00:00:01 John Daub: Hello everybody, welcome to Yokohama. This is the famous Ferris wheel. I think it's called the Cosmo Clock 21. I haven't ridden it in years. It's 10:30, not quite midnight, but by the time we end this live stream it might very well be midnight.

00:00:19 John Daub: It's Sunday night, so things are pretty quiet regardless. That right there used to be the tallest building in all of Japan, the Landmark Tower. It's got a ball at the top that helps equalize earthquakes—a massive heavy ball that goes in the opposite direction of the shaking. We're going to be heading towards Sakuragicho Station to start off and loop around. This is going to be a pretty exciting live stream. Well, for midnight anyways, how you doing everybody?

00:00:49 John Daub: Sunday night in Yokohama is nothing like Shinjuku or Shibuya. This area, this city is a lot more relaxed, in particular on a Sunday night. There are places that are still up this late, but most of the time, most places kind of settle down. The tourists go home. A lot of day trippers, the domestic tourists here, people go back to their hotel and settle down. Except on this channel we're not going to do that. We're going to go on an adventure here.

00:01:23 John Daub: Sakuragicho is the main JR, Japan Rail station that will bring you into the heart of Yokohama. Now, Yokohama Station, of course, has the name of the city in it, and there's a lot of stores, a lot of shops, a lot of businesses there. But I think it's Sakuragicho that is more central for the entertainment, as well as a lot of the businesses that have popped up in the 21st century anyways. That Landmark Tower I just showed you, which used to be the tallest building in Japan, built in the early '90s, is now deserted right now. I'm not going to show you what it's like inside, but the shopping mall looks like it's abandoned right now on this side. I thought that was kind of creepy in a way, but in a very cool way.

00:02:17 John Daub: Look, that is Queens Square, and this place is usually buzzing with people, but Sunday night all the shops are closed. People still walk through here to get to the station, so it is still open. The Tokyu Toyoko Line that runs to Shibuya is down in the basement here. Minato Mirai is the station that you would come to down these escalators to get to the basement there. That will take you back to Shibuya, that way into the city. If you're coming by JR from Tokyo Station or Shinagawa, most likely you're taking the JR lines. It looks like it's midnight. It is. It's pretty creepy over there.

00:02:58 John Daub: There's this structure, which I thought is really cool, in between. That's Queens Square, where the subway is. On the other side, the Landmark Tower shopping mall, which is on the first, I think, four floors of that building there. Not too many people at and about at this time of night, but it's still open. At midnight, they do shut the doors as the last trains end, and it's pretty vibrant here. I'm kind of surprised. We have some youths hanging out with disco balls. That's kind of cool. Life at this time of night on a Sunday? Don't they have work? They got some brews there.

00:03:41 John Daub: Alright, let's go over to Sakuragicho Station and check it out for a second. I don't know how people still drink coffee. The Starbucks is... like, almost all of the chairs are full right now. Seems a little odd. Decaf, perhaps? Or just a comfy place to sit and work? There's some of the last trains going. Tokyo's last train is around 1 a.m. Some of them do go a little bit later than that. I remember the Akihabara Sobu Line going towards Chiba was usually after 1 a.m. But Sakuragicho Station here, not exactly buzzing with life like it was about three hours ago. It was really a completely different situation. Back today, it was really crowded. I have to be honest with you.

00:04:34 John Daub: Tomorrow, I'm going to be doing a livestream. You're not going to want to miss this. I came in with Leo. We had to come... there's a wedding that my wife had to go to here. And Leo and I came into the city a little bit later. And I decided instead of taking the local trains, which is the way 99% of the people do it, we decided to take the Shinkansen. And I was curious about how much that would cost. So we took the Shinkansen for two stops. And surprisingly, in particular for people with US dollars, it was less than $10 to ride the Shinkansen for two stops. I thought that was interesting. So tomorrow, I'm going to share that experience with you as well as Leo and I's adventure. It's about a nine-minute video that I took that's all edited and I'll show it to you live.

00:05:16 John Daub: We also took this, which is a cable car that runs across over towards the World Porters Building. And that's where we're going to be going right now. One of the most interesting things about the Landmark Tower, I told you about that it was the tallest building in Japan for quite a while. Now, it was a building in Osaka. Now, Tokyo has that crown with the Azabudai Hills Tower. But Landmark Tower has the smoothest elevator and one of the fastest, the smoothest elevator. It also has this curved escalator, which is one of the world's first, if not the first in the world. I think it was made by Mitsubishi. But this curved escalator is amazing. It's extremely unique. I thought that it was really fun to ride it. How much fun can riding an escalator be? You're going to have to judge that for yourself. But for me, as a tech geek, this is sort of a big deal. How do they make an escalator that curves like this? Because it's curved, it does go in a circle. So then you got to come back down the way you came back up.

00:06:46 John Daub: I'm pretty sure it was a Japanese company that made it. So I was guessing the technology was made here in Japan, but I'm not 100% sure on that. But I know that it is one of the first, and this building was built quite a while ago. I still think it's pretty cool. Not that many people here, except for some drunks around here. Alright, so it's almost a green light. We're going to be able to cross and then go towards World Porters, which is in that direction there. Okay, the light is turned. Let's do this. Let's get in front of these people.

00:07:47 John Daub: Believe it or not, it's raining. I don't know if you guys can see on the other side of the screen there. The rain is coming down, and you see people have umbrellas. Of course, I do not. Now, this is a new walkway. I think they didn't have this 25 years ago, 26 years ago when I came to Japan. I can't remember if they had this or not. I came to this area quite a bit because they had a TGI Fridays there, and it was the only American restaurant back in the 2000s. But the cable car shuts down at 10 p.m., so I'm not able to show that to you. We're going to do that tomorrow morning. Leo and I rode the cable car, which is a pretty cool experience. But this walkway, in particular on the weekends, you're going to see a lot of people on dates walking here. And what I noticed is that this is a really popular place for girls. Leo stumbled upon two 20-somethings just hanging out on the bayside and was sort of harassing them. This is hilarious. Kanae Daub and I are just like laughing. Oh boy, Leo is going to be something when he gets in his teenager years.

00:09:20 John Daub: Beautiful. We're staying at that hotel over there. Do you see the one right here? And, you know, there's two Intercontinentals in the same area. It's a pretty unique building. It looks like a sail. It's been here forever, and it's priced at that, too. There's the new Intercontinental ones, like 50,000 yen a night, and this one is about 17,000 yen a night, which is ridiculously cheap. That's like 100 bucks a night. And I'm an ambassador for the Intercontinental, so you can get that with buying points. It's not anything special. So they give you a free upgrade, and we got two breakfasts as well. So it turns out to, like, staying here for a little bit over 100 dollars with breakfast and everything, it pretty much pays for itself when you think about it. And it is a very comfortable hotel, but nothing like the new one at Pier 8, which is where the red brick warehouses are in that direction.

00:10:21 John Daub: Let me show you on a map here. The Ferris wheel, I think it stopped. Where exactly are we? Now, the location when I did this map was at the Intercontinental near the convention center, so it might pin me there. And we'll start at that hotel here. You either got bayside, looking out at the water, which is really beautiful, or you have the amusement side, looking at the Ferris wheel and the roller coasters and all the events. You're going to figure out what side we have in a minute, because I'm going to show you the view from our window, which is really nice. But this is Minato Mirai and Sakuragicho. Minato Mirai is where the buildings are on the left side of this screen, and Sakuragicho down here. But you're seeing this beautiful walkway, about, I don't know, like a mile and a half. There's where the Gundam used to be. It's no longer there anymore. But you can walk along the bay in Yokohama for like a good hour or more from Sakuragicho or Minato Mirai to Motomachi or the Chinatown area. It's really beautiful. There's Yamashita Park, where the ship is. God, I can't remember the name of the ship there. But it's one of the very famous places to stroll, because it's such a quiet, beautiful city. Look at this. It's such a big contrast to Tokyo.

00:11:52 John Daub: They say Osaka and Kobe, that relationship between a bustling city of Osaka and the really laid-back, relaxing Kobe. It's the same thing with Tokyo and Yokohama. You've got the bustling Tokyo, and the really laid-back, beautiful city of Yokohama. More leisurely, you can really enjoy it. There's the cable car in Sakuragicho Station right there. It's a pretty good time. And then, you know, if you're getting close to midnight, it's now 20 to 11. This is pretty much what it feels like at midnight. I know it's not quite midnight, but sure feels like it.

00:12:37 John Daub: I wonder if anyone in the chat has been up that Cosmo Clock Ferris wheel or any of the amusement park rides. What do you guys think of it? The rides are shut down now, but there are some scary-looking rides over here on the water edge that I will not be going on. They look like the kind of carnival rides that might not take much stress. I don't know. What was new that I noticed was up here on this side, that is an Apa Hotel. And I don't know how they do it. The Apa group is everywhere. That's a massive skyscraper in the most beautiful part and the historical part of Yokohama. This is where Commodore Perry came in and signed the Treaty of Kanagawa that opened up Japan to the world, but giving the United States sort of like first dibs. And that spot is marked not that far past this hotel. They have a couple of markers there that showed where that treaty was signed. A pretty darn big deal. Without that, maybe Japan would be like Irian Jaya or something. I don't know. I think they would have opened up eventually. Some world power would have done it, but Commodore Perry was persistent.

00:14:01 John Daub: There's the World Porters across the bridge here. We're getting close to that. I'm going to take you to the Ferris wheel over here as we wrap around. This looks really new here. Like they've really built it out. But you can see it's quite dark. I don't have a light, so it's going to look a little pixelated. But it's a very comfortable walk despite the rain. Rain cools it down. Those that are coming in June, be prepared. The rainy season is just about upon us if it isn't already. And the temperature is much cooler than you would expect. If the sun is out, it feels like summer. If it's not out, it's cloudy and raining. It feels like spring. And you need a jacket. It's weird. June is a very weird... and maybe the first couple days of July is a very weird temperature.

00:15:14 John Daub: See, if I use the main lens, you can really see the rain coming down a little bit more. Let's walk down here where it looks like I could get mugged. Because that's what you typically would do. Go to a really dark area. Oh, it's hard to... you've got to keep your eyes down on the ground here. Oh, this is where Kanae went to the wedding, right there. That's what this is. This is a wedding spot. Right, she could see the cable cars, she said, which are right above me. The cables, but they're hard to see. That's what that beautiful building is. It's a wedding spot. I wonder if this walkway wraps around. Now, this World Porters, do you see this with the colors, the rainbow colors on the top of it? Looks like paint. Right up there. This building has been here for a long time. It was here when I got here in Japan, I believe. Maybe not in '98, but pretty much around the turn of the millennium.

00:16:22 John Daub: And this is one of the places, when I came into Tokyo, I used to live out in the countryside. I could get like foreign wine, foreign beer. I could get like Cherry Coke and Doritos and things like that, that you couldn't get at the Japanese supermarket. Pop-Tarts every now and then. Katayama, please do not send me any more of those. But I did appreciate it very much when you did. Oh my gosh, those went pretty quickly. But you can get stuff like in here. It's changed quite a bit. It's no longer that kind of a place. It feels a little dated in there. Used to be some cinemas.

00:17:03 John Daub: Marina writes in here, John, my favorite YouTuber ever. Oh, wow. Thank you. That's very nice. Rain or shine, we will take you to places that are not Tokyo. Tonight, we will come by pretty close to it. This is nice. Tomorrow we'll be in Yokohama as well. I'm taking Leo and Kanae and we're going to the Anpanman Museum. Because that's what you do when you have a three-year-old kid. You take them to the Anpanman Museum. And then probably eat lunch. I don't know, if you're an ambassador for the Intercontinental, you can check out at 4 p.m. Isn't that crazy? So we're going to check out of the hotel here at 4 p.m. But I'm sure we're going to head back because I got a lot of work to do. I got to get the postcards out for the postcard club. I think they might have come in the mail today. Start to put the addresses and the stamps on there. And try to get them out as soon as possible. Do some editing. Wow, the rain is starting to come down. We got caught in a rainstorm earlier. Looks nice. The reflections on the water here.

00:18:23 John Daub: Good early morning live stream for those in the United States. Peso is up late. Any Australians here? Oh, there you go, Dad. You can see the cable car. Let me see if I can get back on the main path here. I don't have too far to go to get to the hotel, so I'll be fine with a little rain. We were all born wet. A little rain never hurt. There's the cable car. It goes into there. It's not a very long ride, everybody. It's like a thousand yen. But if you think about the exchange rate, it's not that much. I mean, if you're coming with yen, it feels like a lot. It's the equivalent of like ten bucks for like a four-minute ride that goes 400 meters. Basically, what we just walked, you would be paying a thousand yen for. Is it worth it? Let's just say that Leo really liked it because he's three. And the ride was, it felt like I was at Disneyland for like four minutes. So I guess there's something to be said for that.

00:19:30 John Daub: Gosh, it is dark. But I hope that the next iPhone or whatever smartphone I buy next has a little bit better low light. This is the 14 Pro. And there's Apa shining down at us. Gosh, you are everywhere, Apa. I wonder what it stands for. American Princess Association? I don't know. I just know that the CEO is something of a princess. She has this bizarre hat in all of the commercials. At first, I didn't know what to make of it. I thought it was really weird. And over time, her image is growing on me because I've seen it so much. I guess if you see, remember like Thomas of the Wendy's company. He became the face of it and he was on all the commercials. And you get used to just seeing him. I'm just so used to seeing the Apa CEO. She has her own curry line. Whatever you think of her, you have to say she's pretty persistent and extremely successful. If you look at the hotel right there, that's pretty prime real estate.

00:20:40 John Daub: Okay, now we see it here. Do you see that? Now we're starting to see finally the roller coaster. Of course, it's shut down. But they really did a good job of renovating it. They put in the LED lights. When I first came here to Japan, I think they had like regular fluorescent light bulbs or something. But they put in the LEDs and it's just so beautiful. I'm surprised that they're still on at this time of night. Maybe it shuts off at 11. But the closer we get, it's just a dazzling light show. And it's rotating. Of course, it stopped at 10 p.m. But it's hard not to just like stare at it and go, wow.

00:21:33 John Daub: Here's the view, the view from our hotel. It's like a million lights looking down at us. They upgraded us to a higher floor. I think we're, what, 19th or 20th floor, something like that. It's just a beautiful sight, a million lights dazzling. It's hard not to keep the floor. Those are the scary-looking rides, the carnival rides right there. I'm not sure if I would ride that. And the lights when it's moving, it really is beautiful. You can see the roller coaster. I think that might have stopped. But it's a different perspective from what we're seeing from the ground.

00:22:25 John Daub: John Vanjick writes in here, Hey, John, did you hear about the Nico Nico hack? I did not read anything about it in the international media. But the website is still down. I don't know anything about Nico Nico. I think that's like a YouTube competitor here in Japan, Nico Nico Douga. I don't know if too many people really use it. Maybe anime or manga stuff, I'm not sure. Thanks for that. And 48 months is quite an achievement. Congratulations, and I really appreciate you being a part of the community for such a long time.

00:23:06 John Daub: I'm not sure why, if you're saying that the audio is down, it looks like it's pretty high. It could be the rain getting into the microphone. We're pretty much on top of the... The mic's pretty much on top of me. Here it is. I'm figuring they've raised the price quite a bit. But it is a pretty scary looking... There's two roller coasters. One is like this cart. And the other one is an actual roller coaster looking thing. And it goes pretty darn fast. I don't know if it's Thunder Dolphin fast, this one at the Tokyo Dome. But it's pretty darn fast. And it's kind of cool. Yeah, there's the Cosmo sign. Do they put in the prices of the rides here? Like, for me, the prices in Japan for attractions have really gone up. And I think for foreign tourists that are coming in here, if you convert it to dollars, it's not too bad.

00:24:16 John Daub: Yeah, this is the one. This looks kind of scary, like this cart looking thing that goes around. And then there's the diving coaster. Oh, wait, what? This thing dives in the water? Are you kidding me? It doesn't really do that, does it? So the roller coaster dives in the water? That's not maybe what you want on a date. Unless you're looking for a wet t-shirt moment. I don't know. They don't put the prices out there. But I think a lot of the things are... Okay, thank you for that. It's a tunnel. That's good to know. I haven't done it in a very long time. Um, you know what? I think we can go right, let's go right up against it here. We're going to cross the bridge going closest to the Ferris wheel here and get a closer look at it.

00:25:06 John Daub: The lights have stopped dancing for the moment. The rain is starting to come down a lot more and I am more wet. The mic's getting wet. I apologize for that. Alright, we're not going to do it too much longer. I don't think we're going to make it to midnight. In this direction, I do think this is a great overview for you if you're thinking of coming to Yokohama. I want you to get an idea. There's so much more space. The buildings aren't that tall and yet you get to see more of the sky in particular because over here is the bay. It's the water. So for me, I love to come here because I just feel relaxed. After you live in Tokyo for a year or so, you start to feel it. The buildings coming in on you, all the traffic. There's so much buzz and activity. Coming to Yokohama just for an afternoon or one night as an escape at a hotel or something. Thankfully, Kanae had a wedding that gave us a good excuse to do that.

00:26:19 John Daub: Cosmo World. There it is. You know, that's really nice and this is a good place to escape. And as I said, tomorrow we're going to be doing a live stream. You can get here on the Shinkansen for less than $10 from Tokyo Station. I thought that was wild. It's like less than $10? Alright, fine. You know what? It probably cost you less than $5 to take the local train. We're talking the Shinkansen! The fastest freaking train in the world. Still. But if you did, I was like, wait a second. It's 1500 yen to take the Shinkansen from Tokyo Station to Sakuragicho, including the transfer of the Yokohama line. 1500 yen. And Leo is free because he's not an elementary school kid. So I was like, that's a no brainer. Alright. It's like 680 yen or something, I think. Plus the express fee, which was about 800 yen. That's so worth it. Right? I will talk about this tomorrow. It's pretty crazy.

00:27:27 John Daub: But I thought before I'm getting really wet here. You can see the streets are glistening from the lights. I thought I'd show you the water. There's like a pirate ship over there and a Landmark Tower. I won't be walking the Yokohama. You can blame it. But maybe Kanae is watching. Kanae, if you see me, can you wave? She can't turn the light on. Leo is sleeping. I don't know what floor she's on. I can't remember. Someone's watching. You guys can say hi to Kanae. Maybe we'll put the picture on Instagram if you took it. I don't know. This is not the first time staying at this one. This is the cheap Intercontinental Hotel. The Pier 8 over there. We stayed there for one night. It was amazing. And then the next night I came over here when I was filming the fish market. If you haven't seen those live streams, check it up here. And Jared's hotel, the Kahala from Hawaii has a branch over there, which is another beautiful hotel. I'm just not part of the ambassador program of that hotel. So typically will stay at this one. But the fish market where you can get the 5 a.m. tours, it blows Tsukiji and some of the other fish markets, including Toyosu, out of the water. Because people are super friendly there. They don't get a lot of tourists. So you feel like it's a more authentic experience because, quite frankly, it is.

00:29:12 John Daub: We can make this because it's raining. Okay. Legally, I'm okay. I took a step on the street. It's still flashing. I hate doing that. We got to follow the rules here in Japan. Because of all the bad tourists and this over-tourism stuff, I have to be perfectly frank with you. I'm trying my best to follow every rule. And I feel on my shoulders this, like I have to be more perfect than the citizens. It just feels like that. And that's because I've been in Japan for 20-something years now. It weighs on you, the societal pressures here. And seeing that when people see me as not being Japanese, that they kind of suspect that, I don't know, just a feeling that I get. Now, at a green light, maybe, you know, at 11 p.m., I might cross that on a red light, but maybe I shouldn't.

00:30:18 John Daub: Beautiful. Alright, what do you guys think? Weight on your shoulders with a K. Johnny, it does feel like that. Oh, my gosh. Gosh, it's also because I'm carrying a bag. But Yokohama is a beautiful city. I do hope that you guys do come here to visit. If you're thinking of making this a center for your stay and then commuting into Tokyo, that's not a bad idea. Not only are the hotels a little bit cheaper out here, it's so much more spacious. The restaurants might be better. And, you know, for families, it's just a lot more relaxing and easier to get around, and you get to see that curved escalator every single day. It's freaking awesome. It really is. And if you stay here, you get to see the convention center, which is at the top of the steps here.

00:31:13 John Daub: Wow. I wonder if these indigo-dyed shoes are going to soak into my socks. That's why I've been wearing black socks with these, is because it's not exactly because of a fashion statement. It's more because I don't want that indigo to bleed into the socks. That is the convention center, which is also quite massive. There's a pizza lot. That's the express, which serves really nasty-looking food. Our dinner tonight was a Chicago pizza. Here, I could show it to you. Alright. I want to be honest with you. That's not a Chicago pizza. And they used kind of like this meat sauce that you might put on a 100-yen bag of meat sauce type of quality sauce. But other than that, it wasn't too bad. I mean, I've had Chicago pizza quite a bit. That's not Chicago pizza. It's just kind of like a lasagna, you know? But it's in the red brick building, so it was quite nice for the ambiance. And they gave Leo these french fries, which he loves. He got to eat them today because it's Sunday with guacamole. And it came in a fryer that looked like a fryer, and he loved that because it looks like he could be cooking, pretend-wise. And that was kind of fun. So good job to that restaurant. It was called, I'm not sure about the Chicago pizza. You know, I think for the domestic audience, they might think that's pretty authentic, but it's not. But Leo liked it, and that gives him five stars from us.

00:33:02 John Daub: Alright, everybody. Not a lot of people around here. That's a good way to start your morning on the other side of the world. And for me to stop mine, thanks for watching. I'll be back tomorrow mid-morning. The livestream, I'm gonna talk about a Shinkansen trip from Tokyo to Yokohama and our experience. I'll show you a 10-minute video that I edited this afternoon when Leo was taking a nap of that trip. It's kind of fun. Matane.