00:01 John Daub: Hey everybody, welcome to Tokyo Station. This is the amazing modern Oji site. Check out that ceiling. It's a stunning architectural wonder in the city of Tokyo. Doesn't quite fit with Japanese architecture, but that's not what we're here to talk about today. I wanted to talk about an article that I saw in the Nikkei just today. Check this out. So this is kind of big news. And what's so exciting about Japan is the technology around all the things that they do to make the city work.

00:31 John Daub: We have these things called IC cards. I have them all right here. I got a Pasmo, Suica, and Ikoca. This one in particular, Suica, is run by JR East, Eastern Japan Railway. And there's an article that talks about how in 2028 they're planning—planning, planning. That's a big word here. It's not decided—on getting rid of all of those ticket turnstiles, the entrance ticket areas, where you could just walk straight in and get right to the train. One of the reasons why is because the amount of foot traffic has decreased. So there's less revenue as a result. They can't hire more workers. So in order to do more with less, you have to use technology. They're going to be integrating this, planning on it. And it's fascinating, right? That you wouldn't need a physical card. This is no longer going to be the future of travel in Japan.

01:32 John Daub: Touching with a physical IC card, you're going to have an app or something. Now, there's a bunch of other stuff going on behind the scenes. This technology is evolving and probably something better comes along along the way. But I'm making this prediction in December 2024. Let's see what happens in 2028, four years from now, if we predicted that this would be the future or not. What we can predict is that the physical cards eventually will be terminated because they don't have the ability to be used. They've already had supply issues with the chips inside. The chips are also susceptible to breaking inside of these IC cards. So although they're good for 10 years, if you were to bend this or have excessive heat or it's in your wallet, gets banged around, this chip breaks and a couple of these cards, my chip has broken. You lose the data. You lose your money. Well, there is an ID number on these cards so they can eventually get the money back if you do break a chip. So there's the insurance on having the physical cards, but everything seems to be moving to your phone or the other option, which is really interesting.

02:31 John Daub: There's other places. I think Kumamoto is one of them where they're already using your credit card to tap and pay to enter. Now, credit cards also have this technology where it's wirelessly able to touch and pay for things. I think we've all been doing this at convenience stores, vending machines. Eventually, I don't think you can do tap tap with credit card to vending machines. But once they start to do that, it's basically on par with Suica.

03:01 John Daub: I found this article and I want to give them a shout out. This is unseen-japan.com. They have an article in English on this. They came out real fast. So you have to give them some credit here. I've been seeing them more and more in my news feed. So good on you, Unseen Japan. This author, Jay Allen, talks about in English. He kind of translates what's going on with the Nikkei article in Japanese. "You will never have to swipe your Suica card again. JRE says it plans to roll out a version of the iconic card in 2028 that uses GPS enabling tap-free travel." If you've been to Japan once, you've got the ritual down pat. Swipe your card at the gate and board the train. But JRE wants to change that. The train company that runs rail through eastern Japan wants to change how you board.

04:02 John Daub: I don't want to read the whole article. I think I'll put a link in the description if you want to do that. They got in this pretty quickly. But it says here that there'll be sweeping changes to the Suica train card. The company plans to use GPS data to enable passengers to board a train without swiping a card at a gate. It also uses GPS to calculate how far you've traveled and how much to charge you. What? That seems like next level sort of stuff. Like really exciting and also kind of creepy. You know, because we are somewhat worried about privacy in 2024. Let's see how we feel about it in 2028 as my generation moves into a different way to think than the younger generation.

04:33 John Daub: But one of the reasons why they want to do this is to make Suica a very powerful payment option. Right now in Japan, there's three major payment options like touchless. The biggest one is PayPay, which has only been out since like four or five years. They have garnered so much, brought in so many new people into this system. 66 million and au Pay, I think is backed by Docomo. I have an au Pay card I believe I got with my Docomo subscription plan where you could collect points and stuff. And PayPay is also a touchless payment that uses QR codes. And JR East Suica for their mobile goods and payment service has only 31, less than half of what the big two have, PayPay and au Pay. So it's going to be interesting to see if they can keep up with the other two.

05:24 John Daub: So it's like a battle right now. This is like Betamax and VHS. Remember, there's a battle going on between the platforms to be your payment source and I think PayPay is gonna win because they're backed like you get your government stimulus checks now you can get them sent to your PayPay account. Like I had to register, I had to get a PayPay in order to register to get like benefits or payments from the city of Tokyo and from the government of Japan certain payments. Yeah, whatever you get a stimulus check from Japan you pretty much just have to give it back in taxes at the next year. It doesn't have any meaning whatsoever. Stimulate what? Anyways, it's funny that they use these as a way to get the payments out and I think this has a lot to do with Taro Kono. Taro Kono is the digital minister. I don't know if he still is but he's trying to move Japan from the Showa era and the Heisei era to the Reiwa era and digitalize everything and he's doing a pretty good job of doing that. We're seeing more and more options like what Japan and what your image of Japan is, is a digital revolutionary place with high tech, high speed internet and fast trains and everything. The reality is that it's still a place that people read newspapers and send faxes because of the heavy population on the senior side. Nothing wrong with that, but it's harder to adapt the new tech now than it was in other places in the world. Like Indonesia, which is one of the youngest countries, might be more adaptive to new tech than Japan is for sure. Japan had flip phones for a very long time.

07:04 John Daub: PayPay is SoftBank, right? In Crimsonic. Interesting, thank you for that. They've been, you know, Masayoshi Son's been doing an amazing job, he's an extremely smart guy. He makes billions, he loses billions, but in the end he finds a way to invest in the future of the country and I like the guy's philosophy very much.

07:25 John Daub: So we have that going on here. The thing is, there's three options. We have the other payments, the PayPay uses a QR code. One, so that might be the future. Number two, the other future could be this touchless NFC, the technology where you touch stuff and it gets into a scanner, boop boop, you know, beep beep. I think ETC cards also, like this scanner type of thing.

07:54 John Daub: Okay, so ETC cards. For anybody that was watching, that was the lady at the post office. I just sent out, that was really interesting. She, there's, oh, Keith, this is your postcard. There was no stamp on it and she brought it back and apologized. She took my card without a stamp on it and just, I guess she found it by watching the YouTube show. How did she know I was here? Super nice at the post office. I love supporting the post office. By the way, if you live in Canada, I couldn't send you all of these postcards this month because there's a strike in Canada. So she told me probably hold off on sending it. So if you're Jason and Danny and everybody, just a heads up, I'll be putting these in the mail as soon as the strike is over. That was really nice. The international, they know me so well. The international post office is just down the, like about a hundred meters away. So she ran out a hundred meters. I told her that I was a YouTuber and I guess she found my channel because it says Only in Japan, the logo. Oh my gosh, she's really smart. I don't know the manager knows who I am because I talk with him, but my logo is on the postcard. So did she like Google that and then find that I was live and I was inside the train station and then find me here? Oh my goodness. That's amazing. Amazing service at the post office. I love supporting those guys there.

09:31 John Daub: So those are the three payment options, I think. And then the credit cards, which everybody already has. You have also smartphones. You can throw in there. So maybe there's four. There's credit cards with that NFC technology, but the Suica cards as well. So the Suica can be on a credit card. I don't know how this all works out and who's going to be the winner. I'd love to hear what you guys think. Well, you are a regular at the post office. I am very much, Saya. And by the way, your card is on the way, Saya. This is, do I have this one's postcard here? I just, I think I do somewhere here. You're not allowed to take pictures inside of the post office anymore, but I did snap one really quickly here. So I sent all these at the post office. So these are on the way. This month's postcard is really cool. Here it is. It's a Mount Fuji from an airplane when I was flying there in the winter. You can see the snow cap on there and I sent these all out except for Canada. You can get them on Patreon. I love the support. By the way, if you're a Samurai supporter, which is just $5 a month, if you leave your address in there, there were about 15 people who didn't leave their address. I'll send you one at the end of the year. So I really do appreciate you guys, the support so much.

10:46 John Daub: NFC is gonna be a big player. It's in all of the cell phones. Maybe the Android and the iOS is sort of different. We're seeing some differences there. But Arthur Vandelay is in the house. Hey, Arthur. How you doing? Thank you, buddy. I don't know how this is gonna play out. Is it gonna be, I think it's just gonna end up being your credit card, but there's like security issues with that. There's pros and cons for each one of these methods, but it's interesting that JR East, which is such a powerful force because they own the train stations. They own some of the convenience stores. They own the property. They are big players in this, and they wanna be the money system here. And I kind of trust JR East because they do an amazing job with the services. I think I kind of trust them with this kind of stuff. Maybe more so than the bank, which is funny. I just think that JR is such a professional organization. I can't think of a situation where I've had a really unpleasant interaction with them. They love their job. They're very proud of their company. And JR East, JR Higashi Nihon is its own separate company. So yeah, I'm rooting for them.

12:03 John Daub: But I think credit cards and smartphones seem to be, remember we weren't sure how, like smartphones and all these other technologies which one was going to win like oh okay everything's gonna instead of having all of these other systems everything is just going to be on your smartphone and maybe that's where it is right it's gonna be the Suica app and maybe they're banking on that is your mobile payment option or is it gonna be your credit card that everybody also has in their wallet well most people have or a combination of both how is this gonna work because my credit card thanks to Apple it might already be on my phone I don't think I registered yet but you can register your credit card and pay with your credit card on your phone so it seems like the end result is gonna be everybody has their smartphone or their GPS enabled and they're all gonna be able to go right through the ticket gates just like right now like I don't want to turn it too much here just right now you have the ticket gates here you just go straight through and this makes it goes so much faster to get onto the train here so I'm kind of excited about the technology I think I'm gonna do it.

13:07 John Daub: We don't get any faces here so you get an idea I think it's inevitable now that this is what's gonna happen here let's go this way I think it's inevitable and in the end what do you guys think is the best system what are you rooting for if you're rooting for anybody I'm kind of rooting for JR but you know I think it you know the credit cards which are sometimes a little bit too greedy and ask for more I can see why JR would want to bypass credit card companies yeah I don't really need the points JR unlike airlines JR doesn't have a miles system which would be really cool to do if they had like you could collect points with miles and stuff to reward regular customers I'd love to get a badge I take the Shinkansen so much because I got to get from place to place I'd love to have a little green badge that says like Platinum Rider and maybe every now and then they'll send you like a pair of Japan Rail socks or something like that I mean like these little perks let's be honest the seems they're like the future in the way things are going where you're where companies reward you for being loyal to them.

14:13 John Daub: JRE points already exist sorry thank you for that Ellie I'm not into that system I still kind of go old-school with the tickets perhaps but yeah maybe that's something to get into thank you for that point me out there but it'd be cool to get that I got a pair of socks from Google Maps because I review places on Google Maps i love it so I think I'm a six-star guide on Google Maps and they sent me socks once Nokia it's a thing Leo's already got a pair of Tohoku Shinkansen socks and he's also got a pair of the Akita Shinkansen socks and Dr. Yellow socks it's just something that they kind of have here this is cool I'm wearing Shinkansen socks I'm just an idea out there because then like little things like that win me over I don't care so much about points and perks and things of that except for like I like the socks like little things maybe like a little badge I want to like you know captain like Shinkansen captain platinum captain or so I don't know the little wings they used to give on the airlines to kids or something I don't know but you guys can come up with some ideas maybe in the comments below.

15:24 John Daub: I want to say thank you to Randall who's a new traveler thank you so much you have unlocked some of these emoji that we're going to revamp at the end of the year here Leo's growing up a lot since then so we have to put in a better picture of him but it's just fascinating there's the Unseen Japan when I put a link in the description here but shout out to Nikkei for the article as well I read them regularly I really like their content there as a newspaper and I believe they have a Nikkei English as well it's good before you leave your trip to kind of scout out the Japanese press and media and go through this stuff that I know Kyodo News is one of my favorites as well and I look and see what's going on inside of Japan because you need to know before you leave like what's happening around the country a little bit and that might enrich your trip and maybe save you a little bit of heartache too when things get kind of messy because Japan's a country like anybody anywhere else.

16:24 John Daub: We're starting that's funny I love seeing these the emoji here hold on say I got both of the Leo emoji there that's so cool Randall don't abuse it I think I abused it right there I've added in some wacky emoji of myself too like a dog guess you can ride with the dog on the train here so I want to celebrate the post office by just giving them a shout-out here so thanks to the postal worker who came to find me and Keith in Kansas you know you know who you are you there was no stamp on your postcard for some reason so she brought it back so I'm going to put that in the mail today might just take an extra day or so that's the International Post Office brand-new building and from this point up here do you see that you get an amazing view of the trains coming by Tokyo Station.

17:20 John Daub: Yeah, it's worth going up there to the 7th floor of the Marunouchi Building, I believe run by Japan Post. And if you're in Japan right now, in Tokyo, you'll have an amazing view of all the trees that are changing color as these ginkgo are now full on. Yellow is everywhere right now. So it might be good to get to Hama-rikyu Gardens. What's that one? The Rikugien Gardens. There's another garden up here, Komagome. It escapes me right now, but that must be beautiful because they illuminate the autumn foliage in the park, which is just stunning. All of the colors pop on the black canvas of the night sky. And in the back there in the Marunouchi area is Christmas lights lit all the way up the street with food trucks and coffee shops with chairs that spill out to the middle of the street. No traffic. So that might be worth going up and down. The Marunouchi Building here also has a beautiful Christmas tree. I think it's a Nintendo-themed Christmas tree this year. So something that you might want to check out. Yeah, these are the ginkgo trees, I believe. Could be wrong. I'm not a botanist. But you know, I appreciate trees very much. I don't know what they all are. They're just really, really pretty.

18:36 John Daub: All right, everybody, I'll say bye to you now. But I'll be back tomorrow. Aiken, if you're watching, we're looking to go to a Christmas market to say thank you for all the super chats. Like, kind of, he's been nudging, like, Christmas market, Christmas market, Christmas market. So, Aiken, we're going to go check out a Christmas market. I don't know if it's going to be Skytree or the German Embassy-sanctioned Christmas market at Jingu Gaien, which is near the National Stadium, the Olympic Stadium. So it might be over there. That one charges. You've got to pay 1,000 yen in order to go. I think I made this late. Across the street. And there's the Hato Bus, those yellow buses, if you want to take a tour of Tokyo. Come into the Marunouchi side of Tokyo Station, jump on a Hato Bus. I don't think you need a reservation, but you probably should get one now because it's kind of crowded around town.

19:38 John Daub: As you know, I'm a regular to this post office. I love the workers there. They know me quite well. So you'll find my bicycle parked in the front right here. All right, everybody. Yeah, we're not going back home to the US this year. All right, if you have any questions about this amazing technology, leave it in the comments below. I'm fascinated by it because behind me is going to be Japan's largest skyscraper. It's going to be right there on the skyline in the station in 2028, as well as this potential JR East touchless, cardless payment system to ride the trains. It's like mind-blowing stuff. All right, guys. Thanks, Joy, for moderating. See you.