00:00:01 John Daub: Hello everybody, welcome to Asagaya Station. This is further than I usually go out in the city of Tokyo. This is on the west side from Shinjuku Station. About 10 minutes? Takes you into a fantastic neighborhood that a lot of you might have heard about, but maybe seeing for the first time.

00:00:19 John Daub: I want to take you through the back streets, the back alleys around the station here, which I think is going to give you a really authentic vibe. There's so many different views of the city of Tokyo. This is one of them where I think the old world of Tokyo still very much resides. This is also a great place to stay, very close to Nakano, places that you all maybe have heard about. We're going to explore. Let's get moving.

00:00:46 John Daub: Here's the station. This is Asagaya. It's on the Chūō Line (中央線), so it's pretty easy to get here from Shinjuku. I think it's again 10 minutes or so. I'll show you on the map in a second here. But Asagaya Station, a lot of residents, a lot of people live here, and a lot of people are staying here more and more for hotels.

00:01:07 John Daub: I want to take you to the other side because we're going to focus on the north side of the exit. Let's go take a look on the other side just to give you a little bit of an overview of the Asagaya Station. Boy, I can smell grilling meat, some coffee, bakery. Oh, it smells nice around here. Oh, there's a Starbucks cafe and a little food area right there. Some sushi.

00:01:45 John Daub: This side's a little bit more open. The south side's more open than the north side. And there's a shopping arcade across the street. Paru Center. The Asagaya Pearl Center inside there. So you can walk through there. There's a little shotengai (商店街, covered shopping arcade). It's not too big, if I remember correctly. I used to sort of work in this area. But it's down these alleys here, down the side that I think is really fascinating to me.

00:02:22 John Daub: Let's go to the other side. I want to take you to some of these alleys. Give you the vibe. It's very photogenic type of a place. I see Brandania making a comment in there on Discord. I also want to find a mailbox to send these postcards that I have here.

00:02:49 John Daub: It's a chilly day today. Kind of a little nippy, but not too cold, especially if you're in the United States and Canada right now where it's like minus a bazillion. Not here. I have this month's postcard, which is a snowed-in Japanese vending machine. These are so cool. This one's in Niigata. They dug it out on the other side before the digging. But I thought that's kind of a neat one for this month. This is in Iiyama in Niigata Prefecture at the height of snow. So I will send this to you if you join on the Patreon postcard club. I really appreciate the viewers that did it. And when I find a mailbox, I will be putting them in there. For right now, I'm just going to hold on to it.

00:03:34 John Daub: Japan has called for an election. Some of you might have seen it in the news. So we're starting to get these election vans, these politicians going around with their loudspeakers trying to win elections here so it can get quite loud.

00:04:06 John Daub: Over the last few years, I have noticed an evolution in the restaurants in places like this because tourists are... I'll tell you a little bit more about it. I talked with a sushi chef who I'm going to be doing an episode with just down the street here, Nakamura-san. So I'll talk a little bit about what he said. He has 90% foreign customers coming to eat sushi at his restaurant in a place like this. Well, it looks like it's mostly just locals that are coming here. But it's not. It's mostly foreign or international tourists, foreign tourists that are coming and eating on these streets at night. And the locals with the economy not as hot as it has been in years past.

00:04:58 John Daub: That makes a lot of sense. But we're seeing ramen places cater more to foreign tourists. I want to show you the menu here. It's in English. Deep flavored roasted miso ramen. That looks and sounds so good. Spicy roasted miso ramen with mala, a numbing and spicy flavor. I'm not kidding. It is somewhat, but that's a kind of the spice that they put in mapo dofu (麻婆豆腐). So the prices look pretty good, too. The prices have raised. It's 1100 yen. Usually a bowl of ramen was like 800 yen, but prices have gone up on everything everywhere. So now you can find a bowl of ramen for anywhere between a thousand to 2000 yen now, which is crazy.

00:05:50 John Daub: The side streets so scenic. You see there's a yaoya (八百屋, greengrocer), which is a vegetable stand over there. A slice of traditional life here in Japan. You can still see that here, which is really cool. I say that because you're seeing less and less of it in Tokyo these days as a lot of old neighborhoods are going the way of the dodo bird, so to speak, becoming extinct. You see that in particular around Tokyo Station right now. They have taken down a lot of the old Showa era buildings that were built after World War II and they put up new buildings.

00:06:40 John Daub: This is a new building. Broad Dani is in the house. You are listening just for a little bit before work. But you can see they've taken down some of the shacks that might have been hazards if a big earthquake had come in and they're putting in new places. This is a tonkatsu restaurant. Again, a lot of these places now cater to foreign tourists. So the English menu is absolutely in there. Most of the people eating, and a lot of these restaurants are not Japanese and that's just the extraordinary change that's happened over the last five six years. It's sort of at the stage where you evolve or you die.

00:07:15 John Daub: Look at this place here. This is why I love walking around the street the alleyways of the Chūō Line stations. Really authentic facade to this restaurant. Very very old Tokyo. See if we can get a look at the menu. This is yakiniku (焼き肉, Japanese barbecue). Japanese barbecue menu. Again in English. Everything has English on it. Sometimes it might not be palatable. Beef intestines. It's not something that a lot of foreign tourists might want to try but it's actually quite good. Choice heart. It's a food with a lot of heart. I thought that said rectum, nearly killed them. Hachinosu (蜂の巣). A lot of stuff I don't ever heard of that. Horumon-yaki (ホルモン焼き). That's interesting.

00:08:35 John Daub: A lot of places are still family-run and I think that's what we're seeing here. There's a fusion of restaurants. Some of them are chains that have come in and taken over spaces that were once run by family-run businesses. And it's hard to tell which one is a family-run business and which one isn't. This looks like a standing little place you could stand and drink outside. Yakiton (焼きとん, grilled pork skewers). Ah! Kuro oden (黒おでん). Oden (おでん, stewed dish)! From 80 yen. For each piece of oden. That's like 50 cents. That's so cheap. This has got to be a really great place to eat.

00:09:30 John Daub: Here's an Asagaya kitchen. Let's take a look at their prices. Again, look at how scenic the streets are here. The alleyways. They kind of zigzag and move in a very unique way. We'll go in that direction in a second. Let's look at the menu. A toro (toro, fatty tuna). Okay. Stamina. Kind of a ramen shop here. Different stuff. You can get it from a vending machine. Look at this. So you would order what you want. This one's a karaage teishoku (唐揚げ定食, fried chicken set meal). That looks really good. You get the ticket down here and you give it to the person so you've already paid. You don't have to pay after. You pay before you eat. It just works.

00:10:18 John Daub: Dining kitchen. I think if you study a little bit of katakana and hiragana, as you can see the menu is mostly katakana and hiragana. If you study a little bit on the area, airplane coming, you could be able to read the menus. Then you start to feel like you're in Japan a lot more.

00:10:47 John Daub: There's this textile store where the owner is just watching TV. It's slow going right now. Little look inside the shop here. The shop is open from 5 p.m. till 25 o'clock, which is 1 a.m. I remember I was really confused when I saw like 26 o'clock at 2 a.m. Because the day hasn't really ended. So how do you have 26 hours in a day? Oh, they just continued on till 2 a.m. I get it now.

00:11:37 John Daub: But a lot of these restaurants here, they go late night. People get off of work, especially on Friday night. They'll get off of work, go into one of these places, have a bunch of drinks with their buddies, or they just go by themselves and they make new friends. I think that vibe is really cool. You have a lot of these snack bar places. You see right there, mama-sans that will get to know the customers. So you feel a sense of community. You can, you might be going there alone, but you'll know all the other people from different businesses and different walks of life, all kind of hanging out at these sunakku (スナック, snack bars).

00:12:10 John Daub: My friend Matt Alt and I made an episode on this in Shinbashi which has a sunakku culture that is becoming more and more extinct, and that episode is really important. Actually, Shinbashi is undergoing a lot of changes right now. If you're visiting Japan in the next two years, I highly recommend that you go to Shinbashi because they're getting rid of all of that old area in a renovation project, a neighborhood rejuvenation project that is going to upgrade the city, but it's also going to lose a lot of that personality like this that you see here.

00:12:51 John Daub: But I'm really sad when I see a lot of the old buildings like this, a lot of the old streets start to change. Look at that. Just so cool to watch this. You guys are seeing it live right now. It's quiet at this time of day. It's actually lunchtime. Most of these places come to life at around 5 or 6 o'clock. Totally different vibe. I like it at around maybe 5 or 6 because the sun starts to go down and the lights come on, so you have this orange glow sometimes because we're looking. The sun sets in the west. This is west. It's kind of warm haze, warm sky to the darker ground here. The light reflecting off of the ground if it had rained a little bit or off of the windows. It's really, really scenic.

00:13:55 John Daub: Let's see if there's a vending machine drink that I might want to get here. Carrie, I bet you I'm not too far away from you too. Nothing new. Except we have some house wine. The Boss blend coffee. Interesting. The Boss coffee. I don't see any Tommykeller Jones here, which is unusual. Tommy Lee Jones has been a fixture on Japanese marketing signs for a very long time. Look at that!

00:14:27 John Daub: Look at that park with that... Is that a park or an abandoned house? Let's go take a look. The signal's going a little in and out between the buildings here. Let's see if we can get a... Connect to a stronger signal. So here's a Japanese parking lot, which is actually extraordinary because it looks like half of it is in nature. A lot of bicycles. This house looks like it's something out of a Ghibli movie. No parking unless you've paid. These are all paid parking. They lock it in after a certain time or... Yūyūdo (有料). So there's a charge. How much is it to park your bike here? Oh, so eight hours for 100 yen. That's actually not bad. Park your bike eight hours for 100 yen.

00:15:26 John Daub: And the reason why you would do that is so if you park your bike and you pay for it, you know for sure it's not going to be taken away. You get paid with your Suica right here at this machine. You just have to remember the number that's usually written on the place where you lock it in. And by the way, if you do come out drinking, don't come by bicycle. It's as bad as driving. Drinking and driving. If you get caught by the police drinking, riding your bicycle, if you're drunk, you can get in a lot of trouble. So please, be mindful of that. Don't drink alcohol and then ride a bicycle. There's some problems with that recently.

00:16:25 John Daub: This looks like... This is a cafe, but it looks like it leads into somebody's house. Do not litter. Okay, just... I could take a couple steps in there. Let's just take a quick look-see. This looks like something out of Ghibli. Yeah, there it is. It's a cafe. Deep in there. I didn't expect that. It looks like somebody's house. They built it, but it's off of the street and you can meet down this little deck-like walkway. That's pretty unique.

00:17:14 John Daub: But as I was telling you, and you can see this is a new house. A lot of these are new houses. Some of the old places have been torn down, made into new houses. This is one of those prefabricated houses, so they're really well... They do well in the earthquakes too, because they move. Probably made out of some composite plastic or something. But if you look up at the second floor, it certainly looks different. And of course, you have all of those power lines, which give it a lot of personality. Star Road, this is called, according to the sign up there. That was nice. The lady's opening up her shop. She gave me a big smile. People are pretty friendly out here.

00:18:27 John Daub: This is another yakiniku place. What is that? Jambu-jambu. Whoa. That is some serious-looking monster. Yeah, this is an Asagaya jazz bar. Asagaya is known for its jazz bars. This isn't the only one. There's a bunch of them, but it has sort of that kind of famous reputation. This place looks somewhat abandoned. I'm sure in a couple of years, it's going to be a new business. This building bought out, but somebody's living up there.

00:19:34 John Daub: So this sushi shop, which doesn't have a sign outside, I talked with the owner, and I'm going to be doing a video with him, a sushi episode, a couple of them. You'll get to meet him. He's a really... Nakamura-san, a really, really nice person. We're now LINE friends. We're talking online. I'm going to film a date scene with Kanae, and then we're going to make another episode on sushi. And he's lived in the United States. He contacted me on Instagram. I was thrilled to get it because it just came at a time when I was thinking about doing an episode like this. It just works out. I love small businesses. He's had experience in San Francisco making sushi in the United States for 10 years. He had his training here in Japan, and now he's come back and has a different Japan. That's why I'm here in Asagaya. I'm really looking forward to coming and working with him, learning more about his story.

00:20:40 John Daub: Oh, my gosh. All right, so this is so cool. Look at this. That's going to be some main channel episodes. So this will take you to Asagaya Station. But now we are in complete and utter residential... Utter. This is totally a residential area. As you can see above there, the train going by. Very respectful. As I always am. But this is absolutely residential. Just houses. Just people live here, you know? A lot of them, like this one.

00:21:25 John Daub: I don't think this... In four or five years, I bet you this is something else. Looks like a little bar, drink bar. But again, it's surrounded by new houses, right? These prefabricated houses. This one looks like it was built in the 70s, the 80s. You can see the age, the era, based on the materials that they used. The style, the kind of windows on it. What was popular in the late 70s and early 80s. And then later on, you can see the different jidai (時代, eras) going up to the modern era.

00:22:11 John Daub: But you see the dirt road here. So a lot of these are older houses. Here's a new one that's been put up. But most of them, these houses will probably be gone with new buildings coming in. The way that Tokyo has been moving over the last 10 years. You have to have modern construction because I guess Japan's planning for the big one. Tokyo is. And that's a good thing because you're going to be safe if it did happen here.

00:22:46 John Daub: Let's walk back this way through the residential neighborhood. If you're just joining us now, through the back streets of Asagaya, which is a really famous neighborhood along the Chūō Line, which goes from Shinjuku out there. In fact, I don't think I even showed you the map yet. So this is where I am in Tokyo right now. You can see it's on the west side. I'm usually on the east side. That's where I live. But now we're west of Shinjuku on the Chūō Line. There's the line right there. That's Asagaya Station. And I'm on this side, the north side of the station. And you can see there's a lot of alleys and bars and side streets and restaurants. And it's got a really interesting vibe.

00:23:31 John Daub: If you do find a hotel here, an Airbnb, this is a pretty chill place to hang out. Famous for jazz bars. At least that's their reputation. There are a lot of old houses and new houses. It's a neighborhood that retains its old charms as it evolves into the 2025, 2030 generation. But I bet you a lot of those older buildings are going to be leaving as well. There's the proximity to Shinjuku Station. I give it 10 minutes on the Chūō Line, I believe.

00:24:06 John Daub: I want to show you this video before we walk back along the street. So we're going to go to the other side of the tracks here. But Alhut writes in here, we rented an Airbnb in Fujisawa. Wife's family is from the Kawasaki area. Fujisawa is a pretty cool town. Nice views of Mount Fuji. I stayed there. I was hitch riding a mamachari (ママチャリ, shopping bike) bicycle back in 2005, 20 years ago. That's crazy. Maybe I should put that video on YouTube. One of my first documentaries was riding a one-speed bicycle along the Tōkaidō Highway from Tokyo's Nihonbashi to Kyoto. I did it, you know, riding, adventure in Japan by bicycle 20 years ago before YouTube was even around. And I camped the first day. We camped, there were five crazy people with me, the first day at Fujisawa. We just pitched our tents up on the coast there. It was a nice day. Had some food there. It was fun.

00:25:17 John Daub: I want to show you this. This is about 30 minutes ago. I spent five minutes watching these pigeons fight. I guess they're fighting over that girl pigeon. So two dudes are going, this is what I think is happening. Two dudes going at it. They are pummeling each other. The fight gets more violent the longer I watch. I felt like I was a spectator to like a UFC fight or something. Pigeon fighting underground. The P would be for pigeon. But that damsel, she ain't in distress. I think she's egging them on. I don't know. Look, there's nobody around to see this fight. It is totally, it was brutal. It got even more brutal. Look, they're locked. Look, you can tell which one is the more dominant one, right? Has anyone ever seen this? It's a beautiful thing, fighting. I don't know what else to say. This is nature. I didn't know pigeons fight like this. They really go at it.

00:26:26 John Daub: Okay, wait, they're going to get aggressive again. The darker one, he's really into it. Look at him. Oh! One of them is going to get knocked like a sumo wrestler off of the ledge there in a second. This is right off of this main street. And we're going to walk by there and see if they're still there. Because I'm going to tell you what happens. Look, the damsel is down there. I don't know, who are you voting, who are you rooting for? Are they both, I don't know what girl pigeons, maybe they're mating. I don't know what's going on, to be honest with you. There she is. She is not innocent. She is totally egging this on. Look, here's the more pummeling. Look, it's pummeling. Ugh. Look, he's pushing them down there. He got them down.

00:27:18 John Daub: All right, we're going to go back and see if they're still there. This is about 20 minutes ago. I was watching for about five minutes. It's fascinating stuff. I was watching for about five minutes. Shall we see? Eventually, I had to leave because we had to start this livestream. That's why I might have started a couple minutes late. But I went up for a closer view. I scared them. And then they all went down the grate behind the... It's this way. They all went behind the entrance to another shop. And they started to eat the cat food that they discovered. So all three of them stopped fighting and they just started eating the cat food. So how quickly pigeons forget. Maybe what the world needs is just to have a big meal together because food seems to bring people together. Just saying. It's amazing. We saw two pigeons going at it. And the moment food was involved...

00:28:16 John Daub: Look at this. You got these pretty little trees inside. I don't know. This looks like an abandoned shop though. Although it actually is a cafe. Hold on a second. It looks like they're... They open for business. But it just looks like it's an abandoned shop. Let's see if we can find where those pigeons were. Interesting. There's a digital sign. So whoever this person is, is making money as a spot for a vending machine and for digital signage. And it's just a shack. I wonder what's inside there. Just a storage facility? I don't know. It's fascinating. Ooh, I smell ramen. Tonkotsu (豚骨, pork bone broth).

00:29:24 John Daub: I think it was this way. Where did I see the pigeons? Oh, is that them there? They are! They're still going at it. Oh my god! There's the girl pigeon. Oh! He's on top of me. Oh! They're going at it. They're going in for the... I think they're dive bombing me. I'm gonna get out of here. I know better. I think I avoided one there. Last thing I want to do is clean off my hat.

00:30:39 John Daub: All right, let's go to the other side here. Man who catch fly with chopstick accomplish anything. Thank you, Knight Bot. Binstock. Very wise. I got them to be peaceful by becoming their enemies. That's so true. Thanks to my ability to make an enemy of the pigeons, they found peace through finding another, somebody that they like least, like even less than each other. The enemy of my enemy is my friend, isn't that the... One way to look at it. All right, we've gone underneath the Chūō Line here, peace through conflict, exactly. We're on the other side. So let's take a look at the other side of Asagaya Station.

00:32:02 John Daub: We come across more vending machines, of course, and there's a bakery which is not open, but they seem to be selling some breads. Look at that. Is it turtle bread? Oh my goodness. Look how cute that is. I guess it's for matcha? The green shell. There's the Smile Hotel. Might be less signal on this side. Corn soup. Mountain Dew. This is one of those Suntory machines you don't see too often. No Tommy Lee Jones though. Tommy Lee, where are you?

00:33:06 John Daub: Look at this. This place looks real interesting. Dr. Manzoor's in the house. Just wanted to say hi. I'm a fan of your channel and I'm planning my fourth trip to Japan. Awesome. May is the best month to be visiting Japan because of the weather. It's after the cherry blossoms. People seem to go back home. There's an Everest Spice and Halal Foods shop. That's interesting. They seem to be selling, seem to be from Nepal. See the Nepal flag there. So a lot of Indian food, a lot of smells like it too. Nice. A little local FamilyMart corner shop. But Asagaya, you see the roads don't really go straight. They kind of wind around, don't they?

00:34:06 John Daub: Speaking of winding, I have these postcards that I want to put in the box. Here we go. I see a post box right there. Let's put these in there. So thank you to all my Patreon supporters. Those that signed up a little bit later in the month are getting it now. Sonal in the UK. Christopher in Augusta. Amanda in Rhode Island. Fatima in California. Tak in New Jersey. Amy in beautiful Dublin, Ohio. Greg in Nevada, Texas. Steve in Livermore, California. Maria in Norman, Oklahoma. This is your postcard right here. And Ryan in Cyprus, Texas. So there you guys go. They got the stamp from the Pandoroble character stamp. So your postcards are all on the way, guys. It's a lot cleaner on the inside. Don't worry. It's off from Asagaya's post box, guys. So there you go. Thank you. I think I have about 30 more postcards left. So plenty, plenty, plenty.

00:35:55 John Daub: Wow. It's a yakiniku meat dining. This street comes alive at 6 p.m. I'll be honest with you. This neighborhood is very quiet at this time of day. But I think this is a great time to walk around, though. Because you see it in a really quiet way. Here's a Thai restaurant with a tuk-tuk right in the front there. Of course you got to have a tuk-tuk. I can't imagine not having a tuk-tuk. If I had a Thai restaurant, I'd have a tuk-tuk. It makes it so much more fun. This is an old drinking street.

00:36:35 John Daub: Look at this. So these shops on the left and the right, shacks probably going back to the post-World War II era. You can see old. I don't know if these shops are going to survive. But a lot of these drinking streets are starting to disappear. Because once the owner goes, nobody wants to take over. Nobody wants to take over. So the result is that they just shut down. And if more than half of them leave, then the association or the street itself stops attracting more people. It's not as fun. And they sell out. And then it probably becomes a residential neighborhood because it's so close to Asagaya Station. That's probably what happens. The regular customers die off. And then you lose your customer base. And then you have to survive, right? The family members will sell off the property. And that's what happens.

00:37:42 John Daub: You have an old building here that looks like a sushi shop. Torikizoku, of course. Chains come in here. Everyone has, almost everybody, has digital menus now. The digital menus allow you to change from Japanese to English. However, I have noticed an increasing amount of the bilingual menus having bilingual prices. Meaning, like, the dual pricing systems have started. And some of these digital menus, when you change to English, the prices change as well. So learning a little bit of Japanese might save you a little bit of money. It's not that much more. But it could be. It all adds up. And honestly, people probably don't want to pay more money just because they're tourists. People want to feel, they want to feel, those are pretty good prices for omakase (おまかせ, chef's choice). Sushi shop. People don't want to pay more than what locals pay. I got to be honest with you. Everybody wants to pay the same price. Nobody wants to pay more.

00:39:14 John Daub: You can see the train leaving there. But the problem is, regular customers are regular customers. They come all the time. You can count on them all the time. Tourists come once or twice and maybe they'll come back and visit six months later if they come back to Japan for the fourth time, right? If you find a place that you love, you're going to come back again. But it's not a regular customer. You're not really a big revenue generator for them. So they like to give their regular customers some benefits. Now, it might be like regular customers that have been there 10 times might be able to get a special card and then they'll get a discount. But if the yen stays at like 150 to the dollar, I would see something like dual pricing come into effect. It's just Japanese restaurants want to keep their Japanese customers, right? And they can't do it because the price of the food has gone up so much. The regular customers can't come anymore because it's just too expensive. A lot of people that I know running the businesses can't keep up.

00:40:25 John Daub: That's a really interesting park there. They got some sort of glass. Glass designs around that tree there. A little urban art. Looks like it's the Christmas stuff that's still up. That's pretty. So I'd like to hear your comments. What do you think about that? The dual pricing, the food. There'll be a few people that are good with it. Majority of you are not. And I'm not good with it. If I went to Thailand, I kind of like paying what the locals pay because I know I'm getting authentic food. But I don't know. It's tough. But Japanese have to rely more on foreign tourists more and more.

00:41:18 John Daub: Here's a Fuji Soba. This chain called Fuji Soba has been catering more to foreign tourists too. Oh, I can smell the dashi (出汁, broth). This has been a one coin... I'm going to see how much they're... Oh, the prices have really gone up. I mean, it's still cheap, but it's more... That's a set. So you get the soba, hot soba, and this is a mini katsudon (カツ丼, pork cutlet rice bowl), 810 yen. That's still like $5 or so, but it's more than what it used to be. That used to be like 500 yen, one coin. You used to be able to get a katsudon for 500 yen. I don't even see that on the menu. Fuji Soba is like a short order Japanese restaurant. Like, they have everything on the menu, and they just make it fast. I used to eat that when I was an English teacher for lunch almost every time. When I was in Ikebukuro. I worked at a school in Ikebukuro. Then with the Ginza, I ate more at Nakau, which is another kind of a quick order shop, Japanese food.

00:42:35 John Daub: Asagaya Station. Pretty cool. Pretty cool. John, you should go to an izakaya (居酒屋, pub) called Come On In Itabashi. It's run by an immigrant. It's been there for 30 years, and all the massive food portions cost 400 yen. I've been to Itabashi quite a bit.

00:43:02 John Daub: Oh, hello. Yeah. Holy crap. I was like, wait. Okay, we both have... You have great hair now. How you doing? I didn't want to interrupt your stream. It's all right. I just thought I'd say hello. Good to see you, buddy. Nice to see you, too. Continue doing it. How you doing? I'm all right. I'm all right. Same as always. It's great. Yeah. That's all that's changed. I haven't seen you since we did the UFO catcher. Jesus. I know. I still have my certificate. Yeah. Are you covering the... I'm actually going to be filming with a sushi chef on the other side, so we're going to do a couple of collaborative videos. That's fantastic. I haven't been here since... that company. Oh, gosh. They're not even there anymore. Okay. Oh, they're not? No. I have no idea. They're out of the building. Yeah, yeah. I have no idea. I don't know if they still exist as a company anymore. I would highly doubt that. The way that they do business. Hey. The way they do business. Hey, they gave me money sometimes to do things, so... That was good. I'm happy about that. I always wanted to reach out to you and say, it's not enough. No, it's never enough. But I wasn't at a point in my career where I could ask for more. You know what I mean? Like now. Yeah. Now, that's not going to happen. I got to go pick up my wife. Oh, okay. But I'm going to go pick up my wife. But keep in touch. I'd love to... I always want to make it out to a pirate show. I saw Roger the other day. Oh, please do. Yeah. We'll always be there. I know you will. Nice to see you, Bob. Good to see you, buddy.

00:44:36 John Daub: That, ladies and gentlemen, I didn't want to put him on the spot, was the great Bob Worley. I love Bob. I didn't recognize him. He has white hair. I didn't want to show him on the camera because he might not have wanted to be on the camera, which would be odd because he's one of the great foreign actors in Japan. That was cool. You got to love Bob Worley, man. Check him out on IMDb. I'll probably see him again now. He was in one in particular, the Only in Japan, the crane game on the old channel. But he was associated with that other company. And when I left, he kind of replaced me for a while. Get a little bit of money because when you're an actor, you need the money. I never, like if someone's going to give you money to star in something, whether or not I like it, you got to survive, man. So I always had a great deal of respect. He's so talented. Bob Worley, he's an Ohio boy. So yeah, there you go. Small world. Anyways, very good to catch up with Bob. Roger, he's also in the Pirates of Tokyo Bay. Pirates of Tokyo Bay is a bilingual comedy group. If you do come to Tokyo, you want to see a comedy show, they're really great. Go check them out. They do a lot of stuff that transcends language, but I have yet to catch them. And I think they had their 15-year anniversary. So I'm looking forward to seeing them again soon. But that was pretty cool. Pretty cool chance meeting there. I'm like, Bob? Like, okay. Yeah, we both have like white hair, right? So it's hard to figure it out. Bob Worley is the best man.

00:46:26 John Daub: All right, guys. Take care. I will see you again in another episode. I want to talk about the yen. And I might do it in a podcast format from the office tonight where I edit the videos. But the yen and the Japanese economy is moving quite a bit. There's a bunch of movement. If they start to sell some of their US treasuries, I think that's the feeling of it because they have some issues. We could see some market movements. It's kind of a scary situation. But I would say it's the early stages. We have some stuff that could go one way or another, and we're not really sure. But I know that the yen went from 159 to 154 in an hour. And that is a big shift really fast. And that's kind of scary. So there's a lot of stuff happening with the currency. I'm going to give you some information on that because I've been following this really closely. And if you have any questions, you can leave them in the comments below. I'm still going to do these walks around. I think we have so much fun. We just explore the city here. But if you have any questions, leave in the comments here or you can join our Discord server where we have a lot of people that live here in Japan that are talking about all different topics here.

00:47:38 John Daub: This is the postcard for this month on Patreon. I will send that to you the moment you sign up to it. My main channel is right there. So if you want to see more on Japan, check out the edited videos. That's different than this channel. Just kind of shut that stuff out. And the cherry blossoms are already out. I made a video. This one. Hold on a second. I made a video showing the early cherry blossoms. This is about four days ago. There's a variety called the Jūgatsu Zakura (十月桜, October cherry). They come out in January, which is odd, but it's not global warming or climate change. It's just one of the many varieties of cherry blossoms. This one's in Toyosu, which is on Tokyo Bay. Very interesting. So I show that to you in another live stream. So thanks, guys. See you again soon. Mata ne (またね). Hopefully I catch up with you, Carrie, too, because it's been a kind of a long minute since I saw you for coffee the other day. Right. At Tokyo Dome. So hopefully catch up with you, too. Boy, the politicians are loud.