00:00:15 John Daub: There's a lot of Santa Clauses here today. Check it out. Boy, they really made a pretty unique media event out of this thing. So today, Tokyo Santa Claus is in Tokyo as the media is really all over this. We're going to bring you all the Santa fun for the next few minutes. Boy, there's different groups. This is crazy. The gimbal's kind of freaky today. Sorry about that, everybody. Let's see if I can fix it here. Alright, maybe that fixed it.

00:01:36 John Daub: Boy, there's a lot. The weather is so warm, it almost feels like summer today as I have shorts. So this is a really cool tradition that they've been doing here in Tokyo for the last few years. The Santa Claus is... Hey! Some of the participants, they know me. Hi, how you doing? They watch this show, they're like, hey, that's John. Oh, it's wobbly. The gimbal's acting up here. Sorry about that, everybody.

00:02:27 John Daub: Hopefully this isn't copyrighted music because that would just ruin the vibe, right? So it does feel a lot like Christmas. Here's the next wave of the parade goers. So they're going to be marching around the area. I guess around Harajuku Station today. There's a lot of people in there. It goes pretty deep.

00:03:02 John Daub: I don't know why the gimbal wants to do this. Hey, hey, I'm fighting the gimbal. I think we're going to have to name this gimbal now. Look! He wants to keep going up. The gimbal keeps going up. Is Santa up there? Behave yourself. We're going to have to give you a name now. I think it might be time for a new gimbal. Alright, sorry for that. I'm sweating, it's so hot today. This does not feel like Christmas but I feel bad for these people, they're wearing what seems to be pretty hot uniforms here. There's another wave of parade goers here.

00:04:10 John Daub: Anybody can do this, I think you have to enter and you can buy the uniforms. All the proceeds go to charity helping kids. I think this is in the spirit of what Christmas is, which is a great thing. I went online, look at the beautiful autumn foliage around here at Yoyogi Park. This is right outside of Yoyogi, starting to change the colors here. Winter is still quite a ways off. That's Santa's helper. And I lost my voice there for a second. It looks like there's a lot of fun stuff happening over here in Yoyogi and there's another wave of Santas. Wow, but they got to have some street food over there, some stage events as well so it's kind of fun that this event is happening.

00:05:25 John Daub: Let me see if I have... I think I took a screenshot of the website but I guess it's SantaRun.jp and yeah it looks like it's a charitable organization. So I didn't know a lot about this except that it's on the news every year and I guess they do them now in Osaka as well. Mr. Grinch could be here, there he is right there, he's coming here. That's not the Grinch there. Alright, here's the second, the third wave of parade goers. That's a big head. Counting down three two one let there be Santas. Handoff, alright there's another. Looks like a lot of fun, there's a lot of streamers around here, YouTubers I'm sure that there's other people that are going live right now.

00:06:42 John Daub: I'd love to see another mascot. Whoa this is a big one but nobody else has one of those really short Santa mini skirts just saying that would be appropriate for this weather. It is really really hot today so it looks like that the Santas are going towards Shibuya Station, so if you're in the neighborhood, go check them out in Shibuya Station. It looks like the gimbal is stabilized once again. It's now a normal gimbal. It's been a pretty... Oh, there's a bearded Santa. Is this the real one? Boy needs a little bit more cookies. There he is, boys and girls. Those that believe in the miracle of Christmas inside that sack are the start of the presents, I'm sure. He's building up, he's got a lot of toys to make. He's handing out some toys to what appears to be girls. What kind of Santa is this? Alright, there you go. Give it to the kids. Santa's also got to put on some weight. Maybe stay out of the sun a little bit because it is hot here. North Pole. Oh, look at that! That's a melancholy move. That's so funny.

00:08:53 John Daub: Alright, let's go take a look at the event here. There's one more wave of parade goers here. Maybe the audio is a little bit better now. What is wrong with this gimbal? You guys are going for a ride. Let's see if I can get a good spot as they make their way through this narrow portion here. Go see some Santas. There's a lot of Santas. Here they come. Boy, there's some events going on too. Look at this, there's a stage. Here they come. Oh, he's got Rudolph. Bright sun. That Santa's got some tattoos. Awesome.

00:11:07 John Daub: I want to do this next year. Get Leo, get Kanae. You guys can have a good time. We're going to have a little Santa action going on here. That's certainly fun. I think that they do this in other cities around Japan. I know that there might be an Osaka one according to the website. But again, it's a charitable event that they've been running here to help kids that are... well, need some Christmas cheer. Let's put it like that. Alright, let's go check out this event here that they have going on in Yoyogi Park.

00:11:44 John Daub: Now this event area here, let me show you where it is on the map. If you ever watch Aerial Games, you'll know this. Eric's always here doing food events and he seems to know the schedule probably better than any website. But it's right there. That's Yoyogi Park. You can see there's Yoyogi Harajuku Station right there. And it's about a three minute walk from Harajuku Station, about a 12 minute walk from Shinjuku Station. There's one of the 1964 Olympic venues. And then here's this event space with this amphitheater. And that's just where the main event and where the Santas were changing right there, the center of your screen. They've got all these ethnic food festivals that take place here, which is really cool. There's Yoyogi Park, which by the way is starting to show the signs of autumn. Colors look really beautiful here. I believe they're going to be marching down the street coming down this road through Harajuku. And you're going to surprise a bunch of tourists that don't know about this event yet. But they'll be back here I think in about an hour or so. But I won't be. I got to get out of here. I'll walk with you around the event place just to give you an idea of what the event is like at the stage. And yeah, if you want to, look out for this next year and the years to come as well as the rest of today if you're in Tokyo. It is a really lovely afternoon here. It's so bright I can't even see the screen. The autumn colors are amazing. Here's Omotesando. I was walking here from Omotesando about 15 minutes ago. And this is the view down.

00:13:28 John Daub: Oh, and I saw something that counters the good in the world. Up there. There's a lot of them. What do they call a group of crows? But the autumn colors are just starting to change right now. So it's starting to look a lot like autumn finally. Wow, it's like a German... I don't know what kind of music that is. I can smell beer. I miss the Christmas markets in Germany and Czech Republic and Switzerland and Austria. Bavarian spirit. Something sounds out of tune or is it supposed to be like that? Bunch of food. Yeah, Toby (crow) is everywhere in Harajuku. There's no avoiding him. Where there's people, there's trash. There's food. There's Toby (crow). And then his spies. Hey, he's got some food.

00:15:29 John Daub: There's something going on. This is the Fiesta de España. As I was saying, there's a lot of international festivals here. I'm at the wrong one. Alright, well it's just nice anyways. So you got to see... I was wondering why everything is in Spanish. Interesting. Alright, this Santa event is down the street there. You see some lost Santas here. Probably had a few too many of that Glühwein. I ended up passing out. But the entry to the Santa thing is right here. They had it in other places over years past. They had it in front of Aoyama about five years ago. Last time I really saw this event going on. I don't know if they took place during the last few years. Dare I even say it. Ooh, it's so pretty. It smells like olive oil and like roasting clams. Ooh, it smells really much... smells like South Spain.

00:17:06 John Daub: Alright, let's go take a quick look-see. I'm going to walk from here back to Shibuya. How about that? Let's see if we can follow those Santas anywhere around. By the way, as we're getting back to the event stage for the Santa thing, this is this month's postcard. They just came in. I just got them delivered. I'll be sending them out tomorrow morning. So if you want to snag one, this is Kyoto's Kiyomizudera (清水寺，famous temple), which is one of the most famous temples, especially on the Higashiyama side, about 30 minutes away from Kyoto Station in autumn. And I took this, I don't know, like, I think it was like eight or nine years ago. This is going to go out to all the postcard club members and Patreon. Thank you so much, guys. I'll be sending it from Tokyo Station. So it has a Tokyo postmark on there too, which is kind of cool.

00:18:21 John Daub: Alright, the signal's a little bit weak right now. I do have a 720p livestream. Try to take advantage of any bandwidth. Let's just put it like that. Need about two megabits per second up to get a 720p. So if there's any signal problems, that means you're not even getting that, which is crazy. Now we got a turkey festival. What? Now there's a turkey festival. That's so interesting. Now I went from the smell of olive oil and baked clams and other paella assorted foods. And to kebabs and Mexican tacos. This is really an eclectic mix for turkey. It's quite diverse. A nazar kebab. Interesting. Okay, we caught up with the Santas. I guess they had to stop for the red light just like everybody else.

00:19:50 John Daub: So there's apparently, there's a Turkish festival for turkey that I just walked through. And then there's a festival for Spain, which we walked through. And now we have, we've caught up with the Santas. So I think every year there's about 3,000 Santas that walk through in this event in Tokyo. We get a double, we get a triple event joy with the Santas as well. And with this weather, it's quite nice. Big doggy. A lot of officers over here. We've caught up with the parade goers. Other police officers saying, go ahead, Santas. They're on their way to Shibuya. Officers like, what's going on here? It's a lot of Santas. You been naughty? Or nice? It's a lot of Santas.

00:22:04 John Daub: Alright, let's go catch up to them. We're going to cross the street and maybe follow them up to Shibuya Station. I've been good, Santa. Mostly. This is, I often came to the NHK, which is the Nishiguchi over there. It's the entrance to the studio. Boy, this light is really taking its merry time. Yo ho ho. How is it stuck on one? They've rigged it. They've rigged this light. It's stuck on one. That is a one long one. You ever see anything like that? It's false advertising. Why even have the little bars? I'm missing the Santa, so like way ahead now. This is like giving us a handicap here in a sense. Like they've got a one minute head start now. How are you supposed to catch up with Santa? Especially if they've got reindeer and stuff. Red means stop. Santa is red. Red Santa equals stop all traffic. That sounds about right.

00:23:40 John Daub: We've got him in sight now. I've got him locked on. We're gonna hippity hop. I came in from Omotesando and left from Shibuya. You don't see a lot of autumn colors here, I can tell you that. Stopping a lot of people on the streets here to go, what the heck is that? Some sort of protest. They're protesting Christmas by wearing Santa. What is that? Some sort of headless dog. Looks like a sci-fi movie. Is that one of the Christmas presents for a lucky kid? Or unlucky kid, I should say. I don't want that thing. It's gonna bite off my head while I'm sleeping. It doesn't even have a head. But I still fear it. Anyways, I don't think that's a real dog. I think that's like a Terminator dog. Is that one of those Boston Dynamics things?

00:26:09 John Daub: I don't know if this lady in front of us is coordinated with the Santas. I'm not doing anything different. I'm just walking to the station, and there just happens to be a bunch of Santa Clauses to the left. It's charging. Wow, they're waving to the people. That's pretty cool. Are they gonna be going to all the way to the Hachiko Scramble? I didn't know that they walked in this direction. I thought they were going towards Harajuku. They're telling the Santas to hurry up. Officer said, not you guys. Even though it's one bar again. Now they're getting ahead of us again. I gotta double time it. They're getting away. I gotta catch up again. Boy, Leo would've loved this. Gotta do it next year. Again, I think this is a SantaRun.jp event.

00:28:16 John Daub: Whoa, now you got the Miyashita Park (宮下公園) in the background. We have 3,000 Santas approximately, with police protection. There's Miyashita Park over there. They are fast. What do you guys want for Christmas? What are the trending toys in United States? What's going on in the world of toys? I've been out of it for quite a while. The Apple Store is back in its old position too. That was the first Apple Store in Tokyo. Now it seems like they're back with Anker towing right behind them. Look at that. You can buy your computer and then get a battery. There's a big Muji to go with. There's a Muji Cafe up there. Shibuya's popping with all sorts of chain shops and advertisements. Rakuten. I got my fingers crossed that they're gonna weather the storm. They're not doing too well as a phone company. But if they're looking for cheap cell phones and service, fingers crossed.

00:29:52 John Daub: Here's that big Disney store and there's a Yamanote line. Oh, the Santas took a hang a Louie. So they're not going to Hachiko Scramble. So where'd they go? Did anybody see them? Did anybody see a group of Santas? There they are down there. They went the wrong way. Shibuya Hachiko's this way. Alright, follow the crowd. That's a lot of people walking to Shibuya. Always go left right in Roppongi Island. That's pretty good advice. Always go left when you're walking around the city. What is that? Is that a Lambo? Ferrari. Sweet ride, dude. I think Peter von Gomm is in Izu right now doing an RV trip, which is pretty cool. Seems to be a brand new Starbucks here too.

00:32:06 John Daub: Now that I'm walking through here, it reminds me that the McDonald's that opened up in the 1970s, that was one of the first McDonald's locations in Tokyo after Ginza. It's gone now and it's become a Korean chain, which is called Mom's Touch. The food there looks better though. I have to admit. And if you guys are hanging in there, the Santas have gone the other direction and I'm going in this direction. And we're about to go and see the Hachiko Scramble for a little bit. As we are in a massive crowd of steaming hot people. It's really extraordinarily hot outside today. Stuck at the Scramble. That's a lot of people today. You have to be careful. You have the Japanese on holiday because it's Sunday and then you have all the thousands of tourists that descend onto this area.

00:33:23 John Daub: They're stuck in a traffic light here. I'm actually going to cross the street, I think. I'm going to try to avoid the area on the right side. And we're going to go see that Mom's Touch kitchen and walk towards the exit. That's where I usually come out. Whenever I come to Shibuya, I try to avoid the main station. There's some side entrances into the station that goes underground. I hit the Hanzomon line, the purple one. And then from that you can sneak in without having to battle the crowds. Back when I was doing a lot of NHK stuff, Japan's public broadcaster, the Tokyo Eye stuff as well as other shows, I used to do narrations and all sorts of different shows for them back in the day. I would come out through secret little secret exits that were most of the tourists don't know, because there's so many exits at Shibuya Station. Whatever I could do to avoid the crowd. And be on time. You wanna be late. Oh, it smells good. There's a line for this Mom's Touch store.

00:34:38 John Daub: So, there's a Lululemon, which used to be a UFJ bank. Used to be a Tokyo Mitsubishi UFJ bank. Now it's a Lululemon? It's funny that these chains are opening up shops in Tokyo. But they're closing up shops in American cities because of crime. Why would people line up for Namachan? They put in a couple of vending machines in the... alright, here we are, which is the place I dislike the most in the city. Although it's mesmerizing to look at. Shibuya Station is sort of a mess. Then you have these people dressed up in costumes in the area. What's going on with these vending machines here? I don't know. I'm not a fan of these go-karts. Anyone who's a local is not a fan of inexperienced drivers going around taking selfies. Although, you know, it's a tourist attraction. They're doing their best. It splits the economy. But there's too many of them.

00:35:58 John Daub: Apparently the number that have gone through the intersection has increased so much. Because I think you could pick the course that you want to go on. And a lot of people pick this one so that they can do this specific course going through Hachiko Scramble, which is one of the great... it's like Times Square of Japan right here. We're gonna wait just every minute and a half the light turns green and every 45 seconds you get 45 seconds to cross it. As these drivers do a good job going straight, waving. Both hands on the wheel. There's a posse over there. Yeah, there are hundreds now that go through the intersection every single hour. So it's a bit much. And they really stink. There's a lot of pollution coming out of those go-karts. They should battery power those mamas. That's one thing that you could probably do battery powered, right? Oh, look, these poor cars got stuck, trapped in the middle of Hachiko Scramble. They didn't make the intersection crossing, but do it.

00:37:35 John Daub: But that's all that I got for you today. We'll end right here on Hachiko Scramble as I make my way to the station here. Yeah, that was pretty cool to go and see the Santas doing their thing. Bring a little Christmas spirit. I'll take you to some of the Christmas markets. The one at Skytree's already open. There's a couple of other ones that are starting up in the beginning of December. But it certainly doesn't feel like Christmas because the weather is so hot. But we do have some Christmas lights in the form of police lights. So you can get some of those LEDs if you want. Right there. Who's inside there? Johnny Somali? Behave yourself.

00:38:20 John Daub: Alright, everybody. Have a nice day. Have a nice night. If you liked it, hit that subscribe button and I'll take you in somewhere else tomorrow. You know what? I'm really really interested in these monthly mansions. And there's a friend of mine who's staying in one right now. He's going to give us a tour next week. We're going to go and see them, maybe tomorrow or maybe on Tuesday. We're going to work it out, but I'd love to show you what a monthly mansion is like. And the process to get one. So if you were staying here as a digital nomad, that might be your ticket. Mata ne. Oh, we just missed the train. Mata ne.