00:00:00 John Daub: Hello everybody, welcome to Tokyo. This is Ginza. I'm walking through the alleys here looking at some places to change money, which is going to be tomorrow's live stream. You're not going to want to miss that, so make sure you subscribe. I am shocked when I saw the exchange rate this morning, and it keeps getting weaker and weaker. The Japanese yen to the US dollar now at 154.36, and this was about 30 minutes ago, so it's like getting weaker. And I know that the Bank of Japan is going to jump in here, because the weaker the yen is, the more expensive products that are imported into Japan become for Japanese businesses.

00:00:37 John Daub: Of course, those with businesses in the United States are making a killing, like Sony and Honda and a lot of other companies that have invested heavily in the North American market are doing quite well. Uniqlo, for example, which is why Japanese businesses are going to the US market more and more, which is a good thing. But for those that are not, and have to depend on the international markets, this is a bad thing. And it's quite worrying when I see this, because I know a lot of small business owners that don't make US dollars, they make yen. And their purchasing power to get the things that they need in order to run their businesses is getting harder and harder.

00:01:13 John Daub: In this episode, I wanted to talk a little bit about the Japanese yen and the US dollar. If you change your money, the trajectory, where this is all going to go, and what this probably means to you visiting Japan. Yeah, you know, I came here in 1998, and a lot of you who have been watching this channel know that when I arrived here in Japan in 1998, it was 147, 148 yen to the dollar. And I hadn't seen that in 25 years. It had gotten down to 147. It went down to about 77 yen to the dollar, which means that you would have been really poor coming to Japan. It was more than half of what it is now, much stronger. And now the yen is the weakest that it's ever been since 1991.

00:01:57 John Daub: Take a look at this. This is a chart, I saw this on, I think it was on Twitter, I think it was called X now. You can see here the line showing the chart from the bottom here, 1991 and today. And it has not been this bad since then. You can see the peaks and the valleys of my life here in Japan starting around 1999. That peak after the 1999 one is when I got to Japan. And you can see it going up and down. It was usually hovering around 120 or 100 before the, you know, about four years ago when the big event that happened where we couldn't travel. It was about 107 to the dollar, 108 to the dollar. And now it's just like gotten like to the sky. And it happened around October of 2022. This is a little brief history of where we are today. Will it get worse? Probably.

00:02:59 John Daub: All right, I'm going to walk around this area of Ginza, give you a view of the back alleys and streets. This is Ginza Hachome. I'm not too far away from Shimbashi. There's some nice cafes, ramen shops and restaurants back here. For me, I make yen for a lot of the stuff that I do. And it's not that it worries me because when I go to the United States, I know that everything's going to be so much more expensive. We're Japanese travelers because we're in Bangkok. It's like a Thai restaurant. It's interesting. I got a lunch set. That's pretty cheap for Ginza.

00:03:43 John Daub: For Japanese that are traveling in particular to Hawaii, you're seeing a lot of Japanese staying home or traveling domestically now because it's just too expensive, which means that Japan has to turn to the foreign market. And for tourism, this is a big deal. Is it going to stay at 154, 155 to the dollar? The answer is no. No, it's not. And I expect the Bank of Japan to jump in. What they do is they usually intervene and buy some yen back or something. But it usually is about 20 or 30 billion dollars to help to drop it a few percentage points to turn the trajectory. But I think it's much. I don't think you can really do that. But what other choice do they have? It's like burning money basically to get the market to come down artificially. And it does do that a little bit. And then it comes right back up. A lot of it has to do with the interest rates.

00:04:41 John Daub: Japan had negative interest rates. Imagine that. Everything that you put in the bank, you get .001 or .0001% if you're lucky, which is better than nothing because Japan was deflationary. Prices were going down for decades. We had the lost decades, the 1990s and the 2000s. And it's been relatively bad. But nothing really changed though. Inflation didn't go up. Prices were the same. A bowl of ramen that cost 1,200 yen down the street here, or 900 yen or 1,200 yen depending on the toppings, was still 900 and 1,200 yen 20 years later. But now we're starting to see inflation going up. And we're starting to feel the pressure more and more. And our purchasing power when we make yen is less and less.

00:05:24 John Daub: I don't think for a lot of people the average salary is like, I'd say like 320,000 yen. Which is what now? 2,700, 2,600 dollars per month? That's not a lot of money to do much of anything. Especially travel abroad. You can buy a small 1K. You can't really live very well on this kind of income. But 25 years ago, this was not too bad. US inflation has gone up and Japan was like this. So for travelers coming to Japan, this has never been a better time to come to Japan than right now. In fact, it's never been a better time to change your money than right now. I can't tell you that this is a good idea to change your money or not. If I were you, I would do it. Because I don't think we're going to see 155. I don't think we're going to go to 200. I don't think we're going to go to 170. I don't think we're going to go to 160. I think that something's going to happen.

00:06:28 John Daub: The whole purpose of this episode is to give you an idea of what the feeling is here in Japan. It's just too expensive to do stuff abroad. Everybody's staying domestic for travel. Which means that travel within Japan has an impact on you. Of course Japan is cheaper. But the demand for products is even higher now in Japan because domestically tourists, Japanese used to be amazing foreign tourists. They would be everywhere around the world traveling but now with the weak yen most of the traffic is coming in and not going out. Of course Japanese are still traveling but you can see the numbers from the Japan National Tourism Organization which they publish this monthly. It's all public data. You can see the trends going down and down and that it's at the lowest level in decades for Japanese that are traveling abroad and you can feel it if you walk around Waikiki.

00:07:23 John Daub: I don't think there were even last year that there weren't a lot of Japanese walking around. Everybody I talked to in Hawaii said that travel from Japanese was really really low. The hotels mostly Americans and even fewer Chinese because of the lockdowns and whatnot but you can feel it's having an impact and it's shifting the way that travel is here in Japan and around the world. Japanese aren't traveling abroad but Americans are. Some Western countries don't have as strong currency as the US dollar. Tomorrow I'm going to be taking you inside of Tokyo Station just a little bit of a sneak peek. I wanted to look at the currency exchange options. A lot of people in particular Brandy who's now visiting from Hawaii right now asked me about this and like where's the best place to change your money.

00:08:23 John Daub: If you have some ideas about this you can leave a comment below and I'll add this into the live stream for tomorrow but exchange where to exchange your money and get the best exchange rates is something that I think it would be a really good episode to talk about. But you know if I were you if you want to go to your bank and change some cash into Japanese yen for a trip that's coming up in a couple of months that might not be a bad idea. I think if you get anything about 145 to the dollar you're gonna make out pretty good but now that it's at 155 to the dollar just about look a couple percentage points not gonna hurt that much if you're having a trip coming here in a couple of months. I expected to get the yen to get stronger but I don't know the Bank of Japan is always a little weird. It's hard to figure out all of this stuff but I think after this livestream you have kind of an idea what the feeling is here in Japan.

00:09:15 John Daub: I'm gonna get to the bottom of this with my own honest opinion. I think when you're people to come back to the US to eat and drink and do stuff. Everybody's got to raise prices and there's a lot of uncertainty in the sense that restaurants see all of these people with foreign income coming in and competing with. It almost feels like there's two markets in a way. There's the tourists who have a currency that is super strong and then there's the Japanese who have a currency and wages that haven't changed and the feeling is that it's not quite fair but there's not a lot that people can do about it. All you can do is try to get more tourists to come in and just spend because Japanese aren't spending as much either.

00:09:54 John Daub: Japan is a country where savings is usually people don't get into credit card debt and pay by now pay later kind of stuff. That's not a Japanese concept right now. So unless the wages for people start to increase in Japan to match inflation or go above inflation and the Japanese yen gets a little bit stronger. I think it was like 135 to the dollar. I think I could see Japanese travelers being able to afford to travel to Hawaii and other places again. The market's going to be tougher for you in finding hotels. Golden Week's going to be domestic. Golden Week's going to be Japanese tourists all booking out the Shinkansen and it's going to be harder and harder because there's less spaces, less hotel rooms. There's going to be more strain on the domestic travel in Japan.

00:10:45 John Daub: So this exchange rate has increased a positive impact and a negative impact. Japan's cheaper but it also means it's going to drive up prices for things that tourists want because it's more expensive to get those ingredients. It's more expensive to get this and the demand for products like hotel rooms is going to be off the charts because not only are you competing against Japanese tourists, you're competing against your fellow foreign tourists and there you go. I put that there because Uber on the side of a Japanese taxi cab, I'm curious to see what Uber's doing here in Japan. That's something that's really head scratching so maybe I'll make an episode on that as well.

00:11:23 John Daub: Do you guys have any questions before I tune out? I just wanted to do a short live stream. Yesterday I went with Brandy to Tokyo DisneySea which was a lot of fun. I'm not supposed to say that Brandy from Hawaii is here. I think her suitcase is full with bringing gifts back for everybody else. Thank you Michael Sassano. I haven't gotten, Michael has a present for us. I haven't gotten that yet but look at this little fire department in here in case there's something going on. I'm going to go get a gift. All the friends that I made in Hawaii when I went there last year it feels like family and sending back some love to our Hawaiian family.

00:12:00 John Daub: The back alleys of Ginza are always really interesting. You find stuff that you wouldn't find anywhere else. This side and the other side of Chuo Dori (central avenue) which is the main avenue with all the brand shops always walk through the alleys because they change so much too over the years. A lot of businesses that you've never seen before have popped up giving new products and new ideas. And it's interesting to see. And Michael is here. I appreciate it, Michael. I walked by a shop in Ginza, which is some of the most expensive properties in Japan, that is still a mom-and-pop shop that's selling rice. They get the rice from the countryside and package it, and then they distribute it from Ginza. It doesn't make a lot of sense. Maybe something from 30 years ago, it made sense.

00:13:02 John Daub: You find places like this. It's just distributing rice. And we're right near one of the most expensive intersections in the world, and they've got a shop that distributes and packages rice. It's weird. It's only in Ginza. It's pretty cool. I'd love to know more about their history. There's a place up the street. Here's the company that's distributing rice. See, there's a guy in there doing it. That's crazy. Now let me take you to a family business that looks like he's just doing bonsai trees. And you can see I'm right off of Chuo Dori, right up ahead. That's what I love about the alleys of Ginza. You find these old shops that will never sell out. It's got an authentic feel to it.

00:14:13 John Daub: Right here. Mori. And the pot. That's so cool. It's a beautiful day, kind of windy. Weather's been really nice. You can see the flags blowing pretty hard. Leave me your comments below. And if that's something that you guys would like to see more of, leave me a comment below and let me know about exchange rates. If you've exchanged money in Japan, where do you go to exchange your money? What are the best places to get the best rates? How is it different in your country? Let me know in the comments. What country? Where are you from? How do you change your money? Do you still use traveler's checks? I'm kind of curious to hear about that. Do you go to the ATM? Which banks are the best banks for this? Did you have any issues or troubles with that?

00:15:19 John Daub: And tomorrow I'll show you. I went to Tokyo Station before this and I filmed a little bit inside there looking at that exchange vending machine and some of the rates. And we'll talk about this tomorrow's live stream because I think it's going to be one that a lot of this information comes from you. And we have a Discord server. You might want to check it out. We're also conversing back and forth. And the information is always changing. This is something like if you're watching this in playback, look at the date. Today is April 15th or 16th, 2024. So like the date of these is always going to be important in the playback because information changes.

00:15:56 John Daub: Look at that ramen shop over there. I don't think they change. Businesses don't really change that much. I like that. I wonder about the history. That's a Chinese ramen place. Which is ramen. It comes from China. But it looks like this building is kind of an outlier with all the new buildings around it. So I guess when the buildings have to be demolished. Look at that. Look at the phone booth. That's pretty cool too. Maybe I will go in there and have a bowl of ramen. I don't know. It's lunchtime.

00:16:51 John Daub: All right, everybody. Thanks for watching. I'll see you again tomorrow in a live stream and talk a little bit more about this. But hey, if we get to 155 to the dollar, watch the news tomorrow. All you have to do to find the rate is go into Google and write USDJPY. I had to think about it for a while because I have it bookmarked. USD, US dollar, JPY or whatever your currency is and then write in JPY and Google it. And it comes up on the top screen and bookmark it and you can always take a look and see what the exchange rates are. Make sure you do that before you get on the plane and we'll talk about this a little bit more tomorrow. See you. Or you can get a generator or an app. But I just use Google because there's no tracking and all that other stuff. Keep it simple. Michael Sassano, aloha. I was just thinking about buying more yen and thought about desks at Haneda Airport for a good place to exchange. I'm not sure if Haneda Airport is the best place but we'll talk about that tomorrow. It's going to be a lot of fun. Snack time. Thank you, Michael. See you, everybody. Matane.