it just makes sense to do that. Japan's demographics have changed. There's not enough people to work here. They don't work in the manufacturing sector, so they put the factories in the US, which is just so darn smart. Think about it. There's not enough people to work in the factories here. Labor prices are higher. It's cheaper to make the cars in the US where there's better demographics long term. Not just now, but in 40 years, Japan won't have enough workers to do anything. Everything's going to be automated here. God, Japan is so smart. And also, when you think about it, the US is just in such a great position comparatively to the rest of the world. Yeah. It's just going forward. I have no doubt that the US is going to be number one forever.

00:39:10 John Daub: Check this out here. This is something I was talking about for a long time. This is Nihonbashi. That sign says there's going to be construction here until 2024. So they're doing it. This is really awesome. Let's cross the street here. For the longest time, that highway above that has a sign that says Nihonbashi, it's been an eyesore. You used to be able to see Mount Fuji from here. Going straight in that direction. All the ukiyo-e woodblock prints. Mount Fuji was over there. You can't see it because of this. But more than that, it's just an ugly bridge now. So they're now in the process of beautifying it, thank goodness. And a lot of it has to do with the new skyscrapers that'll be here in about three, four years when they're done, 2027 or so. It's just really exciting.

00:40:08 John Daub: So there you go. I thought that this was fun for me. Looking at numbers and kind of seeing the trends of Japan, not just in places to go and, you know, people to see, but also in how the money works, how the Japanese yen stacks up to the dollar and your purchasing power and all these things. It's geeky stuff, but it's fun because it's money and money can get you a drink or a hotel or a trip to Japan. Yeah. If you have to ask me when the best time to visit in terms of that would be like right now, if you could call, but because flights are expensive because there are less routes, I said the next best time where the price is going to be cheaper is, uh, is going to be around the second half of 2024. Yeah. My guess is the second, the second half of 2024 flights will be back. The revenge tourism will be gone. more hotels will be ready and set up the infrastructure will be better i just can't predict the inflation and how much things are going to change in the next 18 months but i would say 2024 the second half looks like it's going to be really back to normal but if you can get here while the yen is 130 to the dollar you're getting a pretty good deal all right that's my take here yen got pretty strong comparatively if you can get here while the it's up there compared to where it was down there you're doing pretty good there you go all right.

00:41:55 John Daub: Thanks everybody i hope you have a wonderful weekend it's a sunday afternoon here in nihonbashi and it's just a beautiful weather not to be outside for a little bit so these live streams get me outdoors give me a little bit of sun because i've been inside editing like crazy just across there there's a a tour boat that'll take you through the canals of tokyo leaving from here it's a nice tour this cruise and i haven't done it yet but i think i will this year especially on a beautiful day like this it's to be uh on the canals of tokyo in the summer it stinks though because it's not the cleanest water and then what can somebody pick somebody take a pixel up a a color dipper and tell me what the html the uh color code is for that brackish looking water straight ahead you can also see some of the buds for the ume blossom some some of them have started to bloom already so that might be the next live stream i'll take you around uh to some of the ume blossoms in tokyo maybe someplace new but just looking at them doesn't even matter where you see it you know spring is coming and your vibe changes on life you just get excited because it means longer days warmer weather uh the downside some pollen in the air that makes it hard to breathe but a lot of good stuff in the air besides the pollen.

00:43:29 John Daub: We didn't get a lot of questions on this i guess there's not as many geeks monetary geeks out there it's always in the comments where somebody will go back and correct me this would be like one guy or one one girl who is an economics professor and will just destroy me but it's a good topic to talk about and discussion is where you start to research stuff and learn for yourself yeah revenge tourism i'm getting is a thing people have been waiting forever to get to where they wanted to go they're doing it now and it's that's why but in november to to i think the end of the cherry blossoms it's going to be crazy this revenge tourism there goes the boat here the pollen will probably need some masks but i would say uh the pita mask is is my favorite because it's light it fits in my pocket and i could breathe let's wave to them oh they're waving bye-bye i wouldn't say couch surfing is my favorite thing i would say couch is a thing here but i'm a hitchhiker i don't i didn't see a lot of couch surfing but you can of course always do something to save i i hitchhiked for one month on 150 used my tent you can sleep in parks just leave at 5 30 or 6 a.m sunrise uh don't don't make a campfire just it's a place to crash um usually it's okay but uh yeah there's a ton of things you can do to save money and um you don't have to stay in really expensive hotels you could find a find a way around it airbnb has a rule where you can't do it 365 days out of the year so there's that's also a limitation on the accommodations in japan.

00:45:48 John Daub: How's the inflation going to be in october i don't know but 10 000 items are supposed to get a bump in price this month by the end of the month i'm not happy about that they raised the price of beer last october nobody was happy about that except for a couple of mothers yeah luckily i don't drink much of any at all now so it doesn't really cost me that much more put by the documentary to watch online um send me a message on patreon speaking of which thanks for asking this is this month's postcard it's i think it's a pretty awesome shot these these went out hold on a second these went out like on a thursday and you can see uh this is fujiyoshida i love this shot you can see the the retroness of the town rather than from the street level from the sky because it if you just go straight on this road this road takes you straight to mount fuji right i think it's a pretty cool shot um this is from the drone of my friend joe hatab we drove out to the world's most oldest hotel and filmed an episode here and we got the drone up in fujiyoshida uh in a safe place and it was pretty cool so i'm gonna go ahead and get it out of the way and i'll send you this one too this postcard is on the way to everybody backing if you want one you get it on patreon and if you sign up this weekend if you're new and you sign up this weekend i will send you this one too this is mount fuji crossing the fuji river uh last year i sent this one out to celebrate 150 years of the uh japan uh rail system in japan i'll send this out as a bonus but you have to sign up about this weekend you have to be a new sign-upper you go i've got i don't think there's gonna be a ton of signups but i've got a bunch of these left over these are cool i like the motion blur on the shinkansen i i had to get a rent a car and drive all the way out to this uh area to film from here it was kind of uh time consuming but it was a good really good view you got to get that shot.

00:48:18 John Daub: All right everybody they and diana so pledging on patreon then yes please if you're giving a super chat i appreciate it but support i say patreon is support and super chats are a gift i think of it like that and um uh the percentage that youtube takes is 30 on super chats um and patreon takes i think like nine percent everybody takes everything it doesn't matter there's no way uh to do it without without this but it all is part of the economy i guess and it helps people i think i still think thirty percent is high i think it's a good percentage but in canada yeah lip Harry Potter it looks a little too high but we saw that youtube shorts revenue youtube is taking uh 55 and giving creators 45 percent.

00:49:22 John Daub: You need a credit card You also need an international driver's license And if you've living in Japan for more than a year you need a Japanese driver's license You can't use international licenses anymore. I get a lot of information on that. I do remember those prepaid telephone cards I still got some I think there's some money on it. I just have nobody to call with it I don't know what the Airbnb limits are for the owners I just know that is is restricting and a lot of them have complained But they didn't want Airbnb to be competition to the hotels But now there's a lack of hotel space I don't know what they're gonna do, but it's it's it's a weird thing so people can't have Airbnbs as a business for all year So what a lot of people do is they just buy many properties and the Airbnb those so they can get their businesses going Yeah, some countries permits aren't allowed in Japan And I think Peso is referring to Indonesia and some of the others from the convention of 1948 or something It's pretty crazy.

00:50:30 John Daub: Is Toyota so recommended for car rentals for tourists? I carry I don't know you can you can take whatever rental company you like my preference is Toyota It's more expensive but I found that the extra money that you pay comes back in terms of the ease of returning the car and the cleanliness of it has always been Amazing Toyota does the best job with cleaning the cars. I've rented from Nissan rentals. I rented from Honda rentals. I've rented from Nippon Rented car cleanliness has always been an issue with the rental cars Toyotas have always been like brand new cars super clean inside If you return it without gas and because you couldn't go to the gasoline stand they give you a rate That's just a little bit over what you would pay at the pump anyways So I've always appreciated that too which kind of paid for the increase because I it's hard to find a gas station sometimes in the city Another reason why I use Toyota is because they have if you're If you rent a car from them a lot in Japan You can get a business members card which I have now and the discounts are even higher It's still expensive or more expensive, but it's it's It's it's nice and they have a location like everywhere There are a few places in the in Japan where there's not a Toyota rent-a-car. So I typically go with them, but I Don't think that there's oryx is good Nippon is good. The other car makers have their own rental shops, but there's no way that you don't go wrong If you can just get the car you get a good price But sometimes saving a thousand yen come has come in my experience come back to haunt me with like five thousand yens of crap that on The other end of it or something or the car is just nasty I save a thousand yen and my experience driving it is bad because it's it's an older car or it's I Don't just looks like they didn't clean it. I've had cars like that, too. I found people I found people's hair like on the on the Seats I'm like, what's it? Oh, oh They're kind of nasty.

00:52:34 John Daub: Yeah, I'll give Eric surf six a call. It's been a while. I'll give a lot of other this year I want to do some more collaborations But my focus is on the main channel and right now I'm trying to edit as many videos as I possibly can to get a consistent release schedule before I release the next one So I'm very close to it. I think That's my goal to have a very consistent release schedule It's hard work. All right, everybody. See you next time. Yeah, we still prefer to Toyota. I think so It's just It works, you know, it's the little things all add up to make something pretty big in my experience Thanks guys Fun day. All right, I'm off last moments of new home bashi.

00:53:17 John Daub: If you do want to change your money, I can't say that you should do it my final comment I can't say that you should change your money into cash right now. Carrie said something like that I'm not sure if I could say that because you could lose that cash. All right things can happen to it It's always safer to keep it in the bank and digital But if you do change your money somehow or you have a safe place to keep it That might make sense to do it now because I it's I'm not an economist. I And even economists can't predict how the yen is gonna look But in six months a little long let alone one month But I from history which I showed you as an indicator It it doesn't get this high and when it is it doesn't stay this high. It usually will go back to between 99 yen and 112 yen and it usually fluctuates between those two Totals, so if you're at 130, yeah, you're getting a pretty good deal if you had 125. Yeah, you're getting a pretty good deal Comparatively and historically so use that as your measure not what happened last year, but what happened 10 years ago And then that'll give you an idea and comparatively to the inflation and the prices and the cost of things in Japan Which are going up keep that in mind. That's also an issue Not as much as the US but inflation is definitely hitting tourism Because Japanese probably know that you have more money. I don't know. There you go Good weekend. See you tomorrow.