00:00:14 John Daub: Hey everybody, this is our Tokyo Japan meetup. I'm always surprised that people actually showed up. They did, and we have about 30 people here, which is pretty amazing. They were all waiting for me. I was late as usual to the meetup in front of Yasukuni Shrine. There's not much going on at Yasukuni Shrine, so we went to the convenience store. I got a Sakura Asahi beer, designed for the season. We're underneath the cherry blossom tree. Everybody is pretty cool.

00:01:00 John Daub: You're live on YouTube. Where are you from? Australia!

00:01:12 Guest: Hello! I'm from Hawaii. Should we say aloha?

00:01:20 John Daub: Yeah! Wonderful!

00:01:26 Guest: How long are you in Japan for? We got here on Saturday. We'll be here for about a week. You came for the cherry blossoms? Absolutely!

00:01:39 John Daub: He's on YouTube now! You're getting famous!

00:01:51 Guest: Aloha! This is my friend Andrew. He is a brewer and a baker and candlestick maker.

00:01:54 John Daub: Oh, you don't have the t-shirt on today. Well, we'll do a live stream later. Andrew makes craft beer in Tokyo. Actually, I've known Andrew for over 10 years. We worked together at an English school in Ginza. We were way younger then. But he came today. I haven't seen him in a while. So it's pretty cool to see Andrew here. So yeah, we'll do a live stream, beer event. Or my dog. That could be a live stream too. Whenever you have time. Drink beer. It's pretty cool, right? I had to order this on Amazon because they sell these in February and the season is now. They're sold out. Only Amazon had it. So you buy them in February and then you keep them in your fridge.

00:03:06 Guest: Where are you from? Hawaii. Maui.

00:03:10 John Daub: Aloha. Where have you been in Japan on this trip?

00:03:16 Guest: This trip we've been to Ueno, went to Aomori.

00:03:20 John Daub: Oh, you went to Aomori. Wow. Why Aomori?

00:03:24 Guest: We've never been there before.

00:03:26 John Daub: That's a good reason. What did you like up there in Aomori? Oh wow. So you went to Hirosaki?

00:03:35 Guest: No, it was Aomori City.

00:03:37 John Daub: Oh, just Aomori City? You've got to go to the Nebuta Festival in Aomori. You went to the museum. Oh yeah, the Nebuta Museum, right? It's a pretty good museum. That lake up there is really nice too. Aomori is one of my favorite prefectures because of the alcohol. But it's also a really down-to-earth place. How did you get there? By Shinkansen or did you fly? Do you have a pass?

00:04:10 Guest: Jealous.

00:04:11 John Daub: Residents of Tokyo cannot get the JR Pass, believe it or not. So I get really jealous because it's like the steal of the century if you get a rail pass. How long are you staying for?

00:04:25 Guest: Friday.

00:04:27 John Daub: How did you know that the cherry blossoms would bloom this early this year?

00:04:30 Guest: I didn't.

00:04:32 John Daub: Oh, you had your fingers crossed. That'll work every time. The cherry blossoms, as you can see, are like 95% bloomed here. They're very nice. We've got a little party going on. It's nice to find a place underneath the trees where we can chill out for a little bit and have a drink. There's people here at this meetup from all over the world.

00:05:56 John Daub: Where are you from?

00:05:58 Guest: Tahiti. From Papeete. The main island.

00:06:07 John Daub: I went to Tahiti in 2003. Awesome experience. Just really far away. You really liked it? My favorite island was Moorea. It was more laid back. Where's the best place in Tahiti people should go? In French Polynesia, if you do some diving, I would advise going to Fakarava.

00:07:03 Guest: When I was in Bora Bora I went diving and I saw lots of sharks. It was just really expensive. Yeah, Fakara[va] Valley is better because you have the blue and turquoise lagoon which is really beautiful.

00:07:31 John Daub: What are you doing in Japan?

00:07:34 Guest: Seeing sakura obviously.

00:07:37 John Daub: Well, not this tree in particular. I want to be perfectly clear here. We could only find the sickest tree that was available. All the other trees that are good. They're beautiful. But this one that we have, we claimed this tree. It didn't have that many people. It's our Charlie Brown tree. We love our tree. We're making memories with this tree. We're going to do a meetup every year from now. Come back to this tree to celebrate. And from Germany? How long have you been here in Japan?

00:08:22 Guest: One and a half weeks.

00:08:25 John Daub: Wow. And over that time, where do you recommend people to go? You've been here 13 times you said.

00:08:38 Guest: Always Akihabara. I always love anime and games.

00:08:54 John Daub: If you like anime and games. And where are you from?

00:08:59 Guest: Switzerland.

00:09:01 John Daub: Where do you recommend visiting here in Japan?

00:09:04 Guest: Kyoto and Osaka.

00:09:08 John Daub: Exactly. Because that's where I'm going to go next week. So this is not your first time here?

00:09:13 Guest: I live in Japan. I study here. I speak Japanese. English and German and a little bit of French and Chinese.

00:09:27 John Daub: So you know what? You ask somebody from Switzerland if they speak a language, 99% of the time it's probably going to be yes. Can you speak Italian?

00:09:36 Guest: No.

00:09:39 John Daub: Everything I said is just totally wrong now. I can only speak English and Japanese and a little bit of Spanish. I was forced to in school. Aren't you half Indian as well?

00:10:00 Guest: I'm actually half Swiss and half Indian.

00:10:08 John Daub: Yeah, I'm half American and half Indian. My mother's from Mumbai. And I cannot speak. I know some culture. I know some curse words and I understand them. It's always the curse words. That's all you need.

00:10:52 Guest: Where are you from?

00:10:53 John Daub: I am from USA, Texas. Lone Star State. Dallas, where I live right now.

00:11:01 Guest: Every time I fly to New York, I go through Dallas Airport.

00:11:11 John Daub: How long have you been in Japan for?

00:11:20 Guest: I've been here for almost a month. And I will be here for three months. I'm retired now.

00:11:28 John Daub: I'm the one that keeps asking you questions about being retired in Japan. And you never answer them.

00:11:33 Guest: You know somebody who's going to retire in Japan. Actually, I wanted to get more information on this. How is that going? I think it will be easier because after going to the visa website, I found out if you have a visa, you can get a visa. Certain requirements. It's a piece of cake. They just recently put in this point system, so you might qualify through points. And by other things, and the fact that I'm retired, I'm going to spend money here. They like this.

00:12:15 John Daub: Thank you, John. Well, thank you for coming.

00:12:20 Guest: Thank you for coming to the meetup. Well, I'm actually a really bad organizer. Next time, tarps. I didn't bring any blue tarps. You can see everyone sitting on grass. I showed up late, too. I apologize.

00:12:45 John Daub: This is my second beer, but it's not my second beer. It's my second alcohol. Because we had champagne. We met Shu. There's Mommy. You might know her from Shueisha.

00:13:01 Mami: Hello.

00:13:02 John Daub: Thank you for coming. On a more serious note, the event has picked up again. You can go to the Roppongi Hills and see part two. It's the Shonen Jump historical exhibition at Roppongi Hills. We're all very thankful to Mami for giving us access into Shueisha and showing us a slice of life inside there. That was a really interesting report to see how it's made and some of the dynamics. Like the fact that they're interested in foreign creators. Have you gotten any feedback from that?

00:14:19 Mami: I'm not sure but please watch it. From now.

00:14:24 John Daub: Please watch that episode. It's the Shonen Jump Japanese anime episode from about four months ago in October. Check it out. I put a lot of time in that episode. And not a lot of people saw it yet. So hopefully it's a second wind. But yeah, it's a really historical episode. So check it out. And thank you for coming.

00:14:52 John Daub: Let's see who else is here. What's up, John? Did I already come here? You can talk to my wife then. Shall we attack?

00:15:12 Kanae Daub: Oh, hello. Hi. Thank you for coming to the meetup.

00:15:14 John Daub: I'm shining a very bright light on you. So where are you from and how long have you been in Japan?

00:15:24 Guest: I'm from the Netherlands. And I've been here since the beginning of March.

00:15:28 John Daub: Wow. That's a long time. I think that's the best way to see. You don't really penetrate it in a couple of days. You need at least 20 years. I still have not gotten penetrated the inner layer of Tokyo yet.

00:15:58 Guest: Two days.

00:16:02 John Daub: Oh, so you just arrived. I'm from Canada. We get a lot of Canadians here. In fact, Catherine here is from Montreal.

00:16:08 Guest: I'm from Montreal too.

00:16:20 John Daub: Hi, Catherine. Why aren't you here? Jordan. It's happening now, isn't it? You cannot escape. Thanks for coming all the way from Kanagawa. It means a lot to me. It was a whole 40 minutes. Not to lie. It was very tiresome. Are you okay with the jet lag?

00:17:01 Guest: I might need a week at least. I could need a week to get accustomed to this new climate of Tokyo. Completely accustomed. But yeah, thank you for having me. And you also know Kevin Riley.

00:17:08 John Daub: Yeah. I know my boy, Kev. He should be here, but he didn't go soccer. And I'm like, dude, come down. One of you is from all the way from Melbourne, right? This is my wife. How's the jet lag?

00:17:48 Guest: Zero. Because Australia is almost the same time zone. Pretty much. I like the matching shirts. And we don't do this all the time. We just decided to do this today because we noticed a lot of couples wearing this.

00:18:33 John Daub: A lot of people are watching and asking what has been the most interesting thing you've seen in Japan. You've been here for nearly three weeks. This is our fourth trip here.

00:18:41 Guest: Yeah, so I think we were hoping the most interesting thing was going to be going to Mount Fuji, but Kawaguchiko was the day that it snowed in Tokyo. It was really bad. But I think probably one of the coolest things was going to the Ghibli Museum and seeing the exhibit they have at the moment. Basically, just all their food. They had the fake plastic food of each film actually displayed in the museum. And that was fantastic.

00:19:19 John Daub: There's a place where you can make that, by the way. One of those things will have to be next time. So you brought your daughters here. Do you think this is a place that's family friendly?

00:19:33 Guest: Definitely. There's huge opportunities. The hardest thing is probably transport, really. But they just figure it out. They love Japan so much. Fun knows no language boundaries. But we went to the oldest amusement park in Asakusa. That was really cool.

00:20:19 John Daub: I have not yet to cover that in the show. You should. I'm afraid to take Jennifer. She would probably bankrupt me with eating. There's a lot of food in there too. It's just got so much charm. Rickety charm. So you passed the Tokyo Disneyland then?

00:21:07 Guest: Yeah, but we've been there before. We knew it would be probably so busy this time, so we left it for this time. So we did Universal though.

00:21:14 John Daub: Universal Studios, I haven't been there in 15 years. I was there when they first opened.

00:21:27 Guest: Harry Potter was okay. It was busy, but we got there pretty early and we got to do the Ollivander's wand thing. It was my daughter's birthday on the day. And they actually selected her on the day to get her wand and stuff. Like they reenacted the whole scene from Philosopher's Stone. And the wands are interactive and stuff, so you can go to certain parts in the park and do things with the wands. It was really great.

00:22:09 John Daub: And you're going back soon?

00:22:12 Guest: To Australia. Tomorrow night.

00:22:17 John Daub: Just stay. You can stay at Jay's house. We'll kick Jay out. Everybody stays at Jay's house. Just stay. And you can stay with me. Just come and eat. We'll be fine. Have you been to Melbourne? Now I want to come visit you. Melbourne's pretty darn cool. Well, thanks for coming out and bringing the family. It's really great to meet you. Do you have a favorite episode?

00:23:06 Guest: We watched the Gatchaman one like a bunch. The okonomiyaki one was one of the first ones we ever saw.

00:23:18 John Daub: That place is cool. I literally called the guy up a day before and said, can I do a video with you and cook with you? And he's like, okay. He's a cool guy. He's in charge of the Okonomimura Association. When I emailed the association at first, actually, he's the one who responded. Then I called him again because I hadn't heard from him. And he says, yeah, just come on up. And I had instant access to stream and to make a show in there, which is so cool. I made okonomiyaki and I pressed it and I killed it. Flipping okonomiyaki is always going to be the hardest part. Pure focus to flip an okonomiyaki. I always summon the ghosts of my ancestors when I'm flipping okonomiyaki.

00:24:45 Guest: We want to plug Kanagawa as much as possible. I live in Sagamihara. So, we did Oyama. When you want to climb mountains, Oyama. Oyama is spectacular in any season. Winter, you want to go surfing, snowboard down Oyama. It's an easy travel hike. And Fuji is just. You can see Fuji halfway up the mountain. Honatsugi and this area is very much closer to Fuji than Tokyo. Kanagawa is really good for Enoshima. Enoshima is my favorite place in Kanagawa.

00:26:28 John Daub: There he is, Joseph!

00:26:30 Joseph: Yeah, alright. The office is just outside the park. You can find us in the dark. I saw your livestream, I saw you were here. I was like, okay, that's Kitanomaru Park. So, found you.

00:26:44 John Daub: How you doing, buddy? I like your matching hat and outfit. Fully recovered right by now from the Tokyo Marathon?

00:27:02 Joseph: Yeah, pretty much fully recovered. I went for my first run after the marathon just yesterday morning. And this is on my route. So, I came in here yesterday and this park was full of people doing yoga. Probably about 150 people over there. And they were doing this routine which involved a lot of laughing. All together they go hoo hoo ha ha ha. This whole park was alive with it. And yeah, it's just beautiful with the cherry blossoms.

00:27:34 John Daub: And I wasn't sure I was gonna do a meetup today. But I'm glad that I did because most people are coming next week and they have no idea that the cherry blossoms are a week early. Tokyo is always earlier than the rest of the country. The spring is here at last. I'm so happy. It's a long, hard winter. People know you, Joseph. I see the comments coming in fast. It's Joseph!

00:28:03 Joseph: Hello! Hello! Yeah, I mean, it's just a different gear today. I'm not quite in my running gear. Yeah, I did run here actually from our studio.

00:28:16 John Daub: Very good. Well, we're gonna have to go out and do a powwow because it's been too long without the camera. I'm just about to end this live stream.

00:28:35 John Daub: Hello, where are you from?

00:28:35 Guest: I'm Max from Colorado. I've been here for a month but I'll leave tomorrow. Just enough time to see this meetup. Wonderful meetup. Lots of nice people here.

00:28:50 John Daub: What did you like the best about Japan?

00:28:56 Guest: The food and the shrines. Lots of shrines everywhere. Ride the Shinkansen. It's a lot of fun. Get an ekiben. It's great fun.

00:29:15 John Daub: Well, thanks for coming out. I appreciate it. You getting enough to drink? Nice choice. This is Echigo Sakura from Niigata. Where are you from?

00:29:50 Guest: Amsterdam. For two weeks. Sakura trees. That's really something.

00:30:08 John Daub: It's hard not to enjoy it. Not a good time to come in Golden Week. Too late and very crowded. So you're actually saving money now on this trip because everything is a lot cheaper. Well, thank you very much for coming out. We're just about to end the livestream. Everybody want to say hi to the livestream, to YouTube? I'm just going to do a fast drive-by, okay, everybody? Just give it a thumbs up for hello. Thanks for coming out. From the US. In Baltimore? Welcome to Japan.

00:31:38 Guest: We're Meatball Manga.

00:31:48 John Daub: Oh, we got one more group here. See you. Drink up there, Andrew. Subscribe. How did you know that that was the last thing he was going to say? Don't forget to punch that like button. Follow John because he's the greatest guy in the world. He loves Japan. But I want to thank everybody for coming out. You can't see them here, but I'm going to put the picture on Instagram of the group. We have an amazing group of people that came out to say hi. And I'm so thankful. We're going to do another meetup next week, I think. But I wanted to do the meetup today because some people were leaving. And right now is the middle of the cherry blossom season. I'm going to end the livestream by showing you some of the cherry blossoms. So enjoy and see you in a livestream probably tomorrow. Have a good night or good day, everybody. Goodbye from Kitanomaru Park. Sakura season. Only in Japan meetup. We're about 85% there. Bye bye, everybody.