00:01 John Daub: So it's such an incredible thing when you turn on the news and you see the debut of something new with the Shinkansen (bullet train) here in Japan. It is such a great experience to ride. A reason why you would get the JR Rail Pass and travel in particular up to Tohoku. And these days, maybe these animated bullet trains are going to make a difference in getting people to go up to Tohoku. But this is a really interesting collaboration because whenever you put Disney in with Japan Rail, you get some interesting stuff.

00:31 John Daub: This is not the first animated wrap train that Disney and JR East have done before. There was one, I guess it's even still running right now. Here's a clip of it. So this is one for the Disney Resorts 40-year anniversary going by. I don't know if it's as cool as the one that I'm about to show you that just released up in Sendai. They announced it there. Again, the capital of Tohoku, they would say in that region, is probably Sendai, which is the biggest city over there.

01:04 John Daub: I thought that the initial images—I put a link in the description to the video I'm about to show you. So here's the article that hit Kyodo News recently that sparked my interest. Disney-themed bullet train starts magical journey and that's just always fun if you can add in one little more thing to make the Shinkansen cooler. Disney-themed Shinkansen bullet train has begun operation for a limited time as part of a collaboration between JR East and the Oriental Land Company, who actually licenses Disney stuff here in Japan.

01:35 John Daub: The Magical Journey Shinkansen is inspired by Fantasy Springs, a new area that opened in June at Tokyo DisneySea, which adjoins Tokyo Disneyland. I haven't been there yet, but it looks really cool. And the hotel opened up and I believe it's doing quite well. The train is decorated with the iconic scenes and characters of the popular Disney films. Disney in the U.S. right now is not doing so wonderful. It's just kind of missing a beat there.

02:05 John Daub: This marks the first time an E5 series Shinkansen has been fully wrapped in a special design. It's kind of a big deal. The company said inside the carriages, passengers can immerse themselves in the Disney world with themed melodies and curtains. They didn't completely deck out the inside, but they do have jingles, like they have the Shinkansen jingles. Well, they changed the jingles to sound Disney-esque, which in itself is kind of cool. They have these jingles on the Shinkansen trains when you stop and stuff. It'd be really cool if they had different narration or if they had like Mickey Mouse saying, next stop, Sendai. But I don't think they went that far.

02:51 John Daub: And again, the inside of the Shinkansen, the colors haven't changed or anything like that. Just curtains, maybe the seat cushion rests and the jingles. Subtle stuff. But the outside of the train looks pretty incredible. So again, this is a clip from YouTube. I put a link in the description. I encourage you to go and see the full video because this creator really does a great job of showing every single corner of it. You can see it's just multicolored going by there, the E5 train coming in.

03:06 John Daub: All the scenes, I guess each color represents a different world or a different character. You have Rapunzel, you have Beauty and the Beast, you have Peter Pan, you have Frozen. So yeah, it's kind of cool. And the details on it are extraordinary, I think. Links in the description. Please go check this out. I think it's about three, four minutes long. I'm not sure what that pose is that they're doing. Raises some questions. Like what? I guess it's pachinko. Like is it Japanese way to launch the train? Maybe the mayor shouldn't be doing that, but it's kind of cool to see Mickey saying bye bye to the train. Yeah, it's all really fun stuff here.

04:10 John Daub: And just one last thing on this. I'm not going to make this a very long live stream before I take some of your questions here. It's a beautiful, warm day. I have short sleeves and T-shirt and shorts on today with sandals. It's like a really nice 27 degrees. What is that? Like low 80s, upper 70s. Perfect day. But I want to show you the prices of the amusement parks here.

04:29 John Daub: So Walt Disney World starts, according to ChatGPT, which did this all for me in like 30 seconds, $109 for an adult, which is pretty expensive. And the prices go higher depending on the time of the year. It could be a lot more than $109. Disneyland California, $104. Prices could vary on the day and the time can reach up to $179. That's crazy. Disney, Tokyo Disneyland tickets are $53 to $73. The exchange rate—I'm telling you right now, it is so cheap.

05:09 John Daub: And I think the Oriental Land Company, which is the one who's licensing this, knows the domestic market. And despite the amount of foreign tourists that are coming here, it's going to be the domestic market that keeps them in business. And if they raise the prices anymore, the Japanese aren't going to go. It's not great economically here. Wages have been frozen or they feel frozen for a very long time. But this is a great opportunity for foreign tourists. So Disney here in Japan has got a huge following.

05:32 John Daub: Never mind all the weird movies that Disney has been putting out. I guess it just doesn't—I'm not interested in anything that Disney's posted since like 2002, really, including the new Star Wars stuff, which is kind of not my taste. Star Wars seemed to end like about two decades ago or more. I'm old school Star Wars. But still, you still get that feeling when you go to Tokyo Disneyland here. And if it is that cheap, it is worth going here. Never mind the culture wars and all this other stuff. But $53 to get into Tokyo Disneyland is crazy cheap.

06:14 John Daub: I think yeah, depending on—they have a sale right now or the sale goes on right after the Halloween, so right now it's Halloween time. I'll probably go before November 1st when they start putting in the Christmas stuff, but in between the seasons they have tickets that are like 7,000 yen (Japanese currency) or like $50. It's crazy cheap. And of course, you're going to get hit with the food and the other stuff. But you can afford it if you're only paying 50 bucks to get in there. Never mind the fact that the lines are pretty maybe longer than in the US. No more fast passes. Anyways, they found a way to monetize that. But it's more efficient in Japan than it is in the US. So it could be a reason for you to go.

06:52 John Daub: Seven thousand yen. Yeah, it's I think it's like between 7,000 and 8,000 yen. You can get discount tickets if you go to the convenience stores. You see the campaigns. If you go back to the copy machine in the back of the convenience stores, you can also print out your tickets for Disney, I believe. That's where you would get the Ghibli tickets. So you can see the discounts and the deals going on inside the Japanese convenience stores. And I've seen it 7,800 yen as well as on the trains. Advertisements for Disney.

07:19 John Daub: If Disney has to advertise on the trains, I guess they're not as popular with the Japanese, but I always see lines when I go there. It's really hard to gauge. But you know, it's more than half the price of what you would pay at Walt Disney World and Disneyland. So a lot of Americans are going there to take advantage of. Tokyo Disney has better run. They say the food's better. The temperature is pretty good a day like this. So there's a lot of reasons to go there. What do you guys think? Leave me a comment in the comments below and sound off on this.

07:53 John Daub: And I'll be going to Tokyo Disneyland or DisneySea. See, I'm not sure which one in the next few weeks. We'll see what we can take. David is visiting Japan with us out to their Leo. And I definitely want to go. It's the only time where Leo, my son—he's half American, he's got an American passport—it's the only time where he really can experience Halloween. There's not a lot of places. And I'm not taking him to Shibuya, but they banned, you know, alcohol in the street. So maybe it's going to be better this year.

08:26 John Daub: Yeah, the prices for Tokyo Disney are pretty incredible. See here, cleaner Tokyo Disneyland. I think John Lopez. Yeah. You know, I really do believe that like they wipe down the stuff, they wipe down the rides. There's somebody like with towels. You know, the staff is really good. I except like when I had something that looked like a selfie stick, like a gimbal. And they got upset with that. But now you're not supposed to live stream in there. Like, I don't know. It's a gray area. You're not supposed to live stream inside of the park. Again, it's a private area. You have to abide by the rules, but you can take pictures and stuff.

09:24 John Daub: In that article here, I don't think I finished it. Let me get to the halfway point. This also came up. I didn't know about this either. This slipped through the news. The Disney Cruise ship scheduled to operate in Japan from 2028. Like what? A Disney Cruise and the vessel, which has about 1,250 guests and the capacity to hold some 4,000 passengers, will add to the growing fleet of Disney Cruise ships. First launch—if Japan does it, you know, it's going to be done pretty good.

09:55 John Daub: Like I'm not really interested in Disney that much, but now that I got a son, I'm a child here. I'm kind of getting into it because it brings back the nostalgia of when I went to Disney. That's a big ship. What does it do? Like go around Japan or something. I don't know, but it's licensed by the Oriental Land Company, which is the licensee of Tokyo Disneyland, which is doing a better job of running it than in the US, I guess. US was like losing fans.

10:25 John Daub: It is said to sign a license agreement on Tuesday with Walt Disney Company. This was just like two months ago to enter into the cruise business in Japan. Unveiled a plan to start building the 140,000-ton ship in the next fiscal year. Well, they're building it now. How cool. It will invest about two billion dollars in the project. The two- to four-night tours departing from and returning to port leaving Tokyo metropolitan area. Oh my God, this is going to be so popular.

10:56 John Daub: The standard price are likely between 100,000 yen to 300,000 yen per person for four nights. I can see that that would be a little high, but you're getting accommodations and stuff and meals. That's not too bad. You're like immersed in the Disney world. I don't know if this is good or bad. The ship will provide an experience as if you were in a theme park. That's kind of cool, 24 hours. The Disney world will never end from one night. That's pretty funny. Oh my goodness.

11:27 John Daub: Because Disney Cruise has operated from 1998 in the US and the fleet currently consists of five ships. That's interesting. Speaking of ships, I think it's going to look a lot better than this one. Here's a dredging ship going through the Sumida River. Imagine if that was you paid 300,000 yen and you got conned into the bootleg Mickey. You see a bootleg Mickey on there with a can of cheap beer, six-pack of cheap beer, bootleg Mickey, drunk cast characters. That's not Spaceboat Joy. That's something different.

12:08 John Daub: I provide to you folks an alternative universe, one in which, you know, it'd be a lot cheaper. You'd be totally immersed in a different world down there. And you know what? To be honest with you, it looks like there could be some amusement park rides on there. I'm really curious to see if there are some amusement park rides. Beautiful day. Check it out.

12:37 John Daub: Joy writes in here pass. Is that a hard pass, Joy, or just a pass? Hard pass. We know that you're definitely not. And if it was just a pass, like we could pass to convince you to ride. You know, the luxury bootleg Disney as it disappears under the bridge. You get to operate a crane. It's a hard pass. OK, I'll give up. Sales can always work. Work hard on it.

13:05 John Daub: Speaking of which, we have some interesting things on the Only in Japan Go store coming up in the next week. Ellis and David are working on that. We're going to have the fireworks shells. Shout out to one of our viewers has been asking about that fireworks shells and posters and stuff going on. And on the Only in Japan Go store. If you missed that during the Kickstarter campaign, that'll be sent from the US, which is great. And this one's postcard. Check it out here.

13:33 John Daub: Oh, that's way too— this one's postcard is really nice. It looks even better in the sunshine. But this is a slice against like I send these out every month. Beautiful scene from the countryside in Kochi Prefecture. This is the Pacific Ocean, the end of Japan. This is like off of the end of the world. I'm going to put some information on the backside talking about this location.

13:53 John Daub: And yeah, you know, I'm going to start to do—I'm going to make videos about the postcards and I'm going to put a QR code on the postcard so you guys can scan that and then get a little bit of extra info. Get some extra information on the background of the photos. Or if I decide to take the photo, I'll put the video of it and you can see me taking the picture of the photo. Like I want to add in more value, like bring you with me through the postcard club.

14:23 John Daub: So you know, I'm just using these QR codes, so let's see if we can do this. Try to get more people to sign up for it. And I want to make more videos about the postcards because an image has a story. Right. And this image has a really good story. So if I can make exclusive like five-minute episodes about the postcards, I think that'd be really interesting and give you more information because I want you to go to these places. This is so off of the beaten path. You can see there's not even a soul there. There's nobody there.

14:57 John Daub: And I sent these out to all of our patrons supporters yesterday. And I want you guys to learn more about Japan through the postcard club. Feel immersed and get new ideas for your travel. And I appreciate the support. I love sending out the postcards. What can I say? If you have any questions at all about anything that's going on in Japan, the Patreon page is how you would get in touch with me. There's a lot of people asking me about their itinerary. If you need advice about traveling in Japan, you can direct message me on Patreon and I check that very often. Probably not as much on social media, but if you want to get in touch, that would be the place to do it because, you know, this is where our community is.

15:41 John Daub: Let me take you real quickly before we say goodbye to this scene here in beautiful HD high definition. I'm working on an episode of this—two years on this Tokyo Skytree. And the reason why I didn't release it is because it's got too many like face masks. I'm trying to reduce scenes to make it seem less like it was filmed during that era. And that's really been hard because I want this to be something good. But I got to jump on the ball and get this out this year because it's been sitting for too long.

16:18 John Daub: I actually went up there and cleaned the film, them cleaning the windows. If you can believe that you get an episode of them cleaning up there, the second deck. I was on the outside strapped in on the second deck. And then I went underneath the Skytree to the base. And I look at the coils and show you how it's earthquake proof. So this has to drop real soon.

16:42 John Daub: Michael Susano says he left a voice message. I'm on it, Michael. I'll cue that up next time we do the live streams here so we can listen and say hi. So I went there when everything was shut down. I went there when they were like no tourists coming in. So I was able to get interviews. But the designer of the Skytree came and did an interview with me. But like we have masks on all the time and it looks like—I guess it could be conceivably used for dust, but I'm trying to tell the PR people there is like, look, this thing is going to be around for like many years. No one's going to want to see people wearing masks.

17:16 John Daub: And I take my mask off. I had to get permission to film this. They gave me amazing access, but it's really hard just to take off my mask because they wanted to comply with certain rules. And I'm like, there's nobody here. You know, I don't got anything. I'm safe. That was such a really tough time. This is 2022. Tourism was not allowed to come in here the first three quarters of 2022. So I have to kind of fix it a little bit. And that's been kind of a struggle for me.

17:49 John Daub: A lot of those episodes I filmed during that time. In a way, I'm glad I didn't release them. But the Skytree is here dear to my heart for some reasons. And I dated there when they first built it. It's like a long time ago. I remember seeing it. I didn't even know they were building it. And one day I saw a stump in the distance from the Edogawa River. I'm like, what the heck is that? They're building the world's largest tower here, world's largest freestanding tower.

18:17 John Daub: And it really is a beautiful thing. And at night, it's so wonderful. The Skytree, I love the shape of it. I like how it looks on the skyline. I like that they put it over there in Oshiage. I like how it's really helping businesses on that side of the city that didn't get a lot of love. Asakusa is over there, but this is in Oshiage, which is different. All good stuff built by Tobu. Tallest freestanding tower in the world. I believe to this day, surpassing Canada's CN Tower in Toronto.

18:46 John Daub: And I was on the top of it. Actually, you know what? I climbed in that episode. You guys don't even know this yet. See that deck right there. I put the figure there above the second deck. There's like—see where the pillars end. And there's like a round disc on the top. I climbed up to there on the outside. So this episode is really cool. I can't wait to release it. It's coming this year for sure. And I've been sitting on it for such a long time.

19:23 John Daub: Some dust on the zoom lens. How's that? It's a digital zoom because it's iPhone. I don't think it goes that high. Anyways, thanks guys for the support. Again, leave me a comment down below. I will look into it. See what we can do to make some more episodes and Only in Japan Go. I really appreciate everything that our community does to keep this channel going.

19:45 John Daub: I'll take you to another location this week outside of the city of Tokyo. No real plans to wait. I got a big trip planned for November and some stuff coming up at the end of the month, but nothing too much right now. So we're going to stay in Tokyo, look at some news items here and leave me questions down below if you want, I'll try to feature and answer them. But again, for Patreon supporters, you guys always have priority. Thanks so much for supporting over there and I'll see you in the next live stream. Thanks Iken. Mata ne (See you later). Tall one. So yeah, top secret. I'll tell you later. Bye.