00:00:01 John Daub: Welcome to Shibuya's Hachiko Scramble. You all know this location. It is a sensory overload like they like to say. And just behind me over here is the JR Yamanote line. We're gonna get on that, take a trip over to Harajuku by train. Good morning.

00:00:28 John Daub: I have been doing this by walking it forever. I almost never take the Yamanote line. I'm serious. I can get just about anywhere I want on the subway which is what my station is connected to. So I never have to take that train. But today we will. I haven't taken it in quite a long time.

00:01:00 John Daub: The Yamanote line circles the city of Tokyo and it's a really convenient hub line to know. The Chuo line is one that goes straight through the heart of it. So with those two lines you could pretty much navigate anywhere within 20 minutes or less. Probably.

00:01:22 John Daub: So we're gonna be leaving Hachiko Scramble. Let's go say hi to the Hachiko dog before we make our trip way over to Harajuku which is just one station away. Somebody want to bark? There he is in all his glory. A statue.

00:01:44 John Daub: And by the way there is a line. I would go and touch him but since tourists have really invaded the area there's actually a line to take pictures with the doggie. So you gotta wait in the line folks.

00:01:58 John Daub: These are sakura trees that are gonna be blooming in just a couple of months. Just crazy to think that we've already made a full circle and the Tokyo department store is no longer here. So the depachika (department store basement food hall), there is a basement area but you can see it's all open sky here which is kind of cool.

00:02:18 John Daub: So let's get moving. Now you could walk to Harajuku in about 15 minutes just by going straight or following the train lines or you could take five minutes and just take the train. And since this is gonna be a relatively short stream let's go through that experience.

00:02:37 John Daub: The first thing you want to know is you probably want to have a Suica card today. Today I have a Toica card. Which is from Nagoya. You can use these IC cards anywhere in the country. You can charge them anywhere in the country. It really doesn't matter but if you're in Tokyo the Suica card is probably the way to go. But it doesn't again it doesn't really matter that much.

00:03:06 John Daub: See welcome to Shibuya Station which is a very crowded place. The morning traffic has just kind of dissipated. Sometimes they have some interesting drinks in the vending machines here but I don't see anything particularly exciting right there.

00:03:23 John Daub: I'm past the Yamanote line but let's go up now to the platform to Harajuku. I can find it. It's the other side. So they've redone the station. You can see all the construction here. It's absolutely not... it's absolutely a mess. That's what I want to say.

00:03:43 John Daub: Well the good thing... look at the new lockers. It smells like a new car in here. So platform one is going to Harajuku. Boom! Look at the new escalator. It smells like a new car.

00:04:00 John Daub: Are we gonna take the next train? We take the next train... there's no reason to rush it. This is the train. The frequency of the Yamanote line you're gonna see it right now but Shibuya Station is such a crazy hub.

00:04:18 John Daub: Now before you would have been on the other side of this train getting on to Harajuku but the train to go to Harajuku. They kind of switched it. Those poor people are smashed up against the window. Are you telling me that it's still morning rush hour? No, we can't be.

00:04:38 John Daub: We only have to brave one station together, so it should be just fine. We're at the end of the train here, and you can see going in this direction it's relatively empty. And then over here, the construction, this is where the platform where we used to be able to go up, you guys remember that?

00:05:00 John Daub: And then from here you can kind of see Hachiko Scramble is right over here, but Shibuya Station, certainly this will have to be finished sooner or later. They spent a day last year. I wanted to come to it. They actually spent a day and the workers over the night switched the tracks, and they had to do it.

00:05:25 John Daub: Because they can't disrupt the morning commute because so many people depend on JR to get to their offices. So they switched the tracks in the middle of the night, and then the next day there was limited service, and then they did it again and fixed it up, and then it was done within 48 hours. It was kind of a feat that's pretty incredible.

00:05:50 John Daub: The next train is coming, so what we're going to do is just kind of sneak in there. I'm going to be real quiet, and you guys can look out the window maybe. Let's see if anybody is there, but we're going to be polite about this. Bye bye.

00:06:12 John Daub: Maybe the train is coming right now. I got a feeling that this is going to be where the last car is right here. So you can see where the, yeah, there's number one car right here. So there's no train, there's no possibility to enter from beyond this one point, I believe, but we're going to find out.

00:06:35 John Daub: Muhammad writes in here, the sound of the jingle was there not too long ago. Man, I miss Japan. The sounds of Japan really do trigger that nostalgia, those memories, the sounds, the trains. The trains rolling by, the jingles from the stations.

00:06:58 John Daub: Where the frequency going in this direction is much faster. That's why the trains are kind of crowded. There's just more. See, that lady was really smart. Instead of going with the traffic, she went the other way where there were no people coming to block her, so she could move twice the speed this direction that she could have, so she went where everybody else goes.

00:07:28 John Daub: So that's, oh, here it comes. So it seems like the frequency of the trains going in this direction is down, so they're a little bit more crowded. It looks like we're okay. We're in another world. That's how fast it is.

00:07:45 John Daub: I typically will walk it, though. By the time you get on the platform and by the time you get on the train, the train comes, it stops and you get out. It's like roughly about the same amount of time, but again, you can walk from Shibuya Station to Harajuku Station in about 15 minutes. Let's say by the Baidō train.

00:08:10 John Daub: Everything is so new, too. I'm still not used to it. If this is your first Dream of the Year, Happy New Year! Welcome to Trilogy. I'm going to drive through Harajuku Station. I'm going to drive through Harajuku Station.

00:08:32 John Daub: It's not that new anymore, but it's still kind of, because they don't ride the Yamanote line, it feels pretty new to me. And we're going to walk a little bit of a ways. We got to go to Omotesando Station.

00:08:48 John Daub: It's crazy. It's crazy that there's not more people on the platform. It's crazy that I'm pretty quiet surprisingly. Should we take Takeshita exit? I don't really like Takeshita Street but I guess I'm always curious.

00:09:08 John Daub: I like to walk down here every now and then to Takeshita and then take a look and see what has changed. And then every time I go I'm reminded that I don't like Takeshita Street every time I go. That's just me. If it's your first time it's kind of interesting.

00:09:28 John Daub: Good morning Yorajidai01. May the force be with you. All right ladies and gentlemen this is uh I've taken you from one sensory overload area to another. So let's just do this quick shall we.

00:09:48 John Daub: So you know you know that I don't particularly love this area but let's just do it anyways. So let's see how things have changed. One of the cheapest izakaya (Japanese pub) I've ever been to is street.

00:10:05 John Daub: So I'm going to go to the street and then to the right down an alley. One day I'll take you there. I don't even know if it still exists to be honest with you. I haven't been here for ages.

00:10:20 John Daub: Because it's early morning there's a lot less people here. And that's kind of a good thing to have less people here because now we have a signal. Again you don't get a very good signal when you're in a crowded spot unless you have a backpack full of equipment which I don't have.

00:10:42 John Daub: McDonald's is going crazy with the strawberry season. That is now underway in Japan. If you are just go to a regular supermarket and get some strawberries for 599 yen. They're so good. I don't think you need to get them at McDonald's but that milkshake looks really good though.

00:11:08 John Daub: Harajuku is so quiet in the morning. Here's Daiso. Used to be a big camera. Now it's a capsule lab. Interesting like a capsule hotel. You can smell the crepes of course. We'll take a look at the menu see if that's changed at all. I'm sure it's the same.

00:11:35 John Daub: But we still got a ton of these. Let's let this truck go. We've got we still have some of these old school shops here. At least it looks like it's old school. Selling kebab out of the window. That's interesting. I don't remember. Not a lot remains that's from.

00:12:05 John Daub: Oh hello. How you doing?

00:12:08 Guest: Oh great. Where are you guys from?

00:12:10 John Daub: Oh Los Angeles. Los Angeles. Oh. Did you get up? Everything okay back home?

00:12:18 Guest: Yeah. It's getting so much better in some places. Yeah. We just, our first week was Osaka and Kyoto and then this is our last week here in Tokyo.

00:12:32 John Daub: Oh no. You got to go back.

00:12:34 Guest: Yeah. Unfortunately.

00:12:35 John Daub: Yeah. At least it's warmer over there than it is here right?

00:12:38 Guest: Yeah. A little bit warmer. You guys want to say hi to everybody?

00:12:42 John Daub: It's up to you. It's up to you. It's fine. It's fine. It's fine? Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Hey. What's your name?

00:12:52 Guest: Ryan.

00:12:53 John Daub: Ryan. Alex.

00:12:55 Guest: Alex? Yeah.

00:12:56 John Daub: Nice to meet you guys. From Los Angeles. They're okay. They're okay. I mean my house is okay. Your house is okay.

00:13:06 Guest: Yeah. It's a personal life. Yeah. Yeah.

00:13:09 John Daub: That's good. So what do you guys recommend in this area?

00:13:12 Guest: I don't know. We were just doing it flying. Just walking around? Yeah. We just came back from Yoyogi Park.

00:13:22 John Daub: Okay. Something like nature. That place is very beautiful. It's quiet now.

00:13:27 Guest: Yeah. It is. Yeah. I've noticed. Some people might be sleeping off some drinking from the night before. I haven't been there in a long time.

00:13:38 John Daub: Yeah. Yeah. I'm in between you found me cards or else I would give you one. I'll have some more in the 15th but I don't know.

00:13:48 Guest: Yeah. That's... What is today? The 15th?

00:13:52 John Daub: They might be at my house now. Yeah. The 15th. Yeah. They're probably at my house now. So dang. Well, you guys will be back to Japan maybe?

00:14:08 Guest: Yeah. I would much prefer to. It's my first time. So it's... I've been having a blast. First time.

00:14:17 John Daub: What was your highlight then? What was the one thing that you were like, Oh, God. Where do I begin?

00:14:23 Guest: To me, it's like... I don't know if it's Osaka or Kyoto but I think Nara with the deer park.

00:14:32 John Daub: Ah. Did they bow?

00:14:33 Guest: Yeah. The deer? Yeah. They do. They did. But then after like... after you give them enough food, I was like, they just like chase you.

00:14:45 John Daub: That's right.

00:14:46 Guest: Yeah. They'll punch you. It'll kind of... I got head butted pretty hard. They cracked a... I think they cracked a rib. I don't remember. That was about seven, eight years ago with my friend Kevin. But they got head butted.

00:15:08 John Daub: Yeah. And they get a little upset if you don't give them... if you start handing out the crackers, you... Yeah. So I mean, look at the little cute one. He needs more than the big one, right?

00:15:22 Guest: Yeah. You start being God. You play God. Then they get angry.

00:15:27 John Daub: Yeah. No, they get... they get... especially when they group on you, so...

00:15:32 Guest: Yeah. Yeah, that's right. They're like gangs, right?

00:15:35 John Daub: Yeah. Yeah. I'm telling you, not as dangerous in that way. Yeah. Yeah. But you know, it's very beautiful too. I got... that was probably my highlight.

00:15:48 Guest: Yeah. Yeah, just seeing, you know, Nara Park. It was like rainy during that. You know, it was very beautiful. Yeah. Yeah. It was a crowded... When you go in the morning, not really.

00:16:10 John Daub: Yeah, not really. But it's like when you like... by the time we left, like it was like around like early afternoon.

00:16:18 Guest: Yeah. And I thought like crowded, you know, a lot of tourists and all that stuff. But yeah, it was... for me, it was like probably my highlight. But everything else was just like a dream. Like even right now, it's like I still can't believe I'm here, so...

00:16:38 John Daub: Yeah. Is the winter okay, you think, for traveling? Or would you have preferred to come when it was warmer?

00:16:45 Guest: No, I think I prefer to come here. Yeah. The winter more? Yeah. Like if you're gonna be here, like then yeah, it's more... Awesome. It's more colorful.

00:17:00 John Daub: Yeah. Right. It's like... you know, it's like the air could be a bit dry, but you know, it's much more like... I wouldn't recommend it if you're going like to Hokkaido or anything.

00:17:12 Guest: Yeah. But yeah, it's like I recommend it.

00:17:15 John Daub: Cool. Yeah. All right. I know, I tell people come off... come in the off seasons, the flights might be a little bit cheaper and the accommodations are a little bit cheaper, everything. It's not as crowded right now.

00:17:32 Guest: Yeah. Actually, this is kind of crazy. I expected it to be a lot more crowded, but it's still quite early. Yeah. But yeah, no, it's like... the prices are a lot more like cheaper in terms of flights.

00:17:48 John Daub: Yeah. So, I mean, it was pretty good for us, surprisingly. How much did you pay? Do you wanna... if you wanna say? How much did we pay? And people are always curious about that. I'm going to include like hotels, because we, of course, we had a hotel back in Osaka.

00:18:10 Guest: Everything was like... back our international flight and the internal flight, it was like under two grand.

00:18:18 John Daub: Wow. Okay. That's pretty good. Yeah. In the summer, I'm sure it's gonna be 30, 40% more than that.

00:18:26 Guest: Yeah. Another thousand on top of that. Yeah. Easily.

00:18:30 John Daub: Well, thanks for stopping, guys. I appreciate you coming up and to say hi.

00:18:34 Guest: Yeah. It's been a pleasure.

00:18:35 John Daub: Yeah. I mean, we went to a sushi spot that's recommended by... you know, Pablo from Tokyo?

00:18:42 Guest: Yes. Yeah. We went there and it was really good. Good. Good. Yeah. I highly recommend it. Honestly, I don't think we can eat sushi. What's the place called? I have a business there.

00:19:00 John Daub: Yeah. Hold on. They're from Shinjuku. Oh, okay. Yeah. Oh, okay. It's a small place, but highly recommend it. Yatsuhashi. Wait. Yahata Sushi. Okay. Got it. Since 1868. Wow. Well.

00:19:18 Guest: Yeah. It's like fourth generation or something. Yeah. Because Pablo said it was a hidden gem, so I was like, oh, probably I'll try it when I get here.

00:19:30 John Daub: Yeah. Well, he's been around a long time too. He knows some pretty good places. So... Yeah. I'm glad he could help. My favorite's not that fancy. It's in Tsukiji Market.

00:19:48 Guest: Oh.

00:19:49 John Daub: No, it's just full of tourists in Tsukiji, but I still go to the Honten of Sushi Zanmai.

00:19:55 Guest: Oh.

00:19:56 John Daub: Because it hits that price point and it's so darn good. It's not 100 yen sushi, but it's not like high-end sushi. It's just right. It's just right. Right. You could eat that almost every day. It's still a little pricey, but you could eat that every day.

00:20:18 Guest: Yeah. They have the aburi maguro with a little bit of fat in there and they blow torch it to let the oils come out. Oh, it's so good. I'm getting hungry.

00:20:30 John Daub: Oh, yeah. No, I'm going to get hungry. Well, thanks, guys.

00:20:34 Guest: Yeah, of course. Have a good trip.

00:20:36 John Daub: You too. See you later. That's cool. So, I didn't want to keep them. I could talk them up all day. I do have to get home though, but I got to talk them up all day.

00:20:58 John Daub: Oh, here's that rainbow cheese thing. It smells. It smells like a carnival here, to be honest with you. All right. This is a time where you guys can, if you want to start writing in where you're from. It's always nice to see in the chat. You guys can participate as well.

00:21:28 John Daub: And I know that there's a lot of people that are chatting with each other, so I don't want to ruin that for you. The Thank You Mart is still here despite the building being torn down and rebuilt. Thank You Mart. Everything is 390 yen inside there. That's what the 390 means.

00:21:58 John Daub: So, it's not the 100 yen shop, but you'll find better things. You'll find better stuff in there than you would at Daiso, perhaps. This 10 yen coin thing is really starting to go viral and these shops are kind of new. I don't know if I would eat that.

00:22:25 John Daub: Just keep in mind, ask them where the strawberries come from. If they're not Japanese strawberries, I'd take a pass on them. Grapes are at the end of the season, so this one, they might... I found that a lot of the tourist stuff, the strawberries come from Thailand.

00:22:50 John Daub: So, it's not as cheap, which is why they put the sugar on it. Do you see that? So, they can save money on... They can make a bigger profit. Because you don't make a big profit on that if you're giving away... They look like... Ask them where the strawberries are from. They don't say that they're Japanese strawberries. That's kind of a big deal.

00:23:25 John Daub: That's where the cotton candy is, but I was able to get that at Odaiba the other day. I don't know. You know what? My feeling is that this has just become a big tourist center. I was up at this... The reason why I'm in this area...

00:23:55 John Daub: So, the reason why I'm in this area... I was in Shibuya because I was filming up at Shibuya Sky. We had a press access to go there an hour before they opened, so that I wouldn't get all these people's faces in there.

00:24:18 John Daub: Oh, check it out. There's ACDC Rags. It looks like it's been cleaned out. I hope... I wonder if they're doing okay. I got to get in touch with them. ACDC Rags is one of the original stores of Harajuku when the shop was a fashion center.

00:24:45 John Daub: And it's kind of sad to see it cleared out like this. I hope... I hope they're okay. They were in the first video I ever made on Harajuku back in 2013. Eleven... Twelve years ago.

00:25:08 John Daub: This street has changed, I think, for the worse. It just... I want to stay optimistic here, but I... I just feels like... It feels like it's just gotten... Like, look at all the strawberry things, okay? I get it. It's strawberry season, but it's just become too touristy.

00:25:40 John Daub: It doesn't have the same vibe as it did ten years ago. And nor should it, but instead of getting more... Oh, look at that. Wait a second. Look at this. ACDC Rags has put themselves... So they're still here. What? That is so cool.

00:26:05 John Daub: So they moved up inside of a fancy building. Look at that. This is a brand... This is... Is that their building? This is a brand new satellite hub. And ACDC Rags has made that Harajuku look famous. They're one of the shops that made that poppy, colorful look famous. And they have their own shop here. That's crazy.

00:26:40 John Daub: Look at how this is all cleared out. This used to be an old building. They've cleared it out. There's so much more space. They've moved the building back a little bit. So more people... It frees it up a little bit. That's... They made that real fast. I got to get in touch with him.

00:27:08 John Daub: I'm sure his dad is retired and his son has taken over. But you just can't... You can't stay in those old shops anymore. Things had to change. And now from this part onwards, everything is like brand new.

00:27:30 John Daub: And this is why I told you like the... You can see like there's a... What is this? Like a micro pig house. What? And they have windows here. So this is like the waiting room, I guess. So they bring out micro pigs? What?

00:27:55 John Daub: This is... Oh, here it is. This is such a tourist thing. This is such a tourist thing. I don't know. It's 2,750 yen over 4 years old for 25 minutes. That's a lot. That's a lot.

00:28:18 John Daub: This has changed so much. I don't recognize it. Joey's like, I prefer cats. No kidding. I like pigs too. It reminds me of... It reminds me of Babe, right? I guess that would be something. That's his ninja on the right there.

00:28:48 John Daub: Okay. I don't know, folks. I'm just... Like what's with all the strawberry fed... It's literally called Strawberry Fetish. And they have more than one shop here. Ask them where the strawberries are from. Ask them where the strawberries are from before you get a strawberry stick.

00:29:18 John Daub: Because I'm pretty sure they're not using domestic strawberries. Look at this building. I don't know. That tree's still there. But other than that, it would be hard to recognize this building. Somebody lives up here on the second floor. I don't know why you'd want to live above Takeshita Dori, but...

00:29:50 John Daub: That has changed so much. Strawberry Fetish was popular last year and still here and all over Japan. The shop? Of course, strawberry season is going to be popular, but... Just make sure that the strawberries are domestic. That's all.

00:30:18 John Daub: I think from Tokyo, the most... The strawberry you see the most is from... What is that? Look at this. Look at how open space this shop is. It's a sweets shop, of course. Is it Korean? Korean chicken.

00:30:48 John Daub: Korea does street food so much better than Japan in some ways. I shouldn't say so much better. They seem to do it a lot better. They got a way to find out... find ways to... I don't know. Or maybe there's just a lot of Korean tourists that are here.

00:31:15 John Daub: I thought this was Lotteria. How did Lotteria become Zetteria? Did they change their name? The burgers look pretty good. Look at that. The Gyu Sukiyaki Burger. Beef Sukiyaki Burger. That looks... That actually looks really good. And there's an egg Sukiyaki burger with egg. I'd get that one.

00:31:50 John Daub: Wow. Okay. There's the Asics store. I wanted to ask them why Asics doesn't carry Superblast shoes in Japan. They only do the Novablast. If you guys are familiar with...

00:32:15 John Daub: Let's cross the street here. If you're familiar with Asics shoes, the Superblast are $200 in the US, which is crazy for a running shoe, but that's where we are. And that would mean that that shoe would be 30,000 yen for a running shoe in Japan, and that's just too high for the market. So that's why I think that they don't have it.

00:32:50 John Daub: There you go. Takeshita Street. It's so much more low profile now from this side. I don't know. I can't even tell if something is copyright music anymore. I'm guessing that my microphone doesn't pick up background music as well as... It's kind of weak picking it up, so usually it's going to be okay. I'll have to cut that part out though.

00:33:28 John Daub: Thanks for the heads up on that. I don't know anymore. But in the morning before 11 a.m., usually you'll have empty streets, a chill vibe. This is this kind of magical time between 10 and 11 a.m. before the store is really open and everybody has gone to work, that the streets are quiet.

00:34:00 John Daub: And this is a good time to be walking around the... areas that have the most amount of people. Although, you know what's interesting? Walking around in the morning and watching that rush hour traffic, there's not a lot of tourists outside because they're at their hotel staying warm or eating breakfast or something.

00:34:35 John Daub: You can see that up there, right? You see that? That's the top of that Tokyo Plaza, the new shopping mall. Looks like a park up there, which is really cool. They've done a really good job with it. I got to be honest, from this point of view, it looks like Disney World. It's like Disneyland.

00:35:08 John Daub: The Burrito Wars of Tokyo is here. There's a Guzman y Gomez, I believe that's an Australian surfer burrito chain. They've got shops in about five or six locations that I've found in Tokyo. But there's a local burrito shop opened up by Japanese residents called Frijoles, and I prefer them over the Guzman y Gomez.

00:35:45 John Daub: Or G and G, G and G. I forget what, or Gig. I can't remember what the nickname is for it. But they got okay burritos. It's overpriced and too small. Frijoles has a grande that is, I think, fresher and tastes better.

00:36:12 John Daub: Yeah, back in the clay. They're too small and they're too expensive for this market. I think Frijoles has, they have about six or seven shops in Tokyo. They started up in Azabu Juban, and they have a shop now in Tokyo Station Yaesu-guchi in the basement of the new Midtown building.

00:36:45 John Daub: And you can get a regular sized one for like 1,200 yen, which I think is pretty reasonable. That fills you up. But you can go grande with steak for 2,000, which is like, what is that, $14 or something? That's pretty darn big.

00:37:12 John Daub: And because this is Japan and there's no competition, that's a significant thing, okay? When I came here, there was, there's no Chipotle here. When I came here, there was no, not really any burritos options at all.

00:37:35 John Daub: There you go, looking down Omotesando in the winter. We're gonna walk up the street to Omotesando Station, which is about 500 meters. So we're gonna be going past the Omotesando Hills, which I think is, it's funny that Anker has shops, the battery maker from China.

00:38:08 John Daub: And people do smoke in the smoking only areas. I like that. They keep smoking in the smoking areas. Nobody's walking around with a cigarette. They used to though. It's because people started getting fined for that.

00:38:35 John Daub: Boy, that burrito looked good though. I'm thinking about the burrito. Oh, it's hard. Wish I had a burrito. Breakfast burrito, okay. All right, so we're walking down Omotesando.

00:39:00 John Daub: Going towards Omotesando Station so I can get on the train line. I'm getting on the Hanzomon for the next location. Today I'm going all the way out to Kameari, which is famous for that manga. I've been there before. I got another shoot with a client on escalators. So that's gonna be a pretty good episode too.

00:39:38 John Daub: This is the one place that I found they have trash cans on the street. You don't find them in Japan very often, but here you do got it. And it's got some kind of a scanner or checker. So when you do throw it away, you see it blinking? It's got some kind of a scanner going on there. So that's interesting.

00:40:15 John Daub: And it's right in front of the police box too. That's the one thing I think that Japan does a good job with, is keeping the streets clean. Having trash cans made the streets dirtier, they found, which is crazy to think about it, but it's so true.

00:40:45 John Daub: Also, it keeps the streets safer, because you could just, you know, do something with the trash cans, because no one's really looking at them. These are dirty places. You try not to have them. So you have to throw them away at the convenience stores, which are the places that most Japanese will throw their trash away at. They have little things.

00:41:22 John Daub: Or you carry it home to your hotel or to where you're going, the next location. You could throw away there. When you enter in at department stores, I found that sometimes they'll have trash cans, receptacles at the entrance of department stores.

00:41:50 John Daub: But the last thing you want to do is to be holding your trash for the entire day. I've had to do that before. That's why I always carry a bag like this. I have a side bag, and I can put the trash in a plastic bag. I have these plastic bags. So you can pay like 2 or 3 yen for a plastic bag at the convenience store, but don't throw that plastic bag away.

00:42:28 John Daub: Oh, hello! That's cool. Orange jacket. Very cool. Was she watching? I gotta get my You Found Me cards. I feel bad not having them.

00:42:50 John Daub: Influenza is out of control right now. A lot of people at Leo's school are out sick. I think there are only 3 kids in the entire school. He's one of them. That means that a lot of people are out sick with influenza right now.

00:43:18 John Daub: Actually, I took the morning train, and I wore a mask on the morning train just because everybody else was out. I haven't worn one of these face diapers in a long time, but the morning commute, everybody has one on, so you kind of want to do one too, you know? Get your face diaper on.

00:43:55 John Daub: I remember the first time I heard that. I couldn't stop laughing. I said, this is so true, and it's so wrong. It's so right. It's a ridiculous word. Is that one word? I guess there's a hyphen in there.

00:44:22 John Daub: Boy, all these shops that I have no interest in visiting. There was this one suitcase maker called, I forget, it began with Rimowa. About 10 years ago, I was asked by the company that was hired to spy on them, to check their services, to go in there and pretend like I was a customer.

00:45:00 John Daub: But the problem with that was, I don't look like a Rimowa customer. I go in there with a hoodie and shorts. I guess you can never tell these days, but back then, I got those Snickers like I was going to Beverly Hills. I'd never been to Beverly Hills, but imagine me walking into a shop. They just looked me over.

00:45:35 John Daub: Yeah, he's got nothing we need, and we have nothing he needs. That sort of felt like I walked into that Rimowa shop. But the thing is, the service can't be like that. You can't even, even though you're some kind of high-scale German maker, you can't be like that.

00:46:08 John Daub: I think, maybe the staff recognized that I was not, but I didn't give them a bad report, but it wasn't glowing. They were a little bit, you know, but maybe I could have worn a jacket and tried to blend in better.

00:46:35 John Daub: Peter and I were invited for some reason to this company's Wayback Burgers, to their PR launch in Japan. I can't remember why, but I remember talking with some of the head honchos, who are the head honchos here. They make some good-looking burgers here.

00:47:08 John Daub: But the issue with that was, like, why would you put a burger place in Harajuku, or Omotesando, and target women? That doesn't make a lot of sense to me. But they're still here after four or five years. So that's something.

00:47:38 John Daub: But I couldn't understand why they were trying to target women with burgers. But what do I know? Sometimes common sense, you got to go against common sense to be disruptive in the market, perhaps.

00:48:00 John Daub: But if you're going to break into the Japanese market, there's already a bunch of burger places. Shake Shack is here. And I think that's going to be tomorrow's episode. What do you guys think? Shake Shack came down as being the most expensive fast food chain in the world, apparently.

00:48:35 John Daub: But I wonder how expensive Shake Shack is in Japan compared to the US. I'm guessing it's not that bad. So maybe, because I do go to Shake Shack maybe once, twice a month, maybe. It's a pretty good burger. We don't have no Five Guys here. So that's some good stuff here.

00:49:12 John Daub: So we'll go and see if the prices are really the highest tomorrow for lunch. Let's go do that. All right, here's the Apple store. Nothing. There's nothing I want in there either