Kyoto Ninenzaka and Kiyomizu Temple Shopping Streets

00:00:02 John Daub: Good morning and welcome to Kiyomizudera. This is Kyoto. There it is behind me. Hope the audio is okay. We are going to explore this area of Kyoto. Usually, you got to come here in the morning. Usually in about an hour, around 9 o'clock. This place is just, you can't even see the ground. But today, because the sun has just risen, you have a little bit of relax time to yourself to walk around, to do a little bit of shopping because the stores are just kind of opening now.

00:00:30 John Daub: As you can see, there are already tourists coming here with wheeled suitcases. And thank you, UFO Bob, for telling me the audio is good. I appreciate it. But I wanted to start from here. Kiyomizudera is so famous. And we got the sun just rising over Higashiyama right there, the mountain. Let's take a look around. The shops are just starting to open. Oh, hello. Where are you guys from? I'm from Canada. Is it open yet? It's open already? Oh, okay. Good to go. Yeah. Autumn foliage is good in there? It's nice. All right. I'll see what I can see. Thanks, guys. That was nice. When I arrived here at Kyoto Station, I had almost like a welcome committee. Several people came and said hi to me. I didn't really announce that I was going anywhere. But that was really nice that people come and say hi. I looked around and I saw them with big smiles.

00:01:35 John Daub: Okay. I panned the camera around. There were two people in the clearing with big smiles. So you kind of knew they were watching. Viewers. Oh, you can see. We really are up on a mountain here. Because if you look this way, you can see the city of Kyoto.

00:01:53 John Daub: There's Kyoto Tower, I believe. Yeah, there it is on the right side. So Kyoto Tower, when you see that, that's Kyoto Station. So it's very easy to find your way around Kyoto Station. Just look up and find the tower. Walk towards it. You'll get to the Shinkansen.

00:02:12 John Daub: All right. Let's go up here and see what we can see. It's pretty.

00:02:29 John Daub: Now, I want to start from here and go towards Ninanzaka because that's going to get even more crowded. But one of the things I wanted to do is just get a glimpse of the autumn foliage in this area. So right now it's at its peak or maybe it's a little bit after. You can see there are tourists from all over the place.

00:02:51 John Daub: Hey, Nicole is here. This is beautiful. 8 a.m. in Japan. I know it's so early. Wow. Yes, it does look nice.

00:03:03 John Daub: Sometimes you don't have to go into Kiyomizudera to get the feeling of being at Kiyomizudera. So the colors are just starting to change here. It looks like it's just a little bit too early. Let me see if I can zoom in on that for you. Yeah, we're just about three days away, maybe four days.

00:03:40 John Daub: Very nice. Very nice. I also saw that the spider web. Do you guys see that? This is also so to me. This is so giant. It's so Japanese. I've lived in the countryside for a long time and seen these yellow spiders. That might creep out some of you here. I apologize. I can't really focus. But you'll see these yellow bumblebee looking spiders all over the countryside. They're harmless. Very nice.

00:04:21 John Daub: I think this is the exit to Kiyomizudera actually. Let's go over to the shopping street. Here's the exit. Let's go to the shopping street and we'll go check out and see what we can find. Let's see what that's like in the morning. I highly recommend if you are staying in Kyoto that you wake up early and get an early start. And then take a break around, I don't know, 12 and 12 to 2. And then go back out because take a long lunch because I guarantee you it's going to be really packed. And it'll wear you down over time. In particular, Fushimi, Nari and the bamboo forest and Arashiyama and this area where I'm about to take you, Ninenzaka, is super crowded.

00:05:09 John Daub: Wow, look at the trees here.

00:05:32 John Daub: It's about a 30 minute walk from Kyoto Station. Do watch out. This is actually a road so you'll get cars going by. But you can walk here from Kyoto Station in about 30 minutes. You don't need to take a bus or a taxi but it is a walk. And a lot of that walk is not really pretty. It's going through the city of Kyoto so not exactly photo worthy so much. But you can get a view of all the restaurants. And there's Kyu Musa Dera, a map of it.

00:06:22 John Daub: Very, very old shrine back to I think 700 AD. Oh, hi. Where are you from? Indonesia. Okay, awesome. Are you just walking around here? I'm just walking and streaming, showing the people before the crowds come you get a signal. It's really good weather and also good beach. Isn't it cold for you? It is very cold. You want to say hi to everybody? No one. No? Okay. Yes, see you guys. That's nice. From Indonesia. Satrio is over there too.

00:07:02 John Daub: Alright, let's go take a look down towards Ninenzaka in that area. The closest one is Sanenzaka. If you count in Japanese Ichi, Ni, San, you get the idea. San being the third stairway, Ni being the second. Well, I think there's only two. I've yet to find a Yonenzaka. A lot of Japanese students also make the trip to Japan. It's not just international tourists because this is the cultural heart of Japan. Let's look back at Kiyomizudera. We're just starting from here. Make our way down the street as some of the shops start to open at 9 o'clock, which is somewhat late because the temple opens up at 6 a.m. right now.

00:07:53 John Daub: But you can notice that it's really not crowded yet. And that's something I want to... That's an impression that I want to leave on you. If you were to wake up at 6, which is just before sunrise right now because the sun comes up a lot later. It comes up at 4:30 in the morning in the summer. And 6 a.m. around this time, you'll start to see peaks of the sun around 6:15. So it's a lot later than the summer. But if you wake up at 6 and you get an early start, you can grab breakfast on the road, like walking around. Lots of cafes and places to get a croissant and a coffee or something. You can always stop off at a convenience store. Some of the shops are open. They just opened up. One door is open, one door is closed. But they know how to make business here.

00:08:44 John Daub: Another great thing about waking up early, you get a signal to live stream. That's pretty cool. But you can see also it's already getting busy. When I came up here, maybe there were about 4 or 5 people walking around me. Now there's about 12 or 13 people in groups. And in about an hour, it's going to be all people. Like a tight line. A cradle wave. And they're all walking up. No one's really walking down except for us.

00:09:25 John Daub: I've mentioned, Sushroom is here. Thanks for joining. I have heard a lot of people speaking Chinese. I don't know if it's from Taiwan. But right now, if you're watching the news, there's a riff going on between the two countries. Which is, I bet you, short-lived. Who knows, really. But I hear a lot of Chinese. And it's not Taiwanese. People from Taiwan. There are people from mainland China here. Even on package tours. I think maybe it's the last of them. But they're boycotting Japan. Which means, yeah. I think places are going to be less crowded. Especially bus tours where heaps of people come in hordes. Maybe that's going to kind to lessen a little bit. Which is good. But it has an economic impact for sure. However, most of those tour groups, the ones that aren't coming, are all lopped into Chinese-run businesses. So the money pretty much stays in China. Like most of it. But it does have an economic impact. And you want to increase tourism, not decrease it. In a sustainable way. So maybe it's a good thing. I don't know. We're going to find out how long this lasts.

00:10:37 John Daub: So the signal at this point might be going in and out because we're between the buildings. But as soon as we get down to... Oh, there's a Yatsuhashi. You guys know Yatsuhashi? These are like mochi triangles. A little bit of cinnamon-like powder on them. They're really good. So bear with me. If the signal does go out, just skip ahead. You can double tap. You get 10 seconds ahead. The signal will go in and out a little bit.

00:11:01 John Daub: Yeah, this is a Yatsuhashi company. And you can see they have tons of Yatsuhashi. Let me show you what it is here. Usually there's anko red bean paste in there. Sometimes you'll find white anko. That's the gift to get from Kyoto. Yatsuhashi. You'll find it at Kyoto Station as well. Alright, we're getting closer to the steps. So the signal should come back a little bit from between the buildings here.

00:11:38 John Daub: Take a right at the matcha ice cream cone over there. A view of Kiyomizudera at night. They do illuminate the trees until December 7th. So it started today? It's today the 20th? No, tomorrow. So the illuminations of Kiyomizudera starts tomorrow. They're boycotting Japan because of something that the prime minister said that's no different than the past prime ministers. Which is just odd. I think China's just testing her. They don't like her very much. The government. But the people? They're pretty even keeled, okay? Don't judge the Chinese people based on the government. Just same with the United States and any other country for that matter.

00:12:33 John Daub: So this is Ninen. This is Sannenzaka. And we're going to take you through here. The tourists have yet to come in hordes yet. But this is not a trash can. Please do not throw anything away. It's also not a chair to sit on. It's an electrical box. So this is Sannenzaka. It's a nice view looking down. And the stairs go down towards Gion if you keep going in this direction. The Higashiyama region of Kyoto. You can see those old roofs in the distance over there. And yes, we will be going past if we get to Ninenzaka. That's Starbucks there. Starbucks is not doing too well here in Japan, by the way. Komeida, which is a Nagoya chain. They're starting to kick their butts.

00:13:26 John Daub: It's a good place for a photo. I don't mind if I do.

00:13:35 John Daub: Hi, Mom. Is that good? I got to take... I can't use my... Actually, I do have another camera, but I can't take... I can't use my smartphone if I'm... You can say, hey... Oh, I forgot. You can say, cheese. I just say, hi, Mom. But that doesn't make a good smile. Because if I smile, I smile too much.

00:14:08 John Daub: Hey, there's Ryoma. He's not Kyoto. He's Kochi. Oh. Ryoma Sakamoto, the famed samurai. I guess he did... He must have come to Kyoto. He must have been everywhere. But these streets going towards Gion are really nice. And you really enjoy it mostly when the stores are closed in the morning right now. Because again, once the tourists come, it just changes the vibe. It does feel a little bit stressful. You have a cement mixer over there. That's a small one. But the old school feel of Kyoto, despite all the stores changing and the, you know, less Japanese faces, more foreign faces, more foreign languages heard, the temples and the shrines have not changed. That history remains intact. It just feels a little bit different than when I came here 25 years ago. But Kyoto's always had a lot of tourists.

00:15:15 John Daub: If you didn't see it before, the light up there, it's like a little bit of a... It's like a light up for Kiyomizu-era starts tomorrow. I sent a postcard of this a couple years ago. It's really beautiful. A lot of the temples and the shrines have illuminations. They put posters up to attract them. Even though they're places of worship, they're also somewhat tourist attractions and they do make money off of tourists.

00:15:42 John Daub: Manastone is here. My husband is live again. Woo. Well, I'm not your husband. But I'm here. Thank you for that. I appreciate it very much. Peace.

00:16:01 John Daub: So this is where we'll be walking in this direction. But the posters tell the story. It's just a stunning area to walk. So I guess until a certain time, taxis can even come in here and dump tourists right in the center of everything. There's a famous spot to take a picture. I think it's around here where there's a temple, a pagoda in the background. That's not too far around here as well. But I'm going to take you... A taxi just dumped us some tourists off here.

00:16:47 John Daub: Again, I can't reiterate this enough. Get your butt out of bed early in Kyoto and go to bed early in Kyoto. And you're going to have a much better experience because those that wake up at 6 and take advantage of the 6 to 11, 6 to 10 will have a less... A much better experience. A much more enjoyable experience. Less stressful. It's just amazing to see how much English is here. Even the English is written big. Usually it was quite small. Now tourists need to see it. So that's really fascinating to me. The vending machines blend in. You can hardly tell.

00:17:40 John Daub: Maruyama Ningyo. It's too bad they're closed. It looks like a doll shop.

00:17:51 John Daub: Gachapon. That is a little odd. Gachapon. Gachapon doesn't really fit this neighborhood.

00:17:58 John Daub: Guess who's here? Brandania. Mother to a new puppy. One of the cutest little guys. I think it was a guy, right? She sent me a picture of him taking care of a little abandoned baby puppy. How could you get rid of a little guy looking so cute like that? Brandy's a good mama. Aloha.

00:18:35 John Daub: Alright, we're getting close to Ninenzaka. And that's Starbucks and all the other buildings. But you can see there's a school class right there. The teacher. I can't believe they're wearing shorts. It's really chilly. Thank you, Brandy.

00:18:55 John Daub: I'm going to get some yatsuhashi for everybody with that. I saw Lipton has a milk tea here. That's interesting. Oh, and these just came out. These caramel macchiato in pet bottles.

00:19:23 John Daub: That's Kyoto. They've done a great job not just preserving it, but renovating a lot of these old buildings. These old Matsuya houses. There we go. Here's Ninenzaka. The tourists have found the crow. See? Look at the... Where's HelloHi821? He's posing for the tourists. That's hilarious. Everybody's taking pictures of him.

00:19:59 John Daub: Alright, Ninenzaka. You can see everybody wants to take a picture looking down at the houses from here. Again, there's not really any... The amount of tourists right now, it's amazingly light. For what it usually is.

00:20:16 John Daub: Hey, Walter is here. I woke up at 4:25 PM Pacific and... Is it really that early in the US? And you're doing a classic night adventure. Oh, that was yesterday. And now I'm about to leave for work and you're doing a morning stream. How could I not here in Kyoto? Let's kind of... We can kind of sneak in here. A lot of people take a picture here and I'm sure I'll do that too. Oh, there he is right there. The truck is in the way.

00:21:04 John Daub: But hey, it's got a refuel. For the people. Is that good? If I do the peace sign on the... It really makes the truck disappear. Just take a screenshot.

00:21:35 John Daub: Yeah, I guess I'm kind of a tourist. What are you going to do? This is... I lost count how many times I've been to Kyoto. Maybe like 60. I don't know. I've been here at least 20, 25 times for work. And every time somebody would visit me back in the day, I would... bring them to Kyoto. Especially when I lived in the area. I lived in Nagoya for... for two years. Two or three years of my 27 here.

00:22:08 John Daub: You know what people are lining up for? Apple pie. This is new. Now I could do... Oh, that smells so good. Ooh. It got me. Let's take a picture from here.

00:22:42 John Daub: I guess the truck's bringing more apple pies. I could totally do a Ninenzaka street food. Look at this. This is just plastic models. Like, in fact, there's... It's all plastic models in there. What? Leo would love this. He loves the Satsuma potatoes. All these different colors too. I would... I did not expect that. But a lot has changed here on the street. The businesses don't stay the same. And yeah, you know what? I could totally do a street food episode. I got to get Kevin Riley back down here.

00:23:44 John Daub: It's fake food. It's fake. But it looks good. Let's walk past some of the tourists here. You can... We could totally do a street food episode in Kyoto just on the street now. You couldn't do it about 10, 15 years ago. I made an episode at the street market. And you had to focus there. But nowadays, with all the tourists, you can focus on just street food. And they're opening up earlier, which is great. Because then there are no lines.

00:24:18 John Daub: Hey, Jeff Kennedy's here. My brother from Philly, the city of brotherly love. There we go. Kyoto strawberry chocolate. Whenever you buy strawberry... The season just started, by the way. These don't look... Are they real? I guess they are real. When they're out of season, they're not from Japan, typically. But now most of them are in greenhouses. Strawberries are almost year-round. But you have to be really careful because nothing against Thai strawberries. They're a little bit tartier. So you have to put sugar on them. But you're not getting Japanese strawberries. And why would you pay $15 if you're not getting the good stuff, right? Just be careful. Always ask for the origin of any beef or vegetables that you buy. Because you don't want to... I mean, you don't want to get stuff that the owner bought at Costco. You want to get local, like Shiga prefecture, Kyoto prefecture strawberries, right?

00:25:33 John Daub: Yeah. Because it's really good. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. There was a donut shop back there. I think they're on their honeymoon. Isn't that nice?

00:25:47 John Daub: Look at this. Okay. So this is interesting. Because of all the tourists here, you do see places that say no photos. I'm just taking a picture of the no photos sign. I mean, they don't want you to go down there with a camera, but a lot of people do. So they make a sign, and usually that's enough to keep 90% of the people, 99% of the people. But there's always one weirdo that of the one out of a hundred weirdos goes down there.

00:26:25 John Daub: Name that rabbit. Pita Rabbit. England representin'. It's funny that he's really popular I guess with all kids. Especially since the animation, the series. But this one shop which is not open is super popular. This is the Ghibli shop. You can just tell it's open in an hour or so. And it does look inside there. Can't even see. There's a Totoro inside there. But Totoro is not from Kyoto just so you know. Toto is not from Kyoto. But you know it's nice to see Totoro wherever you go.

00:27:12 John Daub: There's Unagi. The region is a well I guess it's kind of famous in Shizuoka and Aichi Prefecture which is the neighbor to Kyoto in a way around Shiga and Mie. But yeah. Unagi. Unagi is nice to have in Japan. Just make sure once again it's domestic Unagi. Just I think it's a good idea to ask that. There's a reason why if it's under a thousand yen there's probably a reason why it's not from Japan. Most likely. Or it's you know maybe past its expired date or something.

00:28:01 John Daub: A lot of students coming. We're early. We're before. Michael Sassano's here. Michael was just telling me that the sister city to Oahu is Sakai right? Sister city donated or gifted fireworks which is really awesome. So that's cool. I'm looking forward. You gotta take some pictures if you see it man. Thanks for that Michael. It's nice to see you here.

00:28:42 John Daub: Let's take a quick look at the map. Most of these buses right now have students in them. So you can see the walk the Ninenzaku. We just passed through Ninenzaka. You see most of the shops aren't open yet. But that old-world vibe which is really nice.

00:29:34 John Daub: Yeah we're just walking around here. This is um that's the end of the Higashiyama kind of. He's trying to park so I don't want to get in his way. That's kind of the end of the Hagashiyama towards the Kiyomizudera neighborhood. The neighborhood region of Kyoto. But the walk actually keeps going. You go around the park here and you take a right and you can walk all the way to Gion and to another temple or shrine which is very beautiful. Gosh I can't remember what it is in the park. It's about a 10 minute walk from you know about 15 minute walk from here. Oh they got some Oden. But the shop's not quite open yet. Tons of kimono rental places. I always have a lot of fun. So you can get you can get kimono rentals in Kyoto and you should it's fun to do because it makes your pictures real special I think. It's something you should do. But I wouldn't go so far as pretending that you're a Maiko and painting your face white and walking around. Here's why. Especially if you're coming from even from the Philippines or Malaysia or Western tourists think you're a real real Maiko. And you're going to get everybody to taking pictures of you because they think you're a Japanese Maiko walking around. And it's hilarious because I know you're not from Japan but they don't know. And everybody's taking pictures you become a celebrity. It's actually kind of cool in a way. But you're going to be in about a million pictures if you walk with a white painted face like a Maiko and walk through where I just walked through. It's kind of funny. It's kind of funny. I just I usually would just stand back and watch the chaos. It's funny because I've been here for a long time. I don't know. There's little things that you have to kind of laugh at the little things. So tourists taking pictures of other tourists thinking that they're Japanese. I know that because I asked afterwards and I said oh really what did you get a good picture. He goes yes I got a great picture of a Japanese Japanese geisha. I said OK. You don't want to break the bubble and say no. Actually she's from the Philippines or Vietnam.

00:32:05 John Daub: That's a beautiful hotel. Is that a hotel. You'll find some amazing hotels or restaurants hidden in this. This is a actually a pretty good lunch. It's about thirty dollars but you get to eat inside here. It's nice. Away from all the tourists other plus size traditional clothes rentals there are. I don't know how plus though. But I know you can get them. I would call ahead to make sure because there might be a limited amount actually. I'm just, I'm pretty sure they don't have too many of them. But if you did want it, that shouldn't stop you. You should go ahead and do it. I think call ahead or the hotel could probably arrange it for you. They'll find a place that has them. But I know that they do have a limited amount. But how plus, I'm not sure how big they get. But it's hard for me. 20 years ago, I did, I came here. Sorry, not 20, maybe about 18 years ago. I did a TV shoot. And I had to, here in Kyoto. I don't, I never saw it air. But I had to dress into a kimono. And they had trouble finding, not an L size. Because that's too small for me. I'm 180 centimeters, more or less. And probably less. About 180 centimeters. But I would take a double L. Like an LL size kimono and yukata. And it was. You can see if you watch around. Most people's yukatas are too short. Over there, that's not a bad. That's the wedding picture.

00:34:19 John Daub: Crocs. They're more, hey, crocs are more comfortable than geita. They really are.

00:34:42 John Daub: They're comfortable. I'm not going to knock them. I would, I probably would do the same thing. People always tell me don't wear socks with sandals. I do it anyways.

00:35:03 John Daub: I can ask them here. Good morning. Do you have a plus size? Yes. How big? About 5L. Up to 5L? How much? One day. One day. Wow, that's cheap. Thank you. Thank you.

00:35:27 John Daub: Oh, wow, okay. So I was talking and so they do have a, they have a plus size. I'm not allowed to take pictures here. Okay. This street has a no camera sign. So they have a plus size up to 5L. Right here. Up to 5L. Okay. Does that help? Yeah. I didn't know that they went, so that's pretty big. So you're going to be okay. I think she said it was 5,000 yen. But you know what's funny? I'm speaking Japanese and she has like the same face as me. She's from South, from South Asia for sure. Speaks English and Japanese. Her Japanese is pretty good. I've been here long enough where I feel pretty comfortable speaking Japanese to other foreigners now. That takes practice. It really does. Because if you see a Western face and you're, because my Japanese is not great. But if you see a Western face, your default is just to start to speak English. I've overcome that now. Because I've been here for a long time. My default is to speak Japanese to everybody all the time because this is freaking Japan, man. I'll speak Japanese if you don't know. I'll speak my broken bad Japanese and if you don't understand what I'm saying, then we'll talk in English.

00:36:44 John Daub: Yatahashi. That's a big one. Big one. Oh, brandy. This is the one I got to get. I got to get this for, for Kanai. And Leo. That is a lot of Anko in there. Usually they're like this big and usually they'll come with the matcha ones and then the, is it Nika or Nikki? Nikki. That's a mega size one. That's a mega pint. Oh, mama. They better have that at the station because it's closed here. I've never seen one that big. But I feel enlightened. I'm actually, I am walking back this way. So my hotel is in this direction. And you're coming with me now. So let's go. We're going to go back up, up Ninanzaka. I'm, I'm going to go back to the hotel and I'm going to explore a little bit more, but I'm scouting right now. And I think that this is a good idea to do in the morning right now. I think Brandy, you'll confirm. So Leo, Kanai and I are going to be dressing up in clothing and doing something of a modeling shoot. But I think that this is walking down Ninanzaka with the light in the morning is really nice here, right? I think with the background there, sorry, I don't want to put people in the spot, but they're literally in the spot. What are you going to do? I think that'd be really nice, right? With this background.

00:38:29 John Daub: That's what I'm here for. I'm here to look at the lighting, to see the viability of the crowds and if I could shoot. And if so, I will get my wife and my son here in the morning, like at 7 a.m. And do the shoot before all of us leave. And if all of the people come, that's what I'm doing here. So the morning is not too bad around Ninanzaka. You have some periods where I can get those shots in super slow motion. By super slow motion, I mean 120 frames per second, which is 25% the normal speed.

00:39:21 John Daub: So I made an episode. You guys might know what I'm talking about. I made an episode last year. It went viral on an Instagram reel. See, Christmas is already here. This shop just opened.

00:39:41 John Daub: That would be cute for Leo. Look at that. Some Jinbei pajamas.

00:39:51 John Daub: Here's the Starbucks. It's open, but there's no line for it anymore. There used to be a line as the kids go to school here.

00:40:03 John Daub: Everybody says there's no garbage cans in Japan. Well, guess what? There are garbage cans in Kyoto. They just look like this. Plastics, other garbage. I think this might be maintained by the Starbucks. Let's see what's inside here. This Starbucks is actually a maze. It's pretty amazing, I should say. It's an old matcha. It's one of the more famous Starbucks in the world. But you can explore in here. They have a lot of little nooks and crannies that make it really interesting.

00:41:02 John Daub: Made of real wood. If you rub it three times, the genie will come out, give you a free cup of coffee. Details are impressive. The lighting isn't as good this direction, though. But if you do it from the side, you get the store opening, the stores. It's better from the other side. And this truck is a real pain in the neck. Oh, look, there's no line for the apple pie. They have a matcha apple pie. Of course they do. I don't think they're going to run out. It smells really good.

00:42:09 John Daub: It's too early. Brandy, it's too early. No, Brandy, no. Oh, oh, look. Morning prayers. Hurry, hurry.

00:42:55 John Daub: The sound is echoing through the streets. It's pretty nice. It's bright.

00:43:10 John Daub: The sun is coming straight, straight at me there. Are we going to go in this direction just a little bit to scout out? That's what the crow was about 20 minutes ago. He really likes to say, oh. I have to find the significance behind that.

00:43:33 John Daub: Oh, okay, this is the shot. So if you go past Nina and Zaka just a bit, this is what I wanted to show you. People line up. It's like train otaku. They get violent if you try to take the pictures of trains. And while they're doing it, you get in their way. They turn violent, these photographers, train photographers. This is the shot. It's really nice. I think if I do come at 7 a.m., we should be able to get a shot of Leo, me, and Kanai walking here. I made a postcard of this already. But you guys know this scene here. This is already a postcard I sent.

00:44:21 John Daub: Callie Rae, how dare you? Must do pie as Brandy said. All right, all right, all right.

00:44:39 John Daub: Let's just soak. Can we soak this up for a second without talking about pies? Soak it. I'm going to raise you up real high on this stick. Now you guys are about 8 feet tall right now above everybody.

00:45:04 John Daub: You guys can let me know where you're at. I'm going to show you where you're watching from. If you're shy to say anything, you can just do that one. That one's low-hanging fruit. Here's a nice pan for you. Here you go. How about like this here?

00:45:33 John Daub: That's not too bad. Like this.

00:45:49 John Daub: This is nice. You can play with the gimbal. You can do all sorts of fun stuff with it. Hello from Canada. I saw Western Kentucky in there. That's pretty cool. Queens, New York. I know we got a lot from watching from Hawaii. I know we got a lot from watching from the in the house from pie Indiana. Okay. Okay. Okay. I'm going to go get the darn pie. All right. Gosh, making me eat pies.

00:46:20 John Daub: Apples are healthy. Oh, yeah. Apples are healthy. They're the healthiest vegetable. Little deal on fiber. It's really hard for high fructose corn syrup. Why am I still? Why am I talking in this voice? That's not how Brandy talks. I don't think I can imitate Brandy's accent. Cali Ray's. I can't. I can't imitate. Cali Ray.

00:46:55 John Daub: All right. Let's go do it. I'm hoping that there's still no line because I don't want to. You guys are getting a bonus here. It's because the super chats are nice. I appreciate it. I love you guys. I'm going to go do something. Do something I normally wouldn't do. Get an apple pie. Oh, my God. That truck is all apple pies. This is the mother load. That's all apple pies. I just want to get the keys and drive away. How much is one? Holy crap. It's 700 yen. That's a lot.

00:47:58 John Daub: I'm going to need a coffee.

00:48:07 John Daub: Oh, these are made with Nagano apples. They're Fuji apples. Should I get the Uji Matcha cream apple pie or the apple custard pie? This one looks really good. I guess I got to go for this one because it's got nuts and I am nuts.

00:49:13 John Daub: Cali Ray. Thanks for the coffee, brother. It smells really good.

00:49:51 John Daub: Good morning. Good morning. It's freshly baked. It's freshly baked, right? Yes. Then, please take this caramel nut.

00:50:19 John Daub: Thank you. Thank you. I got it. I did it. It's really light. It's not enough apple in here. It's too light.

00:50:36 John Daub: Look, you guys aren't here. I am. I got to eat this for you. You're not here. I got to do it for you. This isn't for me. This is for you.

00:50:47 John Daub: I'm pretty sure I saw that. I saw that. I saw the kanji for where I just was. All right. Itadakimasu.

00:50:56 John Daub: Watching from Cuba. Wow.

00:50:59 John Daub: All right, Brandy, Cali Ray, are you guys good? You good now?

00:51:20 John Daub: It's good. I mean, you can see inside there. I don't really taste the nuts. I think the custard might be... It's good, but I mean, no, no, no. I wouldn't wait in line for more than five minutes for it, for that price. They should be bringing it out to me. A silver platter. It's better than the McDonald's apple pies. I think just get the normal custard one, but it's good.

00:52:09 John Daub: Butter. I'm guessing they use real butter. If they didn't, we'd have a problem. It's good.

00:52:19 John Daub: All right, hold on. There's a nut right here. Chestnut.

00:52:37 John Daub: It's good. It's better than anything they sell inside of Starbucks, but 700 yen is a lot of money for this. But if you're a tourist, let me just be honest with you. You just... If you spent a lot of money on a plane to travel a very long way, you're not going to think about 700 yen too much. At least you shouldn't. You want it, you get it. I live here. I don't... We got this in Tokyo. You got... I think maybe you got to try it. Japan makes pretty good apple pie, but it is totally a tourist price. These would be 500 yen or less at least.

00:53:40 John Daub: About 450. That's a lot. It's not very heavy. It doesn't fill you up. It's pretty buttery. I don't know. The rent is probably high. Let's just say this. I appreciate it. I appreciate it. I really do.

00:54:09 John Daub: Oh, that was the best one. That was really good. There was just like this caramel and a little bit of applesauce in there and that last bite. Why'd they put it there? The caramel, buttery, slightly apple, croissant, crunch. I had it all that last bite. That was a happy ending. All right. I amend it from good to very, very good. Callie Rae Brandy, thank you. And Jeff, thank you very much.

00:54:48 John Daub: I wish I could keep this going. I got to go get ready to check out of the hotel. What time is it? I got to get back to the hotel to check out. All right, guys. I will see you in another live stream. Maybe from Kyoto Station or... I was thinking of going to Arashiyama. I'm not sure I'm going to go out there. Maybe to... I don't need to... The seagulls aren't going to be there. They're not going to be very good anywhere. But I'll try. I'm going to go around and stream a little bit and take some background video. But I'll be back. It's 9 a.m. I think it's more like... Is 9, 10 where I am right now? I think it's more like 10, no? It's still early.

00:55:31 John Daub: Hey, Mark. So I'm going to take you to the top of Ninenzaka Stairway here and just look back. And we're going to end the live stream. And I'll see you in another episode soon. Thanks, guys, for clicking that subscribe button so you don't miss when I go live someplace around Japan as I take it every single corner. This amazing country. It's trademarked. I came up with that. I just wrote it down one day like a couple years ago.

00:56:05 John Daub: It's still quiet. It's really quiet. Not a lot of tourists yet. But in the morning, Ninenzaka can be a tranquil place where only the apple pie delivery truck is there blocking the flow. But thankfully, not many tourists anyways. Yet. But they'll be here. But we'll be gone because we came here in the morning and we timed it just right. Thanks, guys. If you have any questions, leave me the comments below and I'll see you again real soon. Matane. Oh, and the training is going well. I did a 14-kilometer run two days ago and 5K before I took the Shinkansen here. And I'm supposed to do an 8K a little bit later on, but maybe I'll take the day off. See ya.