00:00:03 John Daub: Hello everybody, welcome to the top of the Landmark Tower in Yokohama. Check out that view down there. That's pretty incredible looking down on Minato Mirai. This used to be the highest building in Japan, but it's been overtaken by several buildings now. I guess in Tokyo is the highest building in Japan. And down in Osaka we had the Harukas, I think it was called. Used to be the tallest one. But you've got here, there's the Ferris wheel which is actually on its day off today from here. And we were going to ride it but no go.

00:00:59 John Daub: This is the World Porters building down there. From here you get such an amazing view. Back 20 years ago I used to be able to get like rare wines and things like that inside of there. Now it seems like kind of like time travel. Time has passed it by. There's the new Pier 8 InterContinental Hotel with a shopping mall in there. Kanae has, there's a walnut shop that's really good that Kanae likes to go into that cafe. That's a great hotel if you can afford it. I would recommend staying there if you've got 35,000, 40,000 yen a night. It is a funny thing here. That's the InterContinental right there and this is also the InterContinental Hotel right there. They built a new one across the way. This is the older one and the price has started, I think it was 18,000 yen or about $115 for a five-star hotel. So that's kind of a bargain. But this is also an iconic shaped hotel on Minato Mirai right there.

00:01:30 John Daub: It's a shame though that the amusement park is not open. Guess what? We are here today. We took the world's fastest, is it the fastest elevator in Japan? It might be one of the world's fastest. I'm sure it's not anymore but I thought that this was, this is almost in itself worth the experience to come up here. Check it out. Look how fast it goes. It's like boom, second floor, third floor. And then once it starts picking up speed like the Shinkansen, this thing gets ridiculous. It gets up to 750 meters per minute. And you can see the floor is just counting off right there. That's just crazy fast. And it was so smooth too. Apparently you could put a coin on its side and it won't move on this elevator. So the elevator in itself is almost worth the draw.

00:02:36 John Daub: But guess what? Over here we've got Mount Fuji in the distance. So let's go take a look, go take a look at the other way around. You have where the Gundam used to be. You know, this would have been a great place to see the Gundam statue but it's no longer there. As you can see, they've moved it, or actually just disassembled it. I don't know if they moved it. It's just not there anymore but it used to be right there. You can see all the boats leaving Tokyo going for destinations somewhere else.

00:03:07 John Daub: Here's Leo and Kanae. It like kind of geotracks you or something. It's following Leo around. So I'm going to take you around and show you the Mount Fuji. You want to see Mount Fuji? Kanae's here too. Here's the other side. This is the southeast. So get a quick look, see. It looks like it's a new one. I'm not sure. I went to the BayStars game a while ago but this looks, was it this close? I can't remember. Yeah, Leo's having a pretty good time here. So we're enjoying a mini vacation.

00:04:00 John Daub: Now I wanted to take you on the cable car, the air cabin they call it, and right now it is actually moving. You can see it down there. We got one comment saying that it was kind of a ripoff and it sort of is. It's like going from the station, which is Sakuragicho, from here. Here's the air cabin start and it just takes you across this waterway to right there. And it's 1,000 yen, which is what you could buy lunch with. So I don't know if it's worth it, but you know, for special occasions, I think you do have to do it, right? It needs to be done sometimes, but this is a stunning view from above it. Maybe more impressive than the actual cable car. Now the price to come up here is a thousand yen, which is about $6.80 these days with the exchange rate. But you know, this area has really changed a lot over the years.

00:05:00 John Daub: Let's go see Mount Fuji now. Just going to cruise on over here past the Star Wars exhibitions. They've been going Star Wars crazy all over the place. So it might be worth coming in here. That's kind of, you remember that scene from the original Star Wars? Now we're just going to walk around here. There's a cafe. You get to smell the freshly roasted coffee right there. And I believe we got Mount Fuji somewhat washed out because it's just too bright. Morning is the best time. There it is. You would get this from the Shinkansen, but you want to come here probably 7am, 8am. If it, I don't think it's open then, but it's just too bright. The sunlight from this distance makes it harder to see. Is that an airplane? Yeah. They have these flights that go around Mount Fuji as well, which you kind of need to see.

00:06:24 John Daub: Ole Moun writes in here, hello from Alaska. I love the high sky views. I know it's so cool to be up here. This used to be the tallest building in Japan. Not anymore. This is cool too. They have like, you can get a coffee and then sip it on the deck here. You can get a more panoramic view. But yeah, looking down, wow, it does feel quite high. I'll take you one more time in there from the observation deck of the Landmark Tower. Boom. There you go.

00:07:17 John Daub: Do you know how high Mount Fuji is? 3,776 meters. It's quite high. So pretty nice day, I would say, to come up here. Let's go around. This side is less popular. They have this seating here because Mount Fuji's on this side. Now this is an interesting side here. If you take a look down there, that's Yokohama Station, I believe over there. There's Sogo department store. There's the Yokohama fish market over there. And you can't see Mount Fuji from this side, but you can see Tokyo across the way. That's kind of cool.

00:08:17 John Daub: There's Tokyo in the distance. You see the high-rise buildings and the new high-rises. The tallest building in Japan would be right over there. Oh, you can see Tokyo Tower. Do you see Skytree? Skytree would be a little bit over this way. There it is. Look, there it is. Skytree and Tokyo Tower in one shot. That's pretty cool. I can't actually see it with my eye. I have to use the iPhone in order to see Tokyo Tower. That's interesting. But you got the Tokyo Tower. There it is in the center of your screen. A little bit hazy today. Yeah. I don't think it's hazy. It's just bright. So it's hard to see.

00:09:00 John Daub: But this area of Yokohama was, there was like nothing here for the longest time. So it's now all this new buildings. I remember walking from Yokohama Station to Minato Mirai and all we had was the Sogo department store, which is right here. Do you see the X? I said, it's Takashimaya. The Sogo department store and the Takashimaya department store. And that was about it. But now there's so many other things here. It's really a growing city, I think. Yokohama. It's a really livable city. And a lot of people prefer Yokohama and Kamakura these days to Tokyo life.

00:09:44 John Daub: This is where we are. This is the Landmark Tower from sea level, from down there. That's pretty cool. All, I don't know, I guess it's 69 stories. It's quite high. The amusement park is closed today. So we can't, there's Leo and Kanae walking in the street right there. So we can't actually go on that Ferris wheel. I really wanted to do that today, but it's not open at the moment here. So we're up there on the observation deck.

00:10:34 John Daub: Someone's trying to take a picture of Mount Fuji. You're not gonna be able to take it from the dark to the light here. It's pretty spectacular. It's kind of scary from the outside. Yesterday was Kanae's birthday. I can share with you us singing the birthday song. So it's been a pretty good party event getaway for the day. Get out of the city and then come to a new place like this. And Leo wanted to blow out the candle so there's a little bit of debate on whether or not he should do it. Look, Kanae said 18 and not her real age. I'm not going to tell you how old she is. It's a secret. Thanks guys for the super chat yesterday. And thanks Alice. We're going to upgrade her cake and get something nice today. We couldn't find anything. I had to walk all the way from the hotel to Sakuragicho Station to find something there and we were able to get a cake. I thought that there were more bakeries in Yokohama. I guess they're just not in the tourist areas here.

00:11:42 John Daub: But it's a pretty stunning day and on a day like this because it is so windy and a little bit chilly outside. It's warming up though. It's nice to come up to a place like this and maybe look down on the world and see the potential for 2025. And I think you, I hope you guys can feel that too. There's a lot of good things that are going to happen this year. I can feel some positive energy and you can get that from coming to these observatory decks. So if you're ever feeling down and a little bit blue, go up to the highest place in your city or your town and look down or look across the entire world. And then you remember, you know, it's a pretty big place and it's full of a lot of other stories and possibility. You're not limited to just one thing. Look at all those people that must be down there and all those buildings from up here. It looks a lot different.

00:12:35 John Daub: All right, everybody. That's all I got for you today. Maybe we're going to go and do the cable cars. It was closed yesterday, but it's opened up again because the rain, the wind has gone down a little bit. But I hope the music is, I know the music is like copyrighted up here. So it's just, they get a lot of this Disney stuff around here today. All right. I'm going to end now with us going over towards, they do have some gachapon here, going back to Mount Fuji and taking a look at the Mount Fuji one last time before we say goodbye. Kanae's birthday to enjoy from a higher point. All right, let's go do this. Go walk over to the point here. And can you, can you still, is it still, yeah, kind of washed out there.

00:13:29 John Daub: But Ole Moun writes in here, I'm excited for the cherry blossom season. I cannot wait for your videos this year. Oh, it's going to be great. I think we're two months away. It feels like we're two months away from the blossoms or something like that. So let's hope that they do bloom early this year because it's always exciting to see spring when it comes early. All right, everybody. I'll see you from maybe back in Tokyo. We'll see what we can find around Yokohama later this afternoon or back in Tokyo tomorrow. See you. Have a good day, everybody. From the top of Yokohama.