00:00:01 John Daub: Welcome to Tokyo Station. That behind me is the old Marunouchi side of Tokyo Station in depth. I went inside to take a look at some of the changes in the north entrance or exit. Historically in the past they had a travel center where you would pick up your JR rail pass. You'd get things validated. It was mainly for tourists where you could speak in English as well as other languages, Thai and Chinese. That is actually closed and they opened up a new one just across from there. I guess it's a new one because I hadn't seen it before. I'm going to show you images of that right now inside of there. But they also have a same day service that I didn't really know about.

00:00:44 John Daub: Here's a picture from the place where you would send it. It's just inside there and you leave the baggage there and they will—if you bring it at a certain time—make sure it's at the hotel on the same day. So you can just travel around Tokyo all day and then when you get to Kyoto sometime, your bag will be there or at least be there in the evening. That's kind of convenient and the service isn't always free. It's not free but I think you have to pay for it. Well, let's take a look at the price right now. If you have any questions, this is a live stream. You can leave them in the comments below in the playback or you could try in the comments right there.

00:01:23 John Daub: This is the north side of Tokyo Station. We would call this the north entrance or north exit. And inside here, you could see they had tradition or historically it right there. You see it all boarded up now with aluminum and wood, I guess that is. That used to be the entrance to the JR East Travel Center for international tourists. Where did it go? Well, the first thing I noticed was this here. I don't know how long it's been here but this is the travel services center for luggage.

00:02:05 John Daub: So if they pick it up by 6 p.m., your luggage will get there by 9 p.m. or something. I'm not quite sure how this works but there's a QR code there that you guys can utilize here. The services are not really that expensive. It just depends on what time you arrive. I guess they put it on the shinkansen for you like right away. Here's the baggage for typical service as long as it's from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. Same day pickup only. I guess you send it from one place to pick it up here. So I'm not quite sure how the service works actually. So I just wanted to introduce you to the service that is somewhat unusual.

00:02:45 John Daub: I tried to go in there and talk to them but the line was a little bit long when I got there so I didn't want to do it here. It says here if you want the baggage stored two, three days or more, we can deliver it to your next destination. So that's another thing I'm going to talk about in a second here. As long as the bags are accepted before 4:30 in the afternoon, I guess it gets there on the same day. After 4:30 the price perhaps is the more expensive one. This is where the new visitor tourist center is. It's right across from there. It's still in the north entrance of Tokyo Station.

00:03:28 John Daub: Some viewers are waving to me that are actually here in person. How you doing? There's the QR code for the Suica app. JR East is really pushing Suica because they really need the revenue. This is inside of there. There's a lady in English or in other languages will help you with triage I guess. So when you get to the window they can get people out there quicker. This is what it looks like from a distance there. But I also noticed they also have baby buggies that can be rented. Baby cars, they call it in Japanese. They're strollers in American English. And they have a Dr. Yellow and a Tohoku Shinkansen one. That's kind of cool.

00:04:10 John Daub: This is in the north entrance exit of the Marunouchi side of Tokyo Station. Not the Yaesu. They also have a bunch of brochures and right away my eyes are—Gunma's doing a pretty good job here because my eyes go right to Love Onsen. What the heck is that? This is Love Onsen? Okay. I'm happy to go and check that out. Because I have a copy of it right here in my bag. I picked up all the flyers. So we're going to go and take a look at this in a second.

00:04:40 John Daub: I went on to do my due diligence here. Before I started I went on to the Yamato which is Kuroneko Yamato takkyubin (black cat delivery) service here. And I can put a link in the description. But all you really have to do is to Google Tokyo Station luggage service Kyoto. And this will come up in English. It tells you how to use this service. You can do it from the airport. That might be the best way when you arrive. My wife has an American Express card. I might too. And apparently with the American Express one of the services that is baked into the memberships at least for Japanese is that you can send your bag for free to your house.

00:05:26 John Daub: You exit through Immigration and Customs. You go straight to the in the same terminal right there. And the arrivals to the takkyubin office or one of the other ones. The prices may vary. There are competitors. And you can drop off your suitcase and say please deliver it to this hotel. You fill in a form. And it's usually there depending if you come in the morning it might be there in the evening. If you give it in the evening it'll be there the next day. So you just take what you need for the night. And you can not have to worry about the luggage.

00:05:54 John Daub: This is ideal because unfortunately public transportation inside of Tokyo on the Yamanote line or the Metro in the evening and at peak times, you do not want to have your suitcase on the trains. It's just really really hard. Unless you're taking a taxi. This service actually saves you money by not needing to get a taxi. Because you do not want to bring on a lot of luggage onto public transportation. Like I guess it would be between 7:30 p.m. and well probably the end of the line until like midnight. It's usually pretty crowded. It's just not comfortable. And in the morning you definitely don't want to get on public transportation between I'd say like 6:50 a.m. to about 9:15 a.m. You probably want to send your luggage and then have it come in the evening if that's possible. This service just makes a lot of sense.

00:06:52 John Daub: It's like three hours it'll get you to Kyoto. That's pretty quick. But there's a demand for it. So in here it says examples of service fees. When you want to send a baggage from the airport to your hotel. Delivery within the 23 wards of Tokyo from Haneda it's 5,780 yen. That seems kind of expensive. Delivery within Kyoto is 3,470 yen. That seems a little bit expensive to me. I don't know if that's the tourist prices. But we'll look at what is 1,670 yen. I think the prices might have gone up. I thought it was like 20 bucks or something. Interesting. Maybe it has gone up.

00:07:43 John Daub: Takkyubin is the biggest company but they're not the only ones here. So I'm going to go in here and click through for you a little bit. This is the mobile site. So you can see from A to B and then see what the costs are depending on it. See that's the rate I'm used to paying. So I'm not sure if it's same day service. This one's within two days which is perfectly fine. I don't think you need to have your mega suitcase with you all the time. It'll send it to your accommodation. It'll send it to a ski resort. And that seems like cheaper. And you can send your golf bag right to the golf course. That's perfect. And if you want to be delivered soon, next day service is a little bit more. But I'm not quite sure on the prices but it's usually pretty reasonable.

00:08:44 John Daub: There is a chart here for the sizes here and the prices are listed as well. So this is in the Yamato English site. So it's all in English which makes it really easy. So where you're leaving from and where you're going you can correspond to the chart with the size. Now what is a 200? What is a 120? What is a 60? So they have a picture here. They have information right here. So 60 is up to 60 centimeters and 2 kilograms. That's not a lot. That's like the box that I send to the Daimyo supporters. It's not a massive size box. It's about, I don't know, like you could probably hold it like this. Up to like a mega size suitcase which is up to 30 kilograms. I think most people are sending for a regular suitcase. I think it's a size 160. Like the smaller size. Smaller suitcases might be a 120. But most people are sending 160 to 180 perhaps. So I think that that's pretty, I think up to 200 centimeters. If it's larger than that, they just can't send it.

00:09:47 John Daub: So this is another thing that you might want to consider when you bring suitcases. Try not to bring anything over 200 centimeters or just 2 meters long. I think that's the total measurements too. So it would be maybe 1 meter up and you know 80 centimeters across and then, I don't know, 20 centimeters wide or something. That the total has to measure up to 200 centimeters. So it's not as tall as me. I'm 180 centimeters. At least that's what I tell everybody. It's what the total dimensions, length, width, and height getting up to 200. So I hope that that's kind of clear for you there. But it's pretty cool. Like I was looking at the window. There's already a bunch of suitcases. So they're doing an amazing business with this. These came before 4:30 because it's not even lunchtime right now. So they're going to be going at the standard price which I guess is like 4,000 yen.

00:10:42 John Daub: That's the hard thing like to pin down the prices. But the service exists and it's getting much easier for international tourists to send their bags along. Which I think is a great thing. It also saves the hassle. Because the worst thing—and this is such a touristy place now. Everybody check it out. Everybody's getting pictures in front of Tokyo Station here. Mostly Japanese knew about this spot. But there's a rock over there that says Tokyo Station in Japanese. I think it's an original from the old station in 1912 or something. So it's been here for over 100 years. I didn't know foreigners knew about it. This is just a cool, cool spot. You could actually go up there. I think it's the seventh floor. Yeah, seventh floor I think. Or on the sixth or seventh floor. Seventh floor of this one. And you get a nice view of the really old facade that looks like Central Station in Amsterdam. It's got that vibe from one of my favorite stations in Europe. Termini Station in Rome being maybe my least favorite. Because you can just stand there and watch the pickpockets operate. I've been to Termini Station in Rome many, many times.

00:12:09 John Daub: Are there any questions before we move on to look at some of these flyers here? Baggage storage is a big business in Japan. It really is. Hotel or airport has a delivery service. You can send it from the hotel desk. I've sent... Your bag can be sent from your hotel. Most hotels have a front desk where they have takkyubin tags and you can send it from there. They'll call takkyubin and they'll come and pick it up. So most hotels have that service. I don't think it's any less expensive or more expensive. I think you can do it like that.

00:12:49 John Daub: I used to back in the day—I mean I didn't stay at a hotel. I was an English teacher but I was moving around like every few months. So I would send not suitcases but boxes. Because I had to move from apartment to apartment. I moved 17 times as a head staff of an English eikaiwa (conversation school) company. And when I moved I would put everything in boxes, tape it up and send it to the next place. But I would have to carry those boxes. I should have had them pick it up. I would carry it to the Lawson's or the 7-Eleven and send it from there. And it would usually come the next day. But you can specify—and this is the biggest piece of information. You can mark the time and the date that you want it to be delivered. Instead of getting in a locker and paying for a service to hold your bag and you're paying every single day for it. You can tell takkyubin or the delivery services.

00:13:54 John Daub: Is that guy skating? That is the coolest darn thing I've ever seen. He's got a stick and he's skating. Did you see that? That dude's going. Go dude. He's going. I want to be that guy's friend. But I can't catch up with him. He's got a bum ankle. Where'd he get those shoes? They look like normal shoes. That's one cool old dude. He's got like a walking stick. But he can't walk when he can skate? That's the coolest thing I've seen in like a long time.

00:14:57 John Daub: Are there any questions on the service here? I know a lot of you have already used it. Run Downy is here. Hey. Mahalo. Run Downy, Michael and Saya met up in Hong Kong. And that is just the coolest thing in the world. They sent me a picture and they ate more food than I can even believe. And that made me so happy when people in the community are meeting up like in other places around the world. We've had meetups where UFO Bob and Jeanette and some of the others met up in Los Angeles at Little Tokyo. We had viewers in Germany meet up and go to restaurants there and they sent me pictures. And nothing makes me happier than seeing people in the community meeting up. Shout out to Run Downy and Michael for being really good hosts to Saya and for Saya being bold enough to go to Hawaii and go to hang out with them. I'm sure it was a lot of fun. I had a ton of fun when I was hanging out with my Hawaiian family over there.

00:16:15 John Daub: So let's take a look at some of the stuff that I picked out of there. I'm going to start with that Love Onsen because that was the most exciting one. Love Onsen. Really? Gunma? This is the coolest prefecture now. They're doing a lot of good stuff. Gunma is where one of my favorite onsen (hot springs) is. Takaragawa Onsen. I've been going there for 20-some years. I haven't been there in years, but the first time was 25—1999. Rediscover the appeal of onsen. Japanese hot springs. A fresh look at Japanese onsen culture. That would be fresh when you can love inside there. Oh, I think they mean to love the onsen. Because they had a picture of two dudes here. Not that I'm judging or anything, but I was like, wow, that's really progressive, Gunma. Right? I mean, who else was thinking the same thing? Like, love hotel? I don't think I was the only one. But they got me here. Gunma Love Onsen. That's not what you usually see in the flyer area.

00:17:28 John Daub: But Gunma is also home to Kusatsu Onsen, Shima Onsen, Manza Onsen, Ikaho Onsen, Minakami. That's where I go often. Onsen, Isobe and Oigami Onsen. They got a lot of hot springs in Gunma. And it's so close to Tokyo. Here's Yamanote Line and here's Gunma. So, good on you, Gunma. You got me to pick up your flyer. I don't do that often. But then I picked up other ones. The Sendai Guidebook. Oh, that's in Japanese. That's alright. I think they have it in other languages too. So if you're looking for Sendai, you can pick up this information too. Asahi Town in Toyama Prefecture. I often like to look to see what the trends are. And what the flyers in English are like. But look at that food there. It's cod soup. Mame-Nake Market. It's a lot of local stuff, including onsen here. So Toyama's got... This is like a real gem of Japan, Toyama.

00:18:43 John Daub: Kurobe, which is also Toyama Nagano. The Kurobe Dam area. It's such a beautiful area. Not many tourists at all. A lot of people go there for skiing. The Japanese Alps. Wow, okay, so there's a map here. Of course, that's gonna include Fujisan. But actually it doesn't. This is on the Sea of Japan side. There are the Minami Alps. And then this is the normal Alps, I guess. That's the Tateyama Pass. This is where the snow walls are. So you have to wait until the snow melts. You can't go there now. It's probably closed already. No, it's autumn. In the autumn, this is one of the most beautiful areas. Look at that! Hotel Tateyama. Really? Holy smokes, do you see that? That looks like something out of Switzerland. Toyama is like the Switzerland of Japan. It really is. It's really beautiful.

00:20:01 John Daub: This is obviously the Hitachi Seaside Park in Ibaraki. They have the autumn colors. I guess that's out now. Maybe it's over. Hida Takayama is every foreign tourist introduction to the countryside of Japan, I think. Because they were the first place that I know of that really catered to foreign tourism and did a great job of it like 25 years ago. I took my mom there. And they had an English language staff. They had a lot of English speaking people in Takayama. And it's done well over the years as a cultural center. Hida-gyu (beef) is there. You can stay in a local place. But for those who just want to experience the countryside of Japan, Takayama is a great introduction if you're kind of worried about English. People speak English pretty good there.

00:20:54 John Daub: Toyama. Man, they're doing a great job. Toyama. More flyers in English. Gifu. You see the autumn colors. Shirakawa-go. That's right. Shirakawa-go. But there's a lot of attractions for Gifu. This is the stuff that you're looking for when you're in Japan. It's not in Tokyo. It's not in Kyoto. It's really outside there. That's Hida-gyu. Hot springs. Tradition. They have Kabuki theater out there as well.

00:21:54 John Daub: So, I do think when you go into the JR booths a little bit, the JR windows, they have all these paper flyers. I don't know how long they're going to start doing this. This is not sustainable. They should just have QR codes. Everyone's got a smartphone. But there's the physical security. The physical stuff is still just why it's on the ground. John Lopez, because my hand is holding this gimbal. How do you clap with one hand? See, it doesn't work, John. That's why it's on the ground. I can't hold it. The signal at the sitting down area was bad. Just a note. The postcards are on the way. This is this month's postcard. This is from last week. I got this one done pretty quick. This is the Omagari fireworks festival. The autumn, autumn Akino-sato. And they're on the way.

00:23:05 John Daub: But they're on the way for most people, but not Canada. Here's the Canadian postcards right here for Canada. They have a really nice stamp on it as well this month. The problem is that the strike might be over, but Japan Post said that the backlog right now, even in Tokyo, is just incredible. They said it would be prudent to wait like 10 days to two weeks before I put these out. Just because the backlog is so bad. I mean, this stuff could get damaged, stolen. I don't know. They are Canada Post could be upset, not even deliver. I don't know what's happened. The strike could come back, but they said wait a couple of at least a couple of days before. I was talking with Alex as well in Canada about this. He told me the strike ended yesterday. They got rotating deliveries or something. It just makes sense to wait on this. I'm really sorry.

00:24:06 John Daub: Canada Post is like a lot of other the post offices. They're just not doing well and they're in a minus situation. So I'll like for a long time and I don't know how striking is helpful because they don't have money to give you. I don't know who's telling them to strike. There's got to be another way to fix it. Maybe start brainstorming other ideas to make revenue or start brainstorming other ideas to start to I don't know pump some of that oil out of the ground and start to use that to subsidize. I'm just saying. Go to Hawaii. So your ankle hurts. Mine is hurt too. Oh, Luke, I'm sorry to hear that. There's a Cheryl. Yeah. You know what? It's a grade one sprain. So on Tuesday, I'm going to have to hike like a 10 kilometer hike in Nagano. So it's just slightly swollen and painful. I'm going to have to go to Hawaii. It's still very painful, but I think in 48 hours I'll be able to start exercising it and build up the muscle. Next week I'll be okay. Fingers crossed. I don't want to get re-injured. I have ordered a brace. So the Super Chat will go towards helping with the brace. I guess. Thank you so much. I love you guys. That's our Hawaiian family.

00:25:23 John Daub: Well, the U.S. has federal government shutdown. That's right. I forgot about the shutdown. And that's happening in the States as well. [inaudible] somebody's wearing too much cologne. I think I've identified the person. That's too much cologne, brother. Holy moly. I don't know, is that supposed to smell pleasant? So freaking strong. I just got Japanese sensibility. I don't have the tolerance to smell that. Guys, it should be illegal. Sorry about that. Yeah, taper your cologne. You don't need it. Use soap. Think of the other people around you. Oof, it's lingering. It's like when you get on the subway trains and you smell humanity, but the train is empty and humanity is gone. It still lingers.

00:26:50 John Daub: There's a lot of great places in Japan to visit here. Picking up the flyers inside the north entrance. I'm going to take you there. I'm putting these flyers back. I only brought them for illustration. There's no reason whatsoever for me to have to take flyers. A lot of people are taking pictures here. Do you guys know tsukudani (simmered seafood preserve)? I'm making an episode on that right now. I saw that our friend Tabby Eats also made one too. I was like, wait. So I thought they said that they didn't have any other creators. So tsukudani is from a neighborhood where I live in Chuo Ward, Tsukuda. I take you there quite a bit on this show because it's a quiet, beautiful area. But tsukudani has a really amazing story. Tabby Eats didn't really go into that story, which is good for me because I'm going to present the history of it.

00:27:55 John Daub: But it's a filling for onigiri (rice balls). And the history of it is after a betrayal in the 16th century of Tokugawa Ieyasu, I think it was the assassination of Nobunaga. Oh gosh, I'm getting confused here. I don't want to get it wrong, so I better not just keep it general. But after that, the fishermen of Tsukuda in Osaka helped the shogun escape. And they fed him tsukudani, this little savory fish, and he loved it so much. When he became shogun years later, he granted them land in Edo, which is Tsukuda Island, to fish. And they've been creating tsukudani for a long time there. It's a filling that you get in onigiri. Yeah. This might have also been in the Shogun series, no? It's not just seaweed. They also have a little shrimp. They have a lot of stuff, actually.

00:29:06 John Daub: I'm putting a bag around it so it can be recycled. Akita Takayama. This is the booth here. I don't want to waste paper. Japanese Alps. Oh, here it is. Kurobe Dam. I'm putting them all away right now. Spring Quarter. Sendai. Right here. And Love Onsen. I thought about keeping that one, but it's not. And you can see the tourists getting services. I love this station. Any questions? Let me go back out here.

00:30:17 John Daub: Thanks, David. Thanks, everybody. I'll see you in another livestream. Looks like we're okay. You can leave questions anytime. Leave questions anytime in the comments below. I will be back here to talk more about traveling around Japan. And a lot of you have questions. I highlighted from the chats here, and I like to do Q&A every now and then, and I'll open it up. But if you're a Patreon supporter, you can direct message me anytime, and I'm happy to help you with planning your trip, maybe give you suggestions on a more personal basis. I do ask maybe, you know, you might want to be in the postcard club. I'm really grateful for that, because I get to know you through sending the postcards as well. And that's really cool.

00:31:02 John Daub: So, I'm really happy to help you. And it's really fun for me as well. We have actually been at the postcard club went down a little bit after the pandemic, but it's been growing back up again. So, I'm really grateful to everybody who's supporting that. I've been sending the postcards from different areas. I sent it from the top of Mount Fuji, from the post office at the summit of Mount Fuji, and I sent them from the Osaka Expo. So, you get a different postmark and a different stamp on them each time, but you get the Japanese culture on the stamps as well. And I like that. And I'm going to keep trying to send them something different. Sometimes they'll be from here. Oh, hello. Sometimes they'll be sent from here at the International Post Office. And then sometimes they'll be sent from locations all around Japan. So, I'm really grateful for that. Until next time, mata ne (see you later).