00:11 John Daub: So we're here in Ginza. This is in the Christmas spirit. Window shopping in Ginza is maybe one of the best places in the city. This is the window in Matsuya, the department store here. And they've gone nebuta (Aomori-style illuminated floats). I think they've done this in the past. It's so beautiful. This is Santa Claus done in Aomori's nebuta fashion, which is just paper and light. Really stunning to see—if you're in Tokyo, come just look at the display. A lot of people taking pictures of it, but they put a lot of work into this. Again, the nebuta festival up in Aomori, one of the most famous summer festivals in all of Japan.

00:42 John Daub: There's his bum. And there I am. How you doing, everybody? I thought I would just take you on some window shopping here in Ginza. This is for Aiken, who's been asking me for Christmas lights for a while. We'll go and do that. But first, let's take a look around Ginza. Get in the mood. Shopping sort of does that. And I got to do some shopping as well for the family. This one here, you can see there's a teddy bear, which is really nice. And there's a toy robot. And there's one inside the department store as well. There's a little Pac-Man thing going on there. That's pretty cool. That's a really nice window. Window dressing and window shopping is a big thing in department stores here. Inside the department store, we can't actually go in and film, but you can see there is a nebuta Santa Claus inside of there. It's really pretty.

01:50 John Daub: It's really important to get people in the spirit. And I'm really happy to see, like, I think this is the Salvation Army. Nice to see greetings from New York. Well, you know what? Let's put that super chat into good use and give them something to say thank you for the music here. Merry Christmas. Thank you. That's nice. So this is the Salvation Army. So you can give to help them out. They're thinking of others and we are too. That's really nice. So it gets you into the mood here. They do a lot of stuff around Japan, disaster helping out. Maybe something you guys want to help to reach the goals. And thanks guys for the super chats. Pay it forward.

02:38 John Daub: All right, let's go take a look around here. Nice donation. I don't carry a lot of cash these days. I wish they would just take tap to pay or something. Go to the bank and get some more. Check this out here. The Louis Vuitton window looks really nice. Usually these super ultra fashion brands have kind of weird Christmas. Oh my God, look at the line to get in there. I guess it's sort of Christmassy, but they're not really traditional. I'm not really digging it that much. Some Christmas trees out here on the corner. Very cool. In some cities people might be snatching these ornaments, but here in Tokyo, yeah, it's good to put out there.

04:12 John Daub: This is Ginza. This is Ginza Yonchome (Ginza 4-chome). This is a really beautiful place to come at Christmas time or just in general. I'm familiar with Tokyo. Ginza is pretty close to Tokyo Station. It's not that far away. You can walk here before you go. You can get on the Shinkansen. This is a nice place to stay for a hotel. It's a lot quieter and cleaner than Shibuya and Shinjuku. There's some nightlife options here as well, especially if you like eating. This is a gastronomical center of Japanese cuisine, especially the high-end stuff. This is Chuo-dori (Chuo Avenue) here where all the department stores are. We're going to be walking past there, including the Nissan building in a second. Hopefully the signal stays strong. Malkosia Quadruple 11. Thank you so much for the super chat. I'm looking forward to seeing you. If you come to Tokyo, maybe catch you this May. That'd be a lot of fun. I know Joni is here visiting from Colorado with her family. They might stop by and say hi. I think their last day, they're in Asakusa.

05:22 John Daub: A lot of people are visiting at this time of year. Christmas isn't the time of year for Japan, actually. You don't really feel it as much as if you were going to Europe or to New York. A lot of it has to do with Christianity because we're celebrating Jesus. So I think there's something really behind that there that is lacking for me, perhaps. I don't feel it always every year as much in Japan, but we make the best of it. And this year we're staying in Tokyo. Japan does an amazing job with lighting, illuminations. And you'll see the illuminations on like every tree. And this is special. You see it here? These LEDs. These will be lit up at 5 p.m., maybe a little bit earlier. It just depends. But usually they turn on at 5 p.m. And it is really, really pretty to see the lights. This isn't famous for the lights, but they're doing a really good job with it. Every neighborhood's competing because you want to get the mula from the shoppers. So you got to make it nice.

06:29 John Daub: Oh, look at the windows over there. Look at the windows across the street in Wako. All right, we're going to go check that out. They always do something real special in front of the historical Wako. This is the Wako building. This round building where the Doutor Cafe coffee shop used to be. There's a big Seiko sign up there. The rounded building. They're going to rebuild it similar to it, but it definitely needed to be renovated. So it's a big blank spot. But they do a good job of building real fast in this luxury neighborhood here. Let's take a quick look before we cross the street because we have a red light. At the Mitsukoshi lights, they will blink because of the 50 hertz in here. But it doesn't look like they've done a lot. They have a nice tree there. But nothing really spectacular. Nissan building's rocking something across the street. So we'll go in that direction next. But let's go this way first. Go see Wako. Go around the intersection. Hopefully the Yonchome, the fourth intersection here in Ginza, the signal stays strong. A lot of people out today. It's really warm today in Tokyo. Hey, Jotty's here. How you doing? UFO Bob. Congratulations to UFO Bob. His YouTube channel hit 7,000 subscribers. He's on the way to 10,000. Love seeing the evolution of his channel. Go check it out. Showing you the coolest parts of California.

08:23 John Daub: It doesn't feel as Christmassy. But it's a nice design. They've done something with the window here like a monster. Leo would like this. It's kind of creepy. Who is your lucky monster? Enjoy the 30 second show. That's kind of cool. Nobody was pushing it. I pushed it. Let's see what happens. I will be here for the two o'clock bell. So just hang in there. It's hard to know if this show has started or if this is. But they've got lights illuminating all around, which is kind of cool. Oh, look at that creepy eye looking down at you. Oh, the clock's going backwards. Interesting question. Where? I'm not sure. It's a little odd. Anyways, we're going to be here for the bell change. The bell ringing up on the top there. So if you just look around the corner, you'll see something nice. Christmas trees. It's more traditional inside of Wako. You can see the lights inside the department store. It's not super exciting, but it's nice. It's not colorful. Looks like they've gone more with like an untraditional Christmas. Kind of a bummer. I see more and more of that. The young show made this intersection usually not so good. It's across the street. Go over. Check out that Nissan building. Let's see what we got over there. Yeah, it's a bizarre Christmas. Happy holidays. They could do so much better.

11:02 John Daub: There's Chuo-dori going down the center of it. You see it when the sun sets. The sun comes straight down Chuo-dori, which is really cool to see. All right, let's cross the street. I thought that the design on the side of the Mitsukoshi was part of the Christmas decorations, but they have this year round, but that lights up at night too. It's really cool. I think Mitsukoshi had their 350th anniversary. It's ridiculously long for a department store, one of the oldest in the world. They used to sell kimono back in the day. They told me when I was doing the speed wrapping episode. Have you guys seen that one where Japan has this omotenashi (hospitality spirit)? Like it's sort of a customer service, the way that they do it.

12:39 John Daub: That marks 2 p.m. It is the afternoon. Blue skies here in Tokyo. That bell's been chiming through the Ginza neighborhood for quite a long time. You know, I don't see a lot of Christmas spirit in general here. It's a little bit odd, but what is freaking awesome is that they have this patrol car (patoka) from Akita Prefecture. I don't know why. I don't care why. It's just cool as it rotates like a model on this. I don't know what is this like turbocharged. It's so cool. I want to drive this thing maybe through the window like in a movie and down the street and get away. But then it'd be on Santa's naughty list. So it's not going to happen. I guess this model is called Sakura. I think if you're a police officer, you're going to want something tougher. This looks like an electric vehicle. Electric police cars, baby. Zero to 60 in one second. But those tires look pretty hardcore.

14:05 John Daub: All right, that's enough of that. They got like something that looks like—oh, my. That looks like the Cybertruck. This looks very much like the Cybertruck. They have always like these concept cars and stuff inside. Wow. Hey, Santa, forget your sleigh. Why don't you come in and jump into this thing? The hyper funk. Is that what it's called? The hyper punk. Sorry. I don't know if Santa is really into that, but that's pretty cool to see. Look at the wheels. Of course, they're not going to go anywhere with those wheels, but very cool. There's a little bit of information. I guess this was in a TV drama. There's a cafe in here in the Sony building, which is still under construction, on the third or fourth floor. So you can go take a look at the Alpha one Mark two, which is a camera that's out of my price range. I dropped mine in the bathtub two years ago. It still works.

15:27 John Daub: There's a bunch of department stores that are under construction here. This is another one on the left side. Brand new buildings are coming up. So the amount of luxury is just going to be oozing in 2028. There seems to be a lot of construction that's going to be completing in 2028, 2030. I think Tokyo is going to be a reinvented city in six years from now, which is crazy. This place reinvents itself like every five years. Thank goodness. Moving away from that feeling of the 2020 Summer Olympics or 2021 Summer Olympics, which was just a disaster. They did the best that they could do with what they had to work with. But it was a money hole. All our tax dollars went into so much of nothing. It's pretty ridiculous. I don't see a lot of Christmas decorations. It's pretty lacking comparatively, but a lot of—I don't see a lot of traditional Christmas decorations. That's kind of a bummer. It seems like real secular. You know what I mean? Like it's kind of lacking.

16:42 John Daub: I got to go back and give the Salvation Army some more bills because nothing's better than starting a livestream with some live music from the Salvation Army. They were good. You just hear in all of the cities, you'll find the Salvation Army. They're playing the music and ringing the bell, spreading some cheer. Fendi's got a little bit of a Christmas decoration. Maybe it's too early. It just doesn't quite feel the same. It's kind of lame. Trying to stay positive here. Help me, windows. Across the street is the world's largest Uniqlo in the world. Uniqlo, I think you could get more in the Yuletide spirit here. What do you guys think? On a scale of one to 10, Uniqlo's Christmas decorations.

17:53 John Daub: Oh my God, it's John. Yeah, I'm right here. How's your son? He's doing good. How old is he? Three and a half-ish. Oh, are you going to plan to show us on YouTube? Is he going to be here on YouTube someday? Yeah, right now. But you're on right now. Oh, I'm sorry. I'm live. Okay, here you go. Oh, thank you so much. You're welcome. Where are you guys from? Oh, we're from Seoul, Korea. Awesome. Yeah, but we were watching your Christmas shopping. It's been many years since we've been watching you. Oh, I'm so happy. That's amazing. What are you doing in Ginza right now? I'm just doing some window shopping. I'm trying to see if there's any Christmas feeling here and it's okay. I'm sorry, just one more question. Sure. We went to the Tokyo Christmas Market at the Jingu Gaien (Meiji Jingu Gaien). Do you have any place else that we would recommend right now? Uh, the Azabudai one, the new one was okay. Exactly. Yeah, near Roppongi. Yeah, that one was okay, kind of small, but the food looked real good. Sky Tree's maybe the second one to go to. And Tokyo Dome has some really good night illuminations as well as Roppongi. Oh, thank you so much. You're welcome. Nice meeting you. Good luck. Yeah, have a good trip, guys. Okay, thank you so much. You're welcome. Bye bye.

19:29 John Daub: Oh, that was really nice. Wow, so they're from Seoul, Korea, so that was nice that they came and stopped. I had, before I started the livestream, a couple people came up to say hi, so that was nice. That gets you in the Christmas spirit even more when people come up and say hi. I guess it feels like we're with family then, right? A lot of tourist buses from China, which is really good for the economy. Thank you very much for your money. This is the Ginza 6, and it looks like the space cats are back? This time inside of a bubble. Oh, this is plastic. So it's like inflated with air and the air's pushing it out. That's kind of spacey-ish. And look at the space cats, they were in this exhibition a couple of—what was it like—a year ago? Which is so cool, these space cats, and they seem to be back this time for Christmas. Well, thank you for visiting our planet once again, space cats.

20:54 John Daub: So we'll walk down a little bit more. There's a couple other department stores that we can see here. The Ginza 6—is this used to be Mitsukoshi? This used to be like another department store, I think, that was real old school, had like a 1975 to 1986 feel to it, like a Carter Reagan type of feel, a little bit old, but interesting times. You all know the story of Abercrombie & Fitch. They have this skyscraper here. I think they've been here for about 15 years now. Abercrombie, when they first opened up, I went to school at Ohio State and Abercrombie & Fitch was founded in this area, if not in Ohio. Back then they had a different image. It was like more outdoorsy stuff. And then when they opened up this shop here, I was curious and I came out here and they had dudes that were like naked and real built, like on the street walking around. This is a high class neighborhood. Kind of rubbed people the wrong way. And then they got in big trouble by pumping out their scent. They had like this cologne that they have in all the shops. And the scent went all around the city. You could just smell it. So they got in trouble from the Ginza Association and they had to keep their scent indoors or something. It was big news here before the tourism boom. I'm talking like 2010 or something. But it's a pretty darn big building. I guess this is their headquarters. I remember going in there and the prices for stuff just was off the charts too high for what they were selling. I didn't think the quality was as good as it was back in the 1990s. I bought a lot of Abercrombie shirts that are still really in pretty good shape. I caught my dad wearing my Abercrombie shirts from the early 90s. Then I just gave up on it. I had one that was really Christmassy though. It was green and red.

23:38 John Daub: All right. Let's see what's going on on this side of Ginza. Not a whole lot. So that looks like they did put some effort into it. Check it out. There's a candy cane in there. It's like somebody's suitcase or something. It's interesting. Thank you. I felt some cheer. One of the reasons why I would never buy luxury brand stuff on the street is because there's like the armed security dudes who open the door freaked me out. They're creepy. The way they stare at you. Or maybe they're just looking at me and they say, nope, sorry. Let's bring some cheer to security guards and just start waving to them and say, Merry Christmas. We should get a posse of Christmas carolers and just start Christmas caroling down Ginza. Is that against the law? Considering the politicians seem to do that with their megaphones. Could we Christmas carol? I miss that. Candy canes are made for eating, not for decoration. Jody, I kind of agree with you, but I went on amazon.co.jp to try to find them. And I could only find maybe two brands of candy canes to eat. And they were like a couple of bucks and like $30 for them. Like no way. But you can find more ornaments.

25:29 John Daub: Whoa. That's the Onitsuka Tiger shop seems to be buzzing here. I guess a lot of the tourists come from China and they park from like right on the end of the street here. And then you get like tourist buses because they're filled with boxes and bags of goods bought here in the street. So thank you so much for supporting our economy. One of the greatest things that could happen is a tourist from China coming back to Japan. A small percentage of them get a bad rap or a deserved reputation. But just to say, like, if we can compare it from 15 years ago to today, tourists from China are not the same as they were 15 years ago. The last thing I want to show you before we cut out the signal—you could see the sun coming straight down Chuo-dori—is the toy store here. So we've pretty much gone about six or seven blocks down Ginza here. Now this toy store is famous because there aren't a lot of toy stores anymore. There is a Toys R Us. You'll find Toys R Us in Japan. I think they've gone out of business. Maybe they came back in America. It's just so cool. I remember as a kid walking around the Toys R Us and the toy stores. What was the one? K&B Toy Store. Or there was like Lionel the Giraffe. Another big toy store. We don't have that anymore. It kind of stinks to be a kid these days. Kitty Land is, I think there's one in Omotesando.

27:41 John Daub: Let's see if we can find a snack here. I was going to cut off the livestream here, but maybe we'll head back and get a snack at Akebono, which has my favorite mochi. If not, I'll take it back and bring something back for everybody. Michael, you're always so generous. Can't wait to see it when we go back to Hawaii. Nice and warm over there. At least that's my image right now. Look at that. Mahalo. There's the Don Quixote. There's a secret entrance to get in from right there. These things are making Leo crack up. You got to work on your pronunciation a little bit. It's perfect the way it is. I love it. Keep up the good work, guys.

29:10 John Daub: Now I'm in the spirit. They have these mirror Christmas stuff. Leave it to a toy store to get me in the spirit. Let's just take a really quick look inside the entrance here. But the toy stores in Japan are so awesome. They still exist like game centers. So you get kind of a feel of Christmas. I'm trying to find some Christmas incense for the smoker. Is that a reindeer? That's really lifelike. Oh, my gosh. This looks like from a horror movie. Maybe something for the Mrs. Look, Santa shoes. Wow. Those are big. Creepy and cute at the same time. You can see all these buses going by here. And then there's another tour guide over there. Lovely afternoon. That's a killer Santa mask. I'm not saying that in a good way or literally. It's a little creepy. I heard someone just say my name.

30:52 John Daub: You know, I'm going to take you probably tomorrow or the next day to the Christmas market. The one at Jingu Gaien near the National Stadium. That should be a lot of fun. I'll see if we can get Leo to get out of the hoikuen (nursery school) a little bit earlier. But for everyone on the east coast of the US, it's going to be way too late for you to watch that. Unless you're in Hawaii or California. The Christmas market's here. The lights go on at 4:30 to 5 p.m. That's the worst time to livestream because everybody in the US is like asleep. And that would be about 70 percent of the audience. And then we have an amazing audience in Australia, which is like the exact same time. So I'd be more like for the Aussies to enjoy that stream. But the playback's in 1080 HD, which is great. Just a note that the Apple store, I'm not really a big fan of. You can see nobody even goes in there anymore. They moved their location. They tore down that location that was on the other side. Now they're on the Shimbashi side of Ginza, but they're still here. The only time people go in the Apple store is if they need to repair something. You need one of those geniuses.

32:16 John Daub: Well, thanks, everybody. It looks like we've been going on for 30 minutes. One of the reasons that I've come here is because I'm going to be going to the Hokkaido store. So if you are in the area, you want to come say hi. The Hokkaido store near Yurakucho. I'm going to head over there in about five minutes. I got to go get some. I don't know if my father's watching or not, but he likes those dark chocolate potato chips that Royce makes. And you can't get them at the airport. But you can get them at the Hokkaido store in Yurakucho. So I'll probably pick up some stuff that we can send to the U.S. from there as Christmas presents. And if you send anything back to the U.S., you better do it like this week because it'll never make it in time. And again, for the Canadians here, I'm keeping your postcards. But I want to shout out real quickly to Paul in the U.K., thank you for sending up the postcard club. I'm going to send your postcard from here in Ginza. Carrie, here's yours with your updated address to Japan. Jasmine in Illinois. And Daniel in New York. You get this one because you upgraded from samurai. I want to say thank you to Daniel. You upgraded from the samurai level to the postcard level. And I sent you the Mount Fuji winter card. So I might as well send you last month's autumn card to say thank you. So I really appreciate it.

33:47 John Daub: All right, everybody. I'm going to get back to my Christmas shopping and then get back. And maybe start uploading some stuff again. But it's going to be a really busy December. And I'll try to take you around to as many of the Christmas markets. Because I think it's kind of cool to feel the Christmas spirit whenever you can. Don't take it for granted. Once January hits, I get kind of blue because it's winter without the spirit anymore. You got to go skiing or something. And I'm not really good at that. It's kind of dangerous for somebody like me. Because I've fallen down so many times. I know as soon as I see skis, I can feel pain. It starts aching through my bones. But I give it a try every now and then. Maybe I should try snowboarding. All right, everybody. Take care. Leave me your comments below. I'll try to take you to some of the hot spots. Maybe the Skytree Christmas market as well as the Jingu Gaien. The Jingu Gaien Christmas market. They moved it from Hibiya. It used to be in Hibiya. That's the one that's sponsored by the German embassy or Coca-Cola. They're collaborating with the German embassy. So it's pretty authentic. Well, we're going to see. Maybe we'll have some German viewers confirm or deny how they are doing this year. And I can get my Christmas Santa smoker incense for the house. Until then, I'll see you next time. That's the omotenashi symbol right there. Matane (see you later).