00:00:00 John Daub: Hello everybody, welcome to Tokyo. This is actually an episode about Osaka, but it has very much relevancy to Tokyo as well. The mayor of Osaka recently came out and said that they're going to do an entry fee for foreign tourists based on over-tourism. And I'm going to be explaining my thoughts on this and why this is taking place. It's not something that is just for Japan. Actually, this is something that's going on worldwide. It just so happens that Japan is a destination that most of you really love to come to.

00:00:39 John Daub: When this happens, it's a little shocking. But business is war in Japan and business is necessary and they definitely need to battle this a little bit. Alright, let's check this out here. So this is the mayor of Osaka here. In an article recently from the Japan Times: "Osaka weighs entry fee for foreign tourists in a bid to combat over-tourism." What is over-tourism? It just means that there's a lot of people coming in and it's creating a lot of stress for locals. In particular, the infrastructure here in Japan is not enough right now for the amount of inbound tourists coming to this country. So it's creating a lot of challenges, which is part of the over-tourism, as well as the sustainability.

00:01:32 John Daub: Osaka prefectural government will consider charging foreign tourists staying in the prefecture an entry fee to combat over-tourism. Hirofumi Yoshimura said Wednesday—the planned levy is separate from lodging taxes. So there's already, I think it's really reasonable, about 100 yen per stay for foreign tourists. And I think this is for Japanese tourists as well, those who are staying in Osaka. This impacts in particular the Kansai region. If introduced, it would be the first levy of its kind nationwide. Japan currently does not have a tourist tax, although sometimes we're seeing this. There's a Shinkansen going through my head.

00:02:22 John Daub: The goal is to introduce it in time for the Osaka Kansai Japan Expo 2025, which is just a year away. According to internal official articles and communication minister, there is no taxation program operating by the local governments in Japan that specifically target foreign nationals, and such programs would need approval from the internal affairs minister. They're gonna get the approval, I'm pretty sure. In light of the recent surge of inbound tourists, the coexistence... Whoa, Doctor Yellow! Doctor Yellow is the Shinkansen that checks the integrity of the tracks. You don't see that too often, once a week—that was pretty awesome.

00:03:10 John Daub: Forget the tax, did you see that? Alright, let's move on. I love coming here because you can do train spotting, which is pretty awesome. That was cool. I was the only one going crazy as well. Because of the surge of tourists coming in here, there's a lot of worry that they don't have the infrastructure really in place to deal with the amount of tourists coming to Japan and from other countries abroad. And they need to hire more services to make sure that it's smooth, not just for tourists but the locals—and that takes money. Locals don't want to pay for it. Locals are like, why should we pay for it? Well, it currently imposes an accommodation tax of 100 yen—there it is—so 300 yen on domestic and international guests staying in lodgings. It just depends how much you spend.

00:04:06 John Daub: So yeah, I think this tax is gonna happen. This isn't anything new—this is happening all over the entire world. Venice is imposing a tax, if they haven't already, to limit the amount of tourists that are coming there. A lot of places are doing the same thing, in particular popular places because there's too many people, let's be honest. And I think a tax is not going to really stop tourists. Now there's going to be a percentage of people, like 1%, that are like, oh Japan, why are you doing taxes? I'm just going to go to Korea instead. Really, first of all, Korea is a wonderful place. But the second thing is it's only going to be a couple of dollars more. And the dollars are probably going to be used to really improve the experience for tourists.

00:04:59 John Daub: Already I'm seeing the money being used from the influx at the JR stations in Tokyo. They already have windows. This technology comes from Toppan, which is a publishing group here. I guess they also make digital manga. They've kind of been working for decades in this industry, the publishing industry. And they have these windows at the JR stations which allow you to translate where the staff worker behind the window can translate on the window. It becomes like a digital window. This is starting to really help. These kinds of costs need to be passed on to the tourists because Japanese consumers right now—it's not a good situation and we can't afford any more taxes for you to want to come to Japan because you're going to come anyways, let's face it. I'm pretty confident on that.

00:05:59 John Daub: Michael's Asana is in the house. Pretty gloomy, it is—it's raining. That's why I started a little bit late, as a result of it, which is a good thing because we got to see Doctor Yellow. That's so cool—that has not happened in a live stream. So thank you, Michael—it's good to see you here. Other things that are happening here: what exactly is this over-tourism thing? Let me explain a little bit more in detail and how these tax dollars possibly help. I'm going to go through this article that comes from, I think, the Associated Press here. "Kyoto's picturesque geisha district fights back against over-tourism." This is a recent story, I think it was just a couple of days ago. And right now Kyoto—thank you to the viewers that pointed this out to me.

00:06:47 John Daub: There's a neighborhood in Kyoto where a lot of tourists are more like paparazzi now and they just go there and hunt pictures of geisha, which many of them do sell online. Japan's ancient capital Kyoto, long a popular destination for tourists, is closing off some private property alleys in its famous geisha district because of complaints about misbehaving visitors. Tourists crowd the alley, the narrow quaint streets—and they are narrow in this area of Gion. There's even tour guides that take you on these geisha tours. That's going to have to stop. "We are going to put up signs in April to tell tourists to stay out of our private streets," he told the AP. A sign will say in both Japanese and English: this is a private road, so you're not allowed to drive through it.

00:07:41 John Daub: Now if you do take pictures or you go through this private road and you have no business being there, you will be fined 10,000 yen or $70 if they catch you. But I'm going to believe that they're going to police this and make examples out of the people who don't listen. The ban covers just several blocks of Gion. The district's public streets will remain open to tourists, so the area for the rest of Kyoto will still be teeming with visitors both from Japan and the world. And in the middle of it, Venice is limiting tourists to protect the city—so this is not something that is new here. Gion's outrage highlights brewing resentment at what many people feel is over-tourism, even though the Japanese economy depends more than ever on tourism. Japan kind of staved off a recession recently by having growth. So I think that growth is as a result of tourism.

00:08:41 John Daub: The district of winding alleyways is known for picturesque teahouses where geisha and their maiko apprentices, wearing fancy kimono and hair ornaments, perform in dance and music. In a city known for gorgeous temples and gardens, Gion is one of... I think you get the picture. So I think that this ban is probably—first of all, I thought they banned it before, but you know, during the couple of years where nobody was coming here... The tension was lifted, the steam was let out, and the locals in Kyoto... There's like 1.4 million Kyoto residents. That's it—it's not a big city. Mainly because you can't really build new accommodations in the city, but there's not a lot of people there. There are right now like four times more foreign visitors and domestic visitors in general than there are residents of Kyoto. It seems like there's always more tourists than residents in the city of Kyoto.

00:10:05 John Daub: So there's always going to be some steam here, in particular with misbehaving tourists—it did not help. And there's a lot in Kyoto and just people who disturb tourism. It's a tough thing. You have to take the good with the bad and that's part of the stew that you get with tourism. But I don't know—even a city like Kyoto that has been a tourist attraction for decades is still grappling with tourists that are coming to Japan. Like it's always been a tourist attraction, but it's only been 10 years since it's been like a tourist attraction. Meaning, I've been living here for 25, 26 years this year, and I have not seen international tourism like it is now. And Japanese are still kind of grappling with that—like people coming here that have no clue about the culture. You can take a little bit of it, but it's more than the residents and it's a lot for them to handle. So you get to understand a little bit about that.

00:10:58 John Daub: There were some more stuff here from Kyoto. I'm going to go through this from Kyoto News. I love Kyoto News—they translate or write a lot of the things in English. Kyoto also a Japanese news service. "Kyoto may launch a tourist express bus to beat the overcrowding." If you're going to Kyoto—and I've been telling you this for the last 18 months now, since Japan reopened in November 2022—Kyoto is going to be the most uncomfortable and crowded experience that you have in Japan. Besides maybe parts of Tokyo like Shibuya. Morning first thing in the morning and then times in the evening where it's not too bad, but Kyoto in general—for me, I don't like crowds, so I feel uncomfortable going to a temple and not feeling the reason why I'm at the temple because there's just too many people.

00:11:52 John Daub: But the problem is that Kyoto doesn't have a really big infrastructure for subway, for example, to move a lot of people. The bus system is something they rely on, and the public buses have been crowded seriously with queues quite long going out of Kyoto Station for quite a long time. Tourists don't like that; old people that need it or can't afford taxis that rely on those buses can't often get in—they can't even get in. So it's created a lot of stress. Kyoto is considering establishing express buses. They're just considering it, but I think this is a wonderful idea. It's going to cost a little bit more, but time is money. OK, if you're going to spend a dollar more and you're going to get to your destination 15 minutes faster, it's worth it. OK, it really is.

00:12:47 John Daub: The government plans to set fares on the express buses at 500 yen, which is three dollars. That's a little expensive for us, but three bucks is pretty cheap. Adults 500, for children 250. I think the express buses are great. Look, if you just spent thousands of dollars to come to Japan and you can spend a dollar to drop 15 minutes of sitting on a crowded bus, I would do that. In fact, they might even have day passes that probably cost like 25 bucks or something—I would totally do that. Because again, the buses in Kyoto take forever to get around and they're not comfortable when they're crowded. Japan has seen a spike in tourism since lifting restrictions in April 2023—actually it was November 2022 where the visa stuff was eased. With a population around 1.4 million, Kyoto has hosted more than 40 million domestic and foreign visitors in 2022. That's crazy.

00:13:56 John Daub: Kyoto is emblematic of the over-tourism issue disrupting local communities across Japan. This is a real thing. By easing congestion, they're splitting routes people use. "We hope to achieve a balance between everyday life and tourism." I think going forward they're going to have to find this balance of everyday tourism versus everyday life. And I love that everybody is visiting Japan—I really do. I walk around and I get to see a lot of visitors, many of them sending me messages: "I hope I can catch you, I hope I can see you." By the way, if you do, I still have some "you found me" cards. I think it'd be great if we could find that harmony between everyday tourism and everyday life, and we don't quite have that in Japan.

00:14:48 John Daub: This is Yurakucho if you don't already know—this is a place I love to come, mainly because it's my backyard. There's a big plaza here; the station has been finally finished its renovations—it looks a little bit easier, the entrances have been widened for the tourism coming in here. And the Shinkansen passes over there. There used to be a restaurant up there where you could sit and watch the Shinkansen coming through, but I believe that restaurant had to close down, which is a shame. And they looked really cheap, like 1000 yen lunches as well. And the Godiva bakery is over there—that's a chocolate place. I saw a big queue; apparently need a reservation to get in and get the chocolate bakery. But they closed the Osaka store down and they put in a bakery over there. So it looks like this balance between everyday life and everyday tourism is what a lot of communities are struggling with right now.

00:15:35 John Daub: And they're going to come up with things which probably include costs, which is going to be passed into improving the infrastructure, improving options like express buses to get you from one place to the other without having to go without stopping where the locals want to stop. Because actually nobody gets off the bus at a lot of these places—they get off at the main tourist stops. And the express buses would be quite welcome. Right now we're in the cherry blossom season and we're gearing up for that. I'm looking at the daifuku options. I saw that Muji had these sakura-infused foods and I'm trying them all out for you guys. I still got a couple of boxes if you're interested—I'm going to be putting the best of the best in there for this cherry blossom box.

00:16:30 John Daub: This one I'm not sure if I'm going to put in there—it was a little bit too salty, but it's quite good. Cherry blossoms have a salty floral taste because they're pickled. I think this is the Kawazu sakura—actually it's pink, but it was fairly good. But I'm not sure I'm going to put in there. The scone was a little dry but had that cherry blossom in there, which was nice—salty floral taste, it's quite pleasant. So I'm making up the cherry blossom boxes. And if you haven't already, you can see the story of a 1,000-year-old sakura tree which is playing on YouTube right now. This is a community and we do have a Discord community where people that are in Japan right now are helping those that are also visiting. Make sure you do join that—it's free, you just got to download the Discord app, which has so many other communities.

00:17:28 John Daub: Doctor Yellow is in the house—it's going back. There's some people that were also shouting this time and basically telling me yeah, we have a telephone number. I don't think we've had a message in a while, so it's time to promote that. I took a week off because I've been working on the edited video channel. I think that's the new Shinkansen as well right there. I've got a phone number that you can actually call and leave a message—it's a U.S. number and I will start playing those. But right now it's limited to just Patreon supporters. So if you're a Patreon supporter, you want to join the Postcard Club—this is this month's postcard: it's me, Leo, and Kanae underneath the cherry blossoms. It's a beautiful shot, I think, and kind of shows you my cherry blossom this year. I'm talking about more my personal experience.

00:18:47 John Daub: But this is the postcard that's going out in a couple of days. So yeah, I appreciate that. But the phone number there is for everybody who's on Patreon right now, and I'll release it to the public a little bit later on. But it's kind of cool to hear from you—you just leave a message and push the pound sign to end it. And I believe you can confirm the message or not. Shout out to Peso for setting that up—it's kind of a neat thing. But you can just call me and leave a message and I can delete the ones that are bad. We haven't had any because it's been a while, which is really nice. Patreon members can leave a voicemail for John on a real phone number—check Patreon posts for more info. The Patreon does help out the channel quite a bit, so I appreciate everybody who's joining the Postcard Club.

00:19:34 John Daub: You can also send the postcard to a friend who loves Japan as well if that's a gift that you want to give—it's kind of a neat thing. I make sure the stamps are really nice on there. Common writer writes in: you have a warm cup of coffee—thank you, I will probably stop at that cafe to pick it up. Any idea when the tourist tax of Osaka will be starting? Alright, just to go back on this for those that are joining us: the tax is just an idea right now, but I'm pretty sure that they're going to do this. I just think it makes a lot of sense. And the area of Kansai—it's got Kyoto, it's got Himeji Castle, it's got inside of Osaka, Universal Studios Japan, it's got Kansai International Airport, it's got Dotonbori, it's got the Umeda Sky Building—it's just stacked with tourist attractions.

00:20:26 John Daub: In fact, I don't know why you guys come to Tokyo at all—you should be doing Tokyo as a day trip and spending time going into Osaka and Kansai. And my friend Kevin Riley's probably thinking the same thing. It's much closer to Kanazawa as well, it's much closer to Fukui and the dinosaur museum, which is pretty awesome. It's much closer to Hiroshima. I'm hoping that if you do come to Tokyo, you might go up to Tohoku, which is a place that's close to my heart. We just had the 13th year memorial yesterday where we kind of stop our day to remember. For me it is deeply very deep memory. Drama—I still have you saw that in January when I went up there and I was really impacted by that. But yeah, I would hope that you guys would go up there if you came to Tokyo instead of using Tokyo as your day trips.

00:21:26 John Daub: Kansai is much better suited for that—you get day trips to Nara, day trips to Himeji, day trips to even—it's much easier from Osaka to do a day trip to Hiroshima, for example, to Miyajima. Even hitting Kyushu is a lot easier because you're saving three hours sitting on the train and you're not going to be able to go to Tokyo on the train. So I think this tax is going to happen and I think it's probably going to start in the fall but before 2025 because April 2025 is when the Expo is coming. But I think they're overestimating the power of having a World Expo. Yeah, it's kind of going to be cool and I'll probably go to it, but it's not like this thing that attracts everyday tourists. It's kind of like anime, manga, and the other things that are coming to Japan—it's going to bring in a lot of people, but it's certainly not going to be as such a big buzz as it is.

00:22:21 John Daub: And I think we're right now feeling—Japan was able to avoid a recession, and I think the economies are not going to be good in 2025. I think the numbers will stay pretty solid, but it'll be people. But it could be a lot better if the economy was better. And I know in the U.S. with the election year, in Canada with all the chaos going on up there right now—trust me, we got so many Canadian viewers, I hear a lot from that—there's a lot of issues going up in Canada, which has become more exciting for political watching than in the U.S., I believe, because the U.S. is just too predictable right now. Anyways, besides the point, the recession is real and it's really starting to slow down the domestic economy in Japan. Domestic tourists from Japan are not going to Hawaii, they're not going to Guam because it's just too expensive.

00:23:07 John Daub: So domestic tourism here is really strained. And when you do come to Japan, I want you—the domestic tourism in Japan is quite strained because not just there's so many internationals coming here, but people still want to take vacations, in particular during the time when holidays start. People go back home, and right when that happens, people want to ride the train and travel and take off from work—it's just super stressful. So you try to avoid those holiday seasons and then plan your trip strategically. Maybe come in May instead of cherry blossoms because not only is the weather better and the days are longer, it's just more enjoyable with less people. Also it's a lot better to come maybe in September and October than it is to come in July and August—it's not as hot, less tourists, and sorry, less pollen. A lot of people are wearing masks not because of sickness, it's because of pollen and kafunsho (hay fever). And I get it too.

00:24:34 John Daub: Let me know your comments below—what are your thoughts on the over-tourism thing? I know it's a big deal to people that are visiting. You don't want to come when everything is so crowded, you don't want to wait in a line for an hour to go to a temple. Alright, I'm talking about Kinkaku-ji, the Golden Pavilion—I couldn't believe people were waiting an hour to come to a temple. To go to that one—it's like yeah, you get a picture, it's the same picture you can find on the internet. It's a decent walk, but I think the Silver Pavilion is less crowded and certainly more inviting. But that's just me—everybody's got to do what they got to do.

00:25:05 John Daub: RIP to—yeah, I was gonna talk about this. My friend Matt Alt—Akira Toriyama, and we also lost the voice of Chibi Maruko-chan, which was my favorite anime. Actually, when I came to Japan in 1998, I would watch TV Maruko-chan and after that was Sazae-san—these two anime. And I would learn about Japanese culture, family culture, and I would learn about the Japanese language through these shows. And they lost the woman who's been voicing it since the 90s. And now I guess the last episode is going to be on with her voice on March 24th, and they're going to have to suspend it until they find somebody who could quickly replace that voice. To me that was a bigger loss, but I know any loss in these amazing cultural assets, treasures—it is devastating, in particular to a lot of the fans. So yeah, rest in peace for sure and thank you for all of the years of hard work for both of them, making my experience in Japan a lot more interesting and educational for sure.

00:26:16 John Daub: I'll talk about this and the impact with Matt Alt—he's also recovering from being sick, and I'm looking forward to that. He knows a lot more about his impact and he's the right person to talk to you about this, really well. And you can see him and I were in an episode just a couple of months ago—it seems like this is the last episode it's on here. Matt was in this; you might want to watch that. We talked about toys and stuff—it was a pretty good episode, I think. Yeah, alright everybody, I'm out of here. Have a good day, have a good night. Set up for the Postcard Club—I'm sending them out in just a couple of days.