00:00:03 John Daub: Hello everybody, welcome to Tokyo. This is Asakusa, and that building right there with the okay everyday low prices and the marker right here is our focus for today, including this building. This is Ryōunkaku (Cloud-Surpassing Tower). It was the number one attraction in Tokyo in 1923, built I believe in the 1890s. It wasn't around for very long because the Great Kantō Earthquake of 1923 toppled it and then burned it down. We have video of that as well from 1923.

00:00:33 John Daub: We just had the 100-year anniversary of the Great Kantō Earthquake, and Japan practices or spends September 1st every single year getting acquainted with disasters, in particular earthquakes. Leo's daycare or preschool had a special day where all the kids wore these special hats. They turned off all the lights. I had to bring a special card to pick him up, as though a disaster had happened in Tokyo. That made me realize September 1st is the Great Kantō Earthquake anniversary. They picked this day following the earthquake for the entire country to remember it and refresh skills in case a disastrous one happens, which can save lives.

00:01:34 John Daub: This is where I am exactly: Asakusa. You can see this area is very famous for tourists coming to visit Hanayashiki Park on the right side there, which has over 100 years of history. But at this site was a 12-story building made of brick that looked foreign. It was the tallest tower in Japan and the biggest attraction in Tokyo at the time because it had the only electric elevator in Japan. Pretty cool. There's a Skytree now, which is the highest freestanding tower in the world. But back then in 1923, it was on this very spot.

00:02:08 John Daub: Bro has better live stream skills on his phone than most people have on multi-PC. Thank you very much. The tower right here burned down, and this is what it looked like at the time. I have the video right here. This is what it looked like when it burned down. Now the tower itself was very beautiful, don't you think? Looking at it, I think from Ueno Park, you could see this tower everywhere in Tokyo because it was so tall. Most buildings back then were only two or three stories, and the highest ones were four or five, considered really high. If an earthquake happened in Tokyo at the time, a five-story building had a higher chance of toppling over, so most people built two or at most three stories.

00:03:35 John Daub: The Ryōunkaku Tower was just massive at the time because of the earthquakes in the country. They didn't have the same kind of engineering. But when the '23 earthquake happened, it wasn't the earthquake that toppled it down because they had reinforced it with steel. It was the fires from a typhoon that at the worst possible time, September 1st, hit Tokyo and fanned the flames where the entire city was engulfed in tornado-like fires. You can see that in the old video from back in the day. I've got a video here. Let me turn the volume off so I can talk about it. It still could not survive the earthquake and the fire together.

00:04:13 John Daub: Over there where they're playing music is a marker. Do you see that right there in the center of your screen? That is the only thing remaining of the Ryōunkaku Tower, and you can come and see this in Asakusa. It's not that far from the Don Quijote here and probably from Senso-ji Temple—about a five-minute walk. If you come for the marron pan (chestnut bread) with whipped cream inside, it's about two minutes from here. The marker is pretty interesting. It was built on November 27, 1890, and destroyed a couple of months after the fire—they had to bring it down because the engineering wasn't good enough to build taller buildings by then, but it was pretty impressive for its day.

00:05:25 John Daub: Nowadays, you can see the buildings around it are quite high, including this one I think is for gambling—I'm not sure. But the Hanayashiki amusement park is still around. They always talk about closing it down, but if you get a chance, this hundred-year amusement park was here during the Great Kantō Earthquake too. It's not the best, but it's kind of fun to go in there and ride rides that have been around for so long. I will one day do that.

00:06:33 John Daub: Broadcast Studios here from Oregon, how you doing? This is called Rokku Broadway—I'm not sure why, guess it's quite wide—but it's a pedestrian street that will take you to a shotengai (covered shopping arcade). We're going to go in that direction and take a look at what is around us. The banners here showing the street have the Ryōunkaku tower on it. I think that's kind of cool. Unless you know the history, this building would be meaningless, right? You just wouldn't know Tokyo's number one attraction was at this spot and it's gone now—unless I had done a live stream.

00:07:17 John Daub: You know how I know? Because I asked my wife, who's from this area—she was born in this ward. Tokyo has 23 wards; she was born in Taitō Ward. I asked her, do you know Ryōunkaku? She goes, Ryōun-what? I'm like, it was the number one attraction in Japan in 1923, burned down in the Great Kantō Earthquake. Are you kidding me? This is one of the biggest symbols of Asakusa's history besides Senso-ji Temple and Kaminarimon. She had no idea, and she's Japanese and was born here. It's like what? History seems to dissipate and melt away over time, and that's sad because Tokyo is a city of history with a lot of great things that happen. They call it Rokku, which is six wards—Rokku Broadway. So I guess it goes through six wards of old Asakusa perhaps.

00:08:20 John Daub: But you cannot see where the building once was. Here's the view they had from the tower—from the top of the tower from a painting. The rain's starting to come down; I was afraid of that. From old postcards, this was such a big attraction back in the day—a lot of postcards had this in it. In fact, the emperor had paintings of this in the background from the Taishō era and Meiji era because it was such a beautiful sight—like the Skytree or Tokyo Tower of its day. Models and a lot of famous people wanted to be where the Ryōunkaku's backdrop was. Here's another image of it before and after—this is the spot where it used to sit. Just an impressive structure; it's sad it didn't make it.

00:09:26 John Daub: Here's what it looked like back in the day in postcards that tourists could buy. Yeah, Tokyo had tourists back then too—a lot of visitors. You can see just how tall it was, and Asakusa was the place back in the day. It still kind of is, but now it's famous for being old. Back in the 1920s, back in the 1890s, this area was famous for being new—this is where there was new technology and stuff. It's funny that today it's a place where time stands still. It is a shame they couldn't rebuild it.

00:10:08 John Daub: Let's walk this way and show you this Rokku Broadway. They used to call the Ryōunkaku "Jūnikai" (12 stories) because it had 12 stories and was the only building in Tokyo that was so darn tall. They had a lot of nicknames, but it was so dominant on the horizon of Tokyo—you could see it just about anywhere from Tokyo. Maybe Shinagawa is a little far, but if you're within 5 or 6 kilometers—3.5 miles—you could see that building pretty clearly because there was nothing in its way. Amazing views—you could see clearly all the way to Mt. Fuji, look down into where the Imperial Palace was, which was pretty impressive at the time.

00:11:08 John Daub: A lot of guys would go there because with binoculars they could look into Yoshiwara and peek. Yoshiwara was where the oiran (high-ranking courtesans) were—not geisha, but the pinup girls of the time, like Playboy bunnies of the 1890s. Guys would go up there like, whoa, looking into their area, trying to peek at the oiran or the ladies and the happenings—which is kind of interesting because it is very close to Yoshiwara. In this direction, you can see this will take you down where they have that marron pan.

00:12:12 John Daub: Now I'm torn if I should go in this direction or towards the shotengai and take you to Senso-ji Temple. Does Japan have ladyboys? Japan has everything. People are who they are here. But it is a really cool mockup. There's Hanayashiki Park, but they don't have the Ryōunkaku in the background. The thing with Tokyo is things don't last forever here—they're really starting to tear stuff down. Even in my area, Chūō Ward, I'm seeing a lot of the nagaya (long row houses), old buildings being torn down because they're not up to standard in case an earthquake happens, and if one did, a lot of people would lose their lives. Some look like they were rebuilt right after World War II—Chūō Ward really destroyed, not just in the earthquake but in 1945 with the firebombings of March 10th.

00:13:34 John Daub: There it is right there, the Ryōunkaku—such a significant part of Tokyo. You see that in the signs, in some of the symbols of the city. International visitors and young Japanese people don't even know about it—that's crazy to me. I first remember hearing about the Ryōunkaku 20-some years ago when I came to Asakusa and there was an old-timer. 20 years ago, there were a lot more people alive during the Great Kantō Earthquake. You could sit at Hoppy Street, sip beers, and older people would tell you about World War II and the earthquake. That's what got me really interested in a lot of Japan's modern history because back then there were so many more people who lived through the occupation, firebombing, all that. Now there's very few left, and that is quite sad.

00:14:37 John Daub: This is the massive Don Quijote, and to put it in perspective, the Ryōunkaku would have been a towering 12-story building right here—we could see that very clearly. I'm waving at you who are standing on the Ryōunkaku 100 years ago. Again, it's 100 years ago today it was still standing—the ruins were there because the Great Kantō Earthquake took place on September 1st, 1923.

00:15:20 John Daub: Let's walk down a little bit further. Recently there's been a lot of historical videos showing the 1923 earthquake. Here's Ryōunkaku right there with the ruins of the city all around it. Being made of brick, it survived a lot better, but you can see Tokyo was completely destroyed after the earthquake. It wasn't the earthquake that did it—once again, the fires afterwards because it happened right before lunchtime, everybody had fires lit to cook rice and other things. The earthquake starts fires, and then the typhoon came at the worst possible time, blowing those fires around. Tokyo did not stand a chance—a perfect storm of natural disasters. You just can't prepare for something like that. This is Tokyo 1923, I think September 2nd, the day after—or a couple days after. Just complete nothingness; it looks very much like 1945.

00:16:49 John Daub: I think the lives lost here, if I remember from history, about 140,000 people died from the fires and the earthquake. Afterwards, lack of food, exodus of people leaving Tokyo because there was nothing left—no markets, no infrastructure to bring things in. A lot went to relatives' houses if they could; some starved. It was a really hard time, shared again in 1944-45 during the bombings of Tokyo. Reflected in its history, that's still quite apparent.

00:17:44 John Daub: This is the end of the street—it would have been a really big tower right there where the sky is blue, and now it's no longer there. From the Don Quijote, it's just a two-minute walk to the memorial site. I recommend you guys do that because when you learn about Tokyo's history, it really brings out walking around—it makes it more special. You can imagine what was once here, making it a more magical place. If you look around Tokyo now, it is really colorful, but these are not the same streets as 100 years ago. Even the shotengai is definitely 1950s, '60s, '70s—a lot has changed.

00:18:46 John Daub: One street that hasn't is where I think I should take you. There's an alley here, but the signal is not going to be very good—just let me know if it dies. We got some viewers from the Philippines who came and shook my hand—that was very cool. He watched before he came and saw the show. When you walk around with a big gimbal, tripod, and microphone, you draw attention.

00:19:38 John Daub: Apparently this restaurant has Tokyo's famous dishes: katsudon (pork cutlet rice bowl), tendon (tempura rice bowl), and the very famous adult plate—which has omelet rice, shrimp, steak, pasta, basically all Western food Japanified. When they think of Western food, they think hamburger, omelet rice, spaghetti—you get that from this menu. That's so funny; I want to try that—2,000 yen, a lot of volume. They're wearing Japanese yukata—great that tourists dress up in local clothes. Just make sure if you're a man, your obi stays on your hips like a samurai, not up like a belt—that's what girls do. I've had to help Japanese guys who didn't know how to tie theirs—the younger generation doesn't unless there's a festival. When I came to Japan, most of my friends were over 65; that's how I learned Japanese from old ladies—they had free time and were friendly.

00:22:27 John Daub: This is Orange Street, very close to the road over there—just the signal is never really good here. Looks quiet for midday. Once September 1st hits, humidity starts to die down fast—not too bad, getting more comfortable. You can smell it in the air. In the height of summer, it's like breathing soup. Now you can start to smell Tokyo again, which isn't always great. This is the view in Asakusa—Ryōunkaku only 12 stories; this building 100-something, 634 meters high, the world's highest freestanding structure. Interesting earthquake-proofing, a testament to how technology and engineering improved over 100 years. The tallest they could make was 12 stories, damaged in a 1914 earthquake, so reinforced with steel—but the next one still got it.

00:24:12 John Daub: This used to be an owl cafe, now a kimono rental shop—interesting. It was a sad owl cafe; I took my friends Dan and Lincoln from the YouTube channel What's Inside? there when Lincoln was a kid—now he's an adult. They had a capybara just roaming around chewing wires—whoa, can't be legal, but kind of cool and so bad. This old street hasn't changed much—kind of cool. This road has not changed much over the last 100 years—in the sense that after the earthquake, there were shacks built up selling daily necessities. Then they turned into places for cheap food since people didn't have cooking in houses, then clothing—today mostly for tourists.

00:26:12 John Daub: Brandania is bringing me a new streaming bag from Hawaii—she's coming to the Only in Japan bus tour that starts Sunday. Can't believe it's only a couple days away. This is an area known for old history, but 100 years ago it was high-tech—the site to see the future. Now it's where you see the past—that's funny. A hundred years ago almost to the day was the Great Kantō Earthquake—after that, everything changed. This area became Japan's high-tech center and turned into a history place today. You see it on the murals—this is Denpōin Street; they try to preserve that old history.

00:27:33 John Daub: A hundred years ago they tore down old wooden buildings to build towers, but didn't do it fast enough—would've been better with fires had they built more brick. Really expensive back then. People lining up for Asakusa menchi katsu (minced meat cutlet)—like a doughnut made of pork meatball. Don't think it's that good to line up, but famous so people do. It's starting to rain. This is the place Eric and I went—we had spicy smashed chicken. Deep-fried meatball—calories stay on, nice and heavy. Surprised the signal is holding.

00:28:44 John Daub: Let's see what it's like today in Asakusa—or Asakusa if you're strict. Tokyo is two syllables: Tō-kyō, not Tokiyo. Anyone correcting my Asakusa probably says Tokyo wrong too. There's Kaminarimon in the distance—umbrellas out because it's raining on the other side; Senso-ji Temple there. I got a couple videos coming out—probably four this month. Nakamise-dōri (Nakamise Street) has been around a long time, the walkway to Senso-ji. Back in the day, temples and shrines were big attractions to Japanese too—lots of markets, tradition upheld selling to tourists: trinkets and stuff. Prices going up.

00:31:20 John Daub: In crowded spaces, hard to get good signal—I only need 5 megabits upload, but everyone using pocket Wi-Fi on same networks. Not far away, amazing new buildings, but this one has old traditional style. Architecture here is modern but keeps old Japanese aesthetics—cool. Wind picking up, rain hitting, but blue skies—bizarre time of year with typhoons. September 10th to November 10th is really nice, then colors change, weather chillier.

00:33:16 John Daub: Say bye to the Skytree—let's walk back to Broadway through Orange Street. After the Great Kantō Earthquake in 1923, very little remained in Asakusa—rebuilt then destroyed again in 1945, rebuilt with concrete, not so pleasant. Concrete boom in '50s-'70s to get buildings up fast—if fire again, concrete. Then architecture got interesting end of '60s.

00:34:34 John Daub: Every time I go down this shotengai, people say hi—lots of hotels here. We were here 15 minutes ago. I'll get some metal for Leo and Kanae Daub—can't get whipped cream though. Thanks to you and Michael. If you ask me, I'm somewhat anti-Kyoto just because too many tourists—I want you to discover other Kyoto-esque places. This is where the Ryōunkaku stood, right here at the end of this street—12 stories, marker memorializing 1923 Great Kantō Earthquake.

00:36:32 John Daub: Gosh, I love learning Tokyo history—surprised I didn't livestream this earlier. Would've been biggest date spot in 1920s till destroyed—everybody came for pictures with it in background. Wonder what poses they did—no peace signs probably. Here's that karaage (fried chicken) restaurant Yukari—you could smell it. Asakusa Metro Station—if on Hibiya Line, quite a ways from Kaminarimon; take Asakusa or Ginza Line. There's the infamous German-looking house: Japanese pancake place—going to talk to the manager.

00:38:08 John Daub: If interested in history, check this out—this month's postcard club picture releases September 29th, collaboration with Hiroshima City and hibakusha (atomic bomb survivors). This train survived, put back on rails three days after—not this one exactly, but similar. That's Genbaku Dome (Atomic Bomb Dome). Back has picture of Sasaguchi-san, 92-year-old who was 14 at the time—first employee back three days after as conductor checking tickets, no men left. Picture of train in original colors running weeks ago. Postcards coming tomorrow—maybe send from Hiroshima for postmark. I try best stamps too—Pokémon, Zombie Slayer (Yofukashi no Uta?)—they're seasonal. Makes money for channel to travel and produce—from my hand to your house.

00:40:26 John Daub: Remember to hydrate—good call. Going to talk to pancake manager I've been missing. Sometimes forget to drink water—feel parched. Locals pointed me to vending machine. Can't go wrong with Ōen Ocha (big garden green tea)—number one selling. This machine takes coins—no Suica or Pasmo. Going Wilkinsons since 1904—before Ryōunkaku. Wanda Coffee had Tiger Woods commercials forever—cringy but unforgettable. Google it. Celebrities like Schwarzenegger (Suntory beer), Bruce Willis (Enios gas), DiCaprio (credit card), Al Pacino (bed scene)—crazy what they did. Now mostly Tommy Lee Jones for Boss Coffee.

00:44:24 John Daub: If you make friends in Japan and stay friends, powerful—hard to make but friends for life. Like Doc Holliday said: a friend is a friend forever, enemy forever. Same in Japan, especially business—harsher than US. People honest till business—watch your back. Tomorrow livestream with Kevin Riley talking Kyoto—he does tours in Kansai.

00:46:19 John Daub: This is the pancake place—reservation at 8am, usually sold out. Eat in 5 bites for 2000 yen—amazing business, Instagram photo, nice snack not meal. Popular with tourists, rarely locals—why go for touristy thing like Menbaku-dai Fire Ramen in Kyoto.

00:47:32 John Daub: Hope that was interesting—Ryōunkaku big attraction of Asakusa back in day. This 12-story tower burned down 1923—torn down months after. Sad to lose to natural disaster, now cheap department store—check marker, learn history. Subscribe to Only in Japan—learn something new every day. Going Niigata Sunday-Monday with 17 viewers for Katakai Fireworks Festival livestream.

00:48:55 John Daub: You're still here? Like end of Ferris Bueller. Can't edit yet—sorry, 66 people waiting? Was interesting topic. Try more historical places that didn't survive 1923—changed Tokyo's identity. See you tomorrow.