00:00:01 John Daub: Greetings, welcome to Shinjuku Station. I'm going to take you around the south side of the JR Shinjuku Station towards the bus terminal. This is where a lot of the highway buses are. This is one of the major hubs of Tokyo. But before you leave JR Shinjuku Station, make sure you pick the right exit. This is some local advice here. Everything is so much easier once you stay in, including changing from JR to Odakyu if you're taking the Romancecar or something. If you're changing to other train lines, it's all inside. Once you leave the station, it's chaos. I'm telling you, this is one of the busiest stations, if not the busiest station in the world. Maybe not right now because the morning commute is over, but over 3 million people apparently every day go through here. I haven't counted them, but the internet says so.

00:01:01 John Daub: And in this episode, I will take you around and hopefully this helps you get around this really chaotic, crazy station. It really does help to have a good trip and give you a good time. If you have a PASMO or an IC card, I have a TOICA, which is the Nagoya version. It's all the same. A lot of people ask me, does TOICA, does Suica, do all of these cards work the same? And it doesn't matter which area. An IC card is an IC card. If you can charge it in Tokyo, you can use it in Tokyo. So that's the criteria. So I use Nagoya cards. I like the Kitaca Sapporo IC card because it's got a flying squirrel on it. Your preference and where you're from and where you've traveled to. Alright, we're out. Welcome to Shinjuku's South Side. It's crazy.

00:01:41 John Daub: The Odakyu, you can also access it over there as well as get tickets for the Romancecar going towards Hakone, which is really interesting, a volcanic wonderland of hot springs. But the South Side has changed quite a bit over the years. This new Omotenashi is a brand new, new Shinjuku Station exit. This is the Southern Terrace and this bridge will take you across to the other side without having to cross the street level, but there's not a lot of advantage unless you're coming from the second floor or you just happen to be walking past here to take this bridge. However, from up here, and we're going to go take a look at it, you get a really nice view of the South Side of Shinjuku Station. The bus terminal is just over there, alright, so it's not like you've got to go really far. If you do get lost, there is a map. There's a map right outside the southern entrance here, but I've got a map right here, so this should help you out.

00:02:55 John Daub: This is where we are actually, literally right now, that crosswalk right in front of it with the bridge that you saw. Google Earth is really cool to give you an idea, like a bird's eye view of everything this side of Shinjuku Station. You can also see there's a garden on top of that Takashimaya, which is really cool. Not a lot of people know that. You get a nice view of the city as well, but from right there, that's exactly where I am right now. You get a chance to see the JR Shinjuku Station written in kanji is more famous. There's that famous Docomo Tower that came in in the mid-90s. This is Southern Terrace right here. That's where the second Starbucks in Japan was, right there, as well as the first Krispy Kreme in Japan. If you were here at that time, trust me, three hour wait for an overpriced donut is something to talk about.

00:03:42 John Daub: This is Kabukicho. This is the side of Shinjuku where a lot of entertainment, night stuff is, you can tell because you see the Godzilla. There's a Godzilla up there on the top of the hotel, which is still there, but apparently the cafe is closed. Some dude tried to climb over the gate or something, so they closed it. Again, that's Japan's MO for stuff. If something happens, they react quick, shut it down, and they'll gradually open it up. This is the business side. I think this is the east side here. That's where the City Hall is, that government metropolitan building, that twin tower right there. Really cool architecture from the 1990s. The city is big. If you take the wrong exit, you will get lost.

00:04:28 John Daub: Here's the west side. This is Shinjuku Gyoen, which is one of the great national gardens of Japan, if not the city. It's massive, considering how expensive the property is. This is prime time, and I'm glad that they keep a lot of green area. There's Meiji Shrine, the national stadium. All this is within walking distance. I love to walk from Shinjuku to Shibuya. You can see it's about 35, 40 minutes walking past Meiji Shrine. It's one of the great walks that I've taken you on before. I'm sure I'll do it again, this time in HD. We start off right here on the southern side. If you just stay on this side, you could spend an entire day here. Each side of Shinjuku, you could probably spend an entire day there with restaurants galore, lots of entertainment and stuff to do, shopping, of course.

00:05:15 John Daub: Here we are. We're going to cross the street, go take a look at the bus terminal. That's the main purpose of this here, giving you an idea of what's here. This map wasn't always here. It should say expressway. Yeah, express bus is inside of this terminal here. It used to be on the side here. It was really chaotic. Then they had some buses leaving from the Keio. Keio is over on the other side. You can see on the side. Go straight and make a right. The airport bus is on the other side. Maybe we'll go take a look at that. All you got to do is go to Google Maps and put in airport bus Shinjuku and it'll take you up on this side. The Shinjuku post office is good. I like to use this one because it has a Shinjuku postmark on the postcards if you are sending that from here. You can go underneath the station here to get to Kabukicho. Essentially walking around the station will take you about 30 minutes. A lot of traffic lights, a lot of people.

00:06:22 John Daub: We're just going to stick to the south side as you saw in beautiful 3D as soon as this traffic light hits. That's the Miyazaki store over there. I believe it's still there. You can get some good stuff from a place where you probably aren't going to go to but maybe you should. Miyazaki. There's no direct trains to get there. No Shinkansen. It goes down to Kagoshima but not to Miyazaki which is the other side of Kyushu. It's like one of those prefectures that's a jewel because so many people miss out on it. It's actually a really nice day. Yesterday I showed you some of the things that you need to pack, how you can pack for November, December. This sweatshirt comes from Uniqlo. I like to wear layers, which is absolutely awesome. Obviously one of the ways where you can stay warm and stay cool. Be able to just take off certain layers and you don't have to bring a lot of clothes with you. You can get everything that you want here.

00:07:12 John Daub: While we're waiting, here you can see the view from the Yamanote line coming in from Ikebukuro. It's kind of cool to get another view of Shinjuku from the rail lines. You can see the iconic buildings of West Shinjuku over there. Coming into Shinjuku is so cool. But make sure you stay on the right side of the train so you can get the slow motion. The slow motion of the city is so cool as it rolls by the walking parts of the station. I've been to the Omoide Yokocho which is the old Showa era eating zone which is more touristy than local. Locals don't go there anymore. A lot of the original owners have sold out to immigrants that have come here and a lot from Vietnam. You'll find people from Malaysia, Vietnam, Thailand and they're the owners of the shops now. But they've found a way to connect with the tourists and I guess it's a good thing. I'm just glad that they stay the way it is and it's a slice of post-World War II Japan inside that alley.

00:10:04 John Daub: Alright, let's get up into the highway bus terminal. Welcome everybody. I have not been here. This is kind of neat because I have no purpose to go to the bus terminal. Airport Express buses are here too. I had no idea. I thought they were all on the side of the station. Alright, second floor. We have the taxi departure. But we also get this neat view of Shinjuku Station. I didn't know about this. You can see it through the glass. That's kind of cool. And you can grab a taxi here. So if you're looking for a taxi around Shinjuku Station coming out of the south exit, you might be able to grab one on the corner here. But you're not allowed to stop. So I'm guessing this is the best place because the taxi queue is here.

00:11:23 John Daub: Alright, let's get our way to the third floor. It says we gotta go around. Fourth floor. Okay, go this way. Wow, so there's the ramp for the bus terminal. This reminds me of the Port Authority in New York City. You gotta go up inside this building. All these ramps and stuff. It's kind of confusing because there's an arrow saying third floor and then another arrow saying fourth floor. Wow. It's kind of neat. New views of Shinjuku from here. While I'm making my way here, I can show you what the schedule looks like for the buses. They depart quite often. And there's a website. If you just write in Shinjuku, you'll get a list of all of the buses, the platform, and the departure time and any other relevant information you see there.

00:13:13 John Daub: It's going to Kusatsu Onsen. How cool is that? Iida, which is the countryside of Aichi, isn't it? Or Gifu. Nagoya. A lot of these buses are going west. Haneda, Gotemba, going south. I think we just saw that one going to Gotemba Station. That's near Mount Fuji. A lot of them going to Fuji-Q Highland, which is the amusement park. Sendai I saw in there. So there's a lot of buses. I found the fourth floor escalator. This is the fourth floor. Wow. So there's a convenience store in here. You get a cup of coffee for your bus trip. Smells like coffee in here. Wow, that's a lot of buses. And this is just in one hour. That's more than was on the schedule. I didn't expect that.

00:14:49 John Daub: The airport buses, interestingly, are marked in orange. This is Narita and I don't see any to Haneda. Most of these are going to Narita. Narita buses are marked in orange and the Haneda ones are marked in yellow. So that's kind of a neat little tidbit of information. You can see the platform numbers. D, C, B, A. So it's sort of in a logical order. Here's the vending machine for the tickets. So you can actually change it to English. Departing today. Wow. So where do you want to go? Let's say we want to go to Ishikawa. So there's a bus leaving here from Shinjuku to Toyama. Choose the destination and the bus stop. How about Toyama Station? Okay. Cannot be used. I guess I was too ambitious.

00:16:27 John Daub: Let's go to Nagoya. So there's a list of all the buses going there. Shinjuku to Nagoya. Shinjuku to Tsu. Hida no Yu Onsen. Takayama. So there's a bus departing at 2:35 arriving at 8:20. And at 6,500 yen and many seats available. Can we pick the seat? Yes we can. So you can get a window seat. You can get a round trip ticket. Okay, I'm going to cancel. Interesting. You can pay by credit card. That's fascinating. 6,500 yen is really cheap. And the bus is going to Fuji-Q Highland which is the amusement park. You can get these at the ticket window. Wow, that lets you know if you can use the passes or not. Interesting. You can see the people are getting on the buses over there. I'm glad I came here to check it out.

00:18:30 John Daub: Oh, look, you can buy some omiyage here. If you're going to visit a family member or you're going to visit somebody, you can make sure you bring a gift. Something small. Tons of lockers. Wow. So you can see the Southern Terrace, the Takashimaya. I haven't seen the city from this view here. From that bridge going across, you get a nice view of all the trains going underneath there. But I'd never seen it from this angle. Interesting. That's the Tokyo Hands and the Takashimaya. It says Times Square up there. A lot of you probably have seen that before. But to see it from this angle is pretty cool.

00:19:20 John Daub: Wow, back here. I'm not sure what the G stands for. Gangster? It's like a cafe restaurant or something here. We're in the heart of Omotenashi. There's some sort of table area and they're blasting copyrighted music, so I have to be careful. The great thing about Tokyo, it changes so often that there's always something new. You might have been someplace that you've been to before. This is why I can do a live stream at the same place over and over again, because it changes at an incredible pace. I was here just three years ago. I remember taking you on the west side, showing you all the buildings that are being demolished. And if I take you there again, it's going to be completely different. This is not Shinjuku. This is so quiet up here.

00:21:35 John Daub: We're here to explore. Why don't you guys write in if you haven't chimed in before in the live chat. This is a great time to do it. Write in where you're watching from. It's really interesting to see. Sometimes you get some really unique places, or sometimes you see a neighbor watching, which is also quite cool. I remember when I come out of going to visit family, we get up at exit 7. Going towards South Jersey. That's the, oh, it's not the Six Flags one. That's 7A. Exit 7 is, I can't remember what that is. This is as far as we can go. Alright. That's interesting. Now I'm walking inside of an office building. Let's get out of here. Go back down street level.

00:23:13 John Daub: Let's take it, let's do a little bit of a tour around the south side of Shinjuku as a bonus. To celebrate Michael Sassano's visiting. Thank you, Michael, always. Appreciate it very much. I used to work at Ocean Spray in a warehouse. It was the hardest job I ever did. And I would sometimes work 17 or 18 hour days if they offered me overtime. They offered always the best workers to stay longer. And I'm just already totally exhausted. But you're getting double overtime or sometimes double time. So of course you say yes to that. This is another entrance to the bus station. I would go home, sleep, wake up, go back to work. And I would be able to take home like I think $500 or $600 a week, which sounds like not a lot. But that's a lot for a college student. It was in Chatsworth, I think. Middle of nowhere. I got to eat a lot of blueberries and drink a lot of cranberry juice. They would reward you with cranberry juice bottles.

00:24:58 John Daub: It's hard, hard work working in a warehouse. You start to respect people who do this for a living. As a college kid, I remember there was a guy named Ben. He used to be in the Merchant Marines. And we would sit there reshuffling bottles into display cases. We'd take them out of one box and put it into another. Me and Ben would sit there. And he would talk about his trips on the Merchant Marines. He'd gone to Singapore, to Haiti, to all these places. That left a big impression on me. Because what do you do except for talk and work? That right there, do you see that big window right there? That's a toilet. So you have one of the best views of Shinjuku from the toilet up there. I'm telling you, honestly, go up there. This is the sweetest. This is the Suica statue. So for those that are all big fans of the Suica, you've got the Suica penguin here.

00:26:18 John Daub: And it just sounded weird that a toilet would have such an amazing view. But there's nobody there. And very few tourists know about the secret toilet view. They're setting up the Christmas lights, which probably should be done next week. I think the Skytree already finished the Christmas market. So you can go to some of the Christmas markets already. There's that Starbucks over there. You can see the logo mark and the new south exit for the train station. But it's so convenient that they did that with the buses. And I'm really glad that I got a chance to scout that out with you guys. Because you never know when you're going to take a bus. And the way I operate, I'm usually on the run. But now that I know the layout, I can be on the run and feel rest assured that I will make my bus if one day I do take a highway bus, which seems really convenient.

00:27:10 John Daub: Because you just sit down, let the roads and the view flow by, and you get off at your destination. No changing trains, no having to stop and go, stop and go. There's an advantage to taking the bus. It's really relaxing. And if you want to make a day of traveling, instead of getting a rented car, taking a bus is a pretty good idea. You get a window seat. You stop off at rest areas. You get a chance to observe Japanese life through the service areas which is, I think, really cool. How many times did I sit out here in 1998? When I came to visit Tokyo, I would sit out here with the staff on work trips and drink a coffee looking at how big the city of Tokyo is. Here's the Miyazaki store I was telling you about. I believe that used to be like the Microsoft headquarters, but I believe that they tore this down. So that's what was missing. So this building here was the old JR headquarters.

00:28:20 John Daub: I was in here two years ago during the pandemic. I went to go meet the head of JR with my friend Ruthie, and it's gone. Wow. The whole building's gone. Look at this. It's just a pit. They've removed it. This is like an old JR building from the 1960s, and it's totally gone. And they're going to probably build something big here. That's a lot of news here. This is unexpected to come here and see. How did they even tear down without making a fuss with the neighborhood? That's pretty amazing. I'm impressed. This area is going to be all Christmas lights. I think it's going to take them a week. So I figure by the end of November, they'll have the Christmas lights out. But this is one of the more beautiful lights. It's one of the top 10 places in Tokyo to walk along here, especially if you've got a date. Hey, honey, let's go to Shinjuku. Go get some pictures with the Christmas lights. This is the place you go.

00:29:27 John Daub: The Miyazaki store. The pickled daikon is so good in Miyazaki. They've got ice cream. Miyazaki's famous for the mango, and they have mango-flavored ice cream. Look at that. Mix. You can get the vanilla. They've got good dairy stuff down in Miyazaki. It's a lot of amazing countryside. And of course, you can get a lot of good stuff. They're the winners of the Wagyu Olympics every five years, which was held about two years ago. I was there. That's an episode that's coming soon. That was the Miyazaki prefectural store in Tokyo. It's in Shinjuku. A lot of them are in Ginza, believe it or not. Hey, guys, before I get to the top here, check this out. Look at this advertisement for a train. They made the kid's hair looked like a train. That's awesome. You never forget something like that when you see it on the train. Like, how creative is it?

00:30:40 John Daub: Here's the Luke's Lobster, which is basically empty. Wow. And I think it's a little pricey. Maybe that's why. Economy's not exactly booming for lobster rolls. All right, and here's the second floor bridge. Well-trained hair. I wish I had that much hair. Not anymore. I could only make that train would have a lot of holes in it. It's a pretty creative ad. This is an amazing view of Shinjuku, and I think I'm going to go over to the end of it and see what it looks like on that side. That's a train that goes to Chichibu. Yeah. That's a beautiful, underrated area for sure, too. So this is basically where we started, right there, inside of Shinjuku Station.

00:32:01 John Daub: I wonder how I can do this. That's an interesting angle right there. Sounds like Disneyland here. That's a loud advertisement. That's a pretty good angle. So I'm making an episode about driving out to the Tama region for Tokyo government. We're filming it next later on this week. And I have to do a shot from Shinjuku, and this is kind of a cool one. Now, the driver is always on the right side, so I can't film with a cameraman on this side of the road. So I have to film it on this side of the road, but with a zoom lens, the cameraman would be able to catch me from up here if I stop the car for a short amount of time on this red zone, which I think you're not allowed to do. But if I do it really early in the morning, so if I did that for like 10 seconds, I might be able to get a nice shot. And then he'd be able to turn the camera around and then get me making a right turn.

00:33:18 John Daub: This is why I'm here, to scout the main channel episode. I can do a right turn right here. Can cars turn right? No, they can't. So you can't make a right turn there. That's interesting. I thought in the past, you could make right turns there. So you have to go straight to get around. See, when you think about things for driving, it all changes. So you can't make a right there. You have to do like a U-turn or something. You gotta go to the next intersection. The traffic patterns have changed over the years. So there are some cars that are making a right down there. So I gotta go all the way there to make a right. Because I gotta take the Yoyogi interchange to get onto the highway in order to get to the Tama region from there. Driving a car seems a little bit complicated from here. I thought I'd be able to make a turn here, but I can't.

00:34:24 John Daub: So maybe for the opening scene, I'm driving the car away and he pans up. And then by panning up, you see the city of Tokyo. I think I'll have this more like this distance. I don't think there's gonna be many other cars around. And then he pans up and then shows the city of Tokyo and then there's the intro beats. Dun, dun. Dun, dun, dun, dun. Okay. That could work. So I can do everything from the bridge and I'll have a 360 camera. Oh wow, it's a lot better from here. And then you get me driving away. That's a pretty cool shot. There's not a lot of time. There's no choice but for me to scout this out because when you have very little time, you have to make sure you get the shot. This might be better from this angle. Yeah, this might be better.

00:35:31 John Daub: And if you can get if I'm the only car on the road, you can get us cruising out and then you see the Metropolitan Building here. That's a good angle. Yeah, right here. What do you think, Vern? Yeah, you know, I think doing everything from the second floor, I think that's a pretty cool perspective. Yeah, right here, this works perfect. You can see my car driving by here and then just pan up. And then the title card here. Okay. I like it. And you can even see me here, but I think being able to see the Shinjuku in English makes more of an impact than seeing this sign here. But both of them are pretty iconic. And you couldn't see me from this angle anywhere. So I think Waku, that's my cameraman, you can get a pretty good view of me from on this side and then if you walk over to this side, you can get the car going underneath here. I'll just go really slow.

00:36:54 John Daub: I think I'm going to be able to see the traffic at 6 in the morning. There's a live camera that allows you to see this exact scene. I think the live camera is attached to the bridge or something. But the live camera allowed me to see at 6 in the morning what this looks like. In fact, hey, you know what? If you guys go to the live camera, go to the live camera, take my picture. I'm going to go stand next to one of the signs that I saw. And you guys can send it to me on Instagram or something and I'll post it as a story. Or take a screenshot or a screen capture video of me standing there. So if you go to the Shinjuku live camera, Shinjuku Southside live camera, you'll be able to see me. Oh, right there. Right there. You guys are going to be able to see me.

00:38:03 John Daub: Nice live stream, walking around almost at random sort of bus station. Fun to see where you were surprised at the missing building. I know. It's crazy. I ate at a terrific tonkatsu restaurant on one side of the station. Oh my gosh, there's so much good food around here. There's so many restaurants. It's hard to narrow it down. All these people dressed up in the traditional wear. Sometimes they're in the service industry or sometimes if they've got nice kimono, they just go shopping. It's beautiful. All right, I'm going now to the spot where you can see me on that camera. Let's see if anybody can see me. Thank you, Gil. It's nice to see you, brother. We're going to talk about his book. Anybody see me? I just did the Karate Kid kick. You can only see that. Actually it records it. You can see it going. Even though it's live, you can scroll back. I'm doing the Karate Kid stance here.

00:40:14 John Daub: All right, I got to get out of here. I saw you waving. Okay, thanks guys. That's funny. Scott says we see you. Oh my gosh, I'm on the live camera. I'm famous. I'm on the live camera up there. I see you. You guys can see me. I think I got the wrong camera. There's another camera up there. I think this is the one, right? I see you looking at me. That's crazy. Getting in my body bag. All right, that's enough. I'm kind of disturbing some of the people. Live on live. That's it. I'm going to go back and watch this. All right, anyways, guys, just having some fun in Tokyo. It's amazing. There's a lot of live cameras, but I'm going to spend a little bit more time scouting this, get back and get to work and get some editing done, but this is interesting.

00:41:38 John Daub: The bridge over here and probably filming us from here and then moving across the bridge as we drive out of the shot just to Waku there. Maybe I could circle around and get another shot driving by the Shinjuku station. Let me cross the street and see. It just depends because if there's a bus on the right side, they're never going to see me, but seeing the Shinjuku sign is certainly yeah, in English is a little bit more powerful, right, Vern? My goal was to stop here, but I remembered that in Japan you drive on the left side, not on the right, so I'd be on the far side. He could film me through the window. If I stop the car here, I'm going to be on the far side. If I stop here, you'd be able to see the Shinjuku station sign and then I would be you'd have to see me through the window. That could work too as a shot. It's hard without having the car here to try to match this up.

00:43:09 John Daub: Or if he just came back and he was just standing here, the panning shot, that would be pretty cool too. All right, everybody. That's all I got. It's like a working live stream here. Let me get back to work. Let me know what you guys think down in the comments below. Is taking the bus a real option for you? Is this something that you've considered? Because I think maybe for a lot of people, this bus might work out a little bit better. If you're going to Takayama, for example, it's a direct bus. Takes you, what is it, like six hours, but you get there directly and you stop off at service areas along the way. You can make kind of an adventure out of it, really. You put your luggage underneath so you don't have to worry about it.

00:43:42 John Daub: I love the fact that they still have the post guys won't be buying these anymore. They stopped making this motorcycle, I believe. I think this is a Honda Cub, right? Apparently they got one more run of about a thousand that they're going to sell and then they're done with it. So what is the post office going to do? It's because of emission standards and stuff. It's kind of sad. I believe that's a Honda, right? The post office uses that quite a bit. All right, everybody. Have a good day. Have a good night. Thanks for joining me on this ridiculous live stream where we just kind of had some fun and I got a chance to scout out how this is actually going to play out. There's not a lot of time and there's no chance to make a mistake. So I think even if I put a 360 camera inside the car with me, I'd be able to capture everything as well. So think we'll be just fine. But seems like this sign with Shinjuku Station is more impactful than this sign. But this sign is up higher so it has more impact, but Westerners aren't going to really know. Good night, everybody. See you. See you in Tokyo, maybe. All of you. Matane.