00:12 John Daub: Now, this isn't a super old wooden pillar. I believe that this dates back to like 70 years ago or so, because I'm sure in World War II there was some. I really don't know about it, but it seems like it's a fairly new pillar. It's not something that's hundreds and hundreds of years old. But anyways, these torii gates (Shinto shrine gates) are the gateway from the normal world to the spiritual world. By going through there, you're really entering another world. They're very significant in Japanese Shinto religion.

03:11 John Daub: You wouldn't go to a European country and vandalize a church. But the thing with Japanese Shinto religion and the Buddhist religion in general, it's significant. It's really strongly connected to nature. And a lot of these places are just outside. They're not well supervised. There's a security guard to the right you see underneath the tree there. He's on the right side of the screen. He's got his eyes looking at everybody here and just making sure that vandalism doesn't occur.

03:45 John Daub: But instantly, as I showed you in the opening photo of this torii gate, there was no fence around it. And now you have two fences, wooden fences around it, to protect the torii gate. It feels really sad and tragic that tourists who are visiting now can't really appreciate the torii gate in the same way. The pictures are all going to have these fences in them. And I don't think it's very attractive at all. Look, there's even a sign here. Wow. Heartless deeds of damaging the torii gate with scratches have occurred recently. It is truly regrettable that we have to enclose the torii gates by a fence to protect them. Security cameras in use.

04:42 John Daub: That is, to me, this is a heartbreaking statement because it's not something that they wanted to do, I'm sure. If we walk around it, you can see that, again, on both sides, there's a lot of security cameras. And I think that's a sign that tourists can completely understand it. It's really hard to police all of this stuff. If you look inside the shrine and you want to stay to the left and the right and not walk down the center, you could see it's just a massive property. It's so big in the center of Tokyo, right?

05:30 John Daub: I've got a Google map. Let me show you exactly where we are in the city. This will put things into perspective. Tokyo is a relatively urban city. There's not a lot of green, but there is green. And Meiji Jingu (Meiji Shrine) is one of the places, and Yoyogi Park connecting up with it, is one of the big green spaces in Tokyo. You can't really police all of this. It's just really large. This is the intersection near Harajuku, which is one of the big tourist draws here. And you can see that green section above your screen. That's all part of Meiji Shrine and Yoyogi Park a little bit further on here. But this intersection, highly trafficked by tourists.

06:12 John Daub: Once you get under the green, you can see the canopy of trees. You're entering into the Meiji Shrine grounds, and you really shouldn't be touching anything. Stay on the path and show your respects and prayers. And you can see there's the Meiji Jingu Ichi no Torii (First Torii). I'm not sure exactly all of the history on it. I just know it's quite large and it's made of wood.

06:29 John Daub: Now, there's been so much other vandalism that has occurred here. This was a couple of years ago by a Canadian in Nara who sketched his name into the wood of a 1200-year-old temple in Nara. And I believe he was also questioned for other sketchings. It seems like these people just love to do it. Here's one in Okayama a few years ago where the priest is out there showing where there was some vandalism to the ground. Little subtle things. You think you're leaving your name in there forever. It just causes a lot of problems here. Like a Chinese tourist who vandalized Yasukuni Shrine, which made international news. He wrote "toilet" on there as a way to protest something or other. I mean, I think it was a release of water from Fukushima, which was deemed safe by a lot of institutions. Just something that they had to do. And he didn't like it. And he's from China, which is a country that has a lot of pollution going into the water. That's probably a lot worse.

07:36 John Daub: But you can't go in here and deface one of the shrines and temples. This is very big stuff here. It really made big news. Workers were cleaning the graffiti off of Yasukuni Shrine with spray paint with the word "toilet." It's just heartbreaking to have to see that kind of stuff. I think this is some of the stuff that was on the torii gate here. You can see it's been cleaned pretty good, but that's what was remaining, I think. This isn't the first time that the torii gate has been vandalized as well. So now, I guess we're starting to see reactions to this. The headlines, I think SoraNews24 had it: "American jackass tourist arrested for carving name into gate at Tokyo's Meiji Shrine." That's pretty much to the point there.

08:27 John Daub: And he is. I don't think there's anything that you could say that would get you out of trouble. Here's the larger question now. As I kind of show you the gate. I guess it was on this side right here in the front. Yeah, you can kind of see it's been defaced. Wow! You can see it really has been scratched and defaced. And it's like, why would anybody touch it, first of all? And why would you scratch it? I don't know how they fixed this damage, but it's certainly significant. And heartbreaking for me. I just don't understand why anybody would travel all this way and then vandalize something that's not their own. That's like that country's treasure.

09:25 John Daub: Look, here's the bigger issue now. I think that Japan has been extremely lax with how it treats tourists, internationals that commit crimes in Japan, where Japanese residents, including myself and citizens would certainly have really strict penalties. Citizens of Japan would certainly have really strict penalties. And again, there's a police station right there. First of all, how do you get away with that? There's actually a police station because this is quite a significant shrine. I think the penalties have been way too lax. And I think it's time now that you really do detain up to 23 days people who commit crimes like this. So I'm sure that this guy's going to get detained for this. And you get deported, you can't return to Japan. I think these are like no-brainer stuff.

10:21 John Daub: Right now we've got an IRL streamer in Korea. You know his name. His real name is Ramsey Khalid Ismael, but he's known as Johnny Somali. He's been arrested in Korea and he's already said online that he's going to try to come back to Japan and he intends to commit crimes. And he admitted in a stream that now people in Korea are publishing this stuff. How the heck is he going to get back into Japan? I'm pretty sure he was deported, which is seven years of not being able to return here. But should he step foot here, I think he should be arrested and then really go to jail. Like with some serious time. They need to set some real fines. And he was fined $3,000. That's nothing. He spent three months detained. And then he was released. And he says some easy, sympathetic stuff that, oh, I'm sorry. And then he leaves and he takes it all back. And this is the way he operates, right? And Korea should take this in consideration and lock him up for good.

11:54 John Daub: But you really need to make examples out of people. And Japan has not been making examples out of people. And this just shows that if you come from a Western country and you see the way that if you commit a crime here and you're treated with kid gloves, so to speak, it's almost encouraging people to come here and commit crimes. To see what you can get away with. You have to kind of understand the Western way of thinking. It's not pretty. Especially for the Japanese. Because nobody would ever deface this. Most of the temples and shrines around the country have no security whatsoever. And nothing ever happens out there. But we're starting to see over the last couple of years vandalism just pop up.

12:43 John Daub: Now, Meiji Shrine is a very significant shrine. They have a lot of money coming in. A lot of people support the shrine. So they can afford security cameras. And they can afford police and other things. Most of the places cannot. They're out in the woods. Especially in Kyoto. There's just too many of them. So what do they do? Get cameras? Do they have to get closed-captioned CCTVs and security guards? And hire people to protect their assets from tourists? What they really need to do is to start to make serious examples of this guy. This American guy. And there's no more leniency. This has to be like a breaking point. Because you can keep on doing the same thing over and over again and you get with the same results. It makes you an idiot. And I know that Japan is going to learn from this. And they're very strong and reactive. But they've been extremely weak with handling tourists. What do you guys think in the comments below? Let me know your thoughts below.

13:44 John Daub: I asked our friend, the AI bot, ChatGPT, how often international tourists are actually confined or detained in Japan. And it said very rarely. Most of the stuff that happens are minor incidences. Drugs is a zero tolerance policy. But tourists seem to get off a little bit too light. They should get jail time. Singapore puts people to death if you have a certain amount. Public behavior, disorderly conduct, public intoxication. Although I think Japanese get in trouble for that too. But it's usually quite lenient. It's too lenient, I think. You should never get a warning. They should fine. Visa violations, overstaying a visa or working without a permit. I think that should be quite strict as well. More serious crimes, theft, assault, criminal acts. Anything with violence is quite serious. Smuggling prohibited items, they usually take that quite seriously too.

14:37 John Daub: If you're detained, you can be detained up to 23 days without any formal charges. Which is a quite significant amount of time. That's over three weeks. And they just question you over and over and over again. Detainees face language barriers. There's a lot of issues with regards to this. It is not an easy thing. If you are ever detained, it is not a good situation for you. You're going to have a rough 23 days. Conviction rates are very high. Meaning if you are brought to trial, there's a good chance that you're going to be facing jail time. With statistics specific to tourists, there's not a lot of data on this yet. But the tips are to be aware. This is very strict drug laws. Very strict rules in Japan. If you're a tourist here, you should try to understand some of these before you come here. And the combination of Japan's emphasis on rule following and the strong legal systems help maintain a low crime rate. But tourists must exercise caution and respect local laws to avoid deportation and other issues.

15:40 John Daub: And this is 100% true. And the issue, I understand this. That a lot of tourists are coming here. It's a privilege to travel, not a right. Many folks forget that. When you get on a plane and you come to a place like Tokyo. This is not a resort. This is a city. With people like me and citizens that are working. But it's not a playground. And that's why I hate the Mario Karts. I don't like the image that it shows that the city streets are a playground. Especially if they're in costume. I think you got to get rid of the costumes. I think you have to consider that industry before an accident happens. Because it's just a matter of time. We've seen so many close calls already. Japan usually reacts after an incident occurs though. And this occurred. And we're seeing a reaction. The fence. The increased security. Tourists are still pouring in here. Increased signage. It's really not pretty. It's a peaceful place to come. Meiji Shrine. I love walking here.

17:40 John Daub: I often would walk from Shibuya and I cut straight through here. If you go straight all the way to the other side, you get to Yoyogi Station. Which is just about 300 to 500 meters away from Shinjuku Station. It's a really great walk. Instead of taking the subway train. But you know, I can see a time where they just close this and start charging for admission. Because they might as well make money off of all the people who want to visit the shrine. Because they got to add in all this protection. Look at all these signs. They got so many of them now. They're covering up the smoking sign. But it's not a place for you to sit. It's a place to walk. If you want to sit, that's what the cafe over there is for. When you get your energy or you're fully caffeinated. Then you can go into the shrine and take a tour. And bring some 5 yen coins and pray for good behavior of tourists here.

18:34 John Daub: It's quite a large shrine. I kind of like this map here. So we're here on one end. There's Harajuku Station. You can walk straight through without any traffic lights. And you end up pretty much at Yoyogi Station. Which the next stop is Shinjuku. So it's a great walk. A peaceful one. And it's so quiet. Especially when you get past here. Which is where everybody goes into the main shrine. If you just keep walking straight. This area. Most people coming through Harajuku. It's almost deserted on this side. The Kitasando side. So I would recommend doing that for sure.

19:09 John Daub: Are there any last questions before I end this live stream? I think it's important for you to understand when this vandalism occurs. Take pictures of it. Report it to the police. Let people know. Let locals know. Let security know what has happened. And hopefully we can prevent it before it occurs. But it's happening so often. And you can see there's just so many tourists here. Somebody's got to see somebody doing something. And it's up to us to... I hate to say it. But if this keeps on going on. There's going to be even more preventative measures. Because Japan is a country that's so old. That has so much history. And they're going to do everything they can to protect it. And the repercussions and the fallout from each time an incident happens is a more inconvenienced experience for all of us. And makes it tougher for me as somebody who lives here too.

20:09 John Daub: Jail time. Public shaming. High fines. And banning from entering Japan again. People doing this make me so mad. I was infuriated when I saw that first of all he was 65 and not like a college student. Oh my god. What? The only thing he could have done that was stupider was film himself doing it. But I certainly hope that he gets jail time. He's probably not. They're probably going to fine him. But I think it's time that we seriously consider jail time. Or detention centers for bad tourists. They need to build a tourist detention center. I'm just thinking here. Not jail time. But a tourist detention center where you must stay for two weeks before you're deported. And learn about Japanese customs, culture and history. And if you're a social media influencer you must make a video apologizing and telling everybody what you learned in your confinement here. I'm just putting out some ideas here.

21:22 John Daub: John-san, you should check with Andrew Esquire and Legal Mindset to do an interview one day to talk about the nuisance streamers ruining everyday life and causing punishment from Japan and Korea. Maybe I will. I don't want to get too much into this because people are watching for positive news. They're watching because they want to see something beautiful. Especially during the political era. Like we're all kind of decompressing from that election that just happened in the United States. So we don't want to talk too much about this stuff. But everything that impacts your trip here or whether it's positive or negative you need to know about this and how it impacts it.

22:01 John Daub: In Japan it's almost like predictable with what they're going to do here. Actually I wouldn't mind talking with Andrew and discussing what happened actually in Japan. Why did he get such a lenient punishment? Because the police... I've already talked with the police in many episodes. I've been here for 26 years and I've done media jobs with the police department's PR department. They do have one. The only thing I learned was that police officers can be filmed here. So that's one thing that you should understand. They're public landmarks so to speak. So you can film them but you can't focus in on anybody. There's certain laws with regards to filming but when it came down to explaining the law in certain cases and situations the police will never say anything. And this is a really good thing. There's not like leaks. You don't get like this kind of information leak to the press and the media for one reason or the other.

23:11 John Daub: And that's kind of a good thing. But it's also a bad thing especially if you're like on death row. There's so tight lines. There's a clip that when an execution does happen in Japan and they still hang people. That's the method of execution, the hanging. They don't announce the date of it. I think happens within a very short amount of time where the inmate is told that your sentence will be carried out like today. They get a meal and that's it. And then the media learns about it after it's done. Which is such an opposite way from the way that the US does it. It solves a lot of problems but it also might create some. I don't know. I'd be interested to hear what you guys think about it. But in general, Ramsey got released way too lenient in Japan. And they bought his BS, so to speak. His crap. And let him off. I'm sure they just wanted to get rid of him.

24:20 John Daub: Bottom line here... Sounds horrible for wrongly convicted people. I don't know how many people are actually wrongly convicted in Japan. As you saw with Ramsey... They investigated him for quite a significant amount of time before even detaining him. And that shows the thoroughness of the investigators. And I think he's getting that same treatment in Korea. They're really doing a good job putting the case together. And he's gonna be doing some serious time. I don't know how he gets out of this one. As I said, the bottom line is Japan has to start to think about this more seriously. Because we can't have vandalism of historical monuments. And then do very little. Or hand out lenient punishments.

25:06 John Daub: My suggestion again... Create a tourist detention center in Osaka and Tokyo where they are sent there. To be detained for those 23 days while they're investigated. And they have a translator. And they have a certain amount of comfort perhaps. That's not so bad. They're still guests here. But they have to learn something from this experience. And be shamed in a certain way. The public shaming is very powerful. I don't know how much in the world. But in Japan it's very, very powerful. What do you guys think should be a punishment for this guy? I am curious. I want to end this livestream in a couple of minutes.

25:48 John Daub: The conviction rate in Japan is high. Because they don't actually detain anybody unless they have a pretty strong case. They investigate. And once they have a strong case they give it to prosecutors who make the arrest. The one thing I learned from Legal Mindset is using the word conviction. Using certain words can be misleading. So keep in mind when you're watching other YouTubers about this kind of legal stuff. Whether or not they're a legal scholar or not. This is quite important. But what works in Japan and what works outside in the Western world. Public shaming doesn't seem to work outside this country. Or outside Asian countries. But in Asian countries public shaming is worse than death. It can be. It's quite bad. Let him eat natto three times a day. I actually like natto. And that would not be a punishment. He would leave healthier.

26:56 John Daub: I guess just deport the guy. I think you've got to fine him, right? It definitely has to be a significant fine. I think $10,000 seems to be a significant amount of money. It should be about three times of what you would have paid for your holiday. I think that's a significant amount of money. And if you can't pay... I guess you've got to serve some time. 30 days or $10,000. I think that's fair. Three times of what you paid for your vacation to come. And it seems like $3,000 seems to be an average price or so for a vacation to Japan. Let's go three times that.

27:38 John Daub: Just a note here. They have a sign. Meiji Shrine does actually close. And it's quite early. There's a sign over there. You can see the open time is quite early. Get here early. And the close time is quite early too. As long as you get in, I believe, you can get out on the other side. So if you did come here at 4 and it takes you beyond 4:10, they'll hurry you up. But you can get to the other side okay. So they're not going to lock you in there. And don't try to hide in there either because that is a massive crime. You will definitely be arrested for that. And no drones anywhere in Tokyo without a permit. And you get permits by applying online. No dangerous goods. There's just so many signs here.

28:47 John Daub: What's worse, perfume or perfume and BO? I think either. Both. I think after 20-some years of living here, my nose is quite sensitive. And the smell of soap is pleasant. But when you have scents and cologne and people wearing the strong stuff, my wife says it, if I wear underarm deodorant, like Old Spice and I get really strong ones, she's very sensitive to that. So I think that you really have to maybe leave your cologne at home. And I tell that to some of my other friends. If I'm going to be in the car with them, I'd rather have the BO than the perfume. I'm going to be honest with you. I'd rather have light BO than perfume. What do you guys think of that?

29:43 John Daub: They should make a perfume called BO. That's not exactly true. We had a guy named Logan Paul who was here who made a lot of nuisance. And they should have learned from that case. And this predates what these IRL streamers are doing by like five or six years, right? And that was a pretty good case. And I believe he was deported, so he can't come back here for seven years. I believe. Too many people use the BO perfume, especially in the summer. But I'd rather have light BO. So my list would be of acceptable: normal smell, soap smell would be first, normal smell, detergent smell of clothing, acceptable. Then we get into light BO, which is okay. This can't be helped. Then you have light perfume, light perfume and BO. Then you have strong BO. Then you have perfume. So strong BO is better than perfume. Then you have very strong BO, the kind that if you touch somebody, you don't get it off, like it's grown on there. And then you have strong perfume and very strong BO. And then you have chemical warfare?

31:18 John Daub: It was Logan Paul who was here. But he was just a child, I think. He was very young. I like to think that he had learned his lesson. I don't know. I always give people the benefit of the doubt, and that's one of my weaknesses. Because I would hope that you guys would give me the benefit of the doubt should I get in trouble. But there's nothing in me that's remotely evil, except I'm sure we all kind of have times where we get quite frustrated. I can get frustrated.

32:03 John Daub: I see our good friend Kevin Riley's in the house. I miss that Kevin. It's nice to see him. I'd come down and visit, but he's quite busy right now in Osaka, giving tours. Here's Harajuku. Thanks for braving my scent rave. The postcards went out. This month's the beautiful scene. I took this many years ago at Kiyomizudera during the autumn. It's probably a lot more crowded than it is right now. But these went out two days ago. So they're on the way.

33:01 John Daub: IRL streaming means in real life. J Jersey girl shaving your underarms cuts the smell of BO. That's good information. I think baking soda does. The Arm & Hammer, it's pretty good. But to be honest with you, if you eat well, you don't really smell that bad. Like my wife Kanae doesn't wear deodorant. She smells pretty good. How do they do that? You don't want to put the chemicals, try to not put any chemicals on there. Harajuku has really changed. Wow. Guess there's an IKEA here. This is the new Harajuku station. And they're still, I guess they're supposed to be making... rebuilding the old Harajuku station on this spot as well. And let's see if there's any progress on it. They should be close to finish, shouldn't they? It's been a few years. I do miss the old train station. And the other part of me does not miss the old train station. It was so tight and so crowded. And with the tourism boom, I can't imagine that it would be really bad.

34:28 John Daub: It doesn't look like they've done any work on rebuilding the old station front. That's kind of sad to see. I thought that they would have done more. Old 1912 Harajuku station was... It could no longer accommodate the millions that went through there. Quick vending machine run for a drink. Oh, Trevor. All right, we're going to have to do that at another time. I got to head back right now, but I'll take you across the street and then show you Takeshita-dori just as a way to say thank you. So we'll extend the stream. Maybe we'll find a vending machine. I really do have to get back. I got some editing to do. This construction has been ongoing for too long. They got to finish it up.

36:04 John Daub: I wonder how much these apartments are. It's got to be expensive. It looks like something that you get on like Aspen or something. Real high price resort. There's an IKEA or Ikea as we say across the street and a Uniqlo. It's interesting. If there was a Costco in town, my gosh, that would destroy me. Imagine if they had like a Costco and they just had like the top 100 items that they sold. Oh my goodness. That's so cheap because it's usually like a dollar, but like you can eat lunch at Ikea, get a cinnamon roll and a coffee for $2. That would be a dollar 50 for both of those. That's crazy.

37:00 John Daub: Oh, somebody broke wind. I think it was that guy up there. Oh my gosh. Air biscuit. Oh, it was worse than perfume. I'm going to get ahead of him. Trying to get ahead of that group. What did he eat? I don't want to know. So much talk of odors. So glad YouTube doesn't transmit smells. I don't know how we got into this, but sometimes you have to lean in. It's actually nice to come over here and get a chance to see how things have changed a little bit. I almost never come in this direction.

38:56 John Daub: Why is it called an air biscuit? You're asking the wrong person. I don't know. Hey, look, you can get on TV. Let's do that. Am I on TV? It's a congregation of people. People love to see themselves. Oh, perfume. Let's get a group of perfumed people. It's like a battle between different scents. Let's not talk about odors anymore. It's hard to avoid it. I don't like hanging out in these touristy spots much, but now we're famous. That's a long screen. I'd love to have that wide monitor for video editing. Trevor, it wasn't me. And Trevor's going to go, whoever smelt it dealt it. I did not deal anything. I probably wasn't the first one to smell it, so let's just go like that. Somebody else just reported on it.

40:49 John Daub: Just a little bit of personal history. 26 years ago, when I came, this used to be a Docomo shop, not a FamilyMart, and this is where I got my first phone. It was a color NEC flip phone, the 502i or something. Hello. And it was inside that shop I got it. It was like 50,000 yen, which was quite expensive at the time for the first color flip phone. And now it's kind of funny to see it as a FamilyMart.

41:28 John Daub: All right, everybody, that's all I got for you today. We've moved from air biscuits and perfume to vandalism and all this stuff that's happened over there at Meiji Shrine. Again, just don't be this person. If you see it happening, report it to the authorities, take pictures. Every time that this happens, it kind of destroys it for everybody else, and we want to make sure that that doesn't happen at all. Have a good day, everybody. It wasn't me. It was that guy. He's down there somewhere now. Lost him. Look at the arrow pointing right at him. It's that guy. All right, everybody, have a good day. Thanks for watching. I'll see you in another livestream. Maybe tomorrow as I bring you to another area of Tokyo or discuss a topic that's going to impact our world, at least here in Japan. Mata ne.