00:01 John Daub: This is definitely one way to beat the heat. Get on a boat on the windy Sumida River, enjoy the top of the deck and get a nice view of the city of Tokyo. But it's a hot one. Not as hot, there's a nice breeze, you can see the sky is cloudy which means that you're not getting direct sun exposure. So the temperature of things, objects like this bridge right here is warm but not as hot. It's not hot to the touch.

00:29 John Daub: How you doing everybody? That has not been the case in Kyoto. And I'm kind of laughing a little bit because we all know that over-tourism has been quite a big problem. You go to attractions, sites, places, areas that you've wanted to visit your whole trip. And you find that you're shoulder to shoulder with so many people except right now. And it's really interesting because the heat wave, the excess of 35 to now 38, 39 degrees right now—which is 102 degrees Fahrenheit—is now keeping people indoors to the point where the outdoor tourist attractions in Kyoto have decreased the people on site to up to 20 to 25 percent I'm being told. Which is very interesting, isn't it?

01:16 John Daub: I was taking a look at the news this morning and they were talking about this as well. Just the sheer number, the sheer heat is having an impact. Let's take a look at this. I'll show you. I'll talk about it as it plays here on the side. But you can see like everyone has these umbrellas out, the parasols. This really does decrease it.

01:43 John Daub: The pink areas that you see on this map are in excess of 35 degrees or over 100 degrees. You add in what you might not have felt. Don't just look at the thermometer. The humidity of Japan, the humidity at like 85 percent. It's like you're basically swimming. It's really hard to breathe. It's not too bad right now. But when you put in the temperature over 35 and where all these dots are, which is like Kyoto, Osaka, Tokyo—this is the entire Golden Route. Heat exhaustion is definitely a thing here. 292 places had heat index over 35 degrees Celsius, which is really crazy.

02:27 John Daub: This year is really crazy. It's really hot. We kind of knew that whether or not, it doesn't really matter. Any year for Japanese summer is going to be really hot. But this is Kyoto. This is down in Gion on the riverside there. And you can see there are a lot of people, but this is less than normal in the evenings. When the weather has cooled down, you can see that people are going out there. All the fans are going back and forth. The uchiwa (paper fan), I have one right here as well. Somebody handed this to me as I was walking down the street. These things really keep you cooler. You've got wet towels, a lot of people drinking cold beer, eating cold soba, somen. But the tourist attractions, 38.7 degrees. That's about 102 degrees Fahrenheit. A lot less than normal because it's just really uncomfortable out there.

03:26 John Daub: This reporter was out in front of Kiyomizudera, I believe. And he's showing everybody his impressive sweat beads, which are really quite beautiful here. But you can see there's really no relief when you're outside as a tourist going out. But there's some things that you can do. I want to show you what JNTO, the Japan National Tourism Organization, says that you should probably do in a second here. But even the locals are saying, like, it's just too darn hot. Get inside.

03:55 John Daub: And I guess there are tourists here. But look at this shirt here. He's saying we're spending more time inside. We're spending more time inside of the hotel. We're going back to the hotel earlier. We're canceling some of the ideas that we had for the evening because it's just too hot. We're too worn out by the end of the day because of the natsubate (summer fatigue), this death by summer feeling that you get when you're in the high heat the whole time. This is Gion. You can see the streets. The streets are a lot less. This is summer. It's supposed to be a lot more crowded than this.

04:34 John Daub: But this reporter puts his hand on the bridge, and when the sun comes out, and it just came out right now in Tokyo, the temperatures can exceed, and I did this as well, over 50 degrees. What was that, like 125 degrees Fahrenheit or something like that, even higher? It's really hot out there on the surfaces, and that asphalt heat really does make it hotter. And, you know, I don't want to harp too much about this, but whatever you think the heat is for Japan, for some reason, it's not. You guys from North America and the Middle East who are from deserts seem to underestimate the humidity in here. It's really bad.

05:15 John Daub: But, again, in Kyoto, this is on the river here in Gion, and one of the reasons why people are—it's impacting the economy there is because people don't want to—it's just too hot. The surfaces are so hot. These outdoor restaurants are not getting—here, they have some people out there. But in the afternoons, you can't get people in there drinking the cold beer. So it's having an economic impact. They thought that the summer would be busier, but if people are staying inside, inside of the hotels, they're not spending money out there in the city. And for small business owners and whatnot, they're probably going to make about 15%, 20% less money when it's super hot, unless they're selling kakigori (shaved ice), which...

05:58 John Daub: It's not just here in Japan. The whole world is, like, boiling over because of the hot weather. And I think when you're coming here on vacation, you have to consider not just the thermometer. Like, I got sweat coming down right now, and I've been outside for five minutes. It's more than just the temperature. It's the humidity. We've got a breeze right now, but when there's no breeze, it is oppressive. And again, it's like Florida, but worse. It feels like Florida, but it's worse.

06:43 John Daub: We're doing the hurricane thing here in Georgia. Oh, no. I'll be moving to North Kanto next year. That's like Ibaraki, right? Or Tochigi. Those are some nice places. I used to live up in Ibaraki and Tochigi about 20-some years ago. I lived everywhere. But it's a nice area, Michael. That's good news. Stay safe, okay, in Georgia.

07:07 John Daub: Erica is here. I was in Kyoto in September last year, and the heat was unbearable in September. And that's a little bit better than right now. I had to take two showers a day and have a siesta. Indeed. Is it this bad in Hokkaido? Ah, I'm glad that you asked that. One of the things that the Japan National Tourism Organization, they have tips for surviving the summer that they released last year. Last summer, these principles don't go away.

07:33 John Daub: There's the beach. That's one thing you could do. But as I said, the beaches aren't exactly so dangerous, are a little bit dangerous right now because of the jellyfish that are in the warmer, shallow waters. They say that to carry a Japanese summer survival kit with you on your travels to help you weather the hot thing. Yeah, you should definitely have like a small towel that I carry with to wipe the sweat away. Having a paper fan like an uchiwa, which I showed you. This goes a long way. You can get the Uniqlo, like really light fabrics that they sell for a very cheap price in Japan. These are all really smart things.

08:10 John Daub: Fall in love with the vending machines. Indeed, stay hydrated. Finding a cold drink, you can put that against your face and really cool down. They have some frozen vending machines where the drinks are frozen when they come out, like minus five degrees. And those are really nice to have. They thaw out real quickly. They eat the ice cream, lots of it. Maybe not the best tip for those of you who don't know. I know there are some of those that are on a diet, but if you've come to Japan for a diet, then, you know, yeah. Eat some more ice cream.

09:04 John Daub: Yeah, there's a lot of beer gardens in the evening. But the problem with these beer gardens is a lot of the food is fried and it's just not healthy. It sits in your gut. I'm not a fan of that kind of stuff. But there's a lot of craft beers when you travel around Japan, which is fun. Eating the traditional Japanese foods is really neat. You have the cold somen noodles, which float in the water and you pick them up out of the water. It's becoming more of a tourist attraction. The cold soba noodles are quite good. Instead of getting them in a hot bowl of broth, you can get them cold served like this. It's pretty good. It will cool you down. Sometimes they're served on ice, which is even better.

09:44 John Daub: There's this thing with eating unagi (eel) in the height of summer, which is supposed to—zarusoba (cold soba), somen, and hiyashi chuka (cold Chinese noodles). The unagi is something that is kind of interesting. We eat. I don't recommend this actually. I think it's a local thing. This thing eating the unagi will cool you down. There were a lot of people who got sick with the unagi this year. A place in Kanagawa had bad unagi. I think these farmed unagi have antibiotics in them. On days like this where everybody's buying them, I can't really recommend it.

10:19 John Daub: You saw the kakigori up there? I highly recommend getting kakigori, which is just shaved ice. You don't even need to put a topping on it. Sometimes they said, no, just give me the shaved ice. Does everything have sugar in it? Yes. Just give me the shaved ice, and that's enough to cool me down. You can put a little Aquarius in there, too. You don't have to put the sugar water that they have on there, but sometimes they do that.

10:40 John Daub: Play hunt the aircon. Aircon is air conditioning in Japanese, aircon. Shop or admire art indoors. Or just go into convenience stores or supermarkets more. It cools you down. Knowing where they are is a great five-minute break. Take the kids in there. That will cool you down so fast. Man, the air conditioning inside a department store is usually pretty hardcore here.

11:09 John Daub: I remember three or four years ago, Peter von Gomm and I were doing Shinjuku, and we kept walking in the stores. Yeah, they're talking about the museums in Ueno and Roppongi. There's an art triangle. That's a great place to do. Peter von Gomm and I went to Shinjuku in the summertime, and we said that Shinjuku actually is cooler, Shinjuku Sanchome, because there are so many department stores that keep their doors open, letting the air conditioning go out into the streets. The streets of Shinjuku Sanchome are like three or four degrees cooler than the rest of the city because of all the air conditioning going out onto the street. Yeah, it's really wasteful. I don't know if they still do it. But we found that the buildings, the asphalt and everything cools down greatly because the doors are open all the time with the air conditioning.

12:03 John Daub: But dressing the part is also really good. I don't think that wearing a yukata (light kimono) or a jinbei (summer kimono) is really good. Those cotton materials are super hot. Go tank top or the Uniqlo air. The traditional stuff, I think, is still too hot. The last advice is, I think somebody had brought this up, escape to the countryside. Japanese do this, Tokyoites do this. We go to Karuizawa, which is the closest mountain area in Nagano. A lot of Tokyoites have beso (second homes) or second houses there just for the summer and for winter ski season. Or you can go out to Okutama here in Tokyo.

12:44 John Daub: But going to the countryside also means going up to Hokkaido, where temperatures are like a really beautiful 23 to 25 degrees. If you're coming in August, the smartest thing that you could do is to plan a trip to Hokkaido. Look at that. That's Furano up there and Biei. That's up there near Asahikawa. The smartest thing you could do is to plan two or three days in Sapporo up in Hokkaido and really enjoy summer up there because you're going to need that break, the relief from the heat.

13:15 John Daub: I don't want to call them foolish people. Everybody knew that it was going to be super hot anyways. But going to Kyoto in summer, it's really full. Not only are the crowds unbearable, it's just so hot, in particular like right now when the sun came out. My back is just sweat right now. It's not comfortable, especially with over-tourism. But it's just kind of unique that over-tourism, the tourists are going down because there are too many people and it's too hot. And there's a lot of lightweights who come here. And so, I think it's really cool to be able to see people that aren't used to traveling to really hot countries and they're staying indoors. Thus, actually going to Kiyomizudera right now, you're probably going to 20% less people than about two months ago, which is interesting.

14:00 John Daub: Sayu writes in here, a high of 81 degrees Fahrenheit in Niseko, Hokkaido today. Wow! I am jealous. That's warming up to get a kakigori and not sweat everything out in 30 seconds. I'm very jealous. That's a nice place, Niseko. Although, there's a lot of complaints right now, in particular at Niseko, about the food prices there. Because it's mostly foreign tourists, they have jacked the prices up about 30%, I've heard. I cannot confirm it, but news is reporting that tourists are complaining about the prices. A bowl of noodles is going for like 20 bucks, US. Like 3,000 yen for a bowl of noodles. No local I know would pay that, but maybe it's because they think of the weak yen.

14:45 John Daub: But the thing is, we all see that the yen has been on the way down. This is a crazy story. I'm going to talk about this. I'm going to give it a couple of days to see where this goes. But the yen dropped to 142 to the dollar, and you can see this is the, what is this, five years? Yeah, this goes back five years, and you can see the yen before the P word, you know, that era where we couldn't come to Japan. It was like 105 to the dollar. So now you're getting 144. So anyone complaining right now, I just remember where it used to be.

15:20 John Daub: And I don't know if it's going to go back up. The Nikkei is crashing. It's down like 13 or 14%. The Dow Jones is going down. Everyone's talking recession in the United States. That talk has come up again. I don't know. We're not hearing from a presidential candidate, Kamala Harris, about it. She's in a bunker somewhere. She better get on the horn if she can win this thing, because I don't think it's going to happen. I'm not going to weigh in on it. I just did. Darn it. But yeah, I'm just impressed with the Republican candidate versus the Democratic candidate on pure guts to go in and do those interviews, man. You can't hide in a bunker for 100 days. So better get out there.

16:18 John Daub: All right, well, I remember paying like $7 for tonkatsu ramen. I know, Michael, those prices still exist out in the countryside. And there are places they've kept the prices pretty much the same, but the food supply for everything has gone up. And I've noticed this. Yamano Games, please no politics. I got it. It's very, very hard because everything in the United States we're seeing is so connected to here in Japan right now. When the US economy starts to go down and we see it connected with the exchange rate, which really impacts tourism, I didn't realize until this year how much this election and the things going on in the US does impact tourism, not just from Americans, but globally because of how connected the markets are.

17:12 John Daub: So, like, I don't mean this as a bad thing or a good thing for either candidate, but you got to get out there and you have to start talking about this kind of stuff now, because if you don't, then the markets are kind of spooked right now. But the administration in power right now has been really too quiet on this. And I'd like to hear what they're going to do. Jerome Powell, who's the Fed chair, is a little bit more proactive, which is his job. We think that the US is going to lower interest rates, which has a big impact. Japan raised. See, this all triggered. It's interesting because this all triggered in Japan. Japan when the Bank of Japan about four days ago raised interest rates like point to five, which is almost nothing.

18:08 John Daub: And that created some oh, you are raising interest rates. So that's not good for companies. So the Tokyo stock market started to go down. In fact, we're seeing on the Japanese news, a lot of Japanese who have been saving using the stock market lost a lot of money over the last four days because of the interest rates. But more than that, the jobs data came in. It looks really bad for the current administration. And we need to hear from them just to get things to normalize a little bit. Usually that's what the president does in these kinds of times. So we're just kind of looking forward to it in Japan for some comments from the United States so that we can kind of maybe balance this out a little bit.

18:43 John Daub: I'm not getting into the politics. One side is better than the other, but I do have to say that I'm somewhat impressed with the other guy going into the lion's den over and over and over again. It's impressive. You have to give him credit for that.

18:58 John Daub: Trevor Beck, vending machine run. Looks like you could use a drink. I don't think that there is one around here. There's no vending machine in this area. I'll tell you what. I'm going to do another video really, really soon, and we're going to start that video off from a vending machine. How about that? All right. Jeff Kennedy. Hey, my brother in Philadelphia. Thank you. Cobra Kai. I don't know what that means.

19:29 John Daub: Yeah, you know, the U.S. and Japanese economies are so connected in so many ways. Japan has been manipulating the currency. I don't know manipulate, but trying to get the exchange rate down. It's dropped it down to enough where now it's down too much, where stocks are starting to go down. So we'll see how this all stabilizes. And the next. I'm going to do another 72 hours. I'll do another currency live stream. Well, I'm going to see how this plays out by Friday. And then we go into the weekends. No currency. Currencies don't move at all. So I'll be able to assess what's happening.

20:03 John Daub: But yes, currency goes up and down. And this really impacts how you travel. But for those that are in Japan right now, and there's a lot of people in Japan right now, the amount of money that your currency, unless you change your money and you had cash on hand. What you're getting from the ATM now is like, what, 12%, 10% less than what you got a week ago, which is really funny. It's somewhat funny. It's so funny for me. I live here. I get yen. So it's kind of funny.

20:37 John Daub: But I do want you all to be able to look at this site instead of me and soak this all in. You know, I think summertime is not the best time to visit Japan, except you got longer days. You do get warmer weather. The weather seems to not rain much in August. There's some positives here. But the negative is that you're uncomfortable a lot of times. You're changing your T-shirt all the time. It's just too darn hot. September and June before the rainy season are just so much better.

21:09 John Daub: The new bills in circulation. That is a weird. You know what's really weird about that? I've been back for like two weeks, over two weeks. I have yet to get a new bill. I haven't gotten the new 5,000 yen note, 10,000 yen one. I keep getting the old bills. Very odd. Very nice breeze right here on the river, which is exactly why I'm here on the river.

21:30 John Daub: If you're trapped in Roppongi or Shinjuku and you're not in an air-conditioned place, if you come out to the Sumida River, come here and eat a bento. Like this is one of my favorite places to eat a bento. You're going to have, look at the water ripple. You're going to have a really nice blast. A blast of cooler air coming at you. So this is a nice place. Actually, there's a supermarket. There's about two supermarkets in this direction past the Konami building. This is the Chuo Ohashi. I come here quite a bit. You'll find me running along this side of the river too towards the Skytree in the evening and now at 6 a.m. because it's just cooler. It's a nice run. No traffic lights. There's only one time where you got to come up into traffic to come up. But you're out along the river. No bicycles allowed there. No people down there either.

22:27 John Daub: Erica writes in here, how long will the old bills be accepted? I think they'll be accepted for quite a while. I would say for at least a year. Play it out. Even if they're not accepted, I think you can exchange them at the bank for several years before they'll be gone. And then collectors will probably take it off your hand. I don't know anybody who won't take it. Again, I'm getting the old bills and I'm paying with the old bills still. So it's not been an issue with that. I don't think there's been an actual timeline and when they'll stop accepting them. But let's just say at least a couple of years before all those old bills are out of circulation.

23:07 John Daub: And I haven't heard of any places that said that they're not going to accept it. But the thing is everybody is moving to cashless. And I think that this is the reason why I'm not getting the new bills. People aren't using the new bills. People aren't using any bills. Everyone is using PayPay, which is the app. They're using taxis. Nobody is using the Go app. Nobody is paying using cash as much anymore. And that's a little odd for Japan. And that's one of the reasons why the new bills are not being circulated as fast. So I would guess that the older bills are going to be in circulation a little bit longer than usual. Just based on that.

23:41 John Daub: Let me turn the camera to the other side. Give you an idea of... I think you can see... You see, looking at Skytree now, you can see Tokyo Tower. I think it's behind that building. That was in the drama called Fear. Fishbowl Wives on Netflix, this one. This is like a million dollar apartment, million dollar condo place. And the dudes are always making out against these big windows. See how you have those really big corner windows? So in that drama on Netflix, there's a dude like doing some making out on those windows there. So that was a really weird Netflix show. Fishbowl Wives, I think it was called. It was all filmed in this area. It was kind of cool.

24:36 John Daub: Oh! No! Come back here! How dare you! You know, that space boat. I wanted to get a look and see how many people were on board. But if it's so hot outside, you probably want to be on board. Because there's air conditioning inside. Again, you really want to be in the air conditioning as much as possible. Time it out like you have two hours outdoors. And try to plan when you wake up in the morning to go inside of a museum or a restaurant or have a reservation someplace that's cooled. Program that into any summer trip.

25:18 John Daub: And if you're smart, before you even come to Japan, plan on making a trip to the mountains, the countryside. Tohoku, all the festivals up there. Although it's really hot during the daytime. Or flying to Hokkaido and doing two or three days up there to get out of the summer heat. That is a smart thing to do. And the flights. If you book 45 days in advance, are really cheap out of Haneda to fly up to Sapporo. Do a couple of days in the summer there. It is so much more comfortable. And you're going to have a great time. Seeing the flowers in Furano. I think it's past its peak now. But the ice cream and eating the foods in Hokkaido for three days. This will definitely take the edge off of your trip to Japan. And allow you to power up to get back into Kanto, Osaka, and Kyoto. And the Kansai region. And the mountains. And finish up your trip strong.

26:08 John Daub: But if you stay outside and you do two weeks in the summer heat. You're going to be so worn out by the time. You're not going to want to go outside. After a few days, you're like, this is just enough. This is just too bad. You get a nice rainstorm every now and then. Those are when I like to crack open a bottle of wine and sit on the balcony with the computer and edit outside. Until the wind comes in and cools me off. And gets on my computer and short circuits. And I got to go into the Apple store again.

26:39 John Daub: One of the major reasons. Even though I know it's very humid in summer. Is to hear and see the freaking loud cicadas. They're not as loud this year. I hear them in the background. They're over there in the trees. But it's definitely. I think it's been so hot. They're not as loud. So if you do go up to Tohoku. They're actually louder. Because the temperature is cooler. But when it gets over 40 degrees Celsius. Or 38. They start to die. We have them on the balcony of our apartment. And we're a little bit up there. And they're somehow flying and dying on our balcony from the heat. Now they always do that. But it's a little bit more than usual at an earlier time than usual. I don't know. This is just a hot one. Sometimes it goes up and down. And maybe next summer with this El Niño or whatever. It'll cool down. But this is one of the hotter summers that we've had.

27:37 John Daub: And just program into your trip. Making trips out to the park. To the mountains. To the river. Don't try to stay in the cities too long. That's what I'm trying to say. Try to program it. Having a rent-a-car is not a bad idea. Because then you're inside the car. Getting out there. I think it's a great way to travel around. But the cicadas. I do like that. It's the sound of summer. And it can be quite relaxing. And if you record it for like two or three hours. It can be really good white noise to take back home. And if you want to feel Japanese summer. Play the cicadas. And you're like back in Japan for a little bit. Just go to a park and do it. Like Hamarikyu is a really good park with the cicadas. Across from Odaiba there.

28:24 John Daub: Alright everybody. I hope this was useful information. 30 minutes about the heat wave and over-tourism. It is interesting how the attractions are down here. You can see this was Kyoto Station at 10 a.m. And you can see it's just a little bit down from before. And I found that as the day goes on. That pink area is less and less and less than what it usually is. And it's summer. So it's supposed to be kind of high. I found that kind of odd. I love using Google Maps to see where the numbers are. Like how crowded a place is. This is Kiyomizudera. And you can see at Kiyomizudera here. Numbers were down. It says it's a popular time. And it's less than normal. It's slightly less. I'd say about 10% less than normal. But it's still significant for August. It should be a lot more considering how many more tourists are here than last year. So yeah. There's some proof for you. I'm not wrong on this.

29:30 John Daub: Alright everybody. Go take a look at the latest drop I put on YouTube yesterday. Sorry. A couple days ago. It's doing pretty well in there. It's interesting. This is tomorrow. So if you're in Kyoto. You're going to want to go to Nara tomorrow morning. Get there between 7 and 8. If you can. Get there when it opens. Because you'll be able to see the gondolas up there cleaning the Great Buddha. Which is amazing to see. Because they don't use any electricity. You see like 200 people on this statue. Which is just massive. And it really makes it a special trip compared to when they're not cleaning it.

30:04 John Daub: And if you want to get an idea of what it's all about. Go take a look at the video. I get really in depth into the cleaning. As well as some of the history of the great statue. And some of the reasoning behind why they do things the way they do. Which is different. There's a thing on minimalism. Why do they clean? Why don't they use electricity and stuff? There's a real emphasis in this particular religion. Buddhism. With minimalism. With a connection with nature. There's a reason why they're not using modern technology to clean it. Which I believe is kind of a good thing.

30:41 John Daub: Because when I'm cooking. I'm relaxing. It's very therapeutic to cook. More men should do that. A lot of men do. But when you're cleaning. It's also kind of the same thing. When you're doing laundry. You're folding clothes. Or you're doing these tasks. You kind of wipe your mind. And you're really focused in on this one thing. And it's really relaxing. And I think not using the machines. And having the loud noise around there. I think that there's something really good about it. Now the dust isn't good. They're wearing masks. But that's not good. But nevertheless. This is the way that they've been cleaning for a very long time. Although this particular one goes back to 1965. Because of the new technology bringing in more people. And more sand. And more dirt. Because of shoes instead of straw sandals. And all this other stuff. The way that they clean it. In the traditional way. I think is a good thing. And I like the fact that they stick to their roots. With this kind of thing.

31:36 John Daub: And these kind of cultural episodes. You can expect from the main channel. They're not going to be as popular as maybe other YouTubers. But I do a lot of work. To bring you a cultural side of Japan. A historical side of Japan. Which really will enhance your trip. More than going to just a food market. And eating foods that you've seen a thousand times. Tell me who else. What other person has done an episode like this.

32:01 John Daub: I appreciate the support everybody. I just got to get more of these videos out there. Which means I got to get back to work. I'm going to go get a drink with the stuff you got me. Get me a nice coffee. And have myself a little bit of a break. Before I get back in front of the computer. Have a nice day everybody. Stay safe. Stay cool. And remember. Plan your trip accordingly. To the weather. Because you all know before you even step foot on that airplane. To come here. If you're coming here in July and August. You're going to be sweating. See you.