00:00:02 John Daub: So there you go, Tokyo down there. There's the Tohoku Hokkaido Shinkansen and the Tokaido Shinkansen just making its way into Tokyo Station. It's one of my favorite places to come and do some train spotting here in the city of Tokyo. And that Hokkaido Shinkansen is sort of the focus of today's discussion.

00:00:23 John Daub: How you doing everybody? I'm at the top of the Keiyo building here in Tokyo and I thought I would take some time to talk about a news article that crossed my desk that had to do with accommodations and taxes and costs going up here in Japan. Now the exchange rate over the course of the last few weeks has been getting weaker for the yen and stronger for those that are in North America. So I don't think you're going to feel it too much, but these tax hikes don't go into effect until 2026.

00:00:54 John Daub: For the most part, and they're affecting Hokkaido, which made me kind of curious. So let me go over this really quickly with you and also show you what we did yesterday. Hokkaido to introduce a lodging tax up to 500 yen a night from 2026. This is going to hit some people from different areas of the world differently, right? The government of Hokkaido, a northern island popular with tourists, will introduce a lodging tax of up to 500 yen, $3 a night from 2026, joining a growing number of prefectural municipalities around Japan using such revenues to improve infrastructure and transportation amid a tourist boom.

00:01:24 John Daub: With the 20 local governments in Hokkaido, including the prefectural capital Sapporo, preparing to implement their own accommodation taxes, lodgers at hotels and inns will face double taxation. According to the ordinance adopted by the Hokkaido Assembly in December, visitors to the island will be asked to pay 100 yen per night for a nightly room charge of less than 20,000 yen. That's like almost everybody. And then everybody else will get charged a little bit more based on the amount of money they're paying.

00:01:54 John Daub: And again, a lot of these places already have taxes for room charges per 50,000 yen per night. That's not so many of us. There will be required 500 yen. If you're paying 50,000 yen a night, you probably don't care too much about 500 yen more. Look at this accommodation in the Shimokappu region of Hokkaido. That looks like a place I want to stay as long as it's under 50,000 yen a night.

00:02:17 John Daub: The municipalities in Hokkaido, Sapporo, will request 200 yen a night for room charges of less than 50,000 yen and 500 yen. So this lays it out for you. Niseko has a flat rate of 2% per room charge. I think that makes a lot more sense. But, you know, there are these gradual increments to the taxation in Japan.

00:02:37 John Daub: And this doesn't apply just to foreign tourists. I think this applies to domestic tourists as well. So they have to be mindful of the people who live here in Japan. As we see our friend, the Yamanote Line, making its way in. It's always good to see the Yamanote Line. Filled with maybe more tourists than there are locals at this time of day, which is very interesting.

00:02:58 John Daub: So what we're seeing here is that Japan has a decreasing population. And in order to pay for the taxes, in particular in places like Hokkaido, and more so out into the countryside. Hokkaido is blessed to have a lot of tourists coming in. A lot of them. Tokyo too. There's another round of tourists coming in on the Nozomi Express from Kyoto right there into Tokyo.

00:03:23 John Daub: The tourist industry, gradually, I think they're going to find ways to get some money off of it. Because the population is decreasing and Japan has amazing infrastructure, it's one of the reasons why people visit here. It's just so beautiful, safe, and it just runs really well in order to keep that going. Because they're not collecting as many tax dollars and they still need to make those renovations and pay for those workers. Tourists are going to have to pick up the slack a little bit. They don't live here and pay those taxes.

00:03:47 John Daub: But it seems to be shifting, and I see this more and more, where the taxes that they collect from tourists is now being put into the tourist sector. Improving the services for everybody, where for decades since tourism existed, it was the residents of places that were paying for most of it. Hawaii probably has this very similar issue because there's more tourists probably coming into some of the islands in Hawaii than there are actually residents. But I think Japan though is, looks like it's going in that direction. We don't have a population that is increasing. It's not going to be turning around any time soon. So, it's interesting to watch this process play out.

00:04:25 John Daub: Going along with this shrinking population, I saw this story as well that hit just today. A record number of Japan ramen eateries went bankrupt in 2024. A lot of you don't know about this, but you know, ramen of course is beloved by everybody, including tourists coming into Japan. But so many of them went under because regular customers, Japanese, aren't going in anymore because when they raised the prices, the Japanese weren't getting income bumps.

00:04:54 John Daub: They were going to be able to get from their own jobs to warrant paying the amount of money that they were asking for, even though it was just a couple hundred yen more. So, I was surprised by this. They have no choice but to raise the prices. A record number of them are going under because all the ingredients are going up for the meat, for the vegetables, for the things that are in the soup stock. But the ramen, Japanese soup noodles typically combine meat and vegetables, as you can see here. Usually about 700 yen per bowl, which is really cheap.

00:05:25 John Daub: But a lot of places raised it up about 200 yen and Japanese diners ended up not going in 2024, causing them to go into the red. And a lot of the people that were small businesses going under. Stop going to Ippudo. Well, that's not fair to say. You can go to Ippudo, but maybe also consider going to another ramen shop run by local businesses because they certainly need to. And they don't often have English menus. So, I think that that's something that they need to overcome.

00:05:53 John Daub: But I think that, you know, some of the best ramen isn't coming from those Michelin stars covered by all the YouTube creators. And all the tourists are going in there taking Instagram photos of the ramen places that are all chains that you could probably get in your own country nowadays. It's a small guy who's kind of feeling the pain here. And tourism is one thing that I think that they could take advantage of. But a lot of the Japanese business owners, you know, they have less customers coming in naturally because of the declining population.

00:06:18 John Daub: But the foreign tourists that are coming in, you know, they're not going to be able to get in. And they're coming to Japan. They don't have the guts to go into some of these places because it is kind of intimidating. I'll be honest with you, even for me. 950 yen up from 780 yen in 2021. This one shop. And they saw a decline in Japanese patrons. I couldn't hesitate in raising prices. Otherwise, we'd be in the red.

00:06:42 John Daub: But a lot of businesses don't want to. This is the thing that really I think you have to understand about Japan. Their reputation is more important than the money. They'll take the hit so that they can keep their customers because they can't face them and say and apologize and say we had to raise the prices. I feel so bad because everybody's feeling it, including that businessman who's not getting a raise despite the fact that, you know, it's a really tough time in Japan. So we're feeling the crunch here.

00:07:10 John Daub: And for tourists here, a lot of you, especially in this community, want to, you know, they want to do their part to try to help. And I completely understand that. I don't even know what that really means. I think you're just coming to Japan is doing your part. But if you do come here, it's good to understand that local businesses, small businesses are not doing so well. Last year. And they're having a hard time, especially in the countryside, finding people to come to their areas.

00:07:35 John Daub: But more than that, they'll start a business and then they go, why aren't the tourists coming here? But then the local government's not doing a really good job of helping them with the tourism budgets. A lot of it goes to big agencies that go to places that do promotions that they don't want to do. And they're like, don't work. I'm not saying give the budget to me, but I'd love to help smaller areas, which is what we're going to be doing on this channel. As we see another train pulling in here.

00:08:01 John Daub: What do you guys do? You guys know what that train is? Speaking of which, my friend Matt Alt and I will be doing a video podcast about Tokyo and why this is a great travel hub. But what I loved about this collaboration with the city of Tokyo, Tokyo Visitors and Convention Bureau, is that we talk about how Tokyo as a hub can help the surrounding countryside, the surrounding area, and things that you should do coming into Tokyo to get out of the city center, take advantage of it, in particular for people that are doing longer stays, a lot of stuff.

00:08:33 John Daub: So this is going to be dropping on 9 a.m. on the 15th on this channel. So make sure you subscribe and check this out. It's 20 minutes. We cut it down from 45 minutes. But it was a really, I thought the 45 minutes would have been better. But I think this was really good in-depth discussion. Matt Alt's been here for over 20 years, as have I. So you're going to hear from two people in English talking about how to make your trip to Tokyo so much better. I think it's going to be pretty cool. I'm looking for your feedback as well.

00:09:05 John Daub: It's really windy. Another reason why I came up here, it was windy down there over where I usually am in front of the Marunouchi Tokyo Station building. Did you ever eat Ivan Ramen? They closed in 2015. Podcast is going to be on this channel, Only in Japan Go. So make sure you guys check it out. In two days, it's going to be dropping in collaboration with the Tokyo Visitors and Convention Bureau. I've been working with them for years. A great group of people. I love it. It's always challenging, but it's great to work with the city to be able to do these kinds of productions because it would have taken a lot of time and resources to do it just for me. Very cool. Very appreciative of it. Thanks guys.

00:09:51 John Daub: Yeah, yesterday, if you didn't see this episode, Leo and I, my son who's almost turning four soon, we went to this ice festival. This is like right down the street from us. Check out this video. I put in chapter marks so you can skip ahead. You don't have to watch the whole 40 minutes. You can get right to the part where they're chanting and like they're rowing the boat or something to try to stay warm. It's a ritual that they've been doing now for 70 times. Look at the ice in this tub. And then they got to get in there and like man it up. But there are women in here and you can see them with the robes. And I love to see this. This is a new addition where women that are community members here in Chuo Ward can also participate.

00:10:32 John Daub: Leo was such a good kid and you can see that he was really behaving well. So after this cold, it wasn't that cold, but after braving it out here, Leo and I went to get a, I said, what do you want, Leo? It's on me. And he said, I want to get a Mega Man. I wanted to get a massive rainbow cotton candy. So I want to say thank you, especially to Michael Sassano, who's always so kind. And Ramsey [inaudible] who was never here. And a lot of you, Eiken and so many of you who give super chats. We took that and I took him for his wish.

00:11:03 John Daub: I rode about 25 minutes to Odaiba on the other side of town. He said this is what he wanted. So he braved the cold too. And I got him this mega super-sized cotton candy. You should have seen his eyes. This is like his dream come true. He's been talking about this for a long time we saw this when we went to do the Gundam statue in front of the Odaiba thing he's like I want that. I'm like I don't think so I don't think so and then I said I broke down and I said you're so good let's go do this it's 1200 yen you can get this at Odaiba I think they got this in Harajuku too but the one in Odaiba doesn't have any people inside their DiverCity it's it's like it's really easy to get it you have to wait in line or anything but it's quite popular.

00:11:44 John Daub: And I was surprised how little candy they actually used to make this puffed up the thing but cotton candy you know I guess it's something that you know when any kid sees it to like look how much bigger this is than him look at his face he's like oh my god it didn't come true it's happened for me look at that he's not gonna forget this. I think now it's not the healthiest thing in the world to give to a kid but come on and I ended up eating like a good part of this that's how I know like when it melted in my mouth and like you know there's not a lot of candy in this cotton candy there's no way this would take him like two days to eat but we pulled it apart and eventually we were able to get it's like a candy shield.

00:12:29 John Daub: That's right Chris it's a candy shield we I was gonna take him outside but it was so much so windy this it would have just flew off into the sky that seriously so we had to eat it by the door stay out of people's way. He'd been eating it for five minutes and that's all all the damage he did there he was like oh my god I'm gonna die I'm gonna die I'm gonna die I'm gonna die I'm gonna die he wouldn't share it for a while and then after a while he said you know what yeah he's daddy you can take some and the Zelda shield that's right and we ended up sharing it a little bit but you know this is kind of a fun thing I think 1200 yen is a little much for this but the the smile was priceless use this is nine hundred eight hundred yen last year look at the candy stick to his nose like what it's kind of kind of funny.

00:13:17 John Daub: But hey if you're gonna do the time and mom was away so Leo got a chance to you know it was Leo and I and I had to cover this kind of naked man festival and he did a good job of hanging out with me so he gets to he gets the prize so to speak alright guys that's all I got for you keep leave me some questions if you have any questions about travel to Japan leave me in the comments below I love that you do that about your travel your trips coming up the cherry blossoms there are some cherry blossom varieties that have started to bloom there was a one in Toyosu when we were right around the corner bicycle to Odaiba the thing was blooming I wish I had a picture of it.

00:13:56 John Daub: I don't know I don't have a picture of it but I might go and take you there but there are varieties of cherry blossoms that have already started that's crazy and I'll probably take you to a place in Shizuoka that is the first place to have a variety that blooms right now the Ume blossoms will be starting in about three weeks maybe early this year so in the middle of February that's the that's the hope that spring is almost gonna be here so I'm really looking forward to that but today the wind is so bad just riding here in front of Tokyo Station I was just this is making this really beautiful swirling kind of you see that it was it was a little bit better it's hard to capture it on film you just have to wait for it but the wind is super strong today.

00:14:38 John Daub: And for everybody your the postcards went out today that's why I'm in this area this is the onsen hot spring on the back is a QR code with the video of when I took this I usually put it into that mailbox there but I I handed it to the to the postman where he checks the stamp and everything if you want one you could still get one go to my patreon and I send these out every month the collections that people have is pretty incredible to see the QR code in the back will will help help remind you of the time that I went to this particular onsen bath in Fukushima with the waterfall in the snow falling one of the most majestic sites and majestic experiences that you could have in this country takes place right here in the winter.

00:15:17 John Daub: So without any further ado I'm going to stop here looking at that beautiful Hokkaido Shinkansen that is waiting for everybody to board to get take off to go up to Hokkaido where you still don't have to pay the taxes don't worry there's still accommodation taxes in Sapporo for the winter festival the snow festival this year but they're going to go up for next year and maybe in the summer I'm not sure but it's going to go up a little bit but I'm guessing that it's going to keep rising in particular if the yen stays weak and Japan's population does not grow and then I guess that there's really little other choice because they still have to continuously update the infrastructure here for the tourists so that they have nice places for everybody to want to come and visit this beautiful country.

00:16:00 John Daub: I know you guys do and for many of you supporting Japan yeah if you're supporting me you're kind of supporting Japan because I'm going to be taking you this month on the main channel to a bunch of places that are well off of the beaten path and that's going to be the theme for 2025. uh take you to the popular places and then we're going to skedaddle to the places that are not so popular that no one has heard about and I hope that this enhances your your trip yeah that was one Javier that was one thing in those in Los Angeles I'm not sure I hope everybody's doing well talking about Grant and Joey and we've got a uh maybe a few dozen uh Patreon supporters in Los Angeles region I hope everybody's doing well we're watching it all on the Japan on the Japan news on the on the wildfires it's really crazy stuff there um just I hope you're all doing well.

00:16:52 John Daub: If you want you can send me a message I sent the postcards out this month I'm not sure if you even have a post box but uh you know we're praying for you guys uh making sure a lot of a lot of addresses that say Los Angeles on there didn't see any any of them that might be in the affected area but I'm not just not sure anymore but we're you know I know the country is really praying for you guys and our family sure is so it's a really tough time in California uh guys stay safe all right there you go if you're coming to Japan leave me a comment below with your question and I'll try to do some Q A's uh and particularly get back to our Patreon supporters I'm so thankful for the support there because without you guys's support I wouldn't be able to make some of the episodes that are coming up because they're all like outside of the tourist centers a lot of viewers don't typically they don't typically go viral so you don't make a lot of video on those but maybe they will who knows thanks guys stay warm too it's cold up here that's why I'm talking so fast.