00:00:01 John Daub: The wind is really making it cold guys. 99 seconds. I love that. Let's see. Forget the minutes now. We're down to seconds. 99 seconds. What? That is a lot of people. One minute to go. Here's the vibe from Asakusa one minute before 2025. This is so cool. Skytree is getting ready. It'd be funny if the Skytree was warming up for a rocket launch or something. Steve, Happy New Year. Thanks for that buddy.

00:00:35 John Daub: And TC from Hong Kong. Thanks. Alright, we're close. We're getting there. There's a vibe. There's a buzz in the air. Oh, you can hear it. There's a hum. We're getting some woos. Yeah. How you doing? Hold on a second. Five-toothed sloth bear. Steve, how you doing? Come by. Skytree says Happy New Year. Look at that. I am among a lot of people.

00:02:33 John Daub: A lot of people here. Check this out right now. Hey everybody, the smallest can of beer that I could find. Kanpai. Happy New Year. Thank you guys so much for watching. The signal is just completely smashed from all of this. Wow. People are singing Auld Lang Syne. Where are they from? Crazy. We are now in another era. We are in 2025. It feels different. Hey, Happy New Year.

00:04:25 John Daub: There's a party going on right there. 2025. How exciting is that? It was like one minute before the live stream. Oh, hello. Thanks for coming to find me here. Stay warm. It's freezing. Alright, take care. Happy New Year.

00:04:44 John Daub: Happy New Year, [inaudible]. The young people just go get married. I know what you just said. Ade is here, Ade. Thank you so much, Ade. Happy New Year. Happy New Year Peter. JW. Nice to see you again. Five-toothed sloths. Happy New Year. Thanks guys. This is such a fun event. I am glad it's kind of chilling out a little bit.

00:05:16 John Daub: People can enjoy it by themselves sometimes. [inaudible]. Moving away from the area it was hard to move from there. I'm gonna take you a little bit closer in the street. The police seem like they're locking down the area, probably a good thing as you see people here celebrating the new year, taking some pictures, selfies. I must say yay.

00:05:45 John Daub: Let's see if I could show you. I don't have the signal was any good. I want to be able to show you the Skytree as the signal's going in and out a little bit. You see the Skytree has got a Happy New Year sign on there. It's kind of cool to see that because you're not gonna see that if you do come to visit Japan right now or after today. For this live stream, Skytree, well you can see this from all over the place, from I don't know like 30 kilometers away if you've got a telescope you'd be able to see Skytree broadcasting the message that we are entered into 2025 here in Japan.

00:06:30 John Daub: No fireworks here but they do on Tokyo Bay over there in Odaiba, they have the fireworks going. The police directing traffic to get people out of the middle of the street. Apparently they're gonna be moving people in for the New Year's prayer called hatsumode (first shrine visit). That was really exciting. I got the moment, I recorded, saved it and if the signal had any problems I'll upload it later. I think it was a pretty cool moment to be at that spot. I did not realize how many people were gonna be standing here. You are trapped where you are is where you are when 2025 hits. You can't move, you're locked in and as soon as about two minutes later everything clears out again, which is kind of nice but it was a special moment that was worth it.

00:07:21 John Daub: I can understand why a lot of people want to go to Shibuya. I've been pretty strong about this, Shibuya is trying to get people to get out of there. I'm a resident so I kind of understand that. But for those that are joining us, not sure what I want to show you really quickly. There are a ton of street food. You see that first one is kuroge wagyu (black-haired Japanese beef) sticks and then they have takoyaki (octopus balls). They got a bunch of just about 150 street food stands. There's some on the other side of the temple as well.

00:07:53 John Daub: Here's the kuroge wagyu sticks. I'm telling you like you can go to Shinjuku and Shibuya but nothing beats the temples and the shrines because it's set up for this for decades, traditionally people, Japanese come to the temples and shrines. They're ringing the bell, I just hear it in the background 108 times. It's pretty crazy in there. The street food stands are open until January 8th so they're gonna be open all week. If you're visiting Tokyo now you can come to Asakusa to do your hatsumode prayer and you can come and get the street food. There's probably street food at Meiji Shrine as well and some of the other bigger temples and shrines. I know that Monzen-Nakacho had street food over there, I think it was Narita Jinja. They have street food over there. Monzen-Nakacho which is about a 20 minute ride from Tokyo Station by taxi.

00:09:00 John Daub: This is the vibe that you get at the temples and the shrines. This is why I tell people if you're gonna go out for midnight you could do what I just did and count down here and then you get all the food. I'm not sure why the intersection really should play into it if they don't want you to be there. Fireworks not really a Japanese thing for New Year's because people are asleep. I gotta be honest with you most people are normally asleep but they do have fireworks at Odaiba which they're trying to compete to get people to go over there. So from Odaiba Beach and it's cold you can see fireworks on Tokyo Bay. I don't think it's a big fireworks festival but they do have it there. Locals don't have fireworks because there's no fireworks allowed in the city. There's a no fire law so you can't have a barbecue for example on the street unless you have a license like a street food stand.

00:09:57 John Daub: I'm super excited for 2025. A lot of big stuff happening with this channel so make sure you subscribe Only in Japan channel. I'm gonna be taking you around this country showing you some of the most amazing things. Gosh where am I going next that's always the question. I've been all over the place. I have a naked man festival that I took last March where I had to jump in ice water coming up on the main channel. I've been editing that as well. There's a lot of stuff that's happening but I'm really excited. I'm glad you guys are here.

00:10:27 John Daub: Just a note, one last note, this is what I saw in Shibuya today. I never thought I'd see the day where they covered up the Hachiko statue but they did. I'm kind of glad I went this morning to go check it out. This is just a one-day thing though, it's sort of a way to discourage people from going there. I'd never seen that before. It's kind of cool to see. Alright everybody there you go, successful live stream from Asakusa. Thank you guys so much for the support.

00:11:02 John Daub: I'm gonna bring you tomorrow and thanks Steve thank you so much for upgrading to the Postcard Club. I appreciate it. I send out postcards every month on patreon.com and I'll see you tomorrow. I'm going to bring you tomorrow and show you the streets on New Year's Day. This is one of the most interesting times to visit Japan because the streets are typically empty. It's weird because Japanese stay home, they're all with their families but I'm wondering, I'm curious to see how many foreign tourists are actually about on the street tomorrow. So I'll probably do a live stream one or two, just take you around, give you a vibe for a little bit. It's a great way to start 2025.

00:11:49 John Daub: Who's up next Hawaii, who's next up, Guam I don't know but we're gonna pass it along to people down the Pacific as we head gradually get to New York in 13 hours and 30 minutes from now it'll be New York City and we'll be watching in the morning after waking up eating our osechi ryori (New Year's boxed cuisine) and ozoni (mochi soup) and enjoy New Year's 2025. Hey everybody thank you so much other friends and family for watching this video and I'll see you tomorrow.

00:12:20 John Daub: Philippines Joy says Philippines up. Alright I'm gonna pass it over to Joy in the Philippines. Whoa it's so dry out here as the police are telling us all right now it's time to get your butt out of here. I'm gonna pass it over to Joy and everybody in the Philippines go check out the live streams over there. Thanks so much for watching. I'll see you tomorrow morning give you another vibe of what Tokyo's like on New Year's. Very solemn, peaceful New Year's in Japan. It's all about the peace and relaxation. Take it easy. Mata ne. So cold.