00:00:09 John Daub: Hey everybody, this is the end of the cherry blossom season and I'm kind of sad about it because this is a time of year where we celebrate and yet that celebration does not last forever. No, it just lasts for a few days, believe it or not. We hit full bloom about four or five days ago. And now we're at the end and we had some wind the last couple of days. Yeah, they're gone. Well, I wouldn't say they're completely gone. Let me give you a look around. So behind me are trees. This is the Ichigaya area.

00:01:07 John Daub: They've all blown off. They've all popped off and you can see that the leaves are starting to come through right there. There's still some hanging on, but that's not going to stop people from celebrating. As you can see, a lot of people are out here along the riverbanks here in Ichigaya celebrating. There's cases of beer, lots of big blue sheets. And what I like about this area is that it's not as crowded as Ueno Park or Yoyogi Park or some of the other parks in the city. This is more local. There's some convenience stores.

00:01:52 John Daub: There's some stores out there. There's some people celebrating over here. And you can see, just down there, there's a truck I saw. It's like an oden truck, I think. I don't see these anymore, believe it or not. These are kind of rare to find. He's got an oden truck down there, do you see? 1,000 yen for 12 pieces of oden. That's actually kind of expensive. You can see the oden simmering in the tubs down there.

00:02:40 John Daub: So I'm going to take you down this riverside here and show you a little bit of the Ichigaya area and why I like to come here. Once again, Ueno and Yoyogi Park are nice. Shinjuku Gyoen is nice. It's just a little bit too crowded for my taste. And you can see the train line going by here. That should be the Chuo Line. On the other side of the river, you can see there's more sakura trees, but most of them are on this side. And there's a beautiful walkway that leads from Ichigaya Station all the way, if you keep going, towards Yotsuya, which is another area in the center. And if you keep going straight, I believe you get to Shinjuku Station. I've done the walk a couple of times.

00:04:04 John Daub: You can see here, the leaves have really come through. That's the end. Hey, the oden truck is following us as well. He rings the bell to announce to everybody that he's here. And then some people who want food will make their way down to the oden truck, buy something. He also has yakitori and beer. Yeah, so it is a really beautiful day. The last three days have been really nice in Tokyo. The problem is that, yeah, there was some wind. And once you get to 100% bloom and the blossoms are out full, everything is blossomed. They hang on. Oh, they hang on. And then they just go away, like this train will in a second. Blossoms are here. They're meant to be short-lived. That's the sad part about it. But that's also the beauty of it. That it's here one day and it's gone the next. And you have to enjoy the moment. And this is also a lesson in life. You enjoy the moment right now as it is. And when they're gone, they'll be back next year. But until that time, enjoy the last few moments of it.

00:05:27 John Daub: I like here in Japan they separate all the trash. Even up here where it's not a very popular place, there's not a lot of people. It's not like Ueno Park as I said. But they still have, the city has set up places where you have non-burnable trash, you have burnable trash, and then you have cans and bottles over there. And I really like this system where the city has separated it.

00:06:08 John Daub: So I'm going to have to stay on for another 15 minutes or so, just so we can get those people who are getting their notifications late to get back on to our live stream. These are some of the scenes that are quite famous for Tokyo during the hanami (cherry blossom viewing) season. One of the places here is where the Chuo Line goes by and you have the cherry blossoms right here. Now the blossoms are gone. But here you got the train going by. And scenes like that really are famous for the city of Tokyo. You got trains going past the nature, the cherry blossoms, and that's a big part of this time of year in the city.

00:07:00 John Daub: We have a lot of dead warriors here. They hung on as long as they could. And now they're done. Give it a proper burial. So once again we do have a very, very lovely day in Tokyo. There are some cherry blossoms but yeah it's effectively on the way out. And so by next week, by Monday April 3rd I think, April 4th, it's probably going to be just a few really strong guys hanging on. From a distance you can see them. You see? These are some of the smaller ones. And there are different varieties of cherry blossoms. So the blossoms are blooming at all different times but the Yoshino, the sakura blossoms that we have here are the majority of them and they're pretty much at the end now. We had them at 80% bloom and then 100% bloom and now we have them at like minus 40% bloom so we're going into the minuses. But that doesn't mean that you can't still enjoy them.

00:08:16 John Daub: And another reason why I'm doing this livestream is also to suggest some places that you can go in Japan if you want to see cherry blossoms. Tokyo is not, and I've been preaching this for the last couple of weeks now on the livestreams, Tokyo is not the best place to see the cherry blossoms. It's a place but it's not the best place. The best places are outside of the city center and I would have to say I was impressed last year with Hirosaki. Hirosaki is in Aomori Prefecture and Hirosaki is also a castle town. And you can get there by Shinkansen to Aomori if you have a JR rail pass. Go up to Aomori. It starts on April 24th. Thank you Vikram. Thank you very much. I appreciate all of the support every time.

00:09:11 John Daub: So the place that I like the best probably right now, I was really impressed with Hirosaki. I also think that Fukushima is a great place to go for the cherry blossoms. It was famous before the meltdown that we had 8 years ago. It was famous for having the cherry blossoms. But it's also a famous place still today with beautiful cherry blossom trees and they have one of the biggest ones in Japan up there as well. And I think seeing these magnificent matriarchs of trees is worth making a trip to go and see. Fukushima has some big ones that are hundreds and hundreds of years old. I think also that Hirosaki and Aomori was an amazing place because you have the castle around the cherry blossoms. And it blooms on April 20th. Between the 20th and the 26th I think you're going to see some beautiful cherry blossoms up there.

00:10:14 John Daub: And Yoshino Yama usually is ranked as the number one spot to see the cherry blossoms. If you're on Patreon and you got the postcard last month. Because I have a postcard club where I send these to people who support the show. That is considered the number one spot in Japan to go and see the cherry blossoms. Because there's I think over 30,000 sakura trees all blooming at different times because they're at elevation going from pretty much ground level to the top of the hills there. And the temperature is different. The atmosphere is different. Being on the top looking down is different. Being on the bottom looking up is different. So you have so many different views. That's why I liked Yoshino Yama.

00:11:18 John Daub: A lot of the other places that I go to when I want to see the cherry blossoms is not in Tokyo. It's outside of the city. Niigata, Nagano is going to be starting next week. That's another reason to hop on the trains and get on the Shinkansen and go to Nagano to see the cherry blossoms up there. You can stretch this out. I think Tokyo is finished but I think Utsunomiya is another place that's going to be starting. They have a park that's not too far away from the main station that's near there's a TV tower in the city of Utsunomiya. Not only is Utsunomiya famous for good gyoza, maybe the best gyoza in Japan, but it's also a place where the cherry blossoms start a week after Tokyo just about because they have cooler weather inland. And that means that it's probably peak right now. I should hop on the train too.

00:12:06 John Daub: So this is also a famous site. You get the cherry blossoms on the distant side of the river and then you have the train lines going by. This is the Chuo and the Sobu lines that go by every couple of minutes. And if you see in the distance, do you see it? Right there, right in the center of the screen is a place where you can do urban fishing. Tsuri (fishing). They say fishing in Japanese is called tsuri. And you can rent a rod and you can rent a pail and you can actually fish. You can fish here in the center of the city and that's kind of another famous place to go. This is sort of like a tunnel. So if you were here about five days ago, it would have been absolutely stunning before the winds hit.

00:13:08 John Daub: This is a really good indication of where we are right now with the cherry blossoms. Tokyo. The cherry blossoms, there's a few hanging on and the green leaves are starting to pop through and that's when you know you're at the end of the cycle. It didn't last too long. Why was Tokyo's cherry blossoms early this year? That's another question. How do you time your trip effectively to meet with the cherry blossoms? And the answer is that I have no idea because you can't predict Mother Nature. It's sort of the interesting thing is you don't know. You really don't know when the cherry blossoms are going to start to bloom until about a month out. And if you have a warm spell two weeks before the cherry blossoms, then they're probably going to bloom about three days earlier and that means that if you booked your hotel to try to meet up with the cherry blossoms, you might be late or too early. There's just no real way to predict it.

00:14:47 John Daub: Hey everybody. I just bumped into somebody that I knew. It's a small, Tokyo's a big city but it's a small neighborhood out here. Yeah, so as I was saying, oh there's the oden truck again. How does this guy go backwards? You can get 12 pieces of oden which is good for two people for a thousand yen or one person for 600 yen it says here. I get about six pieces of oden. I don't know why people aren't going. It might be the quality of the oden. I mean it's somewhat scary. But as I was saying, Tokyo is not the best place to go to the cherry blossoms. It's almost impossible to predict when you can go. But that shouldn't stop you because as you can see here that everybody is also it doesn't stop everybody from coming out and doing hanami parties. And they're sitting out here underneath what was the cherry blossoms on blue sheets with their friends and enjoying a Sunday afternoon here in Tokyo.

00:16:02 John Daub: So Richard Woodard writes in here, have you heard of a cherry blossom forecast for the Fuji-Goko region? Two weeks and we'll be in Tokyo. I'm not sure but if it's at elevation and it's outside the city there's a chance. As I'm saying up in Tohoku, the cherry blossoms will bloom in about two weeks from now. So there's still time. And if you're going up to Hokkaido if you want to go and see the cherry blossoms in Japan in May, you can see that in Hokkaido. Sapporo has the cherry blossoms in the first week of May. So that's a month away. So 30 days from now effectively we're going to be having cherry blossoms in Sapporo. So you don't have to rush to get to Tokyo. If you have a train pass or you want to get a cheap flight to get to Sapporo, you can be able to see the cherry blossoms in Japan. Tokyo is only one place to see them.

00:16:58 John Daub: Which is sort of the purpose of this live stream. I know a lot of you are just tuning in right now. But Japan's cherry blossom season, although short here in Tokyo, we just had about three or four days of it at full bloom and then poof! They flew off the last few days. Well that's a collection of beer. Look at that. These guys know how to drink. Look at that. And they put their dead warriors, they line it up out of respect. That's awesome. They really did some damage here, these guys. There's some Hakkaisan down there, some sake. I see every kind of beer too. There's premium malts, Kirin. That's an amazing selection.

00:17:53 John Daub: Hello. I bet you they're gonna be here tomorrow morning just sprawled out on their blue sheet. Waking up. What happened? We got hammered. It's very very easy for that to happen. I've been to some sakura parties, some hanami parties that just never really ended. And you know, it's like, oh look at this, this is beautiful. You see the blossoms just sort of falling? This is a moment that I just have to stop in my tracks and enjoy. You see the leaves, the blossoms falling? It's absolutely stunning. So every little breeze that blows through this area, the blossoms will fall off of the buds, off of the branches and start to fly towards us. That was a pretty incredible moment right there.

00:19:31 John Daub: So Professor Dell, thank you very much. Professor asks if you're a first timer to Japan, this is a really good question. Should the cherry blossoms be the first time that you come? That's a hard one. I think you have to come when you have time. Japan has four seasons and each season has its own special... He's totally smashed. Just go straight, dude. Follow the line, follow the line. Did you see that? That dude was smashed.

00:20:22 John Daub: Alright, so the professor writes, when's the best time? You know, I think that this is a really amazing time. The thing is this, right? You can't really predict when the cherry blossoms... This is sort of the point of this live stream as well. Yeah, when you're live, you never know what you're gonna see, yeah? If he'd fallen down or something or started yakking, then I'd be pretty embarrassed, but just seeing him kind of stagger and that's a typical sight. Tokyo is such a safe place. Nothing will happen to him just as long as he can find the restroom.

00:20:56 John Daub: The thing is this, Professor. It's really hard to predict the cherry blossoms. If you get a Japan Rail Pass and it's your first time and if you have some time to settle in here, maybe like 10 days, you can take the JR Rail Pass and you can go and you can do some blossom hunting and find out where they are. Now, the problem with that is that a lot of the hotels are probably gonna be booked. This is a high season not just for foreign tourists coming to Japan, but for Japanese themselves traveling around looking at the cherry blossoms. So, hotels are booked far, far in advance and the chance of you missing the cherry blossoms and booking a hotel at a peak rate and yet not having the cherry blossoms, there's a percentage of that. So, I think you can come to Japan at this time of year. As you can see, I've lost my winter jacket. I'm outside. I feel more free. It feels great to be outside. The weather's not hot. I'm not sweating uncontrollably, which is what it's like in the summer.

00:21:49 John Daub: But if your main purpose is to see the cherry blossoms, then I would say it's a little bit of a risk, but the weather is good. It doesn't rain that much between April and the middle of May. So, it's an excellent time. My recommendation is come to Japan after Golden Week, which is the holiday which runs from April 27th to May 5th. So, if you come to Japan around May 10th, this is the golden time, I think, for travel. It's just beautiful. Between May 10th and May 25th, it hardly rains. It's before the monsoon, the rainy season, but it's before also the summer weather that's so oppressively hot where you're just sweating uncontrollably. So, for me, that would be the best time. If you do come and you want to see the cherry blossom seasons, just be aware that you might miss them and you might end up with scenes like this. And that guy has, he's got cherry blossoms on his head. They've been falling all over. Every time a wind goes by, it just rains blossoms.

00:23:04 John Daub: So, that would be my advice to you, Professor. But you can't go wrong. Once again, the food is all different. The scenery changes in the winter. Instead of the blossoms on the tree, you're going to have blossoms on the ground. And actually, you know, this is kind of beautiful. It's like art in a way. When the beauty has fallen on the ground, it sure does look good. It's like a pink and white. And you can see they're pretty much all over the place. They're on top of the roof here. This guy's trying to get a picture of a few dead ones.

00:23:54 John Daub: So that's a really good really good question. Another one that I get asked a lot, and what I'm going to do is actually make a live stream next week, I think, where I sit down and answer all of your questions that you might have traveling. Because a lot of people are going to be coming to Japan in the summer. And a lot of people have been writing to meet up with me. And that's an indication that, yeah, people are starting to make the plans to come to Japan, finally, after years of wanting to come here. And you have a lot of questions. So I want to make a live stream next week. I'll schedule it. And you guys can all follow me on here.

00:24:33 John Daub: What's up? You're saying I'm not. Yeah! Oh, gosh! I'm doing a live stream introducing you to a foreigner. Where are you from? Oh, you're from America? Oh, you're from the world. Yeah! Say it in the best way! Yeah! High five! Yeah, brother! See you! Did that just happen? That was the dude who was staggering before. I love this guy! He's in my top ten of people I've met in my life. So there's also a guy dressed up as a rabbit here. That's cute. It's a time to celebrate, you know. It's a time for celebration. Yeah. It's a fun time to be in Japan.

00:25:50 John Daub: There was a bubble that came right at me! I had to get my Jean-Claude Van Damme on there and get out of the way. Avoid the hit. Here's a play you can see once again. The green blossoms have come out and we're closer to the end and the beginning. This is a time of year where you do celebrate. You will go and get a little hammered in Japan. And usually you're with a group of friends and yeah, you know, when you haven't seen... This is a reason for you to catch up with your friends as well. Everybody is doing parties. I've been invited to a dozen sakura parties. I didn't go to any of them this year because I've been pretty busy editing and doing videos and stuff. But this is also a time of year where you get to meet up with your friends that you haven't seen in a while and you all have a party. And of course you're gonna get a little bit tipsy because it's a celebration. And this Sunday is the last Sunday for the cherry blossoms here in Tokyo. There's no doubt about it. I mean, you can just see there's like one hanging on here. Hang on little guy! Hang on!

00:27:26 John Daub: That did happen! That guy did come out! If you missed it, you're gonna have to check that out. He staggered by me and then he came by and then while I was talking he just stopped! He stopped and then I was like, can I help you sir? You know, like I looked around and he asked me what I was doing. Pretty cool. Pretty cool livestream. This is Ichigaya. This is... I'm now in front of Ichigaya Station and this is the walkway that goes past this playground and you can walk all the way to Yotsuya and Shinjuku. And Yasukuni Shrine is the other direction. That I livestreamed from before. And I think I might do one more livestream today. I'm gonna go to another area of Tokyo and kind of give you an idea of what the end of the sakura season is like. But I am hungry. And I'm gonna try to find some ramen.

00:28:22 John Daub: It has also been one year since the channel has started. And I wanna do a celebratory episode to celebrate having this channel for one year. I really don't count how many episodes that I do. It's not about that. It's sort of about uh, the it was this livestreaming was just sort of an idea. And it's turned into something that I can connect with people more regularly now. Because it's just so easy to push the go live button and then bring you content live. Here's a map of where I am. So, where are we? Here's Kudanshita. This is where I was, um, the other day. And I did a meetup there. And I believe this is Iidabashi and Suidobashi. So, Ichigaya. Okay. We're down here. So this is Ichigaya. And here's the river that we followed.

00:29:41 John Daub: You can't believe it's been a year, too. Here's the station down here for the subway. JR is right there at the JR station. I can show you where they do the fishing, maybe. But I'm doing another live meetup on the 4th. Here's the map of the city. And we're right here. I'll take you where the fish are. I'm doing another live meetup for anybody who's in the city or coming to Tokyo on April 4th. Oh yeah, you can see the station. Hey, Professor Del, thank you, my friend. Yeah, I'm gonna go get some ramen. Well, I might get some fish. Check it out. Do you see it? Do you see the people down there? These are the guys that are fishing.

00:30:37 John Daub: You know what I wanna do is, um, I'm gonna go down and do the fishing for you on another day. Today's a Sunday. This isn't the best day to do it because it's quite crowded down there, but if I can go down there and catch some fish. You have to, this is a catch and release. And the place where you go and you get the, let me see if I can find it. It's in the front here. There's a booth where you can pay and you get a fishing pole. And then you can just get a milk carton, and you just sit on it. And you fish. And every now and then you'll catch something. I'm kind of waiting for somebody to catch something. Yeah, Timothy, I believe Angela did do a live stream on this. Not a live stream, but an episode on this. And you have to get into the reasons of why Japanese do do this. I know that some cities around the world also have fishing ponds. You can also fish indoor. They have catch your own fish restaurants. So it is pretty cool.

00:31:48 John Daub: That might have to be a ramen live stream now. And I am starving. So there's a cherry blossom on the other side of the river. As I said, Shinjuku to the left, Itabashi to the right. Itabashi is where I had the monster gyoza a couple of years ago. It's a pretty big gyoza that made me sick. I have stories to tell you, but I'm not going to tell it to you right now. That wasn't the best memory. Eating that gyoza was not... It made for a good episode, but it was definitely not a good memory for me. I was tasting it for a week after eating it. I ate 75% of it, I think. Or 65% of it, but... Ah, man.

00:32:36 John Daub: I'm going to Ichigaya station. I'm going to try to find some ramen after this. So I'm going to do another live stream if I can get to the ramen. Or find something interesting for you. But I don't live stream just for the sake of live streaming. I want to have like a mission. You know? I need to have a mission. And Professor Noh and Josh have made a mission for me. It is to go get some ramen. So I'm in Ichigaya station. So hang on for a little bit. I'm going to go find some ramen. Maybe I'm going to go to Shinjuku station. That sounds good. So see you in about an hour. Okay? Or less. Thanks for joining me on this live stream, everybody. It's ramen time.