00:00:02 John Daub: Good morning everybody. Welcome to Asakusa. This is a shot from the Starbucks that overlooks Kaminarimon (Thunder Gate). You can see it's just as the tourists are starting to arrive at 9:15 in the morning.

00:00:20 John Daub: You have to dodge the sign in order to get to the other side. I haven't actually been to this coffee shop looking down on it, but it's interesting to come because the shops don't actually open up on Kaminarimon or Nakamise-dori until around 10 o'clock. Everything has changed because the tourists are back in full, and we're just a little bit before it gets super crowded. I wanted to show you around because I'm here to film a main channel episode. And joining us on this episode is that lady right there—this is the lady that's waving with the pink hair. That's Brandy and she's going to aloha, she's going to walk around with us. So let's get out here, but let's enjoy the view. 3, 2, 1. Okay, good. Let's get out of here.

00:01:31 John Daub: And we're on street level. I was just up here. This is sort of new. It feels kind of new. Nice view. The best view, though, if you're looking, is up there. If you get a chance, this is the Asakusa View Hotel. The Asakusa View Hotel is the observation center up there on the second floor. On the top floor is an observation deck that gives you an amazing view looking down and the front of Kaminarimon. Here's the jinrikisha, the guys pulling the carts. Always a pretty interesting experience. So we're going to walk underneath Thunder Gate. Oh, by the way, we're going to see it, I'm sure, on this walk. But over there is Skytree. You can kind of see the tower near the Golden Poo. You guys have been here before, at least in the stream. But absolutely, there's like a line to take pictures.

00:02:40 John Daub: Underneath here, it says a little bit of information. It says Matsushita. That's the electronics company. I believe they're partnered with Panasonic. The president of Matsushita donated the shrine, donated the chōchin (lantern), which is massive there. Where did Brandy go? Brandy. Oh, there you are. You don't have to say anything. Brandy's maybe slightly a little camera shy. But she's nice to wave to us. She's coming with me to eat pancakes, the Japanese pancakes. There's a famous place here that we're going to go and film.

00:03:21 John Daub: As you can see on the left and right, this is Nakamise-dori. This is a centuries-old shopping street. A lot of the shopping streets that lead up to temples, in particular big famous ones, are shopping streets. And they've become tourist streets. Basically, those that went to the temples and shrines traveled quite a long way and would buy trinkets and things like this. And now, with mostly tourists here, they have things that foreign visitors would want. So you'll see T-shirts and keychains and postcards. There's Goku shirts. Hey, whatever works. They know what to sell. Most of these businesses are family-owned. So 2,900 yen for the T-shirt. What is that, like $20? That's not too bad. Most of these shops are still family-owned. Yeah, it feels good to support local businesses. But at this time of day, this is also a good time to live stream because you have a decent signal before it gets too crowded. It's about 200 meters to get to the end of Kaminarimon. And they have the beautiful sakura blossoms to show you a little bit of a touch of spring.

00:05:00 John Daub: Has anyone been here before? It's pretty nice to come in the morning. I would not come after 11 o'clock anymore. It is really crowded. There's nothing wrong with it. It's just a lot of people. And right now, there's this tranquility that happens in the morning. Oh, look. Brandy, look. You had one last night. You did not. I did. These are the ichigo daifuku (strawberry-filled rice cakes). And we are in the strawberry season in Japan, which is in the winter. Goes on until about Golden Week. And then they start to import the strawberries because they don't grow them. Or somebody might be growing them somewhere. That guy's getting custard. Look at the line. I got it from this little local mama-san place. That looks like a strawberry. It looks like a chain. And this is the weird thing. Recently, yeah, the chains have been coming in. A lot of the people had sold out during that era. In the last four years. I don't even want to say the word. Because of the COVID. Because of that, a lot of the places, the people sold out. And actually, Asakusa was, Sensōji, I think, was forcing people out because they were paying like this ancient rent that was not fair to them. So I think they went a little price increase on the rent here.

00:06:37 John Daub: You can see the strawberry daifuku seems to be quite famous. But never was like that. And these here, the melonpan (melon bread). That's what you need. You need to get that. All right. I'll show you where that is. Well, anyways, we got to wrap around in that direction. Raymond is here. He says, aloha. The shops have changed. They really have changed. This one is modernized. It almost looks like a supermarket. Kiyomizu. So this is a family-run business. They've renovated this. Confection shops. There's some ningyōyaki (doll-shaped steamed cakes). Do you know ningyōyaki? It's the doll. These are all wrapped. So one for 100 yen. Ningyōyaki is like a doll. It's red bean paste and a cake. But it's shaped like a doll. Ningyō means doll. So that's what that is. There's the daigaku imo (university sweet potatoes). I think that's what it's called. I'm not a big fan of the glazed potatoes here. They always get stuck in my teeth. It's a little bit too sweet. But these here, these sweet potato cakes are pretty good. 374. That price has gone up. I'm not complaining.

00:08:39 John Daub: What? Where? What? Why? That's a little creepy. You know what would be even creepier? If the eyes moved and wiggled up and down as you walked with it and it was shaking. But certainly. That's style. You can see some of the buildings here will have—I think they said they were burglars or something. Somebody told me some of the history of it. They're on the roof because they're actually burglars. There's one across the street there. It gives you something to look up. That's what I heard. I'm not really sure. I saw one with Spiderman. Barbara writes in here, those look wrong. No one's going to debate that. They certainly do. And there's this guy with a hat. They're talking about the old black guy with the black guy tree and all her glory up there. 634 meters. The tallest freestanding tower in the world. Overlooking one of the oldest temples in the world.

00:09:43 John Daub: We can go down and here. The shops are still closed. A lot of them were closed. I haven't been here since Eric and I came here. We did a street food episode about like three years ago. I don't come here too much because it's gotten a little touristy. That's the Taiwanese chicken, which is really good. And this is they have the curry pan, but it might have changed. And then this is the menchi katsu (minced meat cutlet), which always has a line right there. Asakusa menchi katsu. It's closed right now. Look at all the trash around it. That's kind of very shocking for Japan. I don't see this too much. You can see menchi katsu. They didn't pick up very good, did they? It's the messiest one on the street. How much is it? Six pack for 2,100 yen. Yeah.

00:11:00 John Daub: So you want to go through Sensōji quickly? And then we'll walk over to the pancake place. What time you got? 9:30? Okay, we'll be just on time. So if you haven't been here before to Asakusa, I highly recommend that you come here in the morning before all the tourists get here. There's just something really beautiful. It's peaceful about temples and shrines when it doesn't feel like a tourist attraction. But it's starting to feel like that now. And during the daytime, this will all be filled with people. So it's hard for you to get that kind of a—you don't feel like you're in Japan. You just feel like you're on a subway train or something. Yeah, it's okay in the afternoon. All right, so keep a close watch on there because we should be in that line at like 9:43 or something, I think. 9:30 exactly. Okay, we got 13 minutes to explore. Don't forget to hit that like button. Show your love for this place. Not for me. For this place. I'm just surprised we still got a signal. I'm pretty excited about that. You have to come here in the morning to get a signal like that.

00:12:30 John Daub: Hey, guys. That's you. Yes, hey. Hey. Hey. Hey. Hey. That was funny. Did you see it? She tapped her family and said, hey, that's the guy on the YouTube. I like that. Yeah, there's a lot of people around. So I bet you the signal's going to conk out as a result. But this is maybe a pretty good photo shot. We can cruise to the side of it and get in some people's pictures. You'll be here next week? Yeah. On the weekends, they usually have food stands on the side. You can grab lunch there. Well, right now we can smell the incense burning and it's wafting over in this direction. So there's a real peaceful smell. Something about the incense that make it a holy place.

00:13:44 John Daub: So we'll start heading towards the pancake place. I still have to set up my camera a little bit. This five-story pagoda has been recreated. It's not the original one. But a lot of these pagodas are earthquake proof. They have this kind of ancient technology where there's a pole in the middle of it that will shake with it. Yeah, tulips. The tulips are out now, a little bit late. Aloha, Michael. Guess who's here? Ah! You want to say hi to Michael? He's probably texting when it's in my pocket. Okay. Michael, she's texting. Yeah, don't text her. We're on the move. I'm noticing a lot of things. Yeah, there's been a lot of construction throughout the city. This is a major project that they're doing. Looks like they're taking out the road and probably finished by summer maybe. I don't know. They have some excavators out. So let's head towards the pancake place. Yeah, there's some cherry blossoms out, not a lot. That's a different one. But most of them in Tokyo are done. I saw some pictures. A lot of travelers here are sharing pictures. And up in Morioka, the cherry blossoms are starting to bloom, which is about two and a half hours north on the Tohoku Shinkansen.

00:15:22 John Daub: This is where we are in Tokyo. This is Asakusa, not that far off of the Sumida River. And you can see Nakamise-dori where we just walked. There's Kaminarimon, or Thunder Gate, as they say in English. And we followed pretty much down that street, and now we've taken a left. And we've started right there. There's that cafe and everything else. It's kind of a neat place. That intersection does get quite crowded. It's quite famous as well. And then you can see on the right side that building, which is the information center, one of the best views of this area. So we'll walk down. I guess there's almost always a line for the melonpan with whipped cream. So they're doing some kind of an event. Yeah, apparently Yuki-san still owns this business. He's somebody that I met about 13 years ago. And he uses like a fermentation process for his melonpan. But you can see they add in the whipped cream. It's better than the ice cream, the whipped cream. They raise the price. They used to be 500 yen. You can't blame them. It's 100 yen more, but it's still good. We'll have to come back for the whipped cream. But most of the shops are still closed. That is hot melonpan rice. Right out of the oven with whipped cream in there is maybe one of the best sensations ever. And you think ice cream might be good? Whipped cream is better. Just the ice cream melts and it gets too gooey and stuff. But yeah, Yuki-san's melonpan, definitely a recommendation. It does smell good.

00:17:21 John Daub: So this is, we're now walking towards the Don Quijote, which is the backside of Asakusa. Closer to Asakusa Station. What line is it? I can't remember. The Ginza Line and the Asakusa Line go on the other side and then there's another Asakusa Station. I think it's the Tsukuba Express, which is on this side. Not a lot of shops are open, but striking how many tourists are out. Normally at this time, Brandy, there's not many people. The streets are so quiet, but there are a lot of tourists because there's a lot of hotels in this area as well. And this is one of the places that I say people should stay because despite the fact that this is a very touristy part of Tokyo now, cultural area, it's not really that crowded compared to Shibuya, Shinjuku, and it's much cleaner. Look at the streets here. It's wider, cleaner. I think this is an Apa Hotel. You can tell from the orange. I think they try to make it more tasteful because of the neighborhood that they're in. Yeah. This is a little bit, but it does fit with the shiwariro (shrine orange) color of the shrine. Shiwariro is the color, that orange that you see of the 10,000 gates of Fushimi Inari in Kyoto. That's called shiwariro. I guess you can call it cone orange. It's the orange cones here. But shiwariro is the color of the sun, and that's the god Inari, which is the rice god, which is good for harvest. So people would worship for a good harvest.

00:19:19 John Daub: 9:37? All right, we're going to be just on time. Boy, I'm hungry, but I know that those pancakes aren't going to fill me up. I'm not going to ruin the story. I'm not going to tell you what this episode's all about, but I've already filmed in Hawaii last year, and Brandy was there, as well as Michael. And this year, I don't know. I thought I would have had time, but the winter came and I didn't want to upload it in the winter. So now we're getting back into the spring and I want to get this episode out. So I'm kind of excited. I might have to come back here, too. I've already talked with the manager about filming inside there, and he's like, it's all good. Just he can't give me a specific time just for me to film. He said, just come and film if you like. That's okay. Yeah, this Don Quijote is kind of famous. There's a lot of lures. There's also gachapon machines that they bring out later in the day, maybe. You don't see them out there on the side. I'll pan around a little bit of this area here. But yeah, this is a quite famous intersection where you can go to all the different points. I did a live stream about a year ago. One of the tallest buildings in Tokyo used to be there until it burned down. That's just down this street. And you can see. You'll see a lot of the flags have that building on there. I can't see it right now. Brandy's got to get a shot of the fishies.

00:21:02 John Daub: Does anybody remember the name of Tokyo's tallest building that burned down in the Great Kantō Earthquake, which is a shame, 1923? It was 11 stories high, and it was the talk of the town. Oh, this is the first one of these instant freezing drinks. Minus five degrees. If you buy it, it turns into ice. Yeah, the ice. A lot of the eel are in there. Kongō eels. This is maybe the best place to get snacks for omiyage (souvenirs) to take home for a gift. There's a currency exchange place too. What's the rate? It's better than it was before, $139 at Tokyo Station three days ago, so obviously the exchange rates are different based on the machines. $140? Wow. In Ginza, that was one point. Ah.

00:22:09 John Daub: All right, so now we're at one place of note. This is the entrance to the Tsukuba Express. This is also Asakusa Station, but it's a different Asakusa Station. It's quite far from the other one. This bento shop, called Pakopaku, has the largest onigiri. Actually, they don't have it yet, but you can get a massive onigiri for like 1,000 yen or 800 yen. I think it would feed a family. But if you're looking for the cheapest bento in Tokyo, that might be it right there. Yeah. 940? We timed it perfectly. We're crossing the street here. This is the backside of Asakusa. This will take you to Minowa-bashi, and in this direction, to Kuramae. And Kappabashi is just over here, which is where all the kitchen utensils are. So it's a really nice area to come and visit. And I know that you've joined me on these livestreams before, so there's nothing too much that's new in this, but it's always interesting to see how it's changed. The Denny's is still there with the 7-Eleven across the street.

00:22:22 John Daub: You having a good trip, Brandy? Yeah, great. You got on a boat yesterday, but it was not a space boat, was it? No. It's all right. The boat, the water bus, or the river boats, down the Sumida River are really nice, and one of the stations is here in Asakusa. So if you are here, you can get to Odaiba. I think it was, you said, 1,500 yen. On that other boat, yeah. That's like $11 for a one-hour ride. That's pretty good. Did you ever get to see the Japanese room before they tore it down? Which Japanese room? Tore what down? What did I miss? But the weather's pretty warm. I have shorts on. It's warm for me. It is. I see Ramsay's silent. Jason's here. UFO Bob. How you guys doing? Daniel, Barbara. Thanks, guys, for coming to watch.

00:24:26 John Daub: Oh, this is fugu (pufferfish), and they'll be... Is it out of this, or is it just to show you that they... No, they'll catch it out of this. There's too many of them not to. Wow. Sorry, guys. You're going to be somebody's dinner. The fugu are now bred to not have the poison, so it's not really as dangerous as they used to be. Yeah, they're bred now, so that they're... What do you got, 43? 42. 42, okay. Yeah. So that's all we got for you today. If you have any questions, leave them in the comments below. It's interesting, though. We started the livestream from this point here, and you can see that cafe, that Starbucks has a pretty nice view. The second floor doesn't open until 9 a.m., so keep that in mind if you're thinking that you want to sit outside and enjoy it. Yeah. And yeah, let me know what you guys thought of Asakusa. I'll be back tomorrow for another livestream to show you a different area as you come closer to the weekend. The weather has been perfect. Winter is over. Spring has broke. And the shorts went down. And the new weathers have started. A lot of people have short sleeves now. And yeah, there's a tourist across the street. And it's really nice in Tokyo when it's not raining, which is not today, which is today. Lawson's has some interesting new cheese desserts. Interesting. Very interesting. Yeah.

00:26:04 John Daub: This area is always changing, despite the fact that the Sensōji Temple goes back to 700 A.D., which is crazy when you try to wrap your mind around it. But it's an old area. Most of this was bombed during World War II and rebuilt. But you can feel the culture. And this used to be one of the new areas. That's what's really funny. Back in like the early 20th century, Asakusa was the new area of Tokyo. Now it's the old area of Tokyo. So it's changed quite a bit. What's the new area now? I don't know. Harajuku maybe. I don't know. All right, guys. We're here at the pancake place right before they open. We'll see you at another livestream. Mata ne (see you later). Thanks, Brandy.