There will be an entire playlist and tonight we are out in Akihabara an amazing area.

And the one thing I've always wanted to do is a little bit of rooftop camping, love that view.

Tokyo actually has a lot of that, a certain percentage of rooftops need to be covered in greenery.

Now, those ones tend to be a little bit wider, a little more spacious, may be more suitable for camping.

So I've done a bit of searching, I think I found a spot for tonight also out here in Akihabara on some of these rooftops, you'll even find secret little rooftop shrines like this one here.

I've actually never noticed this one before and if you're curious as to how I get up on these or how I find them, that will also be in that playlist, but for now let's go get set up.

Yeah, this is definitely the space, a giant rooftop balcony, way more than enough space to put a tent and there are rolls of astroturf literally just waiting to be laid out.

Well that, that couldn't be more perfect.

Here we go.

Okay, I am loving this.

This is the perfect spot.

We are coming up at the end of summer here in Tokyo, the heat is still there, it's about 30 degrees right now, 30 degrees at night, but I have not gotten to do nearly as much camping this year as I wanted to and honestly, it's not every day that you get to go camping on a rooftop in Tokyo.

And in fact, one might say that it's an opportunity that you never get, I'm gonna go ahead and say, I'm gonna say you'd never get that opportunity.

I know I haven't, if you have cool, let me know my first time pulling out the tent this year, I picked up this tent really cheap on amazon a couple of years back and I did so entirely because of the bag is super, super small and it's really easy to set up.

I want to buy another one.

I don't sell them anymore.

It's gone.

Also, it just past midnight here in Tokyo which means all the colorful lights in the background, it's got shut off.

He's gonna stand considering that it's midnight, it's actually both pretty bright and fairly quiet.

I would always assume that the middle of Tokyo this late at night, right out in Akihabara would be much louder than this.

There's been the odd train going by and every now and then a loud bike or truck, but otherwise it's been quiet and with the city in the background I guess quiet is a little bit more of a relative term in this case you're never gonna get the same point that you would underneath the stars out of the countryside.

But a new experience is a new experience and the tent is kind of set up.

This is just netting.

It's not a see through tent or anything.

It does have a proper cover, which we're actually gonna go for tonight and just cross our fingers and hope it doesn't rain, looking a little suspicious up there.

And then I will need my air mattress and my summer sleeping bag.

Here we go.

One big benefit to rooftop camping in the middle of the city.

No bugs and plenty of light.

Here we are, Here we are.

All set up.

And here, let me put this here.

There we go.

And in the process of this, somehow my shoe fell just too exciting.

We are in the middle of Tokyo on the rooftop.

My heart is literally racing a little bit right now.

This is such a rare and unique experience and it's, well, it's technically legal.

The legality side things also this, by the way, if you didn't catch the last video where I went through all the secret shrines in Kyoto, I briefly addressed this in there.

I will leave it in that one.

I think it's the legality of this though is technically in Tokyo urban camping or camping in public is not illegal.

It's not a crime.

However, don't take that on the surface value.

Each ward or area of the city also has kind of its own rules and regulations.

So some areas you need approval.

Some areas you might be okay.

So if you were to just take your tent and pitch it in a public park or something like that.

You may get in trouble, you may get stopped you.

Maybe it's a bit of a gamble.

I would recommend checking the one place where you're the most likely to be okay based on how Japan and Tokyo River law works are along a lot of riverside again.

These are things that you can call up the ward office, you can look on the website in fact, before doing any of this before even sharing this information with you, I had already confirmed this with the city, I confirmed it with local police and I had confirmed it with a Youtuber lawyer friend of mine and I got kind of slightly different answers from each of them but with a lot of overlap and the overlap being that you, You should check, there are things for example that you 100% cannot do on these rooftops without a permit or approval.

Like for example, this right here, this is my little set of cookware and whatnot.

For when I come out to these and this is a little canister of gas and on top of that goes this which is a little burner, I screw this right onto here.

If you've never been camping, this will be new to you if you have been camping.

This is not a big surprise at all.

And spread these open like this.

I open up the gas and when I push this little button here, I've got a little flame and then I've got my little pot and pan set that I can boil water and cook stuff.

Even something like this without a proper permit.

A fire anywhere in this city is very illegal.

In fact, my campfire that I have here.

This isn't even a campfire at all.

This is, well, this is literally just a couple of lights that have a fire mode to them to look like a campfire, get a little warm after a while, but now I want food or drink or snack and while I can't do a campfire, we are in the middle of the city, you know, they always say don't shop for food when you're hungry.

Well, I most certainly didn't need almost any of this.

I already ate the burrito, so that's gone.

Also, the sky has started to clear up a little bit and you can see stars.

Okay, well a star you can see actually, if you look out here you can, you can see more.

There are more stars.

Remember what I said earlier about being quiet.

Well it's about 2:30 AM right now we have like bike gangs running through, they just rev their engines really, really loud.

This by the way, is a tuna mayonnaise unagi or rice ball and I'm starving.

So those noisy biker gangs by the way sometimes referred to as bozo sudoku and their relationship with the police is an interesting little mini-Japanese subculture that I've been fascinated by 40 years.

You see while the police still do harass and bug them from time to time for the most part, they kind of get a pass.

You see, they will literally go by police boxes, the koban revving their engines like that and the police won't bat an eye, they'll just leave them be even though they are breaking all kinds of noise laws and they are a huge bother to so many people.

But there's this silent understanding that when they reach a certain age that eventually they will shed this rebellious stage of theirs and go off into adulthood donning their suits or whatever it is that they're doing and start contributing to society now And that doesn't hold up 100% of the time if they break the law or every now and then if you go to die, Cousteau with the car meet and all the cars that gather there, you will see officers just bugging them for the sake of kind of keeping them in line if you will.

But I have that silent understanding silent contract.

Explain to me.

I think in my first year coming to Japan and watching it play out as such has fascinated me ever since.

And that's, that's just a street cleaner.

I can still see stars by the, the one, the one star that's there.

This space itself is just amazing though with a complete lack of bugs and when I almost don't even need the tent, I could just lay right here on the grass.

The only thing that would possibly make this better is a, it's a hammock.

We need a hammock, yep, this was definitely the best idea I've had so far this evening.

Also, I don't know if you can see that right there, but there is a gorgeous, gorgeous crescent moon peeking over the building there and it is just spectacular.

I don't know why I set up the tent tonight to be honest, I'm not going to use, it won't be sleeping in.

If anything this hammock is more than you look at this.

This hammock is perfect as perfect as it is suspicious and I feel like I should explain the hammock and why I'm up here, how I'm up here and everything and I will do that right after I give some love to our sponsor.

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That is the end of the sponsored segment I guess now we're onto why I'm camped out on an Akihabara rooftop, why I'm even able to do that.

And the main reason is because this, this is actually, this is my rooftop, this is, you know, let me turn on some lights that balcony there and in fact, this entire space here, this is my new studio in Akihabara, which feels absolutely insane to be able to say by the way like my studio Akihabara.

And since the majority of my videos are shot out at about anyway, this isn't gonna be like where I shoot all my videos now.

This is gonna be more for post production events and meetups and more on all of that in a minute before that if you got my recent video of one of Havana's most legendary tiny shops closing up this here, This is a huge chunk of the shop itself.

I have spent the last couple of weeks going back and forth up until closing day to collect as much of the shop as possible, including on the last day the owner of the Amazon gave me his old school cash register which is easily 50-60 years old.

It doesn't even close properly anymore.

He said it was gonna otherwise go in the garbage little antique, amazing things like this that I'm so there is a plan with this like that is incredible.

I have literally no use for this.

But I couldn't just let his shop fade into history and just disappearing.

It dispersed all over the place, like the dragon balls across the world.

Yes, that was very nerdy.

I had to do something to bring it all together.

And so a plan is in place.

There's still more stuff that I need to collect.

I want people to be able to see it to be able to stand right in front of it to visit it.

I always thought that if I got a YouTube studio it would have to be more than just a space where I would make videos.

I wanted it to be a collaborative space.

I wanted it to be a place that people could visit, where people could connect.

Even over 10 years ago I met this shamisen duo named Kiki.

We made videos together by 2019 were being paid to travel the world for them to play shamisen in different countries.

Next thing I know we're running an online shamisen school together.

And as those businesses grew as well, I started thinking that you know what, having a studio big enough that I could continue to support kiki that they could do live shamisen performances or even teach lessons right here would be amazing.

People could come here.

I've always wanted people to be able to come and listen to shamisen music live but I've never really had a space for them to do that.

Now I do.

We're gonna be holding events and accepting packages and all of that.

So we're not gonna be hiding the address.

Just ask that you wait to be invited.

That's fair.

Right.

I feel like, I feel like that's fair.

While this place is still an absolute mess with nothing set up.

I cannot possibly be more excited.

Like come on.

It's I joked about it before.

How many times have I joked about having a studio right here in Akihabara moving to Japan and meeting new people was already a very difficult thing to do but for covid and all the restrictions and spending years of isolation and everything now moving to Japan for those who finally get their visas approved and get into the country, it's even harder to meet and connect with new people and trying to throw together an event once in a while.

It's a catalyst for people to meet other people with potentially similar interest is just I can't sit.

I wanna see you get the point though, right?

I think, I think all the pieces are there.

We've now not only got this whole space but also the balcony, everything for events, I should probably shut all of this down and try to get at least some rest tonight.

Thank you guys so much for watching this one and I will see you again real soon.

Okay, now I said I was gonna shut it all down but I'm just, I'm way too excited like, I mean, I mean Akihabara seven minutes from Akihabara station like from the train platform of the line to hear seven minutes, 10 minutes if you want to go to conduct station, I'm kind of right in the middle of both.

Seriously.

If you have been with the channel since the very beginning.

If you know what the blue bridge is all about.

This is actually just across the road from the blue bridge.

I am so I just, I need to get this place set up so that it is ready and usable for events.

There's a lot to get done.

Okay.

I'm gonna get to work okay, last one because I haven't said it for a while.

I just want to remind you that I do play favorites.

Like if you are one of the early viewers watch right on release to the end and leave me something in the comments section, you are the trifecta and I absolutely love you.