00:00:03 John Daub: Hello everybody, welcome to the city of Tokyo. This is Kappabashi and this is the Shitamachi Tanabata Festival in full swing. Look at this. I'm gonna zoom through the street right here. Boom. It is really a festival that has a long history down the street. There's lots of street food as well and there's a lot of people today. Everyone getting shots of the beautiful street lined with the streamers and then you've got the Tokyo Skytree which always impresses looking down on the city of Tokyo from every single direction.

00:00:39 John Daub: Kappabashi is famous for having kitchen appliances, kitchen utensils and things like that. I walked down this street just about 10 minutes ago to get here and you have the big big chef on the left side of the screen right there. You can see him. He also, like the Skytree, is looking down on the city of Tokyo with the street. Mustache right off. This is actually pretty close to Asakusa and this street where the festival is on, not too far away either.

00:01:05 John Daub: So here we are before we launch in here. I'm in Taitō-ku which is, again, you can see the Tokyo Skytree on the right side of your screen and then Asakusa Kaminarimon Gate. Probably can walk there in about five, ten minutes from here. Does not look that interesting from the sky but when you get to street level, it's pretty interesting. Especially if you're looking for a knife or kitchen stuff for Japanese cooking. I've shown this street like several times on this channel and then today it's all about the festival.

00:01:53 John Daub: I've actually been here before. The signal is not too great. I apologize. I'm doing this streaming in 720p which is not a problem. Just make sure that the quality of the video is good enough that we can live with it because if the signal is bad, it's not going to be good. If the signal goes down and you're doing 1080p, it's over. It's worse than Minecraft. So let's get moving. Let's walk down the street. Peter von Gomm is in the area so he might come for a visit.

00:02:23 John Daub: Now the history of Tanabata goes back like to the ancient times. It's actually a Chinese folklore where on this day the meeting of two stars. I'm showing you because there's a really nice knife shop here and it's about to downpour so this live stream might be cut short. This is the kind of thing you're going to find down the street as well as street food and beer lining the streets. It should make it street food. But if you're walking down the street all the other days of the year, it's nothing like it.

00:02:55 John Daub: So Tanabata is on the 7th of July, 7-7. Japan seems to have holidays on 3-3, March 3rd, May 5th. March 3rd is the girls day. May 5th is the boys day. 7-7 is Tanabata and 9-9. I don't know what that is. 11-11. Is that something? Katayama celebrating three years of memberships. Thank you. I think your level changes, your level badge changes too, doesn't it? It's pretty awesome. Wow, you can smell the grilling food over there. What is that? That's smoke. Let's go investigate.

00:03:37 John Daub: But there is a ridiculously long line. Wow, that is a long line. Basically, oh, it's yakitori. Okay, let's go take a look at the yakitori but we may not buy anything. Some people are coming here in yukata (Japanese cotton robes), which is a cotton kimono, I guess you'd call it. All right, let's take a look here. Oh wow. Shout out to my friend Paolo who just uploaded a yakitori video. Oh yeah, look at that. All sorts of goodies.

00:04:21 John Daub: I can hear the rain starting to come down a little bit as well. Does it rain a lot in late August in Tokyo? Not too much. Like it's raining right now. It rains a lot in the middle of June until about the 20th of July is considered the rainy season, but this year was really early. Oh, look at this. This is mochi, age mochi. So it's been deep fried and it looks like some soy sauce on there with some nori put on a stick. Pretty smart. Usually you'll grill it. You'll grill the mochi on charcoal around the middle of it along with, you'll see it at festivals like that, along with the ayu fish, sweet fish, which has been salted, which is so good. You can eat the head and the tail with a big, big pint of beer. Oh, this is summer, baby. This is what it's supposed to be like.

00:05:33 John Daub: These are new. I don't remember seeing a booth like this after the pandemic. You know, we have a lot of new stuff coming in. Let's take a quick look at this. The line is quite long. This looks like croquette. Plain monjayaki. Oh, it's just like a monjayaki croquette. That's pretty interesting. The prices are reasonable too. A mochi mentai manju croquette. Interesting. You can see behind there, they've got it cooking.

00:06:09 John Daub: Look at this. Big, like, pump bottles of whiskey and yakisoba. Oh my gosh. That is really thick yakisoba too. All right. The rain, the umbrellas are out, so it is a, look at this jerk chicken. That looks really good. Jamaican jerk chicken. Just getting a little walk through here, on the other side of the street. You have hot dogs being cooked over there.

00:07:00 John Daub: Oh my gosh. I'm getting a bazillion messages. So recently, I started this thing called Threads. I posted a notification there for this live stream. Yeah, so I forgot to turn the notifications off, so every time I get like a like or something, the notifications are coming in hot and strong right now. Yeah, guys, this started like 48 hours ago. So go check it out on Only in Japan on Threads. I posted a bunch of stuff that can only be seen on Threads, you know, to get people a little bit interested. It's new. Who knows if it'll still be talked about.

00:07:53 John Daub: Pleepella wrote in here, liked it, and said it might be here. So if you're thinking of coming, if it does rain, I might skedaddle. I'll probably come back down the street. It goes all the way down to about that traffic light over there. And then there's a parade at 1:30, I believe, which the police are involved in it. I don't know if they come in, like, police motorcycles or something, which is really cool to see. Oh, it smells like karaage. I am a fiend for deep-fried Japanese chicken. And it's the chicken thighs, which are the best part in Japan. No one likes the chicken breasts, even though it's leaner. Chicken thighs, man.

00:08:36 John Daub: If I find it, I might just... Oh, there it is. Just look at it and dream about my diet being ruined. You really want me to get deep-fried chicken? This looks like a shop, though. I can come back here any day, but... It smells... Oh, my gosh. They're actually not selling it. Oh, yeah, they are. They got it on the street there. This is all now building up to hit points that I can now use to spend on food. Dennis is like, Get it. Your family doesn't need to know. No, my wife and son are not watching or will not watch this. Actually, that's probably true.

00:09:35 John Daub: I love Kappabashi and this side of Asakusa. It's not as touristy because it really is meant for chefs and things like this to come and get their stuff. But you also find old businesses that specialize in stuff. They still do that here. And this one is hats. The problem is that I never can find a hat that's my size because I have a very Western small head. Meaning Japanese heads are different. If you try to get a helmet here, they're like flatter. Like they're more horizontal and then Western heads are more like vertical. Just a different shape.

00:10:29 John Daub: What are they cooking here? They have got highballs, sausage. They've got sausage cooking. Check it out. That guy just got right in the middle. Some hot sausage. That's the best smell in the world. A barbecue? And you can already feel the rain coming. You see the streamers starting to move. Does anyone know what these are called? There's a name for it.

00:11:03 John Daub: Now, why is this street called Kappabashi? It's because of that right there. There's a history behind this street and it has to do with this yōkai (mythical creature), I guess you could call him. He lives on the river and steals children. It's sort of the story that I've heard before. It sort of alters depending on the region that you're in, but let's just say that you don't want to meet a kappa. I've seen him in animated form, which is quite cute. And I've seen him in subhuman form, which is so creepy. You see all of that here on the street, including a golden temple that they have. You wouldn't want to meet... That's like a life-size one.

00:11:58 John Daub: It's going to pour. Look at that. They have some dim sum. It doesn't matter if it's Japanese cuisine, any cuisine. If it's street foodable, then people will eat it. And it smells good. It has to have a smell that can waft. Look at this. This is chicken keema curry rice. And then here's a Sumida River Tokyo beer. 700 yen for that. Wow, Asahi's got like pale ale going on here. Interesting. I never thought I would see that.

00:12:45 John Daub: The big breweries for a long time resisted going the way of craft beer, but have recently embraced it because everybody else seems to have. I think it's also because you can make more money off of it. That's probably the reason why. You can smell it's going to... You know that smell right before it starts to downpour and rain? That's right now. Oh, they have the Asahi Nama beer, too. Look at that. 500 yen. It's got more like bubbles in it, more suds.

00:13:35 John Daub: All right, we've got to the end of the street. I kind of wanted to just do that, and then we're going to walk back and... We'll walk back and get some chow. I got a Skytree episode coming, I believe, this month. They have to approve it because I was able to go to the basement and show some of the earthquake proofing of it last year. I filmed this. It was a hard edit. It's a lot of technical stuff, but I'll be back there again to launch the video after it's been approved by the Skytree people.

00:14:16 John Daub: And of course, I think all of you know where I am now. This is Asakusa. Depending if that bothers you. This is always somebody who's annoyed by that. And right over there is the pancake restaurant that's quite famous. Benitsuru, I believe. And here's the street. It does not look like this except for this time of the year. And we've come to the end.

00:14:47 John Daub: Look at it. Look at the wind. It is so windy. Katayama. You know what, Katayama? I'm going to get the beer. Not because you gave a super chat, buddy, but because we're celebrating your three years as a member. And you too can join by clicking the button, which helps to pay for me traveling. I'm going to be leaving Tokyo pretty soon. Niigata, Nagano. Oh my gosh. There's a lot of places on the list.

00:15:34 John Daub: You've seen now. Gyoza. Ah. Shane is here. Shane, I'm glad that you got the package too. They got gyoza right there. It smells good. I like it when they do this because then you get to, you're also introduced to their food. You know what, Katayama? I'm going to go for that more expensive beer. All right? But I'm not, because I think quality matters. Brandania is here. Maybe pick up something for Kanae. You got it. She, her family doesn't live too far away from here. So, they might be here too.

00:16:17 John Daub: I'm not sure they're going to come now because this is Leo's sleeping time. He's got a nap time. But as soon as he's up, I will be out there. So, you can see like the Shitamachi Festival here. It's basically the Shitamachi, which means like downtown, the old part of Tokyo. This is Tanabata, which just means like seven stars, like star festival. There's like translations here. And the event course runs from 12 o'clock today. Oh, that's the event space. So, it's from today. And the parade starts at 1:15, which is not too long from now. We'll probably still be live streaming at the end of this.

00:17:01 John Daub: So, you might want to stick on or come back at 1:15. And then you can take a look at the parade unless I get completely wiped out. It is really starting to get windy. The writing is on the wall. But the rain is coming. What's the expression? When it rains, it pours. All right. You better get a beer. Which one should I get? Katayama. This is, by the way, breaking my diet so big time. No carbs.

00:17:37 John Daub: When it rains, is the parade okay? He doesn't know if they're going to still do the parade. All right. That was 700 yen or about $5. And that's got a pretty good color to it. Yeah. Let's drink to the Skytree as well. Skytree, you are mighty. I am making an episode about you. Bless that episode with a million views. Cheers. That's not bad. I haven't had a beer in maybe over a month. Over a month, I haven't had a beer because of the carbs and stuff, which is probably dangerous. I bet I land on my bum real quick.

00:18:36 John Daub: Look at this. So this is part of the tradition. You'll put on these bamboo poles, usually with the leaves on it there. The kids will write down a wish and then they'll tie it to there and the wish comes true. And there's a bunch of wishes on that bamboo tree. This is not going to be pretty. I know. It's going to start to downpour. You can feel it. Look at the wind. Do you see that? Oh my gosh. It is game on, baby. I love the drama.

00:19:51 John Daub: So far, so good. Oh, I got to check out the soy sauce shop. What makes this interesting is they have soy sauce on ice? Shoyu ice. It's soy sauce flavored ice cream. So when they say isu, usually it means ice cream. You know how I know it? Because they have the logo. It looks like the icon for a bowl of ice cream. I'm actually curious about... You know what it is? It's just like vanilla or milk flavored ice cream with soy sauce drizzled on top. I bet you that's what it is. And then they put some peanut topping on there.

00:20:27 John Daub: Soy sauce has a natural sweetness to it. The good stuff. Not the Kikkoman... Kikkoman is okay. But soy sauce that's brewed here and soy sauce is like brewed will have a natural sweetness to it. There's sugar used in soy sauce. So it's quite good. The locally small batch soy sauce. If you ever get a chance to buy it here in Japan, it's something good to take home a bottle of because, you know, it does last for a long time. A little bit goes a long way. And you can really taste the flavor.

00:21:03 John Daub: Oh, the guy's got a Fuji X100. Those are hard to get right now. Hard to get the X100s. I wonder if that's a T or a V or an S. I used to have the X100. I left it in a New York pizzeria. It really upset me. I went back. They said they didn't find it. Of course. This not being Japan. This time I put on the standard stabilization. I used the Prism app. Which allows me to do 1080p. This is 720p because we're in a crowd and limiting the signal. So we got a good clean one. But typically, I've seen some shaking. And I'm using a standard stability. So let me know how it looks to you on the other side.

00:22:02 John Daub: Michael Sassano is here. Hey, buddy. I have never visited this area. This is usually held around this time of year. Yeah. Every 7th, 8th, and 9th. Tanabata is on the 7th. And then that weekend, usually this festival goes on. And it's great for the local neighborhood. And they've been doing this for as long as I can remember. There's a couple of Vikings over there on the right side. What I love here, there's this amazing coffee culture that's been booming. And I took you on this live stream here.

00:22:47 John Daub: So I did a live stream about two weeks ago. It was probably the best live stream of the year. You can tell just... You don't always know how a live stream is going to go. But this one went very smoothly and very well. Except when I got lost. Which is part of the drama. It was in a town called Kiyosumi-Shirakawa. It's the coffee town of Japan. And I highly, highly recommend that you watch it. And then head there. You'll find very few tourists there.

00:23:19 John Daub: You pump some music. And all of a sudden, the line gets longer. Smart. They're selling hot dogs and beer. Staples. Alright, let's look for some goodies here. I think... I hear some wishes on the street corner. I like that. Some of the shops set this up locally. There's the spirit of Tanabata. Leo at his hōkōen (daycare/preschool), they did an event yesterday. And he got to put his wish on there. I think he drew a picture. Or colored a picture. I'm not sure. Leo usually wishes for various fruits. Ambulances. He loves ambulances. And... Yeah, coconuts. He likes to drink from coconuts.

00:24:23 John Daub: I found some at the supermarket. But you'll see here on the side, on the left and right, like these mom and pop shops selling bowls and knickknacks for the kitchen. A lot of these businesses have been in business. For generations. Oh, the parade is starting! Oh, you guys are in luck. The line is still really long at that yakitori shop on the right side. But... Can you hear the music? I'm gonna... I'm gonna go dark silent for a little bit. So you can absorb the atmosphere right now.

00:25:19 John Daub: Sounds like a... Sorry. I just broke the sign. This sounds like a comedy group. Yeah. Peter von Gomm and I filmed them the last time we were here five years ago. If you look at that livestream, we were like, Oh, I think Joji looked a lot different. Now his son is a bonafide teenager. And they might be here too. Alright, let's... Let's let the procession go by us. I've got my fingers crossed. They're gonna go right past us. I've got my fingers crossed that the rain doesn't come. Guys, cross your fingers as well. We don't want any rain. But here comes the comedy parade.

00:26:17 John Daub: Here they come. Oh, we got them. Cheers up the soul. So on the back, they have some information about the festival. I guess you know that eyeballs are gonna be on them. And that's really good. I like that the Hawaiian shirts are a good touch. I would have... I have to say, it's pretty awesome. Here we go.

00:28:36 John Daub: Wait a second. This copyrighted material. Wait a second. Copyright, copyright, copyright. Give up. Do you guys really think I'm gonna get a copyright strike here on this? Good times. The rain is coming down. If it's not a strike, please make it a spare. Spare rib. Let's get moving.

00:30:12 John Daub: Tortoropoco's here. You chose a great event as a livestream. Thank you. And Donald R. just joined as a Patreon. Donald, hey. I returned home yesterday and had a great time in Tokyo. I look forward to going back to Japan and exploring the rest of the country. Thanks for your videos and streams. Thank you so much. Yeah. This month's postcard is I've got two ideas of putting it up to the printer tomorrow. It's either gonna be my friend Toyo-san in Osaka, the flamethrower chef. I got a good shot of him. Or it might be this festival.

00:30:45 John Daub: So it just depends if I get a better picture. I was waiting. But Toyo-san, he's a chef. He's the flamethrower in Osaka on the street. He used to work at a restaurant nearby. He saw that property, bought it, and he never looked back. And he makes some of the best food. Street food, like gourmet stuff in Osaka. It's like one of the places you have to go to. And we spent like several days together because I kept going back to film. More because I like the food and like hanging out with him than I did actually make the episode. But that's probably gonna be the postcard. But Kappabashi might be a pretty cool postcard too for the postcard club.

00:31:27 John Daub: I send out postcards every month if you don't know. Last month was the retro vending machine corner. 108 vending machines from an episode I uploaded. I'm like walking back and forth this event place. If anyone finds me, I do happen to have some You Found Me cards. Where's Kyoto? It's about an hour and a half southwest from here. If that's what you're asking. There's a parade that's supposed to go on. It's hard for me to go buy street food until I finish this.

00:32:23 John Daub: Here's the end of the street. It's pretty chaotic here. It's gonna get more chaotic. But the good thing is that this rain is gonna keep people away. It typically would be more crowded than this. Check into our moderators. I'm in Japan right now. I don't own a watch. I never have. That's not true. I had a Swatch back in seventh grade. So some girl... Then after I got it, it was really hard to get Swatches back then. And some girl said that she wanted to wear my Swatch. She's really pretty. I was kind of shocked. So I gave it to her. And then she didn't give it back for like three weeks.

00:33:01 John Daub: And then one day in the cafeteria at lunch, I said, can I have my watch back? And then she gave it back to me. But I didn't realize that maybe she liked me. Then I remember getting the watch back. And it smelled really good, like a girl. And I was at that age. Then in high school, she started dating seniors. So I never had a shot. I had my shot, maybe. Even had like the Swatch guard. There's like a plastic Swatch guard. TMI. It's the way it should be.

00:33:44 John Daub: If you haven't already, check out the motorcycle adventure. It's at an angle because I may or may not have fallen one or two times. It's an action-packed 45-minute non-stop adventure that is filled with really good music and narration from one of the best in Japan, Peter von Gomm. And you get to see a ton of, you get to see the Ainu Museum as well as a ton of other amazing places on this trip. Check it out this weekend. The RV part is coming tonight. So it'll be Saturday morning in the US. So you get a chance to see the whole thing this weekend.

00:34:34 John Daub: Wanted to give it some time. I'm gonna hang out underneath here out of the rain for the parade to come. WRX Turbo is in the house. Alright, anyone who's got a drink, it's time for you to take a sip whenever. Whenever you say WRX Turbo, you have to take a sip. Christian wrote in here, it's 15 minutes to the parade. Is that what you're saying? So I have to go on for another 15 minutes. I figure it's worth seeing the parade, right?

00:35:19 John Daub: I love this. Japan does this. Even on the streets here, at festivals, you'll see places to separate your trash. And it's... Oh. Oh, okay. Thank you. Oh, that was nice. She wrote something on the screen and then didn't want to film, but... Oh, that's really nice. Let's see if I can give her a You Found Me card. Not everybody wants to be up here in the videos here. This line is still really long.

00:36:15 John Daub: I think the reason why it's good is this is a famous shop or... this is the first real good-looking street food coming in from the subway station and everybody sees the smoke and they stop. But the yakitori, it does smell so darn good. But the problem is that the line is super long. Alright, let's get some food. After this beer that Katayama got me, I'm starting to see two of everything. So that means if I eat one, I'll be full.

00:37:00 John Daub: Yeah, if you had smell-o-vision, I should describe some of the smells. Sweet smoke. A sweet soy sauce smoke with some sausage in the back. Okay, I smell that. Oh, they've got it on grills as well. It just feels like it's going around. It's going to downpour, but it hasn't. Hold on a second. I've got to get... I put the beer to the side so I could buy some... so I could buy some food, but it's really hard. I've got to get my hand in the pocket. My coordination isn't as good as it was before the beer. Thanks, Katayama.

00:38:19 John Daub: Joe F. Ciceronones, thanks for following me on Threads. I just saw the notification. That's really cool. Look at that little kid in the back. He's got strollers staring me down. No, I'm not going to buy you it. Well, maybe I will buy you something. So I'm going to get this monjayaki croquette because that seems like it'd be something quite interesting. And the line got long again. No! Oh, there was no line, and now it got long again. I thought there was no line. All right. Bail, bail. Time to go for the chicken now.

00:39:29 John Daub: Wow. Sometimes in life, it's all about timing. You get to the shop. There's no line. You get a phone call. You come back 30 seconds later, and the line's around the corner. That happens, you know. Look at that rig. It looks like they're kind of cowboy vloggers. They've got a DJI pocket on a stick. Stay away from the vloggers. Dangerous folk.

00:40:20 John Daub: Yeah, you know, it does offer really good views, Kappabashi and Asakusa to the Skytree. And this would be an interesting day to be up there, you know. When it's raining, you would think that the view might be bad, but actually, if you're going to be staying there for an hour in the summer, the view can change quite quickly. These rainstorms will blow over. I can already see blue sky on the other side of the Skytree over there. So it doesn't mean it's going to rain the whole time. And sometimes you'll see the clouds roll through. Sometimes it rolls through the Skytree, which that is so interesting.

00:40:58 John Daub: All right, I better get some chicken here. All right, what's the damage for a bag of chicken? Oh, it's 150 yen for one. Thank you. One soy sauce, please. Thank you. Two fried chicken, please. Two fried chicken. I'll have soy sauce and salt. Soy sauce. Two soy sauce. One soy sauce and one salt. Yes, that's 300 yen. One each. One fried chicken, please. One each. That's 300 yen. Thank you. I got one of each. I got karaage. Better go down the street. Let's get off of the... Let's take a little bit of a break.

00:42:26 John Daub: 300 yen is cheap. It's two pieces. It's two karaage, though. 150 yen for each one. So the parade is about to start in about 10 minutes. So I'm just going to go in this alley. Let me know if the signal's not good. Alleys don't help. But I've got a tripod here, and I've got a little table on somebody's air conditioner until they yell at me. I'm going to pull it... I'm now screwing in the tripod so that we can have a little bit of eating time here. This wall will go away in three, two...

00:43:15 John Daub: All right, so I got here... What they asked me is if I wanted to have shio or shoyu. Shoyu is soy sauce, and shio is salt. And I'm going to eat... I think this is soy sauce first. And look at this thing here. This is... Karaage is just so beautiful. Oh, my gosh. So this is what it is. This is a deep-fried Japanese chicken. It's been battered and then deep-fried and then smothered in the soy sauce. So you know it's going to be salty, savory. And it's been... Oh, wow, this one is right out of the... Yeah, I did lose a lot of... The diet's working, all right? This is not helpful.

00:44:05 John Daub: Oh, my gosh. It is so juicy. Oh, my gosh. Wow. Sometimes, like, the batter at festivals, the batter isn't cooked enough. This is crunchy, juicy, chickeny, meaty. Perfect. Oh, man. I did not make a mistake. Mm. Oh, Michael, when you come back to Hawaii for the barbecue, trust me, there'll be a boatload of food that you'll get to try. I will be dieting before I come and then enjoy it. Wow. That's good.

00:45:23 John Daub: All right, let's try the shio. Whoa. Now, I can already tell there is a massive difference in this one. This is white from the salt. Hold on a second. I think the main lens can see it a little bit better. It's sort of a different color. Oh, it's so hot. Ah, ah. Burning my fingers. This came right out of the fryer. Shio is, yeah, salt flavored. Ah, like a fine wine. This is so good as well. But the shoyu is better. I think because there's like this very light sweetness from the soy sauce that gives it a little bit more umami, like another complexity to the chicken.

00:46:44 John Daub: The shio is quite good, too. But I guess if you're just looking for more chicken taste, maybe the shio is better. But the shoyu gives it just a slight bit of sweetness. Both of them are damn good. Mm. Man. Mm. I'm so happy. I started this channel when I was hitchhiking. I was on the road by myself waiting for rides to come, sometimes for hours. But I would go live. And felt like I wasn't alone out on the streets.

00:47:36 John Daub: Speaking of which, if you are in Japan on September 11th and 12th, I'm doing a bus tour to Katakai, which is one of the great fireworks festivals in Japan. It's at the end of summer in September. And we're doing a bus tour from Nagaoka Station that leaves for one night and then we'll come back after visiting some of the koi, or Japanese carp, which was born in that area. And get a chance to look at the history. We're 30% full. Amazing. This is some good chicken. Crunchy, you know. The secret to good karaage is to keep it juicy, not too oily, but make sure the outside is crunchy. And they do that. Mm. My compliments to the chef. That was really good.

00:48:58 John Daub: I'm really excited tonight to release the RV video and get the project done with. It took a lot of heat. I want to say thank you to my community. Most of you are watching live streams here. But I can take it on the chin in the comments, and I really don't care. I kind of laugh at the criticism. Sometimes I might kind of spar with the trolls. Probably not the best thing to do. But some of the trolls watched the whole video. And then they trolled. So I will usually just thank you for watching the entire video because in order for you to know some of this stuff, you had to watch until like almost the end. So thank you. Always take the high road.

00:49:48 John Daub: But I did fall off the bike three times. Really minor stuff. I'm pretty good riding with the traffic and all of that. That's not an issue. You know, I've been driving in Japan for a long time. But it's different when you're on a motorcycle, something that's so heavy. You sometimes forget that it's much heavier than a bicycle. So for the first, I don't know, like half day, I had a couple of spills, which wasn't a big deal. It would cost about $200 to repair the pare-it-all. I let them know what the damage was when we got there. And they told me a price, and that was cool with that. I'll pay. But, you know, everything is about learning. Learning experience.

00:50:35 John Daub: But I took it on the chin with some of the comments. And I really don't care. If I did, I wouldn't have uploaded it, alright? So I don't care about looking silly and foolish. Because these are the parts that you need to show. You know, I told another really big YouTuber. We did a livestream a few years ago. And one of the reasons why he wouldn't do livestreaming is because it could be embarrassing. And I said, look, man, embarrassing stuff is going to happen to you all the time. It's like, what do you... How do you react when it does happen? And if you want people to really get to know you, you have to show them sometimes the other side of it. You have to let them in. You know, I'm not a... I'm an imperfect person. But I can be imperfectly perfect. Because when I'm not perfect, it's perfect. You know what I mean?

00:51:34 John Daub: Alright, let's get out of here. Thanks for hanging out while I devoured two chunks of chicken. You know, as I'm eating, the audience increases. But how about you increase when I take you to the center of one of the great summer festivals in July of Tokyo. You're about to see the Skytree and some police. Our parade is supposed to come through here soon. 12:15. Is it 12:15? Or 1:15 yet, guys? Well, there's a police car over there. So I figure they're getting ready. The sun has come out a little bit.

00:52:27 John Daub: but here we are we're in the middle of the uh Tanabata festival the Shitamachi Tanabata festival which is uh mostly let me get out of it yeah i can show you the Skytree and this is there which is uh in Kappabashi famous for its kitchen utensils where it's for everybody that's joining us now the streets are lined for just the next couple of days with the celebration here it's very colorful and you can see that they are flying because of the wind and the rain even though there's sun coming down now i'm giving it another five minutes let's see if the uh the um parade starts

00:53:13 John Daub: i tried to ask one of the street vendors is this going to be the parade if it rains and they he said i don't know and no one knows what time it is in japan i don't have a watch there's no clocks here there's a this is interesting look at over there this pink tent it's what's called a baby care space so mothers can breastfeed and change diapers that is so thoughtful it says there you can mothers can and give milk and privacy in this tent on the street has anyone ever seen this before yeah big sin san it's 10 30 a.m here yeah that really helps a lot how about the time in japan the fathers maybe could too

00:54:30 John Daub: all right so it looks like gordon the parade should have started maybe it's down here on this end but if it did the this live stream will continue and if it didn't maybe not i am digging the fact that people are maskless now have you have you guys noticed this and there's a lot of people in in uh japanese yukata and gives it that japanese festival feel that has been missing in japan for the last few years but the fact that a lot of people are no longer wearing masks i think is really really good boy the line is still super long it is also way too hot for masks

00:55:15 John Daub: and my gut feeling was um one summer came then people would stop wearing them and now that i see people on the side of the street i'm getting the feeling that yeah this festival the parade is about to start jared hey aloha john and the only in japan family i will be in japan on wednesday yeah let me know if you have some time to meet up if so i got some more chocolates oh my gosh jared the ones that you gave can i eight up i was so shocked they were gone i had like two amazing it makes me want to stay at the hotel after eating those chocolates there's one in yokohama by the way i believe it's the Kahala Hotel right i say that right

00:56:20 John Daub: that's so good those chocolates don't bring them in danger zone yeah i got back from hawaii and i tried not to eat the cookies but it was impossible there was this um kari mochi cookie from like the diamond company somebody gave around my neck i can't recall right right now but it was so delicious little bits of grilled mochi in there what hawaii thought of everything they took the best of the us and the best of japan and put it and put hawaii on it i think that's hawaii right take the best of japan the best of america and put it put the hawaii brand on there and you got something pretty darn special

00:57:20 John Daub: ando 11 35 is here is it happening tomorrow too it is this festival is taking place uh saturday and sunday and uh tomorrow there's also some festivities i believe there's some music and i don't know if the parade is going on but there's something else that is happening sunday might be more might be uh more active than today so guys we're waiting here together as a parade is about to come and i'm keeping you company and you're keeping me company as we wait one of the great things about this parade that i read was that the police had some vehicles uh coming down here and i'm excited to see that because leo since leo was born two and a half years ago i became a vehicle person

00:58:01 John Daub: look at this this guy he's got a picture of his hammer on it of himself on that hammer is that somebody else looks like him jari writes in here i could eat chocolate for two pounds but afterwards i would feel sick this is the kind of information i love from jari thank you i think i will never forget that so when when i do see you i will have 2.1 pounds of chocolate with your name on it it has to be 2.1 pounds let's just make it an even kilo which is 2.3 right somebody said hi in the uh the passive way so the parade is supposed to start here i'm not sure how much longer i can wait how long can you guys wait it's been a solid hour wow

00:59:23 John Daub: yeah jared man just just you know hit me up i'll see but i'm not gonna be here much in tokyo's but we'll try my i'll try my best jared came out to the um uh only event meet up in in uh in what near waikiki that was a lot of fun oh my gosh all right here's two officers of the law right there are they like are they getting ready for the um parade let's go to the let's go to the head of the front of the street here maybe the parade is coming from the other direction you see anything no i don't see anything usually it's about do you hear anything i don't hear anything

01:00:36 John Daub: so i did i did notice by doing this stabilization there's a crop on this prism app which is uh note to self wow is it something of a traffic jam here oh hey susie's here hey susie salvage salviejo thank you i'm we're waiting for a parade oh look at that cutie over there it's like leo he gets transported all the time at my most tired that's when leo knows to say pick me up taco taco he'll say or pick me up he uses both english and japanese now oh there's they're um cutting up some grilled squid which is always always good you can smell it wow the amount of people have increased

01:02:04 John Daub: this is why the video is 720p i just had no confidence that i'd be able to do it in hd today oh it's got five all right we're gone for some reason the audio uh dropped off so i've gone on just uh be careful with your headphones if you have them on thanks for the uh heads up i don't know what the audio sometimes just goes out with the uh i'm using the iphone audio right now and i'm speaking lightly because i know that sometimes there could be a jar in shock somebody body checked me so it's more my fault than theirs i'm sure look at that dada and daughter that's what i like to see family spirit

01:03:54 John Daub: wait a second these do not look like human beings though that looks like that monster in that movie signs with mel gibson and uh the joker it's a creepy movie i remember when you got the video footage from rio from brazil and you saw the monster the aliens for the first time oh my gosh scared the crud out of me that movie ah signs i think m night shyamalan helena in pennsylvania indian american celebrate uh hendrick nerden thank you for following me on threads for closing in on 5 000. thank you that's cool

01:05:00 John Daub: i don't know everybody's seen the jump on this threads thing and you have to give zuckerberg some credit for taking on elon musk when he was when he it's all about timing and twitter was down and and threads came up and in like 48 hours there's 120 million people or something thank you all right we're gonna hang out a little bit just a couple minutes longer but i i was hoping that this parade would be here by now i don't see it what i see is people is it down there i'm gonna cross over because there's people going this way and this is a new territory for everybody who's still still with us right now

01:05:53 John Daub: i'm gonna look back here you get a nice view of what the festival does look like here apparently there's something over here i don't know look at all the cutie doggy's there with me the matching outfits. Oh, that chicken filled me up. Karaage chicken. You're gonna have to scroll back about 15 minutes to see me devouring that. Oh, there's a kappa right there. You'll see these mythological creatures all over Kappabashi, Kappa Bridge. Maybe this is the parade? I hear a band.

01:07:32 John Daub: All right, it sounds like there's a parade this way. She just announced the parade. We're in a good spot. There's not a lot of people here. So the parade starts from this area and then we'll cross the street over there. So you can see the festival beyond. So we're gonna hang out right here for a little bit and see the parade coming. Cause you gotta see a parade. Parade, baby. I see them. They're about a hundred meters away. In fact, why don't I walk up just a little bit cause then it'll be 80 meters away. Is that the mayor? Whoa! It's like high school marching band with flags and stuff. This is the kind of parades that we all see in small town USA. This is small town Japan. It's awesome.

01:09:11 John Daub: Here comes the parade. Get ready. They made an announcement in English to clear the road. All right, enjoy the parade without me talking over it. For the next couple of minutes. It's perfect. Parade time, baby. Three, two, one. I waved at him and tried to get him to smile by making faces and he didn't. He was like a rock. All right, back to silence. The police officers. Yes. That could be me and Peter von Gomm. Next year we could see if they need some help. I'll try not to fall down this time. That's a Metropolitan Police Department Women's Trumpet Corps. A pleasant 15 minutes of my life.

01:17:14 John Daub: Time for the gate. That was pretty awesome. All right, the wind has picked up here, everybody. I want to say thank you so much for watching. We ended it with a parade. That was epic. Look, I don't mind being in the parade. Jesus, people waving at me. Like who are these people? That was so cool. So if you waved at me and you took a picture, send it to me. I want to see what I look like waving in the parade. It's like in the beginning of the movie. I'm like, oh, I'm a little bit of a paparazzi.

01:17:57 John Daub: So I want to say thank you to everybody. Thank you so much for the super chats as well and sharing your afternoon with me. And somebody else wants to say thank you to the cop. I hear says thank you. As in the distance, the parade goes on the audio. The mic is off. So there's a little bit of wind noise. I apologize. But you got a chance. We got a chance to hang out this afternoon. And that's pretty cool. And tonight the RV episode will be launched and you guys are taking another adventure for that for another 40 minutes or so through the great the far sides of Hokkaido. In an RV with Peter von Gomm and myself. So I look forward to hearing from you guys then too. So see you then.