00:04 John Daub: Wow. Alright everybody, welcome to the JR Sobu Line, which will turn into the JR Chuo Line and take us to Shinjuku today. Let's go to the front window. It's going to take about 15 minutes to get to Shinjuku and try to enjoy the ride a little bit.

02:25 John Daub: I love this. This is the fastest way to get from Akihabara to Shinjuku, cutting across the city. Something a lot of people don't know about. So the trains are departing about every 10 minutes or so. The fastest way to get to Shinjuku actually is to change trains at... was it here? To a faster train that will take about 8 minutes to get to Shinjuku. If you just stay on this train, it will eventually get there. It's a little bit longer. You change to that train. You probably should have changed to that train. But this is slower and more... it's only a couple minutes slower.

04:58 John Daub: Suidobashi. Suidobashi is famous, of course, for Tokyo Dome, which you just saw. Out of Tokyo Dome when we get past the station here. You can change here for the Mita Line as well. And the Oedo Line and the Marunouchi Line on the other side of Tokyo Dome. So it's only a couple of minutes walk to get there. Let's see if we can get a look at Tokyo Dome on the right side here. Just spotted right there. There's the Thunder Dolphin roller coaster.

06:21 John Daub: Iidabashi, which is a big intersection. You can change to just about any line from here. I see Peso is back from visiting the oldest hotel, Keiomukan in Yamanashi. Welcome back. Oh, there goes the train going the other way. That train's headed to Akihabara. We, of course, are headed to Shinjuku, where I'll be going to Map Camera to sell a lens to perhaps buy a camera. I lost... to the city of Tokyo. Chuo Line. Actually, there's Sobu and the Chuo Line. They both cut through. Chuo Honsen being a little bit faster, it stops at less places.

07:11 John Daub: All right, this is Iidabashi, but you can see the fishing pond. Check that out right there. You see the people? They're doing some urban fishing on the other side there. It looks like there's a restaurant. Oh, no, is it a... I think it's just a paddle area. You can get a boat and hang out on the river here. It's a nice afternoon for it, too. Next stop is Ichigaya, and they do have an urban fishing zone. You have to release what you catch. You're just fishing for fun. That's one of the very famous places for it.

08:09 John Daub: And maybe we're going to see some cherry blossoms. It's the 20th of February. I figure they're going to start to bloom in about two and a half weeks from now. Tokyo, usually one of the first places in Japan for them to bloom because it's just warmer here. Maybe it's from the urban heat. I'm not sure, but they seem to bloom a little bit earlier every year. All right, let's look at the river here, see if we can see something. Most of the trees are bare... still. See, on the other side, there's the cherry blossoms as well. There's the fishing right there. I forget how much it costs. I haven't done it in about 20 years, so it's quite expensive. It could be quite expensive. I'm not sure. Sorry, I think it was pretty cheap. That's what I wanted to say.

09:27 John Daub: Hey, Brandania! Hey, Michael! Hey, you guys hang out! Awesome! Safe driving, Brandania! Ichigaya. Next stop is Yotsuya, if I remember correctly. Next stop is Yotsuya. Yotsuya. The exit is on the right. The Toei Oedo Line and the Toei Namboku Line are on the right. It's about nine minutes from Shinjuku. The next station is Yotsuya. JB14. The doors on the right side will open. Fortunately, the signal has been pretty bad around here, so I'm really pleasantly surprised that we still have a stream going on. The valley here, the station, high walls on the left and the right. I think it's down by the river. They might have dried it up. I can't remember the history of this place, but I'll hop out for a second to give you a look at Yotsuya Station. Three trains have already passed us on this trip, so they aren't frequent on this line.

19:22 John Daub: Riding this... to Shinjuku. You can go around on the Yamanote Line, but it's sort of... I guess it's a local... it's not really a secret, but no locals would ever do that. What you do is you get on the Chuo Line from Tokyo Station or you get at Akihabara onto the Sobu Line and then you would change at Ochanomizu, I think, to get onto the Chuo Honsen, which is an express train that'll get you from Tokyo Station or Akihabara to Shinjuku in like 12 minutes. We took 18 minutes because... we're not in a massive hurry. But right now I'm going to be going to Map Camera. I lost my main camera a few weeks ago and I just got it back. I'm going to see if they can do something with it and if not, I might have to sell my 12-14mm f2.8 super wide lens to try to get the cash to get another camera. I don't use it as much anyways. Bye bye Yamanote Line. And bye bye to all of you. I guess... If you hit the like button, I might take you out through the exit of Shinjuku. What do you think? I guess I could do that. Let's go.

20:36 John Daub: The most important thing that you need to realize about Shinjuku Station is you have to go out from the platform to the right exit from the platform. Alright. If you're going out to the South Gate... I can go out through the South Gate. I'll probably go Central West. Yeah, that's closer to where I want to go. I think. I can't remember. Alright, let's go out Central West. I just realized I don't want to go out Central... Do I? Alright, let's do it. I'm thinking South Gate might be more fun. This is all underground here. Kind of boring. The whole secret is to make sure you get out at the right exit from the platform, okay? Just keep that in mind when you get to Shinjuku Station. Sometimes it's a little bit hard. Sometimes even I forget because I don't come here that often. This is the Oedo Line, which I used to live in a place called Hon-Atsugi and would ride this all the time. Now I can ride my bicycle just about anywhere. Alright, I know where I'm going. They used to start the Tokyo Marathon in Shinjuku Station. That's coming up next week. So anybody that's going to be in Tokyo on March 5th, just be aware that in the morning they're going to have a lot of stuff closed down. Alright, here we are. This is the Western side. Of Shinjuku Station. You've made it. With me.

24:04 John Daub: Wow, you can see they've torn down. That used to be the old Keio Bus Station, wasn't it? That's gone. What? They tore down a lot of the buildings here. That's crazy. I didn't realize that they'd done that. Yeah. So we're here. This used to be, I think, the old... This is Yodobashi Camera right here. This is the bus station. I can't remember what it was called. I can't remember what was here, but it's gone. Let's go figure out what's going on. Let's cross the street. Yodobashi Camera is still . They even have their own bus. It's just an advertisement. You're welcome. Oh, the light is green. I've never seen an entrance to Yodobashi Camera right here. This, again, used to be the old Keio Bus Station. Now it's Yodobashi Camera just took it over. That's insane.

26:05 John Daub: I'll take my mask off now. Emily booked my first trip to Japan after having canceled. In March 2020. I remember those days. Finally watch a follow up for four years. I'm so happy that you can finally make it. Now we're out of the train. I wish I had the microphone on. Sorry for the wind, everybody. But this is striking. You can see the buildings that are gone. Probably going to build another skyscraper, you would assume, because it's right across the main street from Shinjuku Station. And here's the iconic Yodobashi Camera. The first one that still has neon lights, bless it. I hope the line-up is nice. I wish I had a mask because I'd have to wear it once at work. People keep them on because they're polite. It's not a requirement. Or it's just pollen and I look like I've been destroyed. Check it out. I feel and look destroyed because the pollen. I can't sleep at night. It's so bad. I even have an air purifier. It's too strong. Even my eyes hurt right now and it affects your immune system. You're trying to fight it off. Older you get, the more it hurts. So, yeah, there's that.

27:32 John Daub: After World War II, they planted a lot of sugi (Japanese cedar), out in the west of Tokyo. And this was going to be part of the rebuilding of Tokyo, the story goes. But then labor costs went up and everything, and it was too hard to get the timber to Tokyo. And actually, it's cheaper to buy the wood from Thailand or Southeast Asia and import it here than it is to cut them down. So there's a conundrum. Mayors in the past have promised to fix the hay fever problem, but they never do because it's too costly. But it's a good promise. It's a very good promise. Thank you, Tokyo Paul. All right, I'm off to go to Map Camera. I wanted to pull back and show you this iconic view. It hasn't changed in years. I hope it never does. But it might. Who knows? There you go. This is the Yodobashi Camera. It's so much better around 5:30, 6pm. The neon lights that turn on. If it's rained, there'll be some glow off of the streets, which I love. And then there's the Metropolitan Government Building straight ahead, well, to the left side of the screen. That's where the, I want to say City Hall, but it's actually a prefecture office. Tokyo is not a city, despite what the media always says in the West. It's a prefecture where there are 23 wards, which are cities. It's complicated. So we just give up and say Tokyo is a city.

29:12 John Daub: Oh, look at this. They're posting places, places that take pictures for the cherry blossoms. And we just crossed through the heart of that. Do you see this train line? We just took this train line across. So you can see there were a ton of cherry blossoms off of the Chuo and Sobu line. It's pretty awesome. Yeah, it was a viewer's view. It was a viewer who was a little bit critical of my video, who reminded me that, hey, you know, Tokyo is a prefecture. It's not actually a city. And they're so right. All right, everybody, there's my destination Map Camera. I hope they take my lens and give me a decent price for it because it really stinks to lose the A1. But that's life. Sometimes you just can't win.

30:31 John Daub: I want to actually open it up. This is the corpse of a camera that I lost. Sony did their best, which was nothing. There's nothing they could do. It has a, careful their gimbal, has a Sony tape on it. They should have wrote rest in peace on it. But that's the way it rolls. No more credit card coverage. It was actually at the end of its. Even if I had insurance. It would just ended the two years just ended. So I wouldn't, it wouldn't have been covered. I hate these generic English announcements. You can always tell it's Japan because I think Peter von Gomm and I might even know who some of these narrators are to speak slowly in English. I'm opening it up just to take a look at the, how bad was the damage? If it was water in it, why would you? That's why they balled the lens. It's not going to close up so badly. There's the, I broke the back of the screen, but it was, they said there was water. Why would they close it up? There's water inside. The sensor is perfect though. Like, I wonder if Map Camera can do something with this. I mean, what do you think? I mean, it's, it doesn't turn on, but it's a perfectly good camera. It's a perfect camera for putting on your shelf. I'm just going to, I'll ask him. Never hurts to ask. That's right, Lisa never hurts to ask.

33:00 John Daub: All right, everybody. Thanks so much for watching. I hope you enjoyed it. Keep in mind, there are shortcuts to getting around Tokyo. This happens to be one of them, the JR Chuo Line and the Sobu Line from Akihabara or Tokyo Station. It's fastest to leave from Tokyo Station, but if you leave from Akihabara, just do a quick change at Ochanomizu and you get onto the Chuo Honsen, which is a much faster, but you can't go wrong just staying on there. It just takes a few more minutes and it's a lot faster than the Yamanote Line. That is a promise and rest in peace to the... It wasn't Sega. It was another arcade. I believe it was here or was it Sega, which is now GiGO. And it's hard. They have used the same colors as Sega, but it's just hard to accept that it's going to take a year. Sorry GiGO, to take a little bit of time. Thanks everybody for watching. Click the like button and I'll see you in another live stream tomorrow as Kanae and I go to Miyazaki. We're flying to Miyazaki tomorrow so it's going to be exciting. Leo's coming with and we'll share the ride with you.