00:00:03 John Daub: Hello everybody and welcome to a Japanese festival. We are just seeing the omikoshi (portable shrine) going into the shrine. This is also a great spot to get some street food as there's food stands all over the place here. These festivals, especially in the summertime, loaded with street food stands.

00:00:30 John Daub: We've got here Brandy and Leo with me today. There's Leo and Brandy. How you doing? Aloha. And we're going to do our best to try to find some food. It's not going to be that hard actually. But let's take a look really quickly at the omikoshi coming in here. Wow, they're really going at it. It's getting really hot here.

00:01:20 John Daub: Leo, what do you want to eat? Okay, let's go. He said yakisoba (fried noodles). Oh, you want to play that game? Okay, let's go play the game. It's 500 yen. Here, Leo. Here, show me your 500 yen. He's got 500 yen. Let's see what Leo goes for. Okay, stick with Brandy. Show me. Where's the game, Leo? Aaron's here. Air to the run. Konnichiwa. Arigato. So we're gonna follow Leo and he's gonna go and play a game. We're gonna start off with some fun and build up our appetite. You see there's lots of these games for kids here.

00:02:13 John Daub: Yeah. Oh, yeah. He said that guy was smoking. It's kind of not good to do. So Leo's calling him out. That's funny. He's so strict. Oh, there's the candy apples there. The amount of food, the sheer variety of food at these street festivals is awesome. This is a great way to take a look at Japanese culture, Japanese food offerings just because they're all in one spot. This is like the tunnel potatoes. I know that's some corn dogs. Follow Leo. He knows where we're going. And because of the amount of people and the bandwidth kind of limited, this is a 720p. So I apologize, but I still think it's pretty good. I hope you can see a lot and feel the atmosphere here.

00:02:56 John Daub: Here it is. I believe this is where he wanted to go. So he's gonna play, Leo's gonna play this game. Okay, you can give him, you know, give him the 500 yen. Okay, then Leo, I got that. Four small balls, one big ball. I like the watermelon ball, don't you? Look, they have a Suica. Try to get that one. So five balls for five, one, each one of these costs 100 yen. Okay, put it in there. And you can get, and you get one big ball. Leo, you only get four balls. So pick, keep on finding them. Look for the best ones. Ah, look at that one. That one, look, a bear. Actually, there's some really cool treasure in here.

00:04:21 John Daub: Ikei, thank you. Nice, nice to see you here. Which ones do you like? Oh, look at the bear. Look at the bear, the bear. Ah, Matakuri, Matakuri. He's coming around again. I don't know, there's some really good, there's the poop one. Looks like poo. There's the bear. Sugoi, do you like that one? Do you want that one? You want a unicorn? Alright, take what you want, but you can only take four, Leo. You only get four. So you have to put some back. Okay, if you don't, that one, that's cute, that has stars in there. Okay, you have to put, you can only take four. One, two, three, four. So pick four that you like. Alright, the poop one, you like that one? They have green poop. It's a Japanese thing. Okay, put that one back. He really likes the poop! He really likes the poop! I don't know. Sorry for those that might be eating dinner right now. Or breakfast.

00:05:53 John Daub: This isn't a ball, though. You like it? Okay, so one more, you have to put one more away. So you have to put one back. I think you don't need a unicorn. This is for babies. It looks like a rattle. I don't know. Up to you. Which one? One ball. This one? Put it in there. Leo, are you hungry? You want yakisoba? He's making some yakisoba right there. Leo wants kakigori (shaved ice). Are you happy with your ball selection? They're making some yakisoba right here. What? No? Alright, come on, let's go. It's a family picture. Some people don't want to be filmed, and that's okay.

00:07:20 John Daub: Alright, show me the balls that you got here. Wow! Stars inside. Yeah. He said he got the poop ball. That's very cool. Oh yeah, the stars inside that ball look really nice. Good job, Leo. This is sort of the reaction that you might get because of the nuisance streamers that have been in here. Whenever somebody says no, and you say, okay, sorry, you smile and you apologize and go. Because the nuisance streamers have been in the news quite a bit, and it's such a sensitive topic, in particular around Tokyo and in crowded spaces like this. The best thing you could do is to diffuse it and say, okay, sorry about that, and move on. We're really here just to show you around, so you do what you can do. But the one point with these kinds of festivals are that they are public spots and public places, so those that are participating, they're going to be in the newspaper, on the TV news. You get sort of a pass when you're at the festivals, but still, regardless of that, always be considerate of other people's feelings.

00:08:34 John Daub: Jersey Girls and House. About to land in Haneda on our first trip. Oh wow, big sister's going to be here. You're going to have a lot of fun, and we're about to leave tomorrow. Alright, Leo, take my hand. Let's go find some food. What did you want to eat for lunch? What? Alright, let's show you some food here. Oh wow, that's not going to... Leo, but we're going to Guam tomorrow, so you're not going to be able to get the fish. Because who's going to feed it when we're away? If we go away, there's no one to... Oh look, there's shioyaki (salt-grilled fish). You want to eat the shioyaki? Oh wow, that looks really good. Leo do you want some shioyaki? This is sweetfish, ayu fish, which is really good. Caught from local rivers usually, and they put them with salt and you can eat the tails. You eat the head. You can eat all of it. It's really good. Leo likes it. Leo likes some shioyaki. What are you in the mood for? So much food I know.

00:09:52 John Daub: Champagne is really good too. It's like gyoza (dumplings). Champagne is gyoza but in a pancake. You want to try that? I don't think Leo's hungry. Chicken steak right there. They're just cooking up like chicken. That's not chicken breast. It's like chicken thigh I think. It says that wow that's interesting so they have here hold on so this one has Sendai gyutan (beef tongue), Kobe beef steak. So Sendai is the most famous beef tongue and it's a very famous beef tongue. Kobe beef steak is the most famous. What? Leo's getting tired already. Takoyaki (octopus balls). Monjayaki korokke. Oh wow. Leah do you want monjayaki korokke? Let me see if I can show that to you right there. Monjayaki korokke. These are korokke (croquettes), like a meatball I guess deep breaded and deep fried. Potato or meatball or something like that. Yeah, right? That's a good one. That looks really good.

00:11:44 John Daub: This is hashimaki. They make like an okonomiyaki (savory pancake) like a pancake and they wrap it in chopsticks and then they put an egg on top of it. You can see there in the distance. It looks pretty good, but I've never really been satisfied with these it's usually not enough food. Hey Jared's here. Mahalo. We've got a fellow Hawaiian. Aloha, this is for Brandania. Hahaha, it's not for us for Brandania. All right, we took her we took Brandania out for monjayaki yesterday. All right, I gotta pick them up now. Oh. All right, Leo is too tired to walk. I know. There's another one of these booths for the all the balls going by there. Maybe some karaage (fried chicken). Oh where? Okay, we can get a small karaage maybe. Yeah, Leo, shall we get some karaage? Here Brandi, I can give you 500 yen here. Karaage, just one. Yeah, I can get a small one.

00:13:11 John Daub: Look here's the new bills. Oh yeah, that's what's cool about it is that the Kanagawa wave right with Mount Fuji. Let's put it to good use get some chicken. And we're gonna stay back and let Brandi do her magic. I'm just gonna get some chicken over there. Karaage chicken is deep-fried Japanese chicken it's usually chicken. Oh my goodness. That's some nice sized chicken. Hold on, it's so big. Yeah, that's pretty intense there. Oh. Jared goes here's one for Brandi. Here's one for the rest of the family. That's funny. Thank you Jared. All right, listen, I guess we can hide in the corner here in the shade a little bit. All right, Lee. I'm gonna put you down cuz you weigh like as much as a sack of rice. Come on over here out of the Sun. Oh my goodness. It really does feel like summer is here.

00:14:22 John Daub: All right, Leo, you want to take a bite? There you go. That actually weighs like 300 grams. We see and take one more big one. There's one for you. That's good. Crunchy. But not juicy though. A little dry, but it's still good. Sometimes crunchy is better because then if you're drinking it with beer or something the juiciness comes from the beer. Yeah. That's what makes it good. It's done perfectly. Let's walk around a little bit more. Gosh, it's getting so hot JW. How you doing? Thanks for all the great beauty. You're very welcome. So happy that you're here with us JW. Leo studying these games. I don't think we need any more balls bouncing around the house here. But this one has like these ducks trapped in a plastic bubble that looks I know. No, thank you. No more ducks. Oh. They love their poop here.

00:16:33 John Daub: All right, Leo, let's go. Let's get some more food. Jared insists we eat until kui daore (eat till you drop). Eat until we explode. That's an expression from Osaka. What? Okay here. I want this Leo. Thank you. Here it comes. Here it comes. There's another one I think coming. Jared well said Happy Mother's Day to all the mothers that are watching today. Our mama, or at least Leo's mama, is not here today. She's working, but we'll see her tonight and tomorrow as we celebrate the Mother's Day dinner. Mother's Day breakfast, I guess it's gonna be before we head to Guam. We fly out tomorrow night, so oishii (delicious). Really good. Yeah. Oishii. Yeah? Who? He's got Sendai gyutan. But we just focus on you, okay? Come on. Did you hear that? He said that guy's smoking cigarettes, so he shouldn't do that, he said. He's very strict. That's right, those that are smoking cigarettes, might be time to consider stopping, but that's your own personal choice. Leo, that's people's own personal choice.

00:18:29 John Daub: There's Hiroshima yaki on the left side. Tteokbokki (Korean rice cakes) is one you don't see as much. It's a Korean street food, it's mochi and a typically very spicy red sauce. Leo had actually already had that chocolate banana with the rainbow jimmies on it, so he's already eaten way more than we have. And here's some takoyaki. Wow. The problem with festival takoyaki is that it's never fully cooked on the inside, right? Festival takoyaki, always kind of raw in the middle still, so I've always had that problem. I rarely get festival takoyaki. Okonomiyaki is the same way. Anything that's been, that has lots of layers in it, they usually cook it too quickly, but we still eat it. Ah, kataame (hard candy apples?). That's cotton candy. Danger zone. He is really, he has a deep, deep, deep look at that. Deep look. Keep going. He's seeing, because if he sees Paw Patrol, then I gotta get it. That's sort of one of the conditions. If you see Paw Patrol, you have to buy it.

00:20:06 John Daub: What? Oh yeah, it has Koala March hats on those bananas. Kakigori (shaved ice), which is shaved ice. You'll see these booths here. The fun thing about these are that you can actually pick the topping that you want and put as much as you want on it. So that's kind of the thing, but the price is... Ah, there's yakisoba. Do you want yakisoba too, Leo? Nani? You want yakisoba too? Or do you want a candy apple? Because then we can get candy apple too. Look. Yeah, that's the anzu kan (apricot kanzume?). Yeah, we can get that if you want. Do you want that, Leo? This is all about Leo. I want that one. Okay. Does that one look good though? I think that's a smaller portion. Oh, okay. Because the other one was like too much. I don't know. Okay. I'm cooking it now. I love the one we're sitting in. Yeah, that's true. It looks like it's being freshly made. So that's a good thing. Yeah. These are being cooked too. For Leo.

00:21:39 Brandy: Brandy, what's your favorite street food here?

00:21:42 Brandy: Probably the yakisoba.

00:21:43 John Daub: Yakisoba? Yeah. That looks actually really good. It looks like like thick soba. Sometimes they use like the instant noodles. It's not quite as tasty, but these look really good actually. That's a lot. That's an army portion. That is a lot. Candy apples are prettier to look at than actually eating them, Saya. If you remember in 2017, I ate one at the when I was hitchhiking at Hirosaki and I took one bite after waiting in line for it and it dropped on the ground and rolled into the gutter. But I think I still ate it. I can't remember. But candy apples pick up everything. It's kind of sticky, right? He's waiting. One or two? Two then. I guess you guys can both? Both. John, do you teach your son real history of Japan? I don't know what that even means. Thanks for the question. Yeah, it's fresh here. Do you have money? No, I'm not going to get this one's enough.

00:23:04 John Daub: How are you doing, Leo? I'll carry the balls, okay? I will take good care of your... Actually, that's one of those smooshy balls. What? You get the yakisoba. That's... He said, what president? I don't know. That's not a president, actually. Leo, line up. Line up, please. Wait in line. Oh yeah, you can see the you can see through it. That's very very smart kid, yeah. Change up. Probably because it has a president on it. Yeah. Leo has memorized all of the presidents, including the ones that no one knows about, like Zachary Taylor, Polk, Fillmore. Better than me. We were playing the game with Brandy, and Brandy had to use the internet to figure it out, to keep it up. I'm trying to keep up with him. Fillmore. Well, what are some more obscure presidents from the 19th century not a lot of people know? Yeah, I was like, whoa. So smart. After Andrew Johnson Jackson, I get kind of lost. I think it was Zachary Taylor after that. A lot of military generals.

00:24:30 John Daub: Yeah, help yourself. Oh, did he already take a bite of it? He ate like half of it, and then he left. Then I shall help myself. Because whatever he has, I probably have it already. Japan doesn't have presidents. They have prime ministers. So did I. I'm related to Zachary Taylor. Really? I thought it was Harrison, or McKinley that was the shortest serving president. Didn't he get assassinated in like the first 30 days or something? But Zachary Taylor wasn't exactly longer. Leo, dozo (here you go). Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Can I take it back, please? One. Two. Good. Yeah, good. I like benishoga (pickled ginger). I ate kimchi last night. I like it. It's very rare. I'm from the museum. I'm embarrassed. That's great. Your chopsticks. Yeah, thanks. Thank you. Here you go. Thank you. Don't forget. Thank you. Don't forget. He got real shy. Look.

00:26:30 John Daub: Alright, one of the toughest things is finding a place to eat. I saw tables, I think out into the left. Were there tables? Over here too. Oh yeah, here. But I think this is like somebody's stand, no? I think it's part of the yakitori stand. That's what makes it real hard. So you gotta go out into the alleys and then you're on like people's property and it's just, oh over here, we're in the shadow. The shadow over here. So this is another lesson. When you go to Japanese festivals, when you go to, oh yeah the wings? Oh those are really cute, check it out. You see she's got like these blown up rainbow wings. I guess we can kind of go in the corner here and eat it. But it's hard at festivals because you don't want to walk and eat, but at the same time you have to find a place to eat and it's, I mean this is like somebody's house it feels like. It's okay to do the squat, but here Leo, sit down a little bit. You can squat down here. Leo wants to also show you his rainbow shoes, right? He got these at Keens and he got them yesterday. I tried to get him, we got him blue ones and green ones and he said no. He wants the rainbow ones, sold. Very spiffy. You know why? Because they have all the colors in there. Part of the Aloha state, the rainbow. One of the most beautiful rainbows I ever saw was in Hawaii that day. Yeah, that was like two rainbows, wasn't it? Magic Island. Yeah, they were like two rainbows. It was a double rainbow. It could have been a meme like that dude who was going crazy over the double rainbow.

00:28:19 John Daub: Yeah, just eat it. She gave so much. She did. Holy macaroni. Do you see that? It's actually, you can't even close. Yeah. She just, the plastic wrapper, she just, the volume that she gave. This is what happens when you get a, oh Neil, you can't eat this chopstick now. So don't let the chopstick touch the ground. No no no, so what I, don't touch. No no no no no no. You can eat, but don't touch the ground because it's nasty. And we're right next to a telephone pole and there's probably like dogs that, you know, kind of pee peed here maybe. Okay. Okay. Okay. I don't, I don't know how this works here. Okay, Stan, you come to the food. Neil, come to the food. Yeah. You come and eat it because you're going to drop it. And see, I knew it. I knew it. Here's some cabbage. All right. It's actually legit. This is really good. You picked the winning stand. Yeah. Oh wow. Right? I think it's the sauce. The sauce she's using.

00:29:55 John Daub: I got plastic bags to pick up anything we drop. So, I'm going to pick this one. She got the bonito flakes on there. I know. She did a really good job. And I got some chopsticks. Oh, those are the chopsticks that have been. No, I just put them in there. Oh, okay. Just in case. So, what I'm going to do is to put, I'm going to put this camera around and then just put it down because I can't eat and film. Right? I kind of we kind of need two hands here. So, I would say that this is maybe the best one. Here you go. Slurp it. Good. Good. He can use chopsticks, but it's the ones that are, thumbs up. This is too hard. Yeah. I can't. You should have picked the food on a stick. Yeah, food on a stick. Sometimes food on a stick is the way to go. Yakisoba, really hard. That's really good. It's really good though. But you need like a table and chairs and a park to eat it.

00:31:25 John Daub: But there you go. I just today wanted to give you kind of a, because this is sort of family time and, you know, we're going to Guam so we won't see Brandy for a while. So we're just wanted to share with you a little. And there's, there's a lady across the street kind of looking in. I'm going to, Leo dropped some, I'm very mindful of it as well. So Leo dropped some noodles, but I have plastic bags to pick it up. Like, as I showed you before, always carry plastic bags and Leo already dropped some stuff. So whenever he drops the food, you pick it up. So it doesn't get on people's shoes or make a mess or feed the pigeons, which end up doing duty all over the place. So something to consider when you go to Guam. And then you can also do a festival. Maybe she does want to bite or she just wants to talk. Actually, when, right before we started the live stream and an old lady came and started to touch Brandy's arm. Is it, I guess it's kind of hard with the tattoos, right? Tattoos. What is that? Oh, nobody can hear you. I was like, what are you feeding me? That wasn't like the first time.

00:32:27 Brandy: Okay, here, but it's really hard to do it, Leo, because it's in the bag. Okay. You can try. Here, don't use your hands because I got to wash your hands first here. Oh yeah. You want to talk about the, oh, she was just touching my tattoos, but that happens other places all the time. The people are fascinated. Yeah. They want to take pictures or they want to touch. It's usually the older, the seniors that do it. The younger ones, they kind of like sneak pictures and don't say anything. But the older ones, they always touch or they always want to see.

00:33:03 John Daub: Is it hard to travel with the, is it just different? Yeah, I haven't had any problems. No. Mostly curiosity. Oh, okay. Yeah. Lots of curiosity. So it's not such a big deal to travel with tattoos in Japan. I know this is sort of like a, a lot of people worry about that quite a bit, but if you're going in the baths and stuff, I guess you have to be mindful of it. Yeah, it's the onsen (hot springs) and stuff. Yeah. The onsen. The onsen is the only thing that you have to really be worried about, but they'll tell you. They're really nice and respectful. They'll tell you. But they have a sign so they don't have to tell you. Yeah. So I'm going to help you. I'm going to help Leo eat and I'm going to give you another last look at the festival.

00:33:40 John Daub: This is going on. This is called Shidaya Jinja (Shidaya Shrine), I believe. They're coming this way. Oh, they are? I heard it. Oh, they're coming this way. So maybe, okay, maybe we'll go show you why this festival takes place. It's not just for the street food. I knew. I'm going to pick this up. They're going to come this way. They're like, Brandy, you need to explain all your tattoos. So this is in Taito ward. Which is where, uh, Asuka says, yeah, Shidaya shrine right there. You can see it's among all of these lower buildings here. So it does have a shitamachi (old town) feel to it. It's about a five minute walk from Ueno station. And we're going to pull out. Oh, here comes a omikoshi portable shrine right now. And there you can see Ueno park and Ueno station right there. Leo, stand up. Here comes a procession. We're going to stick to the side here. Actually Leo can join in on that. I think. That's pretty accommodating. You want to do it? Okay. Let's do it. It's like the children's shrine. Let's go with them. Okay. Come on. You can hold on. Leo. Leo is now participating. Oh, we were taking a left here. Leo says hi to everybody as well. So we're now on the move.

00:35:47 John Daub: Leo is actually dressed in festival wear. Festival clothing today. So he wanted to. When he woke up this morning, cause we knew about this and you see some of the other kids have festival gear on Leo. We got to get a tenugui (headband) for you too, for your head. Oh yeah. And you can see the drum behind. It's pretty cool. It's kind of like tug of war, but when there's a hundred people, Oh, the guy told us to stop. All right. Take a break here. Put the ropes down here. And this is the time where a lot of the streets are closed. He's serious about it. He came. Thank you. This is the Shita shrine festival that's taking place. I guess. Today's the last day, but, uh, what? Oh, thank you. Okay. Leo, you want to say bye bye to everybody. Everybody. He's very serious about this festival and you should be. It's history. Ready to say bye as well. Mahalo. Thanks everybody. See you again in another live stream. Bye bye. Serious. Bye.