00:00:03 John Daub: Welcome to Akihabara. This is one of those places iconic in the city of Tokyo. When you're here, you know where you are. Well, because you came here, but because of the beautiful view. There you have the old Sega World, which is now GiGO. You saw the Sobu Line taking off towards Shinjuku in that direction. There's Manseibashi over there with the vending machines of horror just down the street. But in this episode, I'm going to be walking you from here to Asakusabashi, which is one of my favorite areas of Tokyo because it's just so authentic. And a lot of you might be picking Akihabara as your place to stay. This episode might change your mind.

00:00:44 John Daub: There's the Chuo Line, the orange one going by over there. This is the Akihabara Electric Town. The walk that we're going to be doing today is about 30 minutes or so, I want to say. On the map here, it'll say it's about 23 minutes. But actually, it's a little bit less than that. Well, it just depends on the route that you take. But you can see that Akihabara today is quite busy. Lots of people. Lots of music in the background. It's a vibrant place. Even the trash trucks in Japan talk. I don't know if you've noticed that.

00:01:42 John Daub: So here's the route from Akihabara's Electric Town, Denki Gai (Electric Town). We pretty much follow the Kanda River. Do you see that right there? That was the main transportation route for the Edo period to get goods, commerce from one place to another. Instead of taking the roads, you would just float on a boat from the Sumida River. And since then, you know, we still see some canal boats. We might see some today, actually, but we're going to be walking along the Sobu Line. And from Electric Town, we're going to walk through Akihabara Station underneath Route 1 there, past Showa Dori (Showa Avenue), and then follow the tracks all the way to Asakusabashi, which is becoming a very popular place for people who are staying as a budget option. Yokoamicho (Yōgoku) is just across the river. You see that in the corner there. So let's get moving.

00:02:32 John Daub: Electric Town, and there might be some freezes here for me. I know the app is a little bit funky with assets coming in and out. I noticed that yesterday. The Prism team is working on that, so that shouldn't last too long. But you have Radio Kaikan over there. It's still kind of loaded up with anime and manga. Of course, this being sort of the center of that industry. They're selling suitcases, so you can tell this is a really touristy place. When you see them selling suitcases, you know it's not as authentic as it used to be. I guess it's just because they have to make money one way or another, right? And they do that with international tourists. You don't see a lot of Japanese, except for students who are going to the many universities around this area. But I'd say about 85 percent of the people here are foreign tourists.

00:03:36 John Daub: Alright, in order to get to where we're going to go, we have to go underneath the station or around the station. So, we're going to take a lift. Take a shortcut through this old 1950s electric building. It's in danger of not being here for much longer. This will take you to the other side of Akihabara Station and then we're going to walk around Yodobashi Camera, which is in Akiba, which is one of the biggest electronics stores in the world. China now is boasting some bigger ones. If that's the case, I don't know. I haven't been to China in a while. But you can see a lot of these alleys here had local businesses that have shut down because they're just Amazon and all this other stuff. So they're very specialty stuff like these walkie talkies. You have LED lights. Things all the way dating all the way back to the 1950s, post-World War II.

00:04:40 John Daub: And then we have back in 2020 again across the street some brand new buildings here. This one has an Ootoya up there, which is a great place if you want to get a set Japanese meal to eat. I've been there many times. It's pretty healthy too. One of the very successful chains. Sushi is always right there if you want some conveyor belt sushi. And again you can see here the old electronic stores. When I came here to Japan so many years ago these electronic stores they really made an impact on me because it just showed like Japan so technologically advanced. Look at all those lights. And today it seems a little old. I look at it in 2020 terms instead of 1998 terms. But above on the second and third floors you see some old stuff. I bet you there is gold, some electronic treasure in there. I kind of looked around with my friend Scotty from the channel Strange Parts when he was here a few years ago and we found some garage sales with some amazingly old tech including fax machines.

00:05:45 John Daub: How you doing everybody. I'm looking forward to this walk. It gives me a chance to get out of the house. It was raining all day yesterday and then this morning I took you yesterday to Tokyo Station for a view looking down on the Shinkansen that I hadn't been to before. It's a new place that opened about six months ago I want to check that out. But let's get going. I mean this is gonna be pretty exciting as we walk. I'm gonna give you some history some tidbits some information about this area. There's the Akiba, the biggest one of the biggest electronic stores in the world. Yodobashi Akiba is what it's official name is.

00:06:20 John Daub: Google Earth really important part of any kind of a walk like this to put you in the place so you know exactly where we are here. So you can see Akihabara Electric Town. We're gonna dive down into this. You can see the Imperial Palace is down behind under us here and the Kanda River that snakes around the city of Tokyo. This is the walk pretty much following the line here from Akihabara. We're gonna go around the station right now and once we do there you can see that big electronic store as well. Akihabara Station has really gone through some renovations over the last ten years. For those that haven't been here in 20 years it's almost unrecognizable. Some of the stuff that I showed you there is still there, the little old electronic stores but for the most part it's changed quite a lot.

00:07:29 John Daub: This is the walk here you see the Kanda River on the left side and then the Sobu Line on the right side and we'll be walking underneath the line there hopefully the signal will allow us to do so and there's some restaurants and bars some hotels that have opened up along that walkway and then then you see the top of the Asakusabashi station there that's a JR line there's also the Asakusa Line which is a Toei subway line which goes through there there's a Kanda River on the right side and the Sumida River just ahead there, that's Yogokubashi, which I showed you a few days ago. All right, let's get into it now.

00:08:15 John Daub: Now, right off the bat, you can see that the Beck's Coffee has closed. I think this was a JR chain run by Japan Rail, and a lot of them have closed down. I think there's one or two that are left, and there was some news on this. So Japanese fans of the chain went in there and had a last coffee and a last burger. But that's kind of a shame. They sometimes had some pretty unique stuff inside of there. There's a Beck's Burger. It was a good place to hang out in front of the station, but you can see they've closed it down. Probably going to be putting in something even better. When something closes, something better usually comes in here.

00:09:00 John Daub: Also not here is the AKB48 Cafe and the Gundam Cafe. That was really popular on this side of the station. It's now not here. In its place is the Tamashii Nations store, which has, I believe, figures. It's kind of neat to walk in there. I've done that a few times, I think, in this live stream format on this channel. And we have the trains going by above us, of course. That's the Keihin-Tohoku Line going to Tohoku, up to the north, to Utsunomiya, Oyama. Oh, that's what they do. Evangelion. So that's what they're famous for. Now I remember. I knew my friend Matt here or Patrick. They knew all this stuff here. But inside of there, it's kind of cool. You can see they also have a lot of figures throughout the years. And if you're a fan of the figures in the anime manga, this is probably a cool place to take a look.

00:10:16 John Daub: The famous UDX building. Which is kind of new. Inside there is an event hall. And I've been to a few events over there. Chuo Dori (Chuo Avenue) on this side to the left. As well as the secret shrine of Akihabara in the alley. That's gotten a little popular lately. That's kind of a neat place in a very narrow alleyway. Japan doesn't just take away shrines. They will just build around it. And that's a prime example of that. Not a lot has changed over the last few years. It's gotten a lot cleaner. Akihabara had a kind of a smutty back in the 1970s. Not a great reputation. Alright, let's get underneath here.

00:11:06 John Daub: So now we're going underneath the train lines. And that's right there is the Shinkansen line. We might get a chance to see the Tohoku Shinkansen. The green, Toki green colored Shinkansen going north right there. And maybe not. I don't know. You can't predict it. They don't leave as frequently as the Tokaido Shinkansen which goes down to Kyoto and Osaka. These buildings are all kind of new. Tokyo is getting much taller. You can tell the skyline is really improving. You go up to places like the Tokyo Skytree or Tokyo Tower. Already Tokyo Tower you can hardly see much from the top there because so many buildings are taller than it.

00:11:56 John Daub: Oh, hello. I just saw you popping up. Oh yeah. How are you doing? I'm good. Yeah. Check it out. Do you mind being on the camera? You OK?

00:12:07 German Tourist: All right. Where are you visiting from?

00:12:10 John Daub: Oh, cool. You know what I'm looking for, right? No, actually, no. I just saw you and I was like, oh, I can get a card. Thank you. You're welcome. Just one week. Got a one week and just exploring getting the last seven years. Oh, very good. Very good. Where are you going today?

00:12:29 German Tourist: I'm just exploring.

00:12:32 John Daub: I just saw what is it called? The food shrine? What is it called? I don't know. It's a secret. The secret one you just saw years ago. Oh, yeah. I just want to see that one because I never saw it. Everyone is telling me just go there. It looks scary, but it's OK. There's a lot of like hidden corners to Akihabara that people don't know about. You know, the horror vending machine. Yeah. With all the weird stuff over there. And then there's the secret shrine. Did you find that in the alley?

00:13:00 German Tourist: Yeah. Which one?

00:13:02 John Daub: You go to the Don Quijote. And then between the buildings, there's an alley about one meter wide. And if you go through there at the end of it is a secret shrine. But I think if you go around the block and come in the other way, it's maybe easier to access. OK, but yeah, they didn't destroy the shrine. They just built the skyscrapers around it. And it's kind of neat to find in this alley. I just saw I read yesterday, I think an article. One shrine on the highway is not going to budge. Oh, yeah. I can remember. But it's like like the same. They're just building around it. Those are the best ones, right? When they build like when technology and the future doesn't destroy the past.

00:13:45 German Tourist: And sometimes like I'm just walking around and I'm just taking a look. I'm going to the site. I was like, why is there a shrine? There are so many skype. The little shrine. I was like, where are they coming from?

00:13:58 John Daub: Right. Cool. It's such a mixture here. Tokyo and the old school, new school. But when my image of Germany is that it is such a very historical and old country as well. Like Japan. But it's not like Tokyo.

00:14:10 German Tourist: Not like this.

00:14:13 John Daub: No, actually, if you go more outside of Tokyo, it's a little bit. But it's not the same. I found out with so much different. It's not the same. How's the beer here compared to home? Everybody says that Germans don't always drink beer, by the way.

00:14:29 German Tourist: I found some good.

00:14:31 John Daub: OK, it depends on what you like. But. I mean, it's still better. You have to say that. But I mean, it's a matter of taste. So, yeah, OK. No, it's pretty cool. What you do, you just explore. I'm just going to I'm just going to walk today. I'm leaving Akihabara. I'm going to walk over to Asakusabashi.

00:14:50 German Tourist: Oh, OK.

00:14:51 John Daub: So you like you prefer to stay over there than here. It's a good place because it's quiet. But I got 20 minutes to Akihabara. It's a. You can use the train a lot there. It's very close and it's very convenient. And I think maybe a little bit cheaper. Right. Yeah. And it's close to Haneda. So right. Right. That's OK. I'm telling you, Asakusabashi much better than Akihabara to stay.

00:15:13 German Tourist: Right.

00:15:19 John Daub: Oh, yeah. Thank you. Oh, you're welcome. Very good. Well, thanks for coming to say hi. Right. That's very nice. And I do have some you found me cards with me. As well. All right.

00:15:33 John Daub: We got everybody's OK, but there's a fire truck with them. So it's something serious. Leo loves this. He's always waving to the ambulances, but they don't understand that. He doesn't understand quite yet that that means that somebody is not in good shape when an ambulance is going by. But he's fascinated with ambulances like all kids are. I hope it's not a fight. I don't think it's a fire in this building this year, ladies and gentlemen, because the one of the largest electronic stores in the world, you can get lost in here. There are restaurants upstairs, including a driving range for golf. And if you just want to blow off some steam, you can go up there and hit some balls. It's a little bit more expensive. I guess just somebody might have passed out in the store overwhelmed by all the electronics inside of there. The fire department sometimes follows up with that because the first responders, it depends sometimes the most easiest vehicle to get a hold of is a fire truck. So. First responders in there. I'm first on the scene, Kerry, because I'm just happened to be here. It's not like I try to cover the story. I just hope that whoever it is is OK.

00:17:03 John Daub: The businesses here have changed quite a bit. You can see here this is the Sobu Line. This is Akihabara Station right over here. I don't know how many times Peter von Gomm and I have gone in there for a creme brulee doughnut from the Jack in the Donuts over there and the entrance to the Akiba, I think you all know there's the train going. And I think that's what I guess sometimes I mess up these trains. I think that's the Utsunomiya Line. No, so many train lines here. It's hard to unless you're riding them every day, like a mind melt. I haven't seen these. That's a story in itself. How Uber has evolved just now partnering with the Japanese taxi industry. They used to be battling one another. Uber just could not compete. So now they're using the technology and they're all kind of working together. And I'd like to get that story kind of wrap my head around it because I'm not sure exactly what Uber's role is in Japan used to be only Uber blacks. If you use the Uber app, you would be getting a premium taxi. And if you pay for it with white glove service, not anymore.

00:18:16 John Daub: Oh, it's going out of business. They used to have a Churrasco. It's a Brazilian churrasco place right here. Now it's a Mister Minute and a curry restaurant, which looks really good. Look at that. Tonkatsu curry. That's a kind of a small tonkatsu. It's not a very large one. Usually it's cut up and you can they just really drowned it in curry sauce, which either could be a good thing or a bad thing, just depending on how you like it. That ebikatsu curry looks pretty good, too. Probably not. And I have to agree with this. It is very much the soul food of Japan. Curry. You wouldn't think that, but it very much is.

00:19:00 John Daub: This is Showa Dori. You see the highway going over here. We're going to be crossing the street and making our way to the other side, getting away from Akihabara Station. I've done this walk as well many times. I think the one might be at the top page of the Only in Japan Go channel. If you take a left here on Showa Avenue, you're going to get to Okachimachi and Ueno in about 15, 20 minutes. So that is a really nice walk to do. I forgot to put my step counter on here, but I'm guessing it's around 3000 steps. Plus all the other steps you take. It's very easy to get 15 to 20,000 steps walking around Tokyo. Very easy. Here's some bicycle parking underneath. That's one thing I think I should note. If you're looking for parking, you're looking for bike parking. It's usually underneath these highways here. I've noticed because this is where they have a lot of space for that kind of stuff for motorcycles and things like that.

00:20:02 John Daub: This is a new building. At least it kind of feels new. These restaurants are always changing. Businesses are always changing around here. Just getting a little look around. So walking around Akihabara Station, I'm going to put this over to the right side. You can see we're starting. There's that red building, which is that GiGO electronic store. We kind of taken the path around the station, gone underneath the tracks there. And now we're going to have to walk underneath the highway, which you just did. And I'm right there, which is 19 minutes. And we're going to be walking along the Sobu Line going all the way to Asakusabashi, let's see what we can find. There might be some new businesses and some new hotels have crept up. I don't know. It's always in flux. And that's what makes this area kind of fun. But I mean, Akihabara, I think it's fun to visit. And there we have the Sumida River and then you have Ryogoku. So you can keep on walking. You can see the sumo area. It's a much different vibe in general. From here, it's going to take about, I don't know, 19 minutes or so.

00:21:31 John Daub: Akihabara was one of those areas that was really bombed heavily in World War II. So you don't see much history here. Everything has been rebuilt one way or another over the last 70 years, a little pizza shop. You can even see it if you look up above the highway. Some of these buildings date back from the 1970s. You can just tell from the architecture, 70s, late 70s, early 80s. Yeah, 80s, 90s. This one's probably the early 2000s. Just based on the style of it, you can tell there's some brand new buildings over there in the distance, that black one. It's fascinating. Once you've stayed in Japan for a little bit of time, you really can see the differences, the styles and the architecture, just the materials that they used. But this side of Akihabara, this is a side a lot of tourists don't come to going towards Asakusabashi. What I love about this side are the alleyways. They're less crowded. And on the left and the right of them, you're going to find all sorts of businesses, restaurants, everyday life. This is more local on this side. This is more authentic than Chuo Dori, which has become kind of a tourist place. Just the really catering to tourists. It starts from here. When you start to see everything in English like this with no Japanese, you know, there's a lot of tourists in this area. Nothing wrong with that. But I think it just takes away a little bit of the authenticity of being in Japan. English for me, the adventure was there wasn't a lot of English that you had to use your wits and you had to decode and you had to figure things out. You don't have that anymore.

00:23:38 John Daub: Oh, they're waiting for smoking over there. That is awful. I always thought that that was really convenient. They're lined up to go for a smoke in the smoking only area. Only in Japan would you see that. And then inside that dark area you can smoke. But there's a quota. There's a limit to the amount of people that can go into the smoking area and they've reached it. So the people are lining up for a smoke. Only in Japan would they do that. That's why that area is like a walled off. They're there for the smoking area. That's fascinating. Japan loves to line up even for, you know, a smoke. We're going to be leaving Akihabara now. And the noise is going to go down quite a bit.

00:24:25 John Daub: I love Fujisoba. I don't know. It's one of those chains. Chains I've been eating here on an English teacher's salary. This is where I get my one coin lunch. They raise the price to five hundred and eighty yen, but this used to be five hundred yen for with a soba set. They have it there with the soba set. Now it's nine hundred yen. This is if you've never had a katsudon, just you get it from the vending machine and give the ticket to the guy in the kitchen and he'll call your number. It's so easy. Very little interaction. It's easy to pay. You know what you're getting. It's in the window. You get massive buckets of soba or, you know, some really good sets that'll fill you up. This is soul food of Japan. A katsudon, it's one of my favorite Japanese dishes. You can get a mini katsudon with a bowl of hot soba. For seven hundred and twenty yen, that's like four dollars and eighty cents or something like that and a bigger one, a katsu don. Whoa! Katsu don on top of curry rice. Oh, I've never had that before. That sounds so good. I'm surprised I haven't had that before. I've had katsu curry, but I've never had katsu don curry.

00:25:48 John Daub: There's Akihabara Station now underneath Showa Dori and the highway. So let's make our way down this road towards Asakusabashi. I just wanted to show you the vending machine for the Fuji Soba on the side here. All you got to do is put your money in there or touch your Suica. Push the button for what you want, then touch your Suica and then the ticket will come out. Hand that to the guy in the kitchen and your food's going to come. It's so simple to order in Japan. For those of you that are only eating McDonald's, stop it. For those of you only eating 7-Eleven, stop it. You got some amazing food that's much healthier than the convenience store, the processed stuff, and you don't need it. Be bold. Don't worry about making a mistake. Go in and try it. I know it's a little bit scary and intimidating. It doesn't have to be. And after you've done it once, you're set.

00:26:58 John Daub: Convenience stores are amazing. I'm going to take you tomorrow to try. There's an ATM in there. One of one of the easy ATMs is these printing machines. There's an app you can download and you can print anything from the app off of your phone from the printers and at 7-Eleven. It's so convenient now, including I think. Do they have it there? There's a scanner for your My Number card and you can actually get government documents printed as long as you have your card and your password. But I'm going to probably do an episode on on. I was like looking at these stickers. I thought that was Angelina Jolie. It's not sometimes you see some weird stuff. It's culture. Culture and graffiti. And you don't see a lot of graffiti in Akihabara.

00:27:52 John Daub: So we're going past right now the APA Hotel. And as you can see, APA Hotel, this is I believe it says it's the Akihabara Akibahara APA Hotel. It's not really it's sort of next to the station. It's not really an Akihabara station, but it's in the quieter part of Akihabara. And a lot of the hotels that people are going to stay at in this area are probably in the tracks here. APA Hotel is it's I don't have a lot to say about it. You know what you're getting. It's a small business hotel room. It should cost you five thousand five hundred yen. But I'm sure because of demand, it's going to be much higher underneath the tracks here. And these arches have been here forever. As far as I go, there's some new stylish like this is a yakiniku place. I might have covered this before. So you can go back and forth between the roads. There was an I Brew here that me and my friend Patrick went to. I wonder if this was what it was that it changed businesses. There's a bunch of craft beer places underneath the tracks as well.

00:29:06 John Daub: The APA Hotel is not I don't know if it's a far right group, but the CEO is quite far right. And look, you know, I pick a hotel based on the services. I don't really care what the owner is. Is it a good deal? In the bottom, when it comes down to it, it's all about do I get to save some? Was it available? And do I get to save some money to eat a little bit better? And APA Hotel allows you to do that. But she's kind of a controversial character. Bill O says howdy from Mount Fuji. Whoa. I bet you can't even see it. It's cloudy, raining, rainy day this morning. Starts to clear up. Let us know, Bill. Oh, you can see you can hear. Oh, here it is. OK, the I Brew. I thought that this this is I came here right before the pandemic with a buddy and drank here and then he got a little bit too much and I thought he went to the bathroom, but he never came back and I called him and he passed out at home. It's some good craft beer in here. They I believe they make their own or and they have some of the local breweries from around Tokyo as well in there. Some good food, some good eats. But I thought that wooden part of the I Brew was temporary. I guess it looks like a shack and that's kind of a good feel. You don't want the places to look too, I don't know, like gourmet. It's not that much fun.

00:31:03 John Daub: Here the train above. We've gone underneath the track one more time. We're going to do a couple of shift back. This is one place where you will see some graffiti. I don't know. And this isn't the first time it's happened. It looks like they painted over it once before and then they redid it. And I'll probably get painted over again over there. You see some graffiti. That's very rare to see in Tokyo, but in areas where there's some. I mean, this is because there aren't a lot of kids anymore. Japan.

00:31:35 John Daub: Hello. Oh, you follow me. OK, I saw you coming up like, oh, hey, look at that big smile. I've been like watching the streams while being in Japan. Hope that you'll be in the same area. Like finally found you today. Oh, did you have to go far today?

00:31:51 Damien (Singapore Tourist): I was actually at the main street.

00:31:54 John Daub: Oh, wow. You were the Yodobashi building. Yeah. So I just kind of made a quick. Well, there you go. You found me. Where are you from?

00:32:02 Damien (Singapore Tourist): I'm from Singapore.

00:32:04 John Daub: OK, cool. You might need to take that at all. Thanks. You're welcome. Nice to meet you. Nice to meet you, too. What's your name?

00:32:16 Damien (Singapore Tourist): Damien.

00:32:17 John Daub: Damien. How long are you here for?

00:32:19 Damien (Singapore Tourist): It's actually my second last day here. Oh, I've been here for two weeks. OK, I'm heading back tomorrow.

00:32:24 John Daub: Well, where are you staying here in Akihabara?

00:32:27 Damien (Singapore Tourist): Yeah. I'm staying at a hotel kind of past the Yodobashi building.

00:32:31 John Daub: Oh, OK. The Tourist and Cafe. Any good?

00:32:36 Damien (Singapore Tourist): Yeah, it's pretty good.

00:32:37 John Daub: What's it called?

00:32:37 Damien (Singapore Tourist): The Tourist and Cafe Akihabara.

00:32:39 John Daub: The Tourist and Cafe Akihabara. But it's not really in Akihabara?

00:32:41 Damien (Singapore Tourist): Yeah, it's not really in Akihabara. It's kind of like Asakusabashi. But they get free coffee every morning, you know.

00:32:45 John Daub: Oh, that's pretty good. What does it cost? Like five thousand yen?

00:32:50 Damien (Singapore Tourist): I don't remember. I paid in advance.

00:32:56 John Daub: Oh, OK. I'll pay in advance. OK. Oh, very good. Well, thanks for coming to find me. You're out of breath here. Appreciate it. Yeah, take care. That's very nice. I turned the camera around and there he was. Damien, right? Yeah. He's like, boom. I remember Peso running behind me. I was in route. He took a taxi from somewhere to get to Daikanyama. And then I saw this guy charging at me. It's like, wow.

00:33:29 John Daub: But what I wanted to say was that there's a lot of new hotels that are coming up in this area because the property is much cheaper. When you compare it to Chuo Dori, where we started this live stream about 30 minutes ago, it really is a different vibe now. We're going back in time. A lot of the buildings you can see are much older. This is a garage bar. There's another like a izakaya over there with grilled fish. But you can see the buildings are lower and a lot of them might be for sale if you have the right price. And what do people build here? Things that where they're going to be making some pretty good money. You're making US dollars right now bringing in tourists. That's kind of a big deal because the Japanese, you had the domestic market sort of collapsing. Look at this. The Yamazaki building is what this is. This one looks like it's going all the way back to the 1950s. This looks like a reconstruction cement building right back then. And what materials did they have to make cement? The windows probably replaced in the 1970s. But this does not look like this looks like it could be going the way of the garbage can and being replaced by a big hotel. And you can tell it's only what, four floors, which is a waste because I think you'd want to have something like eight floors or something in this area.

00:35:12 John Daub: Now, all right, let's get a move on. I can get behind. And that one coin happy. Well, that's not one coin, though. They lied, but that's still a pretty good price. That's a dollar for that big one. That's not one coin either. I guess they have one coin caramel milk. This is a fiber squash. That's got to be nasty. Oh, my gosh. A fiber squash. What is that like Metamucil in a can with the green monster destroying your gut? This one's all 100 yen. Interesting. This is a funny trick. What is a fiber squat? I guess it's supposed to be healthy. There's no happiness in fiber squash. Even the can looks not happy. I mean, it's carbonated to fiber carbonated drink. I'm going to have to. This is a hard pass on me. The Yamato. I'm not buying that. You know what's going to go? It's going to go there. I take one drink and I'd like. Throw it. Is that what you want to see? Really? You want to see some dude yakking on the streets because he had some green monster fiber squash where they got over here.

00:36:40 John Daub: Adrian writes in here. Kind of dudes. What? I can already smell me yakking it up and it smells awful. This Mets by Keating. I've never had it, but it looks like the Mets in New York baseball teams logo a little bit to me, but I haven't been back in a long time and I'm not a fan of the Mets. Sorry, Jerry. Terry's like, drink it. Really? Come on. Really? I don't think so. I'm not going to go and drink that. It's got to be nasty. Really? I'm just going to end up throwing it out. All right. Somebody better super chat this here because this is I don't want. It's like a waste of money. Come on. And the lifeguards always been interesting just for the artwork. Oh, God. What have I done? It feels awful. It's all cold and slimy. Tells you the story. I don't want to know your story, dude. What does it got in there? It's got green peppers. What? Mean green carrots, asparagus, cabbage, broccoli. Dude, this is so gross. Cauliflower, lemon juice, vitamin C. How is this an energy drink? 400 calories. In this. Oh, all right. You know what, bro? Yamato Games, you guys bought it. I'm going to try it. I'll take one for the team, but I'm not going to like it. I've been surprised before. I don't want to like it. Hold on. What am I doing?

00:39:12 John Daub: Why is it so sweet? It says is green peppers, asparagus. Why does it smell like cold, like a like a Fanta orange colored? I can't taste any vegetables. Zero vegetables. It just tastes like sugar. It's carbonated sugar. That is so friggin sweet. It's awful. I'm not chugging it. You chug it. It's so sweet. I can't do it. I told you where this is going. This crap. All right. You happy now? Look, see, you made me do something I didn't want. That was so not worth it. How do I get rid of this flavor? I have to. They don't even have a recycle can. Here. Now I got to carry this can. This can is up for auction. If anyone wants to buy the can, we could do it for charity, which we're coming up on. And a shout out to Laura from Ecuador, who is donating her Daniel packages to the food bank here.

00:40:50 John Daub: That's another reason why I wanted to do this live stream today. So, Peter, no, it is not. This is the way on the way to Asakusabashi. We also pass one of the great charities of Tokyo and one that I've donated to so many times over the years, including going to my friend Mike, who is in a New Year's livestream this year and doing food runs up to Tohoku after the earthquake and tsunami in 2011, he went on. He went on so many. I wish he was a YouTuber. I would support him day and night because nobody has a bigger heart than Mike Connolly. He used his own money to run food up there. The gas that just he had to do something. And we get across the street, see if we can get a glimpse of the food bank. And if you have extra food, you can drop it off at the food bank as well. I think it's the next intersection up. It's called Second Harvest. Amazing. They're like first responders for food. They were at the Noto earthquake with making food runs. And they started the year as well. Look, there's a Beard Papa cafe. They make I guess this is their office. That's their office. The Beard Papa's office. Interesting. All right.

00:42:26 John Daub: Right up ahead is we can already see our destination. I can't get that taste out of my mouth. That that station jutting out of the tracks is Asakusabashi station or at least the first entrance of it. So we're nearly there. Oh, it's so nasty. There's one of the shrines like I was talking about. You see at the end of the street there, people don't get rid of the shrines. The ones that are old, like hundreds of years. They just kind of build around it. And that's a really cool thing. You know what's funny? It's not funny. It's funny for you. Maybe I can taste the carrots now after three minutes of drinking it. The vegetable tastes the sugar has evaporated on my palate and I can taste asparagus. And and carrots freaking nasty. I am out of games. What did you do?

00:43:35 John Daub: Interesting. So this building is gone in the corner here. I bet you it's a open to the building, an apartment complex here. I was wondering if it's going to be a new hotel back here in back here in some of the alleys. There's some guest houses. A lot of these places are the guest houses will run you like. I don't know. They're like like three thousand to five thousand yen kind of a thing. Share houses, depending on how old the building is. And the demand of it will determine the costs of it. So if you're a solo traveler, these are really good places to make friends and to meet other travelers. You're never really alone. I backpack around the world five times over seven years alone, mostly. And I was able to make friends because when you're alone, you're in like survival mode, you learn a lot about yourself. And I made a ton of friends. And this is the bad part about it was before the Internet. And it's hard to keep in touch with these people that you met because this is like the year 2000 and 2001, there was no social media, which is a shame.

00:44:57 John Daub: Here's Second Harvest, the start of it. They have a kids cafe. That's pretty cool. Go in there and that's a good way to support them. I'm sure that they're making money to try to get money for. Foods, but they used to have offices here. Maybe they've moved. None of these buildings are going down and up and maybe it's the next intersection down. Cool. Awesome. It's like jackhammer. I think that's where there's a lot of kids in this area. I guess that's where moms have a cup of coffee with the kids. They can raise a little bit of money. I'm all for it. I guess Second Harvest is a nonprofit organization. So maybe I passed it. I got to give them a call. I'm sure they're not going to move too far from this neighborhood. Queen Laundry is pretty valuable. Most Japanese homes are quite small and they don't even have washing machines or they might have a compact washing machine, but no dryer for the first. I don't know. Like many, many years. I didn't have a dryer. We have a dryer now, but we didn't have that. We didn't have that because there was no space for it. No, it wasn't really needed. You could just hang up your clothes. And if you're a single dude, you didn't need to do that. I'm going to cut across here because there's a Second Harvest truck that looks like the one we might have driven up. That's the one they take the food and they drive it up to locations and distribute it. They parked it over there as we get now close to the rent a car shop.

00:47:26 John Daub: We get close to Asakusabashi you can tell the vibe is so different to Akihabara. It's like a throwback. We're now entering the Showa era, which is freaking awesome. I love it. It's got so much character. This is one of the most authentic areas of central Tokyo. Asakusabashi is between Ryogoku, the sumo area and Akihabara. A lot of amazing restaurants that are really cheap prices. A lot of this is where you go to rub shoulders and elbows with locals, old timers who probably can't speak a lot of English, more and more foreign tourists are coming in here just because the hotels are around here. But a lot older than other sections of Japan. And that means it retains a lot of those mom and pop shops that make the place pretty cool, give it character and doesn't feel like a tourist trap, which isn't. A lot of people live here in the side. Not too many people live in Akihabara. I'll be honest, it's mostly offices now, but because it's on the Yamanote Line, which is major real estate. But this is one step away from the Yamanote Line. So it's quite pricey around here, too. But because everything is older, it's priced that way. So the bars, this has some of the best food as well. Cost performance. You can't do better than Asakusabashi for restaurants, cafes and these alleys.

00:49:15 John Daub: There's a French restaurant down there. I see there's a melonpan shop. This one's a chain. They're okay. Teishoku restaurant is a ramen shop. Wow. How much is that? That ramen 980. That's a big piece of chashu pork steak. I'm going to have to take a couple of steps closer. That's a mega pork steak. Don't go to Yaro. It's like, let's do tonkotsu. Looks like they've got a long history as well. Gon soul. Look at that one. That is a lot of meat. You're getting a protein overload, bro. Going to be able to lift up a car without an adrenaline rush. And it's basically empty. This is lunchtime, too. I'm not a tonkotsu guy. So I'm more of a miso. I like a kara miso spicy miso ramen would be my top choice. But tonkotsu is pretty filling. I had a tonkotsu phase for a couple of years. When you have the real stuff, you go to Fukuoka. It has a really strong smell. And that can be a turn off to a lot of people.

00:50:58 John Daub: Here's a tonkatsu. Rosa tonkatsu shop. Looks like a family place with people lining up outside the door. Underneath the tracks here is a gyoza restaurant right here. Let's take a look across the street. It's a gyoza set with ramen for a thousand yen. And this is a tsukemen, which is a noodle dipping noodles. They look like udon, but they're made from a different ingredient. I think it is. This Thai restaurant looks really good as well. Green curry. You can smell it. If you had smell-o-vision, it looks like a donburi place, which is good stuff on rice, all sorts of stuff. But it looks like it's been redone, so it's still old, but it's been renovated. So it looks like with the wood paneling here, quite nice. Oh, this is one of the bakery trucks. Let's see if I can pan around here. SN. They come around. They play that Suntory song. They come around my neighborhood as well. And you can see some of the some of the goodies in there. It's like a couple hundred yen. You can get bread for lunch, but they bake it fresh and they drive it around the neighborhoods. And that song, I don't want to sing it because you get copyright dinged.

00:53:05 John Daub: It's pretty chill around here, isn't it? That Suzuki, that micro-SUV, Suzuki car is really cool. I've seen a lot of them recently. Suzuki makes these amazing compact. I've seen them more and more on the road. They look pretty cool. I have to be honest. I'm not sure if I'd buy a Suzuki over a Toyota, but it's certainly consideration. It's one of the very interesting cars. I had friends that had Suzukis. They're very affordable. Let's see back in the alley. So let's go down some of the alleys here as we hit the end of Asakusabashi, which is basically the end of this walk. I think you're getting the vibe here. A lot of cafes, a lot of small restaurants, bars. There's a kebab bar, a sushi place, some more ramen. There's an Italian place with that blue canopy. A lot of cafes and restaurants down here.

00:55:09 John Daub: Here's a ramen shop. With the vending machines outside, you can always tell it's very easy to get a ticket, give it to the guy. He might ask you what kind of noodles you want, if you want it like kata, if you want them hard or soft. I always get it hard, katamen. Because if they're soft, they get overcooked and they get soggy. Oh, hello. I watch your YouTube from Australia. Welcome. Welcome to Japan. How are you? We're good. We're good. I just watched your videos from Australia. Okay. Boya, I got to get more YouFoundMe cards. I thought I had more.

00:56:01 John Daub: All right, here's the main street. Again, I love the atmosphere, especially when the sun goes down and you have people wandering around in suits, maybe stumbling around might be the better word. It's very vibrant. It feels like Shinjuku without the crowds. Yeah. You know what I mean? Here's a yakitori restaurant here. Look at that. It's just cabbage. 146 yen. That's less than a dollar for just cabbage. Talk about healthy. I eat this with beer. French fried potatoes, as Sling Blade says. French fried potatoes. That's 228 yen or a dollar. $1.15. That's crazy. Some sliced pickled cucumbers. Those are some numbers. $1.10. Then this whole thing of yakitori, each stick is about 255 yen. They look pretty good. It comes with some miso there and some spicy mustard, karashi. The drinks. Oh my gosh. Asahi beer? What is that? These chuhais are 291 yen. That's $1.80 for one chuhai. Are you kidding me? You can get plowed in here for … Look at, five gyoza for 210 yen. I think you can get full and totally trashed on $8 here. All right, mark this place down here, right underneath the station. That is incredibly cheap. That's actually shockingly cheap. I think you get what you pay for. It's probably not that good.

00:58:07 John Daub: And this is the end of the line here. Now, this train will keep on going to the other side. Michael Sassano, this just popped up here. Glad you got a burrito yesterday. What will you get today? I don't know, Michael. I don't know, but there is a place down the street here I was thinking of taking out and bringing to Kanae, where they have egg cuisine with Japanese eggs. So I might just do that. As always, brother, I appreciate it. Thank you, Michael. I'll bring something back for Kanae for sure. This is the entrance to Asakusabashi. I want to say a little story about this. There's a guy who comes here every morning and he, I don't know why, but he tells everybody, like all the salary people that are going to work, he tells them good luck and wishes them a good day. And it's been on TV, Japanese TV for so many years. I don't know if he's still here, but I think if you come here at seven to eight in the morning, you might catch him wishing every day he comes here telling all this businessman getting onto the train. Thank you. Where, you know, guys kind of telling the samurai of today, the businessmen, to stand strong.

00:59:37 John Daub: So we walk quite a ways. We walk quite a ways along the Sobu Line here. In these alleys on this side, a lot of restaurants, that egg restaurant, I believe, was over here. I took Randy Santel there to eat three kilograms of eggs. Only Randy could do something like that. God love him. Him and his girlfriend. I don't know if he's still here, but he's still here. We're in Kanda. I think Kanae eats kilos. Competitive Eaters. I found a couple of challenges for them. That was certainly was one. But the vibe, first of all, no tourists. I don't see any tourists. It's all local here. This is why authenticity matters. You might see one or two if you walk in this direction, you get to Asakusa and eventually through Kanda. And eventually it's about 25 minutes to Asakusa from here. You can walk it. That's fine. I'm not sure. You don't need to take the train. Again, as you said it's about 25 minutes to what the heck is that?

01:00:26 John Daub: This is the second time I've come to this this Burger King. The ugly one pounder. Oh my goodness that you ugly. Look at that. That 2000 1,000 9 that's a very expensive burger. It's like four quarter pounders. So that's a over a pound. Oh my goodness. Michael I'm not getting this my health is important. Ryan's got the Kurt Ryan found the crown this is I'm just paying up here to gross you all out or make you all drool that bread looks really good. It's a four cheese crust bread. Wow. Yeah, peso. I'm not getting that. It's like a heart attack waiting to happen. Yeah, peso. I and they get it. Oh, they have a double and a single I might get the single but we can go this direction all day. So there's the menu for the Burger King.

01:01:36 John Daub: So I tried to get Peter von Gomm to come with me to go to Munch's Burger and Munch's Burger is where President Trump had his burger with Prime Minister Abe in 2017 and they've had a line out the door since so I wanted I wanted to go in and try their Colby Jack double burger which is what President Trump had? You know either you different. I'm not it's not a political thing. I just think it's really funny that he came to Japan to eat a burger. I think it's no matter what side of the political specter. You know, that's pretty cool because the president comes here into Japan and he has a burger must have been a good burger. It must have been a really good burger. There's only one way to find out. So I haven't had Munch's Burger yet, but it's in the Mita area near Keio University and I asked Peter von Gomm if he wanted to go and he did not respond. I don't think he's a big fan I don't know. Again, I don't I don't I'm that it's not a political thing. It's a burger thing it's sort of a political thing. And no matter what side you Ronnie then if I'm eating the burger, it's either to celebrate his acquittal or to celebrate his incarceration, I don't know for me. I got I'm staying out of it although I just stepped knee deep into it. I still want to try the burger. Knowing the way that the former president operates, I bet you he gets off. But I'm not going to make that bet. I'm just trying to make a very uncomfortable conversation now.

01:03:29 John Daub: Look at that yaoya (greengrocer), which is the word for vegetable store, vegetable stand across. Again, this is a very livable place. All these are residential homes, most of them. Going down towards Kanda, almost all is residential. So we've changed the vibe quite a bit. I hope that this was a useful live stream for you. And makes you think a little bit more about where you want to stay. At a hotel in this area, this is Hotel Livemax. I never heard of that shade. Maybe it seems local. There's an APA hotel on this side as well. Or do you want to stay near Akihabara? I think there's more nightlife. Oh, and this place has really good gyoza and ramen, by the way. Kanae's dad has been eating there for years. Because Kanae is from this area. We went in here about three years ago, right before the pandemic was last time. They have good gyoza and really good ramen. So a lot of the places here are very authentic.

01:04:46 John Daub: You can see the station entrance to Asakusabashi. It's actually certainly more run down than the one in Akihabara. This place, Shimojima. I've got a point card to there. That's one of the great stationery stores. This is the Asakusabashi's version of Itoya, I think. You might want to go in here. This is such a fascinating store to check out. They've got all sorts of pens and stationeries. And it's really cheap. Like these chōchin festival fans. What is that? Six dollars or something like that. If you want to buy gifts, this is kind of a cool place to buy. It's a really nice place to go. I don't know. You'll have to look in there and find some stuff. But it's really cheap. They've got boxes. I used to get some packing supplies for the daimyo supporters.

01:05:52 John Daub: Gosh, Michael, I'm getting so hungry. Look at that oyakodon. It looks like a chicken nanban. Chicken katsu teishoku. Oh my goodness. Look at that piece of daikon there with some negi on there. Some konnyaku dango. Wow. That's healthy. Healthy meaty goodness. Yummy yummy for my tummy. And all this is connected by that train line right there. We started the live stream with the Sobu Line going by in the other direction. Now the Sobu Line going towards Ryogoku. And I think this is a great place to stop the live stream. We walked quite a ways. It was really fun. Again, it's about 23 minutes. It should take us. But for us, of course, it took a lot longer to do this walk. But the two neighborhoods that we're in are very well connected.

01:06:51 John Daub: Just a little note here. I found this sign in the subway. Check it out. The Tokyo Fire Department is putting on a water pageant on Tokyo Bay on May 26th. So I think Leo and I are going to be out there watching the fire department put on a water show. That's kind of cool. I guess it's going to be in Tokyo Bay. All the information is there. Is it from 1pm? It's from 9:30 in the morning. And then from 1pm, Miyakodori. I'm not sure what that is. But it's near the... You can see it from Toyosu. I'm going to go check that out if you want to find me on the 26th. And I might live stream it. That's really cool when you have fire boats. And I want you to remember, a lot of Tokyo is high rise buildings on the riverfront. And having these fire boats is a good way to get there quick. And then spray the water from the fire boats. Probably from the river. I'm going to go to the fire. It's pretty cool to see.

01:07:56 John Daub: Makoto X-Rate is in here. What video equipment are you using? And Air to the Ron writes in here, is the water pageant to help engage more volunteer firefighters? That's a good... Look, the fire department has almost already recruited Leo. And he's three. He loves fire trucks and the firemen. The firemen are so nice. They're always recruiting new ones. Well, let's see what Leo has to say. If he wants to be a firefighter after seeing that, I think you're going to see a new recruit. And Makoto X, I'm using... I don't like the Osmo 6, so I'm using the Osmo SE. Which is the old school. I've got a brace on it. Let me see if I can take off the phone here. So you can see it. You can see here, I've got a bracket around here that can take the microphone. This is the Osmo SE. It magnetically connects here to my phone. I turn it on. Double tap it. There you go. Back on. And the software is a Prism Studio mobile something. It's made by Naver, I think, who does Line, which is very popular in Japan. They've contacted me to review it, but they always have bugs and problems. It's not great, but it's very useful if you learn how to master this software. And they use HEVC codec, which allows 1080p with 5 megabits per second up, which the YouTube app does not allow you to do. They still use a very inefficient codec. So double the codec to get 720p, which is crazy. This does not do that. So thanks for asking, and I appreciate the super chat. Very much.

01:09:52 John Daub: Alright. No, I'm not getting that Burger King, but I will show it to you one more time. Because it is pretty outrageous. And in the basement is Hanamaru, which is maybe the most convenient udon place, with prices for a bowl of udon starting at $1.00. It's starting at 390 now. It used to be 280, but it's 390 yen for just a hot dip. It's literally written hot dip. I would probably upgrade to the raw egg and soy sauce at least. But you can't go wrong with a little curry udon. Or my favorite, which is the, what is it, the tanuki tororo, the bukkake tanuki tororo, which is a half-cooked egg, and bukkake, which is a mushed up mountain potato, and old-fashioned. And okra. Super healthy. Does not look great. But it's a lot better than this one. A lot better. I want to live beyond the age of next year. Thanks everybody. Thanks for joining. I'll see you in another livestream tomorrow. Mata ne.