00:00:01 John Daub: Welcome to Tokyo on a not so beautiful winter day. The weather could be better. That's not gonna stop me and my friend Dean here from walking it. How you doing, everybody?

00:00:16 Dean: It's currently 7 degrees.

00:00:18 John Daub: 7 degrees? Is it 7 degrees? It's not too, too bad. It could be worse, but it is chilly. It's not the perfect day for walking, but we're gonna do this from Tokyo Station. Well, this is like Ginza, Hibiya Station, through Marunouchi, the backside of Tokyo. Going to get to Akihabara, Via Conda. I have a map right here. Give you an idea of the route. It says about, I don't know, like, one hour. I think we could do better than that.

00:00:43 Dean: Yeah, I think you're going to take longer than that.

00:00:45 John Daub: But let's see now, when you do come to travel anywhere, not just Tokyo, I find that you walk a lot. And I know walking's become a trend. I try to get in like 10,000 steps. It's all, you know, you want to walk as much as possible. What's good for the body. So we're doing this experiment and we learned about one of the reasons I wanted to do this was we're going to pass a shoe store, which I thought was really doing something super cool. But check this out. I have on brand new sneakers. These white sneakers are going to be joining us on this trip. And we're going to see how dirty they get.

00:01:28 Dean: They are so white right now.

00:01:30 John Daub: I feel like they're very bright. It's a little much. It's a little much. We're going to walk in this direction. I wanted to start here because, you know, over there, about 25 meters, if you went in this direction, you'll be able to see the new statue of Godzilla, which is pretty incredible. I think the Hibiya Midtown building. A lot of restaurants down there. Really cool. And I like this scene because you got in the distance, you have the Shinkansen and the Yamanote line going by with Ginza in the background. I could have timed that any better.

00:02:03 Dean: Nice.

00:02:03 John Daub: There's the Shinkansen and then that's the Keihin Tohoku line going by there. I think the Kintoko line's going faster. There's another Shinkansen coming in. It's kind of this surreal.

00:02:18 Dean: You would never have been able to do that if you tried.

00:02:21 John Daub: No, it's just — it's trains. Well, can you do that with the weather? Turn off the rain. That was pretty cool. All right, let's get moving, Dean, because we got a ways to go now. Dean has a channel called Runaway Japan.

00:02:34 Dean: Yes, I do. Yeah. I am unfortunately not as active as I should be. But that channel is all about doing adventurous stuff in Japan. And right now I do most of that with my kids.

00:02:44 John Daub: And you've been in Japan for how, how many years now?

00:02:47 Dean: About 13?

00:02:48 John Daub: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:02:50 Dean: So I'm a long termer. I'm, I'm like you, I'm here to stay.

00:02:55 John Daub: After you get past 10, you're pretty much settled in strongly into Japan. So have you done this walk before?

00:03:02 Dean: No, actually out of my territory because I started my time in Tokyo around the Shibuya, Ebisu, Meguro area. So that's the place I feel most comfortable in and know best. And so now around Ginza and Tokyo Station is a little bit out of my territory. I think you know this area pretty well.

00:03:23 John Daub: Yeah. This back area, it's interesting. About 15 years ago, a lot of government buildings were here. It was a boring, boring area. The buildings around you look at it, they don't look very inspirational. Very, very like dark and boring. And that's the vibe of the Marunouchi from when I first came here. But about 15 years ago, this started to change where they put in nicer streets. You can see there are lights on, these trees, illuminated. It's in particular very beautiful at the Christmas time. And they're doing that because they want to make more like a sustainable feeling, make it more like a park feeling, get people to come here not when they're just working, but when on the weekends after work to stick around.

00:04:10 Dean: So they're inviting really cool trendy shops and coffee shops and all that kind of stuff. Right.

00:04:14 John Daub: There's a Patagonia over there to the left and there's an Allbirds shoe store to the right, I believe. And those are the shoes that I'm wearing here. And one of the reasons why I got curious about doing this — oh, there is right there. Over there there's the Yurakusho station and the BIC camera. So we go right past that, the International Forum. A lot of you who have been in Japan have certainly gone past this store in the past. It's a vibrant area. I sometimes will just do live streamings in the plaza there. But on the weekends they will close down the street and make it a park.

00:04:53 Dean: Yeah, it's really heroic. Wide, spacious here compared to other places in Japan. Not like it feels more like an American street in some way. You know, big wide sidewalk. That must be fun when they close this off and you can walk down the middle of the street.

00:05:08 John Daub: Oh, it seriously is. And you can see that actually grass is growing here. They put in some like Astroturf looking grass that they wheel out from the basement and it gives it a really cool feel to it. So let me introduce to you what the path that we're going to be walking looks like. You can see here, that's Tokyo. It's a big city. A lot of subway stations. I do a lot of walking when I'm here. Tokyoites walk a lot. This is where we're starting. This is the Hibiya park on the bottom there. Right there, Hibiya Station. There's the Yamanote and the Shinkansen line, you see. And we're walking down between the buildings here, these office buildings. Tokyo Station on the left side you see the canopy and the Shinkansen. This is Kanda Station right there. And then we switch over to Akihabara. We're going to be going over the — I guess it's the Kanda River. There's a really nice footbridge over there. And there's the very famous Sega, which is — now I forget what the name of that shop is. It's another gaming arcade. But that'll be our final destination. This live stream. Look, we're hitting the buildings in this video here I'm showing you. And then I'm going to pan out and you can see the Imperial Palace. Walking is a great way to see everything street level. Here you could take the subway, but you miss a lot of that. You can see here they — you can't actually — it's a pedestrian zone and they put the times here. This is what makes this such an interesting change to Tokyo. I guess it was about 15 years ago, but it was during the Olympics and the Rugby World Cup in 2019. They had a ton of events in the back streets of Marunouchi and Yurakucho. And you can see tons of these very trendy shops.

00:07:00 Dean: It is very trendy, isn't it?

00:07:01 John Daub: Yeah, yeah. Starting from here. This is the modern Uchisando Street. And you can see there's some maps showing the Imperial palace on the left side. And this is where I got my shoes.

00:07:15 Dean: All Birds.

00:07:17 John Daub: This is the Allbirds shop. I didn't know much about this company until you introduced them to me.

00:07:22 Dean: Yeah, I'm a fan of Allbirds. I've been wearing them for a few years. I was attracted to them because of the sustainability. And then you start wearing them as you are now, and you realize they're really comfortable.

00:07:34 John Daub: Right. You know that Bruno Mars — I think everybody was watching Bruno Mars on Instagram walking around Tokyo. Have you guys seen that? It has like 50 million views or something. They said that he stopped in.

00:07:48 Dean: He did, yeah. With no security, no management. Just walked in on his own.

00:07:52 John Daub: That's pretty crazy. So this is the shop here. I thought that was cool. And then I went in and I picked up a pair of their shoes. So the reason why I picked the white ones — do you want to say it or should I tell them? There's a reason why I picked the white ones here. So let me show you the inside of the shop here. I didn't — I don't — I didn't want to film. Oh, they're waving to me. How you doing? You want to see this festival? They're waving to me here. There they are. Good. So they're doing something that was really cool and Dean told me about this and I said, really? Well, I'm a big fan of Tokushima, of traveling around Japan, getting out of the country, getting out to the countryside. But they do something — and Tokushima is famous for Indigo.

00:08:43 Dean: Indigo Dying.

00:08:44 John Daub: Indigo dying. So what they're doing is you get things that are white or maybe have gotten — he says Australia. This is like a New Zealand company.

00:08:57 Dean: I think it was co-founded between a guy from New Zealand and a guy from California.

00:09:02 John Daub: Okay.

00:09:02 Dean: Yeah. So it's an American company now, but it's gone worldwide.

00:09:06 John Daub: It's global. Yeah.

00:09:07 Dean: And yeah. Started off as a sustainable comfort sneaker, and now they're doing running shoes and the range is expanding a little bit. So you've got one of the classics, right? The wool.

00:09:20 John Daub: Yeah, these are — well, I don't know what it — what name. The Wool Runner, I think that's right. But I got it because it was super white and I feel uncomfortable with the color, but the actual weight of the shoe is so good. And I'm hoping to mess these up a little bit so we can dye them. I want to see what it looks like when it gets to indigo blue. That's like Japan's — that's why when you have the Samurai Blue, that's like the Japanese color. This indigo blue. That's the inside of the shop. And then the shoes that I eventually got were these here. And that's gonna be pretty cool to dye these puppies and see what they look like. When is it — when is it? They're doing that dying event.

00:09:57 Dean: Watanabe San, at the end of March, they have this dying event. And so you've got about — what, three weeks, three or four weeks — to get these nice and dirty.

00:10:05 John Daub: Wait, do I have to put my hands in there like that too?

00:10:07 Dean: I hope so.

00:10:10 John Daub: Well, they give it a really cool character to see the dyeing of the shoes like this. So the blue — I guess everything gets blue, right? Even the rubber on the bottom of it. But these are the dirty shoes that they had before that you might throw out, right? And then boom, it's like renewable.

00:10:26 Dean: The point behind it is that with shoes it's really hard to recycle them because they're made of multiple materials. And so if you have a white sneaker or quite a light colored sneaker and you get a small mark on it, it's normally kind of game over. If you're conscious about what people think of you, because you have some stains on your shoes, that's it, you just throw them away. And of course, as a brand that's trying to be more sustainable, they found this way of kind of giving a product a second life because you can dye it and turn it into a new shoe.

00:10:53 John Daub: Basically, I'm walking because I'm starting to freeze. So I appreciate it. I think that's really cool. So let's try this experiment. And thanks to all of you guys here for watching as we walk in the rain. It kind of makes it puts a little extra challenge on this. Now I'm avoiding the puddles. Is that something I should be doing?

00:11:12 Dean: I just don't think you have to care, do you?

00:11:13 John Daub: I don't have to care. I don't have to care. Hey, Kamen Rider, let's see if we could pick something. Let's make this live stream interesting. Thank you for that. Let's get this nice, beautiful wide, so you can feel like you're here too. I usually come — I usually will walk and I'll walk through this street area because it's just so nice to do it. Compared to walking along the Yamanote line, we've got some weak signal here. There's the International Forum. This is the weightlifting events for the Olympics over there.

00:11:59 Dean: This is a very cool piece of architecture, right? This building the International Forum. It's like shaped like a boat, right?

00:12:06 John Daub: Yeah. On the inside looks like an inside of a whale too, in a way. And the other side of the International Forum is also the Oedo Antique Market. And they have tons of shops selling stuff that probably have been in some for quite a while.

00:12:31 Dean: Treasure hunting.

00:12:32 John Daub: Yeah. Later onto the channel, there's a Morton Steakhouse. What?

00:12:42 Dean: Molten sugar.

00:12:45 John Daub: It's interesting because sometimes you don't know something that you saw — Daub, John Lobb. I don't know, man. Stop sending me that reading. An Only in Japan wall somewhere.

00:13:06 John Daub: That would be good. Maybe that's what we should build an office right here. This is an interesting little building and I know that there's not a great signal until we get to — about the line. It's way down there. Now as the train gets closer to Tokyo Station —

00:13:44 Dean: Be the palace in the other direction, would it?

00:13:44 John Daub: Right, that's correct. That's correct. The palace would be the big wide opening in that direction.

00:13:49 Dean: So rare not to have the skyscrapers right in Tokyo.

00:13:52 John Daub: So this — I know that there's no signal here. This used to be, gosh, an old like warehouse. I believe they've renovated it, keeping a portion of it. I think even Taco Bell had an okonomiyaki Taco. Right. Which is pretty crazy. They ended up taking their food and there's a lot of really neat art. This is from the Rugby World Cup.

00:14:24 Dean: This is my first time to see that.

00:14:26 John Daub: Oh, really?

00:14:27 Dean: Yeah.

00:14:31 John Daub: Yeah. During the Rugby World Cup, this was a really vibrant area.

00:14:37 Dean: Wouldn't want to tackle him, would you?

00:14:38 John Daub: No, you're not gonna go very far. The guy's made of bronze. That's a nice little cafe. And so apparently the signal is not — not perfect here or at all, I should say. But don't worry, a copy of this will be uploaded under the channel, so you'll be able to see it all uninterrupted as we walk towards Akihabara. Some of the challenge.

00:15:25 Dean: So you said this, this 10,000 step thing is somewhat trending these days because I think that that 10,000 step idea of getting healthy has been around for a while, but people have started mixing that with their travel, I think.

00:15:41 John Daub: So I think walking in general has gotten — I wouldn't say trendy, just a lot more people are doing it more. The podcasting world has picked up that. Yeah, where you don't need, you know, running is good, but if you can't do that, just going out and walking really helps with the mind. That looks really good. You smell that? What is that? Like sizzling meat?

00:16:04 Dean: Okay.

00:16:05 John Daub: Oh, my gosh. There's some bento trucks here. This one is okonomiyaki. Is that I was just talking about. It looks like they're doing like a —

00:16:18 Dean: Japanese business areas. There's a lot of people working here. So it comes like 12 o'clock and then everybody just suddenly appears. Right. So you need these extra trucks because the restaurants just wouldn't be able to handle everyone.

00:16:30 John Daub: Oh, well, yeah. People just — and in particular, during the pandemic, the food trucks started to come in more and more because again, no one was going to restaurants or they couldn't because the hours were changed. But if you had a food truck, you were able to get your food or actually just keep your business going during that era. But now it's just interesting because you're bringing in new kinds of restaurants to areas that might be missing some kind of like okonomiyaki restaurant or some kind of that grilled beef restaurant or whatever. That looked really good.

00:17:06 Dean: They normally are really good and very affordable.

00:17:09 John Daub: Yeah. There's Tokyo Station. We'll get a better view of it when we get to the center here. But I like this spot for a reason. One of the things I love about the Marunouchi side of Tokyo is of all this open space. And we can thank the Emperor for it. You really can't build anything here anyways. And you see there's a tripod right there, I think, for light. There's a lot of wedding pictures get taken here. And if you come right in the middle, which is right here, check it out. It's just such a really beautiful scene from a distance. And it's a postcard. This Tokyo Station is modeled after Amsterdam Central Station. And the architecture certainly is unique for Tokyo. Yeah, it's nice. And the Imperial Palace in this direction. There's no buildings there. There's a moat. And then you have the Emperor who's probably staying warm. I forget — is that the Palace Hotel? I stayed there for a job during the pandemic with Peter. We got to ride the Shinkansen on a job going up to Aomori, which is so cool. Nice. We had our own Shinkansen.

00:18:26 Dean: Dean, how do you have your own Shinkansen?

00:18:28 John Daub: I don't know. You don't like what it says? It doesn't like — It says Nozomi. It says Nozomi Hikari on the board our Shinkansen — it said Party P-A-R-T-Y on the signage board. It was so cool. Wow. That was on it. I don't know if you've seen that episode. Peter and I go up to Aomori and we eat like 13 ekiben. Just showing the ride up there on the Tohoku Shinkansen. There's not a lot of people go up to Tohoku up to the north of Tokyo. So I thought that was a pretty cool idea. And JR worked with us on that.

00:19:02 Dean: Yeah, Tohoku's nice.

00:19:06 John Daub: I want to stop for a second, Dean. A lot of people ask me when around Tokyo Station — just the day before yesterday when I was here, someone said, where's a vending machine? Where do I even get a drink in this area? It's so expensive. Up above, everything of everyday value is down below. You have coffee shops, you have a convenience store. There's a supermarket down here and a ton of restaurants. I've gotten green tea goodies from this shop down in the basement. So everything is basically underground. When you can't find it above ground, go underground. So that's —

00:19:41 Dean: That's a great tip.

00:19:42 John Daub: Right.

00:19:43 Dean: Up means expensive.

00:19:45 John Daub: Well, there's no vending machines. Have you noticed that in this particular area of Marunouchi on the backside of Tokyo Station, we're getting into Otemachi, which is very much a business district, and you're going to see it with the taller, more modern buildings. You would think that, but yeah, that's not the case. If — I'm sorry about the signals going in and out upload. So we're leaving now. We're leaving now. The influence of Tokyo state right there. So we can say goodbye to that. And now we're going to be walking towards Kanda. See this on every corner. Well, not — well, many corners in New York —

00:20:35 Dean: Out there. I'm still looking to make friends with this guy.

00:20:42 John Daub: Well, it looks nice. Oh, nice. Well, you know what make me really happy if they put a Trader Joe's in here. You ever go to Trader Joe's? You know that company? No. It's a USA thing. There's no Trader Joe's in this area in Japan at all. Not even in Hawaii. You have to go all the way to California to go there. That's good stuff. It keeps sticking with me. We're gonna get — The signal is gonna get better as we walk through the business district. I — I really do like this walk, though, because you see so many different things. Like, look at this cafe right outside where they have chairs. But it's — it's darker here, but it also just the vibe. The air here is different, isn't it?

00:21:40 Dean: Hey, John, how easy is it for people to do loop if they're visiting Japan? Like is with — I'm just thinking we're obviously, we're walking right now and there's probably options to rent a bike.

00:21:51 John Daub: Right.

00:21:51 Dean: And do that. And I, and I see that there's like loops everywhere now.

00:21:54 John Daub: Oh, like the motorized scooters.

00:21:56 Dean: Yeah. So is that an option for people, the scooters?

00:22:01 John Daub: I'm pretty sure you need to have a register your driver's license online with them. The motorized, the battery powered bicycles, they're everywhere. They're sponsored by Docomo. NTT Docomo, I think. And you have to register online to rent those as well. You could take it from one spot and return it to another spot, which is really cool. But they're not free, you know, it's a little pricey.

00:22:21 Dean: So the most convenient is definitely these things attached to your legs.

00:22:24 John Daub: Yeah. Walking here. Speaking of which, there's still unbelievably —

00:22:29 Dean: I don't see a mark.

00:22:30 John Daub: I don't see a mark on them yet.

00:22:32 Dean: Maybe I should step on your foot a few times.

00:22:36 John Daub: But I am actively avoiding puddles, so that could be my fault. All right, now we're deep into Otemachi area and you know, this is where Citibank is. A lot of the international — the Bank of America probably has a branch here. All like the massive mega banks that all went under 15 years ago. The Lehman Brothers thing, dare I say it, I think the Aman is in one of these buildings here, which is the new hotel. Docomo — isn't that a Beach Boys song? Right In Tori. I think it, I — I think it could be long avenues here, wide roads.

00:23:22 Dean: Yeah, really like complete contrast to other areas of Tokyo where — Oh sure, you struggle to get one car down the road, you know.

00:23:29 John Daub: Yeah, definitely. It is. It's very different over here. We're getting, we're still following. You can see over the Yamanote line. So we're still going along that line there. But as we're walking, I think — wasn't there the burrito restaurant was over here too.

00:23:53 Dean: Burrito restaurant?

00:23:54 John Daub: Yeah, Frijoles, which is like a local burrito chain. Like the Chipotle of Japan. You might not get Chipotle. See, Dean is from the United Kingdom initially. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:24:04 Dean: Not a good place if you want a burrito.

00:24:06 John Daub: Oh, no.

00:24:06 Dean: I have to say.

00:24:06 John Daub: Yeah, really. I thought in London was really good, like curry. What's the most popular food in London? I think it was curry rice or something.

00:24:14 Dean: I — I do hear chicken tikka masala is like one of our national dishes now.

00:24:18 John Daub: Is it? It's — I was surprised how good the Indian food in London was. But, you know, Tokyo has done this really, really hard to try to make it look more green. And they're doing a good job with it right now. It does look like that.

00:24:38 Dean: Yeah.

00:24:41 John Daub: Look at this. This is like three minutes from Tokyo Station.

00:24:45 Dean: Fine dining.

00:24:46 John Daub: Yeah, fine dining. And it looks like you're in a forest. And look, they did — it is a forest. That is really crazy. What is that restaurant? You know, unless you walk around a lot, you don't find these hidden gems of places, new shops. I remember there was like a — remember the Granny Smith apple pies? I don't know if that's a thing in the UK. We had this in the States. They opened up a shop in Tokyo and I found it just walking around Aoyama a couple of years ago. I thought that was really, like, what I didn't get. I don't scan the press releases and find out what — what's new here in Tokyo, you guess. Social media kind of does that today. But 10 years ago, when that shop popped up, I was like, what? Whoa. End up buying apple pie. And then I guess it was like a year later it was gone.

00:25:42 Dean: Oh, yeah.

00:25:43 John Daub: Yeah. A lot of the shops here — pop-ups.

00:25:45 Dean: Good.

00:25:47 John Daub: Yeah. UFO Bob writes in here. There's no signal because we were lost in the forest. That could very well be the case. That was — that was unique. And here we are back in the city. To see that forest was — I don't know, to the walk it adds something different, like a texture year to the urban landscape. And that's really unique. It doesn't make you feel like, oh, we're in Tokyo. I felt like I'm in Tochigi or something.

00:26:15 Dean: So this architect has done really well then, right? Because that's exactly what he wanted you to say, I think.

00:26:20 John Daub: Yeah.

00:26:21 Dean: He's taken you out of a big city into a tranquil —

00:26:26 John Daub: This is also where that shrine is. Do you know the Masakado shrine?

00:26:33 Dean: I don't think I do.

00:26:34 John Daub: He was one of the first samurai ever, like 1300 years ago. And apparently his head got hacked off in Kyoto and it flew all the way to Tokyo and landed over there. And they have a shrine dedicated to him. But it's an interesting history. Peter and I came here about four years ago and talked about that history. But over the course of the last hundred years, they tried to move the shrine or build around the shrine. And all these accidents and devastating loss of life started to occur because they were messing around with the shrine. So they said that the shrine is haunted.

00:27:15 Dean: Spooky.

00:27:15 John Daub: And then they moved the shrine and built around it and said, we don't care about the supernatural stuff anymore. And I guess it was fine.

00:27:24 Dean: I hope it was fine.

00:27:25 John Daub: I hope it was fine. But maybe Masakado has made peace with us mortals.

00:27:36 Dean: So where have we got to now?

00:27:38 John Daub: I'm not sure. Do you have your Google map out —

00:27:40 Dean: the Tokyo Otemachi Station?

00:27:42 John Daub: Yeah, there's always a lot of food trucks here. Next to that orange statue.

00:27:52 Dean: It looks like we're about halfway.

00:27:55 John Daub: Halfway. Okay.

00:27:56 Dean: Halfway. Yeah. 31 minutes to go of what is probably an hour journey if you include, you know, some zigzagging —

00:28:08 John Daub: Past the Imperial Palace. You see all the rain here. We've passed Tokyo Station. We're heading towards Kanda Station. So after the — in this area, I think — yeah, I think that things are a little bit more — where we're going to be going on the up. Feel that. You feel the vibes. It takes — it takes a little time. There's a Seto lemon food truck. What kind of cuisine is this? So it's got like lemon chicken and stuff. And here's another — oh, hey, there's my friend, the Brazilian. Oh, wow. Let's go say hi. Oh, hey. Often in my neighborhood. Coming. I hold it. He's got — yeah, I know that. I like that. Yeah, I was like, gosh, if I had some time, I might sneak a Brazilian churrasco bento. Smells good.

00:29:27 Dean: The smell is incredible.

00:29:28 John Daub: Should we get? You want to get something? They have sandwiches and stuff.

00:29:35 Dean: It might warm us up a bit. Yeah, you want to do that? Like, is that — is that interesting?

00:29:38 John Daub: What do you guys think?

00:29:39 Dean: What do people want to see us eat? Like, do we —

00:29:42 John Daub: Do we get? Do you have the time?

00:29:44 Dean: I have the time. Yeah. Yeah.

00:29:46 John Daub: Oh, the —

00:29:46 Dean: The extra time or do I have the time?

00:29:48 John Daub: We could get like a wrap sandwich or something.

00:29:51 Dean: Yeah, it's quarter to one, so it's kind of — it's lunchtime.

00:29:54 John Daub: Okay, let's do it. All right. Yeah. He said we're cool with filming. So we're gonna put the super — The signal is coming in and out a little bit here. But this is kind of neato. It's funny though, to see a friendly face. It's nice on this really cold walk here. Yeah, we smelled it, dude. Stay right here for a second. Okay, so the signal doesn't seem to be so good right there. All right, it's buffering. It's buffering. Just stick with us right here. I'm gonna upload this video later as a playback, but — Michael Saysano. Thank you, brother. You just got us our lunch so very much. Appreciate it. Pretty quickly. Wow. Wow.

00:31:53 Dean: You know, when I — when I first came to Japan, all I wanted to do was eat — eat Japanese food. Like, I wanted to try every Japanese food. And not eating anything that wasn't Japanese felt like — I'm missing my chance to try Japanese food.

00:32:07 John Daub: Well, like what? They've been coming up for a few years into my neighborhood, and I love it. They do have — they make the churrasco bentos, which is really cool. And the wrap sandwiches are probably because they're out of the tortillas. But we've been doing this for 45 minutes. Yeah, it seems like 15 in my mind. Yeah.

00:32:28 Dean: Yeah.

00:32:29 John Daub: My —

00:32:29 Dean: My jaw is not fully opening anymore because of the cold, so the cold, it's making me mumble.

00:32:34 John Daub: We're more than halfway, right?

00:32:36 Dean: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:32:37 John Daub: I hope so. Oh, it smells so good.

00:32:43 Dean: And actually, you're the place you picked to finish this — Akihabara. I haven't been there in —

00:32:49 John Daub: Oh, it's really changed, especially through the pet. Oh, look at that big piece of meat that he put in there. Oh, Ishi. So —

00:33:03 Dean: It's so good. So cool that you have friends on the street.

00:33:08 John Daub: This is a karaage over here. The deep fried chicken, that also looked really good, doesn't it? Oh, man, what a nice little corner they have. Is that poutine? That looks like poutine, but it's not. If they did that, I'd have to stop and get that. You know, poutine is like the Canadian food. It's French fries with cheese curds. It's really good in Canada. I've had poutine here. It was not so exciting. It's not exciting. Rani is in the house. Hey, is that Dean? It is. How's Kenji doing? KG. KG.

00:33:57 Dean: KG, yes. KG is growing. Did you — did you play intense? He's busier than me. So it's really difficult now to make content with him because he's — he's just studying all the time. But he — he loves it and he has his goal. He wants to be an animal scientist and —

00:34:27 John Daub: Oh, like a veterinarian.

00:34:28 Dean: Yeah, maybe. And then Tao is — my youngest son is four. So I think as Keiji comes into a stage where he can't make the videos, maybe I'll introduce Tao and we'll start again from, you know, five years old.

00:34:41 John Daub: And he's just a little bit older than Leo. Yeah, the amount of talking that they do. And KG's teaching Tao English too. Yeah, yeah.

00:34:50 Dean: So that perfect, big brother.

00:34:52 John Daub: Yeah, that's really great.

00:34:54 Dean: We should do a daddy concert one time.

00:34:56 John Daub: We'll have to do that. I'll come down your way to the beach maybe in the summer is a little bit better. Dealers, I guess — south of me, yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:35:07 Dean: Down in Kanagawa. Far, far away from Akihabara.

00:35:15 John Daub: Different side, different vibe. Oh, my gosh, this looks so good. Thanks, guys.

00:35:36 Dean: Get your ultra hot sauce in there.

00:35:38 John Daub: Yeah. Cool. That's good. All right. Oh, this is warm. Oh, guys, this is keeping me — this is keeping us warm. Cross on the other side of the side of the street here. This is also quite voluminous.

00:36:06 Dean: Voluminous, yes.

00:36:06 John Daub: Voluptuous. It's a handful. Oh, my God. I know them because Leo loves the sausage, Brazilian sausages that he has there. And even when we walk by and don't get food, they always wave and they're very happy. And I love that he plays a really good music outside of his food truck, too. So I'll just start dancing right there. Eat it while it's hot, right? Saying Carrie. Okay, here we go.

00:36:34 Dean: We can go into this little corner.

00:36:35 John Daub: Yeah, we can come into this corner. As long as there's a signal there. Oh, that's good. Very nice. It's funny, the signal's better under the bridge. Under the bridge, which is bizarre. There's a couple of food trucks, right. If you go there frequently, they get to know you and then they start giving you more food that, like, for free, like — oh, and I added extra meat service. Yeah. Because they know that you keep on coming. So you don't need — you don't need a point card. You just need to be friendly.

00:37:38 Dean: A smile maybe.

00:37:39 John Daub: Well, yeah.

00:37:40 Dean: Waiting for the hot sauce. There you go.

00:37:43 John Daub: Boom.

00:37:43 Dean: Down onto the shoe. The whiter than white shoes.

00:37:54 John Daub: It's really good.

00:38:02 Dean: So this is guilt free because we burn the — all the calories that we're gonna eat. That's our view walking through Tokyo.

00:38:12 John Daub: Oh, yeah, sure.

00:38:14 Dean: Yeah.

00:38:19 John Daub: But he put a lot of meat in there. Nice. Last time I saw Dean was down in Okayama, right? We did the national parks, some soaking in an onsen.

00:38:50 Dean: That was a really good trip. We've been down to Tottori Shiman a few times, right? And we go down to the national park and — oh, totally different vibe to being in Tokyo. Right. It's all about local life and — Oh, yeah, remember we met that couple that were living out in the middle of nowhere and they were crafting all types of stuff out of local wood.

00:39:20 John Daub: Right.

00:39:20 Dean: And we — we were making chopsticks and —

00:39:26 John Daub: The last one. And on this channel, you can see Dean and I — much larger from the pandemic. We didn't get out as much, but the two things that I remember the most are the cheese shop. They make their own cheese in the national — what was the name of the national park?

00:39:47 Dean: Daisen-Oki National Park.

00:39:49 John Daub: National park. And that particular part of A was H — yeah. H — They make their own cheese in — Really good dairy products. Oh, my gosh. That cheese maker was like this filthy genius. You see, like his apron with all these cheese colors on there. All of it made from the milk to the cheese right there. Just far.

00:40:21 Dean: The cows are like 100 meters away.

00:40:23 John Daub: You know, check out that video on cheese. If you don't, it's like an edited video. You get to play with the cows, I guess. I don't know if he gets a lot of visitors, but he's like, yeah, try this cheese. Try this cheese. By the time we were like full of eating cheese. Yeah.

00:40:46 Dean: I think he's one of those, like, totally unknown. Like, if you don't visit Hiruzen, you would never know that there's a cheese maker there.

00:40:52 John Daub: So we took —

00:40:54 Dean: You never know. You'd never know Hiruzen.

00:40:56 John Daub: Right.

00:40:57 Dean: Like, how many people have heard of Hiruzen?

00:41:03 John Daub: It's a plateau. Yeah. You've done your Okayama inside. Between Tottori and Okayama. It's such a nice — like a mountainous and valley. Lots of green in there. I really enjoy it.

00:41:22 Dean: So people go there in the summer to cool down.

00:41:24 John Daub: Right.

00:41:25 Dean: Or in the winter for, like, winter sports and, you know, snowboarding and stuff.

00:41:29 John Daub: You can ski there. Yeah. See a lot of business people going past in the river. I saw some cormorants, the birds that can also dive down and fish. You see them float. I thought they were ducks. And they're like, whoa, where'd that bird go? Are you going under the water like a like a dolphin?

00:41:58 Dean: What do you know about these waterways? Get out on a boat in here or —

00:42:05 John Daub: Well, I think this is the near the Kanda River. We're getting close to them. A lot of Tokyo is a city full of canals, which is just amazing. You don't realize it.

00:42:17 Dean: Nobody knows that. Yeah.

00:42:19 John Daub: Because you don't realize it because of this — we're underneath the highway above. And this is a story during the 1964 Olympics, maybe around 62, 63, they started really quickly to improve the infrastructure of the city. So instead of, you know, making the highway from scratch, they just put it over the waterways, which is easy, but it doesn't make the city look very good. So there's now a movement to get rid of these.

00:43:03 Dean: To get rid of the highways —

00:43:05 John Daub: Yeah, and put them underground somehow. Or to move them to beautify the city again. In particular, Nihonbashi on the other side of Tokyo Station. They're doing it right now.

00:43:16 Dean: Wow.

00:43:19 John Daub: Construction is ramping up.

00:43:27 Dean: Is there anywhere we can take a boat trip? Oh, you can? Yeah,

00:43:34 John Daub: there's a boat here. Not — I don't know how much it is. I think it's a couple thousand yen, but it's pretty good. Let's go over the area that we're walking. So we started this live stream about 50 minutes ago in the Ginza region of Yurakucho. And we've walked not that far. There's Hibiya park on the right side. The Imperial Palace on the right side. I'm going through the modern Uchisai. And our final destination is right there, Akihabara Station.

00:44:28 Dean: You got messy.

00:44:32 John Daub: I only show that video so you, the crowd, the viewers couldn't see me stick my face into this to get the meat. I was like going deep into the paper. This is the route. It says it takes about an hour. We're not gonna beat that. I was so good. I have to pick up the scraps —

00:45:25 Dean: Oh, I need the ushiburi big time.

00:45:25 John Daub: Oh, I should ask them for a plastic bag.

00:45:28 Dean: Let me run back. There it is.

00:45:41 John Daub: Ah, that hit the spot. Thanks, guys. Oh, that's a student. We might have dropped a little bit of the scrap. So we're picking it up right now to make sure we clean up and leave the area cleaner than the way how we found it. Other the — the cormorant here. Lovely ducks.

00:46:12 Dean: You got any trash?

00:46:13 John Daub: Oh, okay.

00:46:14 Dean: Yeah, yeah. I'll be back.

00:46:16 John Daub: Okay. Dean is heading back to the Brazilian Churrasco's truck. So this is the part of the live stream where you guys can ask me some questions and you can write in. Where are you from? Where are you watching from? It's always good to hear from you. See, our audience is very global. We have only in Antarctica, which is here from time to time. So I guess we're covering all seven continents. It's not a bad thing. Again, like, I'm — I'm looking to see how my shoes are holding up. So far, not too bad. Hey, there's a Leo here watching from New York. Hey, Leo. Kentucky. Awesome. Singapore. From Brazil. Whoa. Finland. Delta BC, NYC. Awesome. From Chicago, Cleveland, Mumbai. Hey. Dubai. Indonesia. Look at this. I told you. We're all over the place. That's awesome. We have such an amazing community in Singapore. I remember when I went there to do the meetup. And you can see the meetup actually on this live stream. We had over 100, 150 people that came. It was incredible, the turnout. Oh, man. Kanae and I were there in 2018 yesterday. Pretty crazy. Oh, here comes Dean now. Diana Martin, are you on the way? Diana. Random. Here comes Dean. All smiles. Hey, blue steel done. All right. We left it almost — almost cleaner than we found it. I don't think we're gonna get away with all the sauce, but the water will eventually wash it away. It is rainy day on this rainy day. Yes. And away we go.

00:48:45 Dean: Gochiso samadhi.

00:48:48 John Daub: That was a good meal. I'm glad that we stopped. Thanks for pushing me to make sure to eat because I was starving. Don't you feel so —

00:48:54 Dean: So much warmer now?

00:48:55 John Daub: I do.

00:48:55 Dean: My mouth moves again.

00:48:58 John Daub: The Japanese make some of the best umbrellas. Did you ever notice that? Is that the one that you have there? Yeah, the — the ones that — yeah, look at that. The problem is I never buy those because I always lose umbrellas.

00:49:18 Dean: So scared of —

00:49:19 John Daub: Of —

00:49:19 Dean: Of putting this down somewhere. Nobody steals them, right, because it's Japan,

00:49:23 John Daub: but we just forget.

00:49:25 Dean: It's very easy to just put it down.

00:49:27 John Daub: Put it down on the subway or something. Yeah. This is Soto boridori. Soto means outside. So this is the outer ring. Let's take a right here.

00:49:39 Dean: So maybe let's go straight.

00:49:41 John Daub: I think we're going to connect up with Kanda Station. If we just go straight. Organic wine shop — wow. You can see there's more construction. It looks like that they're going to be putting something really significant here as well. A noodle shop right there. Ramen Scotland's in the house. We got some people from Scotland. Scotland. Awesome. John Lopez is having his wine right now.

00:50:23 Dean: Very nice.

00:50:24 John Daub: Now you can see that the vibe is completely changed, right? Now we're in — more of the architecture is really mixed here in Kanda. You have like a like a patchwork of eras from the late 50s, 60s. Then there's the 70s, which is kind of funky. And the early 80s. And then there's the late 80s and 90s. And the 90s — it starts to get a little bit darker. That brute design. I forget what the architectural is called. We saw that all through Japan in the early 2000s. And then today that's what modern Ouchi probably is more modern. So stuff. But also you have more of these like — look at that. Oh, cake. Coffee. Coffee shop.

00:51:10 Dean: Yeah.

00:51:10 John Daub: We're gonna have to stop and get some coffee. Dean — I need to warm — oh, did you smell that? Oh, my gosh. All right. Welcome to Kanda officially now. We're well past halfway, which is good news. Let's take a right and go to Kanda Station. You're right.

00:51:28 Dean: How —

00:51:29 John Daub: How different.

00:51:29 Dean: We didn't see any shop like this, right, in the whole of Tokyo.

00:51:33 John Daub: Yeah. Older family run. Like it looks like a used clothing store. Yeah.

00:51:38 Dean: Hibi and Ginza. You don't get anything like that anymore.

00:51:40 John Daub: No. And also the signal is clear as day.

00:51:45 Dean: Okay.

00:51:47 John Daub: We are back, ladies and gentlemen. And you saw that the train line was going by there. Look at this burger — it's a barber shop. I get confused sometimes. The beauty salons look like cafes to me in Tokyo. This is an old school barber shop.

00:52:11 Dean: Wow, that's cool.

00:52:15 John Daub: That is very cool.

00:52:16 Dean: Classic razor shave.

00:52:19 John Daub: That is a really beautiful barber shop. Kamito. Interesting. I — you should tell me.

00:52:27 Dean: Grow a beard just so you can go and do an episode in there.

00:52:30 John Daub: Yeah, I — you know, I don't think I could grow a beard.

00:52:33 Dean: Oh, look at this.

00:52:34 John Daub: Between the buildings — this little teeny shrine. Do you see this?

00:52:40 Dean: Yeah. Dwarfed by his neighbors. Yeah. Food.

00:52:50 John Daub: Just — you see stuff like this and you — you can't move it, but they build around it. You're going to see a lot of that here in Kanda because the buildings are smaller and everything is a lot closer. Narrower than where we just was in Marunouchi and the Otemachi area. It's more intimate here. I think.

00:53:21 Dean: Is kind of the area that's famous for used or old bookstores.

00:53:26 John Daub: Oh, that's Jimbocho.

00:53:27 Dean: Jimbocho.

00:53:28 John Daub: Yeah. That's not too far away. That's —

00:53:29 Dean: That's around here. Yeah. And what —

00:53:33 John Daub: Yeah, it's around the Imperial Palace. Okay. Going a little bit more west, but west. Now we're heading east in the opposite direction. Okay. Going towards the Yamanote line. I haven't done one of these walking the street episodes in a very long time. You know what? One of the little traditions that they — I guess it's not a little tradition. They have those girls that give — the Yakult — the Yakult girls. You can see there's a guy making a delivery here by bicycle. But they've been doing that since like the 1950s or 60s, maybe before that, the Yakult girls. These little yogurt drinks, right?

00:54:13 Dean: They have their own uniform, don't they? And their theme colors.

00:54:17 John Daub: I saw one the other day in uniform, and I was just like, wait, they're still doing that. Look at the way they've renovated the first floor of this old 1980s building. Very easy for me because I've been here 26 years to notice that the architectural periods in a lot of the buildings. I don't — I get it. I'm not perfect, but I get it really close. 60s, 70s, 80s. You can see those — there are Honey Angel. Yeah, these.

00:54:48 Dean: What do we get?

00:54:49 John Daub: Just by the windows, you can tell this is like early 70s, late 60s. And then we have a brand new building right here. But in this area, a lot of izakayas. You see the flashing lights over there? Those are Japanese pubs where you can go in and get a beer for like 300 yen. Usually you can get a menu that is massive in size. Lots of items on there. Try just about everything in an izakaya. And there's a Kanda Station. You see the Yamanote line going by right there. What's your favorite neighborhood in Tokyo? Is it — do you have one that you like? Probably.

00:55:41 Dean: Do I pick a cup or a station maybe? Like —

00:55:44 John Daub: Like a station. Okay. Yeah.

00:55:47 Dean: And I think I like it mostly because of familiarity, you know, it's just area — I know they have nice cafes there. And no, no three lane streets though.

00:55:59 John Daub: Yeah. Ebisu is a certainly trendy place here. So we've crossed over. We ate the Brazilian stuff around here right underneath the bridge. And now we've walked across here. And then we've been cutting now to the station. We're gonna walk along the rail line here. And then once you pass Kanda Station, we're gonna go over to this side of the tracks and cross over to the Akihabara.

00:56:25 Dean: So in my modeling days, they'd often bring me down to this bridge because there's lots of places where the road cuts through under this train bridge under the train line. And then we'd shoot underneath it because it has that like the atmosphere me urban vibe.

00:56:42 John Daub: Yeah, you could see it. I can — I could take you up above here. That's underneath the Yamanote line. And you can see — I mean, I would love to — you could build a business underneath there. But if you go past Akihabara a little bit, they have a shopping center, an artistic street of local artisans underneath there. I forget what it was called, but it's underneath the track, about 200 meters past Akihabara station on the way to Okachimachi. Boy, has the vibe changed. Kushikatsu restaurant right here. If you don't know what Kushikatsu is, it's these food on a stick from Osaka. You have that there deep fried, and they serve it to you sizzling from the fryer. It's so good. Okamameshi. Is that hot pots?

00:57:39 Dean: Yeah, it's — we're cheap and cheerful now over this side, aren't we?

00:57:42 John Daub: Yeah, it's colorful, it's vibrant. It's, you know, louder. It's chaotic. People walking left, right, up and down here, there. And the Kanda Station again, you know, if you're coming at night, you're staying in the area. If you're staying in Akihabara, I would say come to Kanda for food, right?

00:58:05 Dean: I bet it's lively at night.

00:58:07 John Daub: Oh, my gosh, it is.

00:58:08 Dean: The streets are full of businessmen.

00:58:09 John Daub: It really is. It has a vibe. Peter and I will go to a Chicago pizza restaurant called Devil's Craft, which is just down the street over there. There's Kanda Station's sign. Going to stick on this side of Kanda Station and then cross on over when we get to the next opening. Wow, so many restaurants. And these — these restaurants are much cheaper than on the Marunouchi side of Tokyo Station. The sushi place over there, Nigiri Sushi, French bistro right there. A lot of these shops have had renovations to it, and a lot of them, you know, when the pandemic hit, a lot of shops said, you know what? We're not going to make a lot of sales. So this is the perfect time to renovate. So we had a lot of that taking place. You can walk underneath the tracks here to get to the other side. I always thought this is kind of creepy. This sign looks like an alien, doesn't it? Look at his —

00:59:37 Dean: He's very wibbly wobbly, isn't he?

00:59:39 John Daub: Yeah, he's like — and the girl looks like she wasn't one, two —

00:59:42 Dean: Helmet.

00:59:43 John Daub: Yeah. I wonder who came up with that design. That the — the monster from that Mel Gibson movie.

00:59:52 Dean: Signs.

00:59:53 John Daub: The signs. Yeah. You remember that — that part where he walked by in Rio de Janeiro.

00:59:57 Dean: They had the crosses like that, right?

01:00:00 John Daub: He had like the Bigfoot pose.

01:00:01 Dean: Yeah.

01:00:02 John Daub: And then they pause it and they go whoa. I love that movie. It's so creepy.

01:00:20 Dean: What do you smell?

01:00:21 John Daub: Dashi. It's Fuji — it's definitely Fuji Soba right there. This is where when I was teaching English that in Tokyo would often have my one coin lunches at the Fuji Soba. And they make up like all the Japanese soul food for usually 500 yen. Let's stop here just for a second. How am I — my shoes are — they're still too white. Dean.

01:00:49 Dean: Yeah. You're not doing — oh, oh.

01:00:53 John Daub: All right.

01:00:55 Dean: That made a mark.

01:00:56 John Daub: I feel it. Foodie. So much — 580 yen for a bowl of ramen. You have now my favorite. I had the katsukare right here. They call it karekatsu. So it's reversed. That's so good right there. 960 yen. Under a thousand yen. But I always got this. And they raised the price a little bit. The katsudon. It used to be 500 yen.

01:01:20 Dean: But put that into dollar. What do you think?

01:01:23 John Daub: Yeah. Now it's about the same. Yeah.

01:01:25 Dean: Six dollars.

01:01:25 John Daub: Actually the price has gone up about 30%. It used to be 500 yen. One coin at lunchtime. But it was worth it. Man, that is a good looking kata.

01:01:36 Dean: If you bring foreign currency here now — if you come from Europe, you come from America, even from Asia — like you get a lot for your money, right?

01:01:43 John Daub: Oh yeah. Oh wait. They still kind of have it here. Katsudon. 580 yen.

01:01:46 Dean: So it's only gone up a bit.

01:01:48 John Daub: Oh, it's for the set. You get the cutlet on set, you get the soba, which is an amazing price. But just for the katsu — only raised at 80 yen, which is — that's okay. But usually it was one coin — 500 yen coin. You'd be able to get your meal. Oh my gosh. And I — katsu don — fill you up.

01:02:03 Dean: You don't see that very often anymore. One coin lunch.

01:02:05 John Daub: I remember that when I first came — so much outside of Tokyo. They still have it. Osaka finds a way to do it. Makes me suspect on the ingredients of this. So you could go this way to get to Akihabara. But we're gonna take you across the street underneath the old Kanda tracks. I love this part of it because you have like the pre-World War II tracks underneath here. These steel girders. I guess part of the old infrastructure of the city of Tokyo which withstood the Allied bombing of 1943, 44 and 45. Some of that's still apparent around Tokyo. And a lot of these were made from Japan had a treaty with the UK and the US back then not to build something with their battleships. Not to build as many of them and will release sanctions or something. So Japan used the steel that they would make for battleships and turned it into bridges and earthquake proofing the city. And you have these super strong structures, super strong bridges along the Sumida River. The history of it is fascinating. When you go back and look at it. The flower shop here on the right side. We're getting all range of cyclopedia knowledge of Japan jumps.

01:03:30 Dean: I've got in and say amazing.

01:03:32 John Daub: It's just as information. Correct. It's pretty close to it. I read — I read a lot.

01:03:37 Dean: If you're making this all up.

01:03:38 John Daub: It's —

01:03:38 Dean: It's very —

01:03:38 John Daub: I read a lot but sometimes my memory fails a little bit. That's why this is a social medium. Right. It's great because people can check me and go, you know that's not 100% accurate. I love that when people correct me.

01:03:52 Dean: So they should.

01:03:53 John Daub: But it opens the door and I think it opens the door to go out there and do your own research to find out more about it. And that's what really makes me excited about this format. Because if you — you look at the bridges and you go how did Japan come up with making this super steel bridge? It's like oh wait, that was a steel that was going to be into a battleship.

01:04:14 Dean: It looks like a battleship which would —

01:04:16 John Daub: — have been sunk and put on the bottom of the sea. But — yeah, but — but instead of that we have a super steel bridge. So sometimes war is not the way to go —

01:04:27 Dean: Yeah.

01:04:28 John Daub: Make some bridges — improve your infrastructure. I think we can make the slide. Come on, let's make the slide. There's a post office.

01:04:39 Dean: You have loops on, right?

01:04:41 John Daub: I do.

01:04:42 Dean: You shouldn't be fast.

01:04:44 John Daub: These are so comfortable. They are so light. This is not the typical style for John Daub. This is —

01:04:57 Dean: I should hold the camera and film you.

01:04:58 John Daub: Oh really?

01:04:59 Dean: Because people like — I know John as having a certain image. There you go.

01:05:05 John Daub: Yeah.

01:05:06 Dean: Can we get — can we get a model turn or something? Yeah. Some karate kid in there.

01:05:14 John Daub: Peso knows what I just did there.

01:05:20 Dean: It's a good look. The new Fresh John for 2000.

01:05:25 John Daub: Turn the camera around Akihabara to get some shots of that because Dean and I are going to be going back to that Allbirds place because they invited us to for the indigo treatment. So I'm trying to mess these shoes up a little bit so the impact will be greater when we decide to indigo it. I don't know — who buys white shoes? I don't know.

01:05:47 Dean: I'd buy white shoes.

01:05:47 John Daub: You do.

01:05:48 Dean: Yeah.

01:05:48 John Daub: Really?

01:05:48 Dean: But then you do have to tread very carefully, don't you?

01:05:51 John Daub: Yeah. Kanae buys white shoes too. And I'm like — Kanae, really? They're gonna get all dirty.

01:05:54 Dean: They look very good when you first put them on there, don't they?

01:05:57 John Daub: I guess. Yeah, they do. But that's why I buy black shoes, because I know they're gonna get nasty.

01:06:03 Dean: I have indigo shoes.

01:06:05 John Daub: Yeah. Well, you can wash these, apparently, which is good. And they do look well. They're definitely scuffed up now. So there's a bridge here in this part of — this part of Kanda is now we're getting onto the border with Akihabara. I guess you could call it a border up against it. But on the other side of the Kanda River, that's when you get into Akihabara. Now, Akihabara was a — like a stable town. It was a place where you would park your horses back in the day.

01:06:38 Dean: Oh, yeah.

01:06:38 John Daub: Yeah. And it evolved quite a bit. It turned into definitely not that anymore. Oh, is that what you're talking about before? Yeah.

01:06:45 Dean: There's the loops. Yeah.

01:06:46 John Daub: Let's go take a quick —

01:06:47 Dean: So they do — they have just — I didn't know they had number plates and they were —

01:06:51 John Daub: So they're classed as a — yeah, they're because they had a law that was passed. So they ended up being like a car. So you need to have a driver's license, I believe. But — yeah. Have you before here?

01:07:02 Dean: I've got a bike — a scooter, I should say. I have one. And mine has a number plate. But I thought that these loops didn't —

01:07:10 John Daub: So this is for you putting your smartphone.

01:07:12 Dean: They're very convenient if you — if you do have a license. So I mean, it'll be a little bit difficult for visitors, but maybe look out for the bikes.

01:07:20 John Daub: Yeah, the —

01:07:21 Dean: E-bikes. Ah, like that.

01:07:24 John Daub: Oh, right. Yeah. Right here. That's good. So these are all over. They used to be regional inside the city of Tokyo. You couldn't take them out of Chiyoda-ku or you couldn't take them out of Chodofu. The different wards. There's 23 wards. So you had to stay to return it within the same place. And I guess Docomo finally found a way to get them all in this safe place. Not now. You could just — you tap your IC card or something like this. Well, the process on how to do it is right there.

01:07:57 Dean: Day, day pass one 1650 yen.

01:08:00 John Daub: Okay, that's not too bad.

01:08:02 Dean: It's like $10, right?

01:08:04 John Daub: Yeah, something like — yeah, 11 bucks. It's not too bad. And there's a process to do it. They made it so it was nice and easy and you can see that you could just tap your card or something. Have I done it? No, I've got a bicycle. There's no need to do it. They're heavy.

01:08:22 Dean: Yeah, they're pretty heavy. Yeah, they're weighty. But we — but they are electric bikes, right?

01:08:26 John Daub: So these are clean. They look like they've upgraded it a little bit. But they're supposed to be like made to really get good wear — they don't tear. It's a nice bike.

01:08:40 Dean: Big basket. You can throw your basket.

01:08:43 John Daub: Yeah, I know that people go really fast in these. I've seen them pass me. I don't have a battery. And on my on my bike we have Leo — the one with Leo's the baby car.

01:08:54 Dean: You have a mama-chari.

01:08:56 John Daub: Yeah, that one has a battery on it. And the other bikes that Kanae and I have, we don't have batteries, but only a lot of them. But you could take these and return it to a different spot, which is nice. So people do have like 2000 yen one month passes where they can — they commute to work with it. So they leave it by work and then after work they take the bike and they ride it back. It'll be a different bike.

01:09:24 Dean: You just never need to own your own bike. Which is helpful if you live in a small apartment in the city and you don't have a place to park a bike, right?

01:09:30 John Daub: Well, no. You know when, right before the pandemic hit, there was a huge need, right after it hit, there was a huge need for the delivery driver for UberEats and a lot of them — they couldn't afford their own bikes, they would rent the bikes day by day, right? So they didn't have to buy their own bikes, they would rent it. And then when they saved up enough money to get a new bicycle, they did it like that. Pretty cool, right? So for 20 bucks they were able to rent it for a month, make that money back delivering it, and then be eventually buy their own bike. And that's how a business used to start now, you know, I guess can get venture capitalist money if you really wanted to. These days, if you're starting a business, you have a good business plan. But, you know, just starting by, you know, pulling yourself up by your bootstraps — you don't get more bootstrappy than that. All right, we're at the end of Kanda and right there is the bridge. The last time I took this bridge was with Mike Chen, who is a food — he's a foodie. He definitely can eat way more than me. Very, very smart guy. Very, very good with this content. I guess Strictly Dumplings is the name of his. This is —

01:10:53 Dean: This is Akihabara station coming up right now. Yeah, we made it.

01:10:57 John Daub: Heck yeah. That's 10,000 steps. Approximately. I would have known if I brought my Fitbit, but I left it on the Charger. But we didn't go in a straight line. We most certainly did not go in a straight line. So I've got, of course, stories about every single corner of Tokyo that is extremely expensive for parking. Wow. No cheap parking in this area. There's the Manseibashi or the Mansei Bridge. Over there. There's the vending machine House of Horrors. Do you know that, Dean?

01:11:46 Dean: The vending machine House of Horrors? No, I do not know that.

01:11:51 John Daub: It's like — I don't know if it's still there. Well, let's cross. We'll talk about it on the way. This is the Kanda — and this is just like a little secret pedestrian bridge. It'll get you to Akihabara. How do I know this? NHK Tokyo Eye. How many times I did Akihabara with Patrick Galbraith and Kevin Cooney back in the day, talking like 2008, 9, 10, 11. Right before the earthquake. I think we did four or five episodes here at Akihabara, and I explored with NHK every single nook and cranny of this side of the city. But you have once again, there's some of that battleship steel. And this is the Washington Hotel. Oh, they got — the Denny's is out of business. The Washington Hotel is of significance because 10 years ago, 10 or 11 years ago, when I did the episode here, they had a room dedicated to train otaku, train geeks. And the whole room had a train that went around it. You could control it with a little panel in there. Yeah, it's a little bit more to pay for that. You see the seagulls making a home outside of Akihabara right there. But it was a — and that's too bad that the Denny's is gone.

01:13:17 Dean: They had hell of a terrace, didn't they?

01:13:19 John Daub: What one heck of a terrace. Yeah, it is. Apparently you could — it's available for business if you want, but in the summertime, the canals don't smell as wonderful as you might think. So I don't know. They've cleaned up their act. It was a lot worse about 20 years ago. And here we are. This is — you can hear the chimes for the JR station.

01:13:42 Dean: Wow. It's like me rediscovering Tokyo, you know?

01:13:47 John Daub: Yeah.

01:13:47 Dean: I feel like a tourist again.

01:13:48 John Daub: Well, that's what I think. Walking the city is really good. And if you do do that, you also burn off calories a little bit. You get your steps in. It's good for the body. You don't want to be sitting around all day. You didn't come to — you know, just sit around. You want to get some exercise, too. And if you can get exercise and really see the city, that's the way to go. All the different vending machines, definitely the smells. And the feeling has changed by coming in this direction. Let's cross the street over here, and then this will take you right to Akihabara Station. We're going to be finishing our live stream underneath the ch — on ch — underneath the bridge there, where I showed you an hour and a half. It took us an hour and a half. Dean. What the heck? I thought —

01:14:43 Dean: I thought it would take us longer.

01:14:43 John Daub: Yeah, we get distracted, don't we? Well, I get distracted. I don't know what your excuse is, but everybody who watches this episode already knows — watches the super series, knows that I get distracted way too easily. That's —

01:14:53 Dean: That's got to be a good thing.

01:14:54 John Daub: No, I'll be going one direction. Oh, look at that. Oh, there's a Pokemon card vending machine. Wow. All right. And here we are in this direction. You can already see Akihabara Station. But, you know, these shoes are really good.

01:15:33 Dean: You really —

01:15:34 John Daub: You got —

01:15:35 Dean: You gave it a bit of a splash now, but yeah, they look — they look almost new. You look like a madman.

01:15:57 John Daub: Very cool. All right, hang in there. Don't leave us yet. We're gonna get up to Akihabara Station and then make a right and then to make a left and take you to that very famous site. Maybe you'll see the Sobu Line line go by that yellow train. We can — but that's the intersection where the that crime took place — the stabbing. You remember that back in the day? I do. Oh gosh, that was awful. I think that's like 15 years ago now. Guy drove through an intersection and then he got out and just started, you know, slashing the people. Yeah. Japan is a really, really safe place. But sometimes people are a little messed up. This is weird. So even the Sega is gone. Look at this. This used to be the Sega or the Gigo.

01:17:00 Dean: It's like the one thing that I —

01:17:02 John Daub: Yeah, but it's not even a Gigo anymore. What the heck is this? Ichiban Kuji.

01:17:07 Dean: It's popular, whatever it is.

01:17:09 John Daub: Yeah. Namco, which is a game center. So Gigo sold out their shop to Namco. Oh, it's ever changing. There used to be — I got a lot of good stories about — there used to be a guy who would rap — this otaku guy, he would rap — like I contact instead of just doing like — and he had this like really geeky rap — saw right in the corner here, I don't know how many times. And he knew me from the NHK show. So I would like go high five or I would hang out and he be like, hey, how's it going? You know that that shop closed and then that's when Sega took it over. And now apparently Namco — the hamster tube store is back. During the pandemic, it closed down and now it's — it's been resurrected. So a lot of the stuff — it looks like hamster wheel, hamster tubes, doesn't it? You look like such a tourist. Like if you look at around like it's your first time in Japan —

01:18:23 Dean: and just noises everywhere.

01:18:24 John Daub: Right? Like Dean's first time in Japan. Welcome to Japan.

01:18:28 Dean: I've shot this scene so many times for PVs.

01:18:37 John Daub: This Radio Koshin — they made this wider Rajio Koshin. Those will remember would — would jut out. The whole building is new. But it would come out to the street and you can go underneath there, you know. Akihabara was a stable for horses back in the Edo period. And eventually it kept evolving. After World War II, technology came in here. It became an electronic — like vacuum cleaners and TVs were sold here. Then in the 1980s, computers started to be the computer center. And then in the 2000s, manga anime really started to grow. Then he had maid cafes with the subculture. Diana, you made it.

01:19:21 Diana: I made it.

01:19:21 John Daub: I made it.

01:19:22 Diana: It was so stressful.

01:19:25 John Daub: How long were you here? Were you waiting a long time? No.

01:19:36 Diana: I am triangulating information from boss in Bogota. He's been telling me —

01:19:38 John Daub: Well, how's your trip going?

01:19:44 Diana: Extremely well. Super lucky. I was for a week and a half in Hokkaido.

01:19:44 Dean: Nice.

01:19:45 Diana: And then I went to Iwate to Morioka and I hiked Akita Komagatake. And my guide was Queensland Ferris from Go North Japan from that channel and —

01:19:52 John Daub: Yeah.

01:19:52 Diana: The mountain was beautiful and gentle. With us it was perfect. And then I went to Kawaguchiko a couple of days and I saw the Fuji. And then I didn't — but it was super nice because I love the fog and the clouds. And then I came here and I just arrived. You know, I just — I landed at Shinjuku Station and host — my husband was like, John, John is about to go live. And I was like, where — where is he going? Wait a minute. Let me tell you. He says he's going to Akihabara. That's —

01:20:30 John Daub: How are you —

01:20:33 Diana: I have been going all over the place, but I found you.

01:20:33 John Daub: Yeah, there we are. We made it to our destination here finally. Yeah. So Diana is from Colombia and she —

01:20:41 Diana: Mexico. But I live in Colombia.

01:20:43 John Daub: Mexico, but Colombia now. And you were on our bus tour? Yes, a few months ago. Which — which is not six months ago. Almost crazy.

01:20:52 Diana: We were like the guinea pigs. Like the first batch. And it was extraordinary. Please — when John organizes another one, you have to go. It was unforgettable. Like really, really.

01:21:06 John Daub: Yeah, it's gonna be a lot smoother. The guinea pig period is over now, I think. I think we got the kinks worked out, but it was pretty smooth. I think that the team did a good job with the accommodations and everything. Despite the heat though. It was really hot.

01:21:23 Diana: Yes, well, I mean, we're in Japan. It's like —

01:21:27 John Daub: That's very true. We're gonna walk out here to the bridge. What are you doing today?

01:21:32 Diana: I was going to go to the hotel and then go to eat something.

01:21:39 John Daub: Oh, okay.

01:21:39 Diana: Thinking about if I can find John and his friend —

01:21:42 John Daub: I'm going to go some ramen and — okay. When do you go back to Columbia? Where's Joss? Joss is back home.

01:21:52 Diana: Yes, you can go back.

01:21:59 John Daub: Here's another Fuji Soba. Dean, look at this. To take it over 24 hour Fuji Soba — Katsudon for 580 yen. Yes, please. Are they at the deluxe Katsudon for thousand yen? Did now you — did you see that? They're really taking advantage of the tourists now. The price is more here. That's all right. It's still relatively cheap and a good meal. And then right there you have the Giga, which was the SEGA World. The iconic red building underneath the Sobu line. This area, again, has evolved so much over the last 26 years that I've been here in Japan and over the last 50. It's extraordinary the changes that have occurred just on this particular street. I hope it never changes the way it is. A lot of the businesses that were abandoned now have come back. You can see there are some shops in this corner as well here. This one is a late 1950s underneath the tracks here. So there you are, everybody. I hope you enjoyed it. Dean, how was it for you?

01:23:06 Dean: A tour of Tokyo after 13 years of living here, here. So that's fun. Thanks — thanks, John, guys.

01:23:11 John Daub: Well, thank you for joining us. I think you've burned up enough calories to eat a cream brulee donut, perhaps. And you all know what I'm talking about on the other side. Maybe not. Have you had the — have you had those cream brulee donuts?

01:23:23 Diana: No, not yet, no. Where?

01:23:25 John Daub: No. Down by the Yodabashi Camera, the electronic shop. There's an alleyway and Jack and the donuts at the — I think it's called. It's pretty good. It'll give you a sugar high. Thanks everybody, for watching. We'll see you in the next episode probably tomorrow. Shout out to our friends at Allbirds. Appreciate it very much. We'll be there on on March 26th.

01:23:48 Dean: 24th.

01:23:49 John Daub: March 24th. I'll be there to to dye these. We're gonna be turning this to indigo. Not too bad, not too bad. Very, very comfortable shoes.