00:00 John Daub: So here we are in Meguro Station with Mike and Lawrence. How you guys doing? This is a station I don't know a lot about because I thought Meguro was the real hot spot in Tokyo, but actually it's not that impressive. Usually Nakameguro is the one that everyone wants to visit. So Nakameguro is the place, not actually Meguro Station. But we're in Meguro, so did I make a mistake? It's pretty nice. A lot of offices, great places for lunch.

00:28 John Daub: So anyways, we're going to go to the river to check out the cherry blossoms. Well, yeah, I guess because this would be a time where there's not a lot of people around. Lawrence used to live here, so you might know a little bit of stuff. This is so familiar. So let's walk around Meguro Station, see what we can find. Maybe even go to Nakameguro. Cruise out of here.

00:48 John Daub: First, we're going to find some lockers. And since Lawrence is visiting, we've got to put his stuff away. So this will give you a chance to check out the inside of the station a bit. It's not very big. Yeah, so we've got coin lockers over here. Coin lockers in this direction. This is the west exit. I think it's like 400 or something for the day.

01:11 John Daub: It's chilly today. Today is about, I guess like 2 or 3 degrees Celsius, so in the 30s apparently. We've got 600, 500 yen. I think you've got to use a Suica card or something. I can't really figure it. All right, we've got one locker open. Here's a 500 yen one. It's a little tight for that, I think.

01:37 Mike: Oh, yeah.

01:38 John Daub: Oh, shit. Boy. What happened? It automatically like sensed that you were in 1020, so I guess you closed the door. Can I use my PASMO with this?

01:52 Mike: Yeah.

01:52 John Daub: It says 1014. That's weird. Wait, why? Wait, is this, what number does it say? This is 10. Oh, so it says 1020. What the heck? That's 1014, yeah. So 1020 is available. 1020 is here.

02:08 Mike: Oh.

02:11 John Daub: Oh, okay, that's my fault because I opened it. So when you open it, it recognizes it on the screen. All right, let's try it.

02:20 Mike: Let's try it. You want to reset it?

02:22 John Daub: Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I think you have to. Is there a sensor in there? You just don't even know.

02:28 Mike: Oh.

02:30 John Daub: Okay. All right, let's try it again. Now we're doing this one. Welcome to the future, folks. You have to close it and it should.

02:45 Mike: Boom.

02:47 Lawrence: So when I come back, I pay for it, or how does this work?

02:49 Mike: I think so.

02:50 John Daub: Please start checking procedures. Sweep our cache. Do you want to use PASMO?

02:58 Mike: Pass mode works, yeah. It's the same. And I guess you touch there.

03:03 John Daub: Oh. Oh, you don't have enough here. Oh, oh, oh. All right, we'll guard your gear.

03:10 Mike: I'm just going to guard it?

03:12 John Daub: Yeah, I'll just. I'll pick it up. Following the processing. And do it again.

03:17 Mike: Do it again. All right.

03:18 John Daub: I got it. I got it. Please take out your baggage from the box with the left. Please start checking procedures. Okay. A receipt is being issued. Please be sure. Thank you. Thank you for using.

03:35 Mike: Mike did it. A receipt is being issued. I don't want to stay here. Stay here all day.

03:38 John Daub: Look, Mike, they got this. The earthquake warnings here. Tokyo is really starting to promote the fact that a massive earthquake could happen. It's going to happen at any time. Like telling people that you should secure your cabinets, your drawers, your microwave ovens, and cover your windows.

03:54 Mike: Have you done this with film? Oh, it's to prevent the glass shattering yet.

03:58 John Daub: I haven't seen that before. Cover it. I do like these little rubber feet for the cabinets to stop them falling. Yeah, that's interesting. I'm starting to see that more and more. Governor Koike is doing it. All available at your local 100 yen store.

04:10 Mike: Can you get it at a 100 yen store?

04:12 John Daub: Yeah, you can get these little plastic feet. If you don't know, Mike is a kickboxing master. You have a belt, right?

04:22 Mike: They have kick belts? I mean, it's just this intermediate entry and advanced. But I'm intermediate level.

04:32 John Daub: Very good. But right now, I'm not cleared to compete until I can get my guard up.

04:38 Mike: Okay.

04:38 John Daub: Well, PESO knows perhaps we will see some action today.

04:46 Mike: I love it.

04:48 John Daub: All right, we got it. We're going to take you outside of here. And this is the front entrance of Meguro Station. It's pretty neat. Yeah, we're good. It looks like anywhere in the city of Japan. There's a couple of new buildings here. Bus stops in the front. It's nothing spectacular, but I'm guessing for many of you, this is the first time to come here.

05:17 Lawrence: Is there anything on the east side?

05:19 Mike: East side? A bunch of buildings under construction. But you've got like your standard McDonald's, tempura shop. Used to be my favorite place to grab lunch. It's called Lake Yakiniku. It's a yakiniku (grilled meat) place designed for like individuals. It's just like small booth. Right. With like a little grill. But that building's just torn down for reconstruction in the area. So a lot of new buildings. I don't remember all these apartment buildings being in the area, but I haven't been here maybe 15 years.

05:53 John Daub: Yeah, the place to go is Nakameguro. Nakameguro is where a lot of you know that for the cherry blossoms. Here's where Meguro Station is compared in the city. Not that far away from Ebisu, which is one stop away. And Shibuya, which is also pretty close to here. This is Shinagawa Ward, right? Kami-Osaki. Got it. Awesome. And there's Nakameguro. So it's about a 20 minute walk from here, but probably better just to take the train there instead of doing the walk of death through there. It's not a really exciting walk, is it? To Nakameguro?

07:10 Mike: Sort of. Have you done it before?

07:12 John Daub: Here's the station right there. Usually if I go to Nakameguro, I go like Shibuya or Ebisu to walk from there. I asked TripAdvisor, so what are the top ten things to do in Meguro? And they said Atre. This building right here is filled with shops. That was their recommendation. It does have your Uniqlo, your Mujirushi. It's not exactly attractions for tourists. You don't get that in Meguro Station, I guess.

07:43 John Daub: So we do have a very fancy hotel in the area. The Meguro Gajoen.

07:49 Mike: Is that a love hotel?

07:51 John Daub: It's like a five star, full class, like resort. Very popular for weddings. And love hotels. I guess there's some here, right? Wedding is a type of love. There's a Don Quixote over there. That's the Picasso, which is a smaller Don Quixote. It's like a branch of Don Quixote. Less chaos. Like it was originally a separate chain, but Don Quixote bought them like, yeah, ten years ago. So it originally was like non-connected, but it's now part of Don Quixote.

08:23 John Daub: Just to take a look at the map here real quick. I guess this Otori Jinja is probably buzzing right now with a lot of the hatsumode (first shrine visit of the year) stuff, huh? So you can see this. This area, this is where the Meguro Gajoen Hotel is. Oh, that's the five-star. Huge like wedding halls and ceremonies there. Where do people go to. Oh, there's a Catholic church here as well. I think that's quite famous, right? Republic of Colombia. I wonder if they've got coffee there. Colombian Coffee Growers Federation is right next to the embassy. That's pretty funny.

09:05 John Daub: So which direction? Which area, I guess, is the most popular for going? I guess around here, right? In front of the hotel or. So this area on this side is where we've got like a couple of like sort of restaurants and shops. A smattering of restaurants like up and down here, but mostly it's for business people working in this area to grab a lunch. What do you recommend?

09:26 Mike: I think for stuff to check out crossing the road here and then going down by the hotel area has like a nice drop.

09:37 John Daub: All right. Let's do it. We can see the M Castle across the beautiful river.

09:44 Lawrence: M Castle?

09:45 John Daub: You mean Meguro had a castle?

09:47 Mike: It looks like a castle. It was a hotel designed in like the 1960s. There's only a couple similar ones like still standing. It's interesting.

09:55 John Daub: So this is another entrance. So the. I made a mistake. I took the Hibiya line here. Yeah. So this is underground transfer between JR and the subway station. But then we've also got JR and the subway stations across the street. So got it. All right. Just that confusing. It's good orientation if you're meeting someone. Which I don't come here very often. So it's kind of neat to explore especially for the livestream new neighborhoods.

10:18 John Daub: Last time Mike was on the livestream we were exploring. That was like Shimokitazawa.

10:30 Mike: Shimokitazawa. Oh my goodness. It's like eight, nine years ago. No, that was last the beginning of the year. The comedy show. Remember? Wasn't it? That was like last. Oh, the super recent time. That was in January. Okay, not like eight, nine years ago.

10:44 John Daub: There's a Catholic church over there. Still waiting for that joking special to come out. Do you go to a lot of Catholic. As a church or for marriage? I mean, the current prime minister of Japan is a Christian. Ishiba? Ishiba, yeah. I saw Taro Aso is Christian apparently. I don't know how it works. But it's just kind of a surprise that like in Japan, like non-religious, semi-Shinto like country. Prime minister has a random religion. Although we do have a lot of SGI politicians. Soka Gakkai. But that's the Komeito party. All of the politicians are just coincidentally of the same religion. It's not their political affiliation. Do you mean the Korean church group? Oh, no. That's Moonies. But it's a similar. It's a new religion. Moonies? Okay. There's a lot of weird sects here. Moonies is where you have like the 50 like bulk weddings like at once. So 50 couples will be married at the same like ceremony. It's kind of creepy.

12:14 John Daub: What is really neat is that we are on the top of a hill here apparently. Look at this. We're looking down onto the city. This is towards the Meguro River. And we've got Horipro (Hori Productions) right here which is famous like for movies and TV.

12:25 Mike: Oh. Really? I thought it was. Being a cameraman, I thought it was like the Hori like lens filter maker.

12:31 John Daub: Right. But no. It's Horipro. Interesting. So you got to go down to come up. Basically, you get to get a pretty good workout. And around this corner, you can see Castle M in the distance. Might be a little small on the stream but. There are a lot of international businesses that have headquarters here in Meguro, don't they?

12:52 Mike: Yes. A few of the large FAANG companies.

12:57 John Daub: FAANG? Or MAFA, I think is the new acronym since. Oh, I see. Facebook turned to Meta. So that's a castle in a way? You can see it in the center of your screen right there. It looks like a very old building. 1966, 67. Old as far as Japanese construction goes. Oh, that castle. Yeah. I was looking down at this old building right here but you could see that castle. Literally like a European. Oh, okay. 1960s castle, yeah. You did get it in your. All righty then. That's really odd. That definitely looks like a love hotel.

13:35 Mike: Yeah, yes. That's basically. That's a love hotel?

13:39 John Daub: Not to spoil the mystery but yes. Have you been there?

13:44 Mike: I am a patron of local businesses.

13:47 John Daub: Patron of local businesses. I see. Supporting the neighborhood economy. Say no more. Love hotels come in the most unique shapes and sizes and forms and stuff. And then we do have a local temple here. And you can see a lot of people doing the hatsumode. Hatsumode, the New Year's. This one has a small line, another reason not to go to Meiji Shrine. It's kind of social though. I like standing in line. You can talk to the people around you and be one of those people. Because then Japanese typically stay in their bubble and don't talk to the people in line, right? But when I go in line, I usually talk with everybody. I'm one of those people.

14:40 Lawrence: Lawrence is really absorbing culture.

14:43 Mike: Yes. He's got to go back on the 6th. It's not enough time. Why has he stayed so. He's not staying long enough. So I think he came last week, spent like a week in Hokkaido. And now in Tokyo.

14:56 John Daub: You can see we've come down this hill here and we're going a little ways. Is this going towards the river? We're going down to the river now?

15:02 Mike: Yeah, basically just going down to the river.

15:03 John Daub: I figured because if we're going down, we're going. Is this a hatoba (pier)? Is this a bus here? So for the. Connected to the hotel, I believe. Oh, I see. So if you saw on the map, there's that huge like circle area that's here for the Meguro Gajoen. Interesting. So as a few large companies. Look at these. There's so little shades of autumn here. Look at the colors. That's nice. I think autumn is still going on. You know, even though we're in winter, there's still some really pretty spots.

15:41 John Daub: We got married in Shirokanedai, right? Shirokanedai, which is Hap-po-en. That's where our wedding was. And you were at the reception, right?

15:54 Mike: Yes. The TV Harbor. Mike was at the wedding. Really nice. Beautiful, beautiful event. Yeah, because it was all you can drink beer, craft beer. It was really fun.

16:03 John Daub: So we can kind of take a side entrance and check out like the entrance hall of the Meguro Gajoen Hotel. It's super fancy. They got all this art up on the walls. Yeah, we can take a quick look. See. This is a five star hotel. Something like that. Interesting. It's where all the really expensive weddings are held. You know, like celebrities and stuff will have weddings here. They got everything. Because I think they have a koi fish kind of thing. It's interesting.

16:40 Mike: Yeah, I'm a big fan of You Only Live Twice, the Bond. This kind of reminds me of that area in Akasaka where that hotel, the Okura Hotel is still there. I think they're going to knock it down. Although, no, I think they've knocked it down and they've already rebuilt it, I think. The whole thing? Really? Over the last like five years? I thought it was up on the hill, the one with the round part where the Otani chemicals. I think it's still there. So Akasaka Prince Hotel was, I think, torn down and rebuilt. But I think they tore down the Prince Hotel like years ago. Yeah. But there's a, I don't know, there's some stuff that might still be around. They built that for the 1964 Olympics. This kind of reminds me kind of a retro style a little bit with some new stuff attached to it. You see they have the shogatsu (New Year's) bamboo out there.

17:24 John Daub: From the building entrance, we have a nice view of the river. It's not the most nicest looking river. So here's the Meguro River. This is the famous Meguro River during the cherry blossoms. You have the pink ones, the white ones. It looks really beautiful. They even light it up. Absolutely amazing to walk here over cherry blossom season. Highly recommend. Especially romantic. A lot of people on dates holding hands. So don't come here solo because it's kind of depressing. But definitely try to come on a weekday rather than a weekend.

17:52 Mike: I might have done that too. I came here solo with, not quite the, you know, everyone's hit with romance.

18:00 John Daub: Getting champagnes and doing, you know, we love dove stuff with the cherry blossoms. And that's also kind of the location of the hotel being just down by the river. I just crossed the street from the Five Star Hotel. You have the Love Hotel. It's maybe a two star castle. Does it have stars? Probably not. Well, it looks like it should have stars just for the attention to detail. I bet you they have like medieval themed rooms, right? With torture devices. That would be my. I would love to see that.

18:30 Mike: I'd love to see that. I'd love to see your imagination.

18:32 John Daub: Oh my gosh. Armando Lopez writes in here, I miss Japan. We're showing a Love Hotel which might have medieval tortures. I'm not sure. I've seen instruments and. It's nice to bring Armando in here. And the creepiest thing of all is, Ario has the, look at this. The emoji is exactly like that Apple has. Is that castle. It's specifically that castle. Check this out, Lawrence. Look at this. Ario, we're looking at it. Oh my gosh. That's the same freaking castle. What? Ario, that's, can I bring in his chat? I don't know. I don't know if I can do it. Anyways yeah that's pretty crazy that's pretty crazy that's pretty crazy

19:23 John Daub: I don't know if we should go in should we is it interesting uh once we go into the hotel area we might not be able to it might be your say so no love hotels are you know that is a look it's funny though like PESO found the love hotel emoji that does not look like most love hotels this is the office area part this is the wrong way I'm gonna get trouble so we do have a bypass here yeah there's a FamilyMart right over there the one thing that's nice is that my hands are so warm now it's a little chilly out there they do have a garden so I guess there's some restaurants inside of here as well that's a lot of there but the restaurants kind of closed under the pandemic and haven't really but we do have a bypass to a dollar right here maybe and then this is sort of the famous hotel where we've got wedding couples look at that can you go out there usually not but I mean there's tourists out there right now so I think maybe we're okay there door yeah right here yeah usually paintings on the wall there yeah absolutely incredible this is the solid five stars oh my goodness this is just like the lobby you don't get that that that vibe when you're outside the place Mike you're pretty good guide push and then this is the sort of photo spot for couples to get like their wedding photos yeah one of the spots I'm gonna go to the wedding I like it so we're kind of in between here this is a very Japanese hotel feel on the first floor but when you look up it's got that the modern structure to it somewhat deceiving sort of like the 1980s Japan hotel feel right yeah if you take a look at the little river running through here it's got koi fish oh okay waterfall over there intersects inside the building oh so this this pond out here goes inside the building so the fish can swim in and out and through well if I was a koi fish I also probably cold out here so they might all be I would also be out of the building I would also be inside the bill there's one right there oh that's where they can go in right so the pond is inside and outside right there see the one koi fish interesting I like it I don't I don't want to know I'm afraid to ask how much a room here would cost but as though you would know you like you have it's on the tip of your tongue like he would know it's I thought you were going to drop something right now no no no yes it looks like the fish aren't outside due to the the cold but we can head down the fancy lobby area again might want to keep her voice is a little low respectful of the people around you yeah and check out all the beautiful art along the wall yeah we can walk in I think it's like fabric so it's a like textured weaving fabric it does look like paint on wood okay I thought it's kind of like a fire it's how did you know something like that I don't know the fabric areas just saw the uh sort of like ukiyo-e type like wood carvings but my question is is there a story related to it that looks like Nihonbashi right is there a story to it I wonder I'm sure there is it really is ah Meguro's got some nice places next stop Colombian coffee so I guess this is the lobby the Lounge and then also have all the different like wedding dress and other like wedding event stores oh wow Wow. This is the bridal salon. Oh, here's the koi pond. Yep, so outside connects under here. Wow! This is next level stuff. So, not that you can see too many at this part, but once you go further in, the koi are more exposed. Beautiful. There's probably still a little chilly out here, so it may be warmer inside. Oh my goodness me. And then along here is all the restaurants, usually for like bridal receptions and so on, or like fancy business lunches for visiting CEOs. This is like a royal wedding you would have, I'm sure. A royal lunch right there. Yeah, when we were, oh yeah. Yeah, so wedding couples will like walk down here in all their fancery with two photographers in tow.

24:50 John Daub: So where would we go for lunch? Let's say the three of us went out to lunch, let's just say for example. Where would we go? These places are probably a little out of our budget.

24:58 Mike: Possibly. Look at the bar. A lot of places outside. There are restaurants. Oh, look at that bar. What? Beautiful. Let me crush you. That looks really dope. I remember getting a tea at the Imperial Hotel and it cost 20, what, 3,500 yen? That's about right. So it's like, what?

25:29 John Daub: Does this way lead to anywhere? So over here is where the wedding hall is like upstairs from over there. In here in the distance, we also have another one of those artificial like beautiful waterfalls. Oh, wow. The Koi pond running all along here. I see people eating lunch as well here, walking through. This place is amazing. Yeah, just take a look at the restaurant over there. Oh my goodness. All right, I'm going to go over here. Yeah, just turn to the left and take a look at that scenery. Holy smoke. Check this out, everybody. This is an indoor restaurant. Oh my gosh, this is beautiful. With the waterfall there. Oh, okay. Well, do they have a menu? I don't know. At the entrance, there's menus posted. Okay. And here's, yeah, the Koi pond running all along here. Better view down there. Oh, okay. All right. Okay, now I see they're all here. That makes a lot of sense. G says, damn, I feel rich just looking at this. That's about right. That's crazy, right? Lawrence is being the tourist, taking a picture of it. Holy macaroni. And then over here. This looks like something from Disney. Like, it's just so. And then up here is where we have the wedding banquet halls. All right, let's go up. I have like a 500 person wedding. I'm just going to go up and check it out, get a panning shot of this, because this is really massive. Elevator's also super fancy. Yeah, it is. This looks like the Trump Tower gold escalator, doesn't it? It's got like that feel to it. Yep. And on the left, just out of view, but it's an indoor building, but it looks like a fan. See, like 800 year old, like Japanese, like thatched roof building. Holy mackerel inside. Look at this. It's hard to see. Lawrence is getting that smooth, buttery panning shot from the escalator there. And indoors we have like it could also be like an 800 year old building that was just relocated into this. So somehow it does look like that. You can see the thatched roof right there, right? That's crazy. Yeah, this is like a very famous, like traditional Japanese, like piece of Japanese. Oh, yeah. With all the hosts in. And you can see there's a woman with a kimono. You can't see. I'm going to pan there in time. One with a kimono is helping somebody with a baby stroller out of the restaurant. And you can see. Beautiful natural sunlight. This is, I think it has to be a displaced old building that or something that was originally here because like, why? It's awesome. Yeah, because we do have part of the facade of the original building, like sort of cut out to meet the modern building. That does look like it was cut out. It's a little bit of a cut rather than designed to fit in. Holy smokes. You could see it. Maybe let's see if we could come around here. Yeah. Now you can really see it. This is Japan. This is the luxury is part of it. I guess you don't see it that much anymore because Japan's the money is not quite what it was in the 1980s. The bubble era, for example. Yeah. And remember, this is all indoors. This is. Yeah, this is all indoors. It's nice and warm inside of here. That's crazy. All indoors in the beginning of January. Nice. Like an aviary with a very high ceiling. Yeah. I think I saw a bird fly. Yeah. And you can see that the ceiling is controlled for how much light is let in. Yeah. Got like the mechanical curtains. It's the little details. You can see that they've covered up the hotel bit. Interesting. So if it's too bright, they can they can dim it down or if it's not bright at all, they can open it up. I bet they opened it up because it's partly cloudy today. Beautiful.

29:34 John Daub: Well, I guess that's about it. Is there anything else to show? So I think for the bankers. Security will probably stop us if we go any further. Maybe the city. Yeah. Let. We can check out the fancy golden elevator on the way down. Is there anything besides this hotel I'm talking about, like areas of Meguro that are interesting?

29:50 Mike: Not really. So up and down the rivers. Also really nice. Sort of like a walk. Check it. Okay. I think we showed that.

29:56 John Daub: Anyways, without further ado, then I think this would be a good place to stop. So let's thank Mike. We have Meguro Gajoen Hotel for your wedding. One of the most beautiful and luxurious. Tell them Mike sent you.

30:08 Mike: Did you get a commission? No. He got a welcome.

30:13 John Daub: You want to plug your Instagram or do you keep it to yourself?

30:16 Mike: All good. All good.

30:17 John Daub: He's not plugging anything today. And Lawrence, you have anything to plug?

30:20 Lawrence: I'm all good. Thank you.

30:22 John Daub: He's all good. We're just we're going to plug away with lunch. I think right now. Yeah. All right. Thanks, Mike. All right, everybody. Thanks for watching. We'll leave you with the peaceful, calming sounds of a river. That's our stream that's going by indoors. Yeah. Which is amazing.