00:01 John Daub: Welcome to the Shinkansen platform during the Shōgatsu (Japanese New Year) holiday. You just saw a Shinkansen cruise past on the left side. On the right side, another one's coming in right now. And this is the holiday season in Japan. So the 30th is the official holiday. That's where we are today on a Monday. These next two days, officially people are off. New Year's Day, everything's closed. The city is kind of super quiet.

00:28 John Daub: Then the second and third are official holidays and the fourth and fifth is a weekend. So a lot of people will start work on the 6th, but some businesses might not operate until the 8th. It just depends. Things start up slowly in Japan. You'll see businesses closed or warming up on the 6th and 7th. At least that's been my experience here. There's a lot of stuff happening right here. It's really getting crowded as people start to get onto their train. Let's take a look.

01:02 John Daub: Here comes the next Shinkansen train. If you're coming to Japan, Shōgatsu is an interesting time to come and enjoy Tokyo because everyone has left. It's really quiet. But I'm curious this year to see how tourists make this a vibrant place despite typical years of my 27 years living here having very empty streets on January 1st except at the temples and shrines. Everybody's with their families.

01:37 John Daub: Let me show you this article from Kyoto News, run by Japan Times. It's about yesterday. Airports and train stations crowded as a nine-day break begins—actually five plus four with the weekends. Travelers flooded airports and major train stations on Saturday as they depart cities to spend time in hometowns and elsewhere during the nine-day New Year holiday. Nice for the economy. Bullet train service was temporarily suspended in the morning between Shin-Osaka and Okayama due to a fire.

02:20 John Daub: They're going to talk about issues that stall people. Including me, probably blocking people at the escalators as they're getting off the train. Don't worry, it gets a lot better. People move pretty quickly—like the flow of water. Expressway operators forecast more than 200 traffic jams stretching at least 10 kilometers across the country over the nine days. Peter von Gomm once was stuck in a traffic jam from Nagano to Tokyo for eight hours. The legendary.

02:53 John Daub: I was walking around the station inside. Let me pull up some video to show you what it looks like inside. It's fascinating to see how the city is working. You can see the ticket gates. JR staff are manning each one so if there's an issue with a ticket, they can quickly fix it and let customers in as soon as possible. They're working real fast to get everybody in without issues, which is really good.

03:36 John Daub: The stations inside are just packed. Here's me walking to the entrance inside Tokyo Station. It's really hard here. I'm going to pull the camera up so you can see it's really deep in there. There are lines. Make sure you come early at this time of year—you definitely want to be here early. It can be stressful, especially with a family. This is actually at the end of the busy exodus, so it was a lot worse yesterday. Make sure you check if your train is on schedule—typically it is.

04:19 John Daub: Inside Tokyo Station, this has changed over the last 10 years. It's just a lot of suitcases, so I get stubbed in the foot quite a bit. But you adjust—you got to look down more than you used to back in the day. Here's the shortcut entrance. There's more than one way to get into the Tōkaidō Shinkansen—Yaesu side is the best. They have updates on escalators or stairs not working, in English at the entrances, which saves time if you're with family and find an elevator not working because you went the wrong way.

05:04 John Daub: The elevator is broken on that side—check in advance because you can see the window on the left. Lots of people lined up; the queue was about 30 minutes to get a ticket from the window. So use the vending machines if you can. But inside, most people have made it to the trains. It's probably ending by the end of today because family parties start tonight. Tomorrow is soba night—everybody's got to eat soba. There's the end of the line. Inside, there's always a guy with a sign to tell you where to line up for bento or even coffee.

05:47 John Daub: I've been out of commission for a couple days—I didn't have the flu, just a head cold, but I'm doing pretty good now. Flu numbers are really high, so you'll see more people wearing masks, staying away from places like this. An estimated 1.67 million people got sick just over the last week—all 47 prefectures reporting spikes. This is going to be a rough New Year's holiday for people coming back. It's a good thing it's nine days. Maybe wear a mask on public transportation—you'll be around a lot of people.

06:31 John Daub: This is one of the zodiacs I least like. Starbucks has their New Year's mugs, and this one is a snake—year of the snake. Kind of creepy, I guess in a good way. Shout out to SoraNews24. The post office is gearing up for a huge drop in nengajō (New Year's cards). I sent out about a hundred and received five. So my friends aren't sending them anymore. This year we're just emailing, which is sad. But it takes work to send a hundred postcards—it was a way to keep in touch with families, sending pictures.

07:28 John Daub: So you can see the line to get onto the Shinkansen has gotten quite crazy. Brian Vu from Nagoya—happy New Year, welcome neighbor. See these ladies in blue hats? They're the ones cleaning the trains—they've upped their game. They're cleaning in seven minutes or less, and I've watched them doing an amazing job.

08:04 John Daub: That's all I got. Just wanted to say hi, wish everybody Merry Christmas and Happy New Year—I didn't get a chance. Tomorrow I'll feel a lot better; I lost my voice so need to exercise it. I'm starting to feel better, so I'll probably take you on live streams—maybe Asakusa or somewhere to show Japanese New Year. Tokyo is one of the first places for countdown—exciting. Kanae and Leo will probably be asleep; it'll just be us. Then on New Year's Day, I'll show places around Tokyo and why it's unique—places are empty, kind of cool.

08:53 John Daub: But prepare for this. When I got here 27 years ago, places were closed on New Year's Day, second, and third. Now more are closed just the first, and some aren't closed at all. This got me thinking about Japan's employment problems—they're open longer and later with fewer people, exacerbating labor shortages where they need to import staff.

09:29 John Daub: Wow, that lady—is that my ticket? I always make sure I have it. Sometimes I drop it. She found a ticket on the ground—that's the worst if you lose yours. They used to be forgiving, but not anymore. Always get a receipt. I get an official one right there, so if I lose my ticket, I have proof. Put it in your pocket.

10:19 John Daub: Hey, Michael Sassato—aloha, happy New Year. Busy day at the station. Glad you're feeling better—I am. Look at that line to get on the Shinkansen—pretty crazy. This train is taking off in a minute.

10:39 John Daub: I've been uploading old Tokyo Eye episodes for the holidays—they're not permanent. Just to look back—I have copies of almost every one, but they're DVDs, scratched or with copyrighted music that bans them. I had to alter and AI upscale them. Progressive scan DV cassettes from 2003 weren't pretty in standard def. Hope you enjoy; they'll come down after holidays. The last was from 2010—82 yen to the dollar. Japan was super expensive; we did an episode on saving money.

12:11 John Daub: I know our Tokyo Eye scripts and performances were cringy—I'm more authentic now. Back then, no standard gauge of normal; it was TV overreactions because Japanese have a hard time showing feelings. That's where I started, and over years I got better—it's a skill. Chris Miller, welcome. So there you go.

12:51 John Daub: Just a quick look around the Shinkansen—it comes in waves. There's another platform with Nozomi trains. As these leave, next ones come with waves of people. But we're at the tail end of the exodus spike out of Tokyo this year. Lots of hotels booked full with foreign tourists. Interested to see New Year's Day in 48 hours. Take care—if you're in Shibuya, I plan to be there tomorrow, but you won't know till I'm there. See you at another live stream. Love the sounds of the Shinkansen. That could be me running for a train.