00:00:00 John Daub: Hey everybody, we are live from the Ume Plum Blossom Festival here in Tokyo. This is Yushima Tenjin, a shrine not too far from Ueno and Tokyo University. And you can see the ume blossoms are out here in Tokyo. This just kind of creates spring fever on another level because when you do come here, I try to avoid coming to ume blossom festivals—it ruins you because you can't wait for the cherry blossoms anymore to come. So now I'm going to take you around this area and take a look at the ume blossoms. And joining me on this report is Kanae Daub. How you doing?

00:00:52 Kanae Daub: Hi. How are you?

00:00:54 John Daub: Pretty good. Oh, you're asking now. It's a kind of warm day, but the thing about spring in Tokyo, or at least like the end of February, is it's deceptively warm. So always wear layers. There are more layers than you need at the end of February, even if it's sunny and warm. All right. Check it out. Hey, Katherine, how you doing everybody out there? So yeah, the cherry blossoms have not bloomed, but the ume blossoms have. So what you're looking at right now is the first signs of spring, which is almost always at the end of February. So if you come in February, at the end of February, there's a chance you're going to be able to see some of these blossoms. And they're very similar to the cherry blossoms, the sakura, but they're different too. It's just similar but different.

00:01:50 John Daub: And there are scenes here with a bridge. I guess we can't go there, but a lot of people are taking pictures here. Must be something famous. There's a lovely lady in a kimono. I guess this is a place to get the picture. You can pose with the red umbrella in the background. I guess they have festivals here and tea ceremony and they do other kinds of cultural events. This and right there, it's written Ume Matsuri (Plum Blossom Festival). Is this your first time to come here?

00:02:29 Kanae Daub: Hajimete kita (First time coming here).

00:02:34 John Daub: Yeah, about three times before. This is where a lot of students will come to pray for success in exams and stuff. In fact, I'm going to take you to a place in a couple of minutes that shows you where everyone has written their onegai (please/wish) or wish for something scholastic about school. It's that kind of shrine because it's very close to Tokyo University.

00:02:56 Kanae Daub: Very close. I came here too.

00:03:01 John Daub: You came here?

00:03:02 Kanae Daub: Yeah.

00:03:03 John Daub: When was the last time you came here, Kanae?

00:03:07 Kanae Daub: One year ago.

00:03:08 John Daub: A year ago? Why didn't you take me?

00:03:11 Kanae Daub: I came here with my dad.

00:03:13 John Daub: Oh, with your papa. Okay. And you can also see here, there's the shrine over there. Oh, wow. Look at amazake (sweet fermented rice drink).

00:03:24 Kanae Daub: How dare they?

00:03:27 John Daub: I saw her pulling the amazake. I'm going to go. I love amazake.

00:03:29 Kanae Daub: I love amazake.

00:03:38 John Daub: Do you want some amazake, Kanae?

00:03:40 Kanae Daub: Yeah.

00:03:42 John Daub: He beat you. All right, we can get one. Let me see. Share?

00:03:46 Kanae Daub: Yeah, we can share one.

00:03:47 John Daub: Here, I got 500 yen. There you go. So we can get some amazake. That's 300 yen. About $3 for a cup of amazake. It's pretty, isn't it?

00:04:02 Kanae Daub: No. Amazake. I'm thirsty.

00:04:11 John Daub: Here it comes. Oh, I can smell it. All right, show us that really delicious amazake. Oh, it's piping hot. It's very hot. You can see. Hold it steady, dear. You can see the pieces of rice in there. That's how you know it's good.

00:04:32 Kanae Daub: Good?

00:04:39 John Daub: Thank you, Nosh. Nosh has taken care of us. We just finished up the amazake. The almonds you left us, Nosh, by the way. That was a big bag you gave us, Nosh. Thanks for that. Kanae's kind of blowing it down because it's super hot. Whoa, fish tempura. Oh, this is crazy. I didn't expect all the street food, Kanae.

00:05:13 John Daub: This is the Hiroshima version of okonomiyaki (savory cabbage pancake), right?

00:05:17 Kanae Daub: I don't know. I've never seen it.

00:05:19 John Daub: Yeah, it looks really good. This is about $4.50, $5 for one of these. Looks really good. And they've got over here fish tempura. I'm kind of curious about this. I want to get back to the sakura blossoms in a second, but let's go take a look at the food. Fish tempura. I mean, what fish is it? What kind of fish is it?

00:05:44 Kanae Daub: Wakasagi (smelt fish).

00:05:45 John Daub: Oh, yeah, it's written in hiragana right there. Wakasagi. Look here. There's the oil. And he's putting it deep-fried wakasagi.

00:05:55 Kanae Daub: It's good.

00:05:55 John Daub: It's good?

00:05:56 Kanae Daub: Yeah, it's good.

00:05:58 John Daub: You want to get some or the okonomiyaki? Have you ever tried wakasagi tempura before?

00:06:05 Kanae Daub: I probably did, but when I did, I probably didn't know what it was.

00:06:09 John Daub: Here. Okay, but I can't hold it. I can hold the amazake. I'll switch with you. Can you hold this? Okay. You want me to hold the amazake? Yeah. I've got two hands. Here we go. All right. So right now... He's being careful. Yeah, right now, I think he... I think very soon he might start to fry some more wakasagi. Oh, this is really good. It's not too sweet.

00:06:42 Kanae Daub: Yeah.

00:06:45 John Daub: I don't like amazake when they put a lot of artificial sweeteners in it. Yeah, it's kind of like... I don't know. It's too sweet. It tastes fake. This one is good. There's very little sugar in it, if any at all. So Kanae's going to get us some of this fish tempura, which is wakasagi. I love that sound. Sounds good. That's such a wonderful sound. I don't know if you can hear it. The mic is only on this side. But the sound of boiling tempura oil is nice. It's a really pleasant sound.

00:07:44 John Daub: So while Kanae's getting that, let's go back to the flowers. The okonomiyaki chef has made some progress. He's starting to flip right now. Those are big. They're not easy to flip. Kai's a master. It's about 2 p.m. Let's go take a look at these cherry blossoms again. Sorry, I keep saying cherry blossoms. They're ume. Plum blossoms. They're plum blossoms. Yeah, check it out. I like the fact that this place has lots of places to sit as well. And they've covered it with a red tarp. And you can just sit there and really appreciate the ume blossoms. I am so in spring fever mode. For me, it's already like March 25th, and I'm sitting underneath the cherry blossoms. By the way, we're going to do a meetup. A viewer meetup for the cherry blossom season. It's at the, uh, around between the 20th and the 25th of March.

00:09:01 John Daub: Oh, there's a wedding going on. There's a wedding. It's a wedding, right? It's a wedding.

00:09:21 Kanae Daub: Oh, that looks so good.

00:09:22 John Daub: Stop it. Just stay right there. Stay right there. Oh, my gosh. Whenever you get food at a festival. You can see wedding. Oh, that looks so good. Just the oil and the... Just hold it steady. The oil and the fish, the tender meat. It's got to be really good. Hold on a second. I don't want to drop it. I've done that before. Glistening in the sun. Oh, man. All right. We got to try this here.

00:09:56 John Daub: Do you like it?

00:10:03 Kanae Daub: It's a little bit bitter, but it's got such tender meat to it.

00:10:07 John Daub: Totally worth 500 yen. You don't want to eat it?

00:10:11 Kanae Daub: Yeah, I want, but I have two gloves. Two paper gloves. I don't know.

00:10:18 John Daub: Those of you in the US, would you eat this? What do you think? Leave a comment right now. We got... Aseo writes in cringe. And here in the bottom of it is the... The final piece of rice. Can I take that amazake down? She doesn't drink alcohol. I do. I'll drink the sake. She can take the amazake. Yeah, amazake is very healthy. Yeah, there's enzymes in the amazake. There's actually... In the middle of an amazake boom in Japan. You used to not be able to find it at the supermarket and now there's maybe 10 different varieties of amazake sold at the supermarkets, which is pretty incredible. But there are some health benefits to it. Every couple of years there's some big health boom or some trend in health. Right now it's amazake. Before it was like coconut oil and they had that acai juice. Remember? We go in steps and right now it's almond milk and yeah almond milk and amazake. It's yeah it's a superfood, Nosh writes in. The great thing about amazake is that it's a food that you drink but it's very much like soup so it'll quench your thirst and also fill you up and that's really nice in the winter because you need extra energy to battle the cold.

00:11:49 Kanae Daub: Good? I like it. Good. Very nice.

00:12:05 John Daub: Let's take you around this area here and I want to show you where some of the students will write their names, their onegai or their wishes on here. I'm hoping to get into Tokyo University which is like the Harvard of Japan. Oh there's the wedding. Are we allowed to take pictures? I don't want to do anything that would be wrong because the internet would rip me apart. Here they are. Everybody has written their dreams. This is the year of the boar but it's gonna be anything but a boring year. You see everyone has written almost everybody something about study. Can you let's read some of them. Can we do that? Is this like private? I don't know I don't want to break the law. She wants to get to go to university. Yeah I see that. They're just basically everybody is trying their best here to go to university. I hope they can get into but they only limit amount of spots. Only the best in the... Oh look yeah let me take you up here to the front of the shrine and you can see the wedding going on. This is a very special moment everybody. Kind of a treat. This is a Japanese wedding going on right inside there.

00:13:17 Kanae Daub: We didn't eat like this.

00:13:20 John Daub: Yeah, we did it like this too, didn't we? Kind of similar, we had our wedding. You can see the bride and the groom there.

00:13:33 Kanae Daub: That hat was pretty heavy, right?

00:13:36 John Daub: What? My hat?

00:13:37 Kanae Daub: Yeah, when you had to wear the... No. The one for the wedding ceremony, it looked like it was very heavy.

00:13:43 Kanae Daub: It's not heavy, but it's kind of difficult to move my head like this. It's like going to be down.

00:13:55 John Daub: Ah, yeah. I couldn't shake my head. Yeah, you can't move your head or it'll fall off. Now, these are the ema (votive plaques), right? And the ema are wishes that you will write. Sorry, so you'll pay 100 yen usually and you'll get a fortune. And if it's bad, you can tie it here and it won't come true. And if it's good, you tie it here and it will come true. So basically, you're going to end up tying it here. Unless it's a, you know, lukewarm dream or wish or fortune. And then you, you know, we'll just probably put it in your pocket.

00:14:30 Kanae Daub: Yeah.

00:14:34 John Daub: All right, here's the whole picture of the ume blossoms. Usually, ume blossoms are not as big as the sakura. There aren't as many of them. I don't know why. They're not as impressive a flower. Oh, yeah, that one looks like a mountain. They're not as impressive as a flower as the sakura. I guess the... The blossoms aren't as big. I'll take you a little bit closer to them in about a minute. Let me turn your attention over here. There's another beautiful one. And it does look so much like the cherry blossom, doesn't it? Look at that white blossom. Oh, man. Here's another mountain of wishes. There's so many of them. They're just bulging out. Typically, you don't see so many. But the amount of wishes that people have here are incredible. Look at this. That's a lot of people want to go to Tokyo University. And I think it's... It's only like a few thousand people can go there every year. Although there is a medical school. There are really good business schools. There are different kinds of schools in there.

00:15:34 John Daub: But where's yours?

00:15:38 Kanae Daub: Is yours here from when you were a kid? When you were in university? No.

00:15:47 John Daub: It's got to be deep in there. If yours is in there. I guess they clean this every year, though, right? I know that they get rid of these at the end... In certain times of the year to start fresh again. Maybe on April 1st. Yeah, these are ema. Peter von Gomm and I went over the ema when we did the Sugamo episode. You can buy an ema for 500 yen in Sugamo. And put it in with the little stuffed animal. The big stuffed animal. Yeah. It's very nice. All right, let's go take a closer look at these flowers. And then I want to go to the stairways. The... What's it called? Meteozaka? I'm going to take a look at the stairways. That'll be the most impressive. And this is where I took the thumbnail for this episode. I still might change it. But you can see here. This is a smaller ume tree. And I'm going to get really close to the flowers now. Because this has a nice... This has a really nice... Bloom to it. It is really, really stunning. The petals aren't as big as the cherry blossoms. The sakura. But it just depends on the variety. Each flower has its own... Own shape and color. Ume blossoms to me, though. When I think of plum, I think of the purple ones. These are the white ones. Don't get them confused with sakura. Because I always get them confused with sakura.

00:17:26 John Daub: All right, let's... I guess that's a really good question. They have a slight fragrance to it. It's not as strong. Ah, here's the name of it. They usually, in the trees, will write the name. What is this called?

00:17:43 Kanae Daub: Jurokomachi.

00:17:45 John Daub: Jurokomachi. Jyu meaning ten. All right. Are you sure that's the name of it? Or the town that donated the tree, maybe? It's hard to know. You didn't finish your fish tempura.

00:18:02 Kanae Daub: No, you can have it.

00:18:07 John Daub: I want to show you this purple one here. Now, protect the flowers. They have a walkway with ropes. Don't try to be a hero. Because there's so many people here watching you. Some old guy will probably... Grab you and bring you back to reality. All the Instagrammers here. They're all trying to get the best pictures. Now, the zoom lens on the iPhone isn't as good. I'll see if I can find another one. But you can see the purple color to it. To me, this is the ume blossoms. I used to live in a town, a city called Mito, in Ibaraki Prefecture. Now, we say Ibaraki. It sounds more like a G than a K for the people who live there. But I used to live in Mito. And when I lived there, there's a park. One of the three... Oh, Kairakuen. Yeah, Kairakuen (Kairaku Park). It's one of the three great gardens. In Japan. The other one is in Okayama, Kenrokuen in Kanazawa, and Kairakuen in Mito. And they're famous for ume. And if you're here in Japan and you have a day to spare, jump on the Joban line or the Hitachi Express and go up to Mito and get off at that exit because it is absolutely stunning.

00:19:12 John Daub: Now, these look like... These look like they have a little bit to go. A little bit of time to go. This might even be sakura. I think the sakura blossoms are going to be blooming in about three weeks. It's going to be super early this year because we had a very warm... A very warm winter comparably.

00:19:36 Kanae Daub: Yeah, I'd love to go to Mito.

00:19:37 John Daub: I just did... If you guys saw the drive-through... Did you see the drive-through ramen episode? Did you see the drive-through ramen and the drive-through sushi episode? That's Ibaraki Prefecture. That's the same prefecture as Mito where the flowers are. And that was one of my ideas to drive up there and do it. But we just ran out of time. And we were a little bit early. Those blossoms are... Those blossoms started blooming about a week ago. So they're probably close to peak. Actually, I think like... Next week would be the best time to go to Mito, right? For the ume.

00:20:06 Kanae Daub: Yeah. The end of February would be really beautiful. We could go there.

00:20:14 John Daub: Wow, I see we've got all our moderators in the house. We've got Jim, Tim, and Nosh here. It's pretty amazing. Alright, a couple of things that I want to show you. I'm going to take you through underneath that bridge over there in a second. This is where they have the omamori (protective charms), right?

00:20:32 Kanae Daub: Yes, omamori.

00:20:33 John Daub: Omamori are spiritual charms. Kind of like things that will protect you from evil spirits.

00:20:41 Kanae Daub: Yeah, I put my school bag with omamori.

00:20:44 John Daub: Ah, which one? Maybe for studying. Yeah, you can get... Studying omamori. It helps you study? Or it keeps the evil spirits from making you drink booze and thus ruining your study? One of our friends is here, actually. This is what the Yushima Tenjin looks like. The grounds around here. And there's the bridge that we're going to go underneath next. That's what it looks like. And that red spot just above the ume blossoms, that green area is where we are. Our friend who makes the Japanese candy, the amezaiku (sugar art candy), is here. Is he here or his shop is here? Let's go take a look and see what he has on offer. But there's a lot of local businesses. This is another reason why I love these smaller festivals. A lot of these local businesses are here selling goods. That's a good way to support your neighborhood by coming to these festivals and buying some things that are on offer. But this is called amezaiku. And I made an episode on this on the main channel. Check it out. Each of these is really kawaii (cute).

00:22:09 John Daub: Oh, there's the Pikachu-looking one. Oh, there's no Pegasus one. Oh, there's the YouTube one. This is for Kushihara-san. That one's 3 months ago, right?

00:22:21 Kanae Daub: Yeah.

00:22:23 John Daub: Oh, it's your face. It's really cute. Isn't it?

00:22:31 Kanae Daub: It's really cute.

00:22:34 Kanae Daub: It's ume.

00:22:36 John Daub: Yeah, it's ume. So the bird is with...

00:22:39 Kanae Daub: Yeah, uguisu (Japanese bush warbler).

00:22:41 John Daub: That one, right?

00:22:44 Kanae Daub: This is um... Yes? Candy cute isn't it a candy?

00:22:52 Kanae Daub: It's a mejiro (white-eye bird). I made a mistake. It's a mejiro. They are edible. The candy, the amezaiku is too beautiful to eat. It's cute. Thank you.

00:24:25 John Daub: That's umeshu (plum wine).

00:24:28 Kanae Daub: Wow. That's umeshu. Thank you.

00:24:35 John Daub: Plum called ume and it's very easy to make in fact we made some last year that's ready to drink its nominator. We can eat I would drink it. Yes. We made some alcohol from umeshu last year and it's I think it's just about ready to drink but this is umeshu. Yeah, I hate Jordan. Guess what Jordan I sent you to Jordan so you get to them on the way. I sent one from this month. This is a postcard club on Patreon and I sent one from last year to say thank you to everybody. Um, I had a couple of extra ones. So thank you so much Jordan. I appreciate it. Can I appreciate it too? Yeah, this Jordan right the postcard I the second postcard just put in the mailbox before we came here. Wow, it's it's like it's so cool to see Jordan just pop up here. Haha. These are senbei (rice crackers) and they're making them fresh here on the grill. Maybe not exactly right now but basically they some they will press the oh, yeah, he's not grilling them. Very cool. There's no better crispy taste food in Japan then like senbei that is right off the char grill. It's so good and they got some pretty good offers on here that the spicy one. Oh, this is the one my mom likes. Yeah, these are really spicy little senbei. Somebody come in all different kinds of sizes and flavors, but it's basically just a rice cracker that has different flavors on it and it's crunchy so it goes good with drinks and it's relatively healthy. It's pretty healthy. Maybe you don't want to eat too many because it's kind of salty. But senbei are one of my favorite snacks because it's so easy to eat and find and they preserve pretty good. Do you want a nikuman? What is that? It's sakemanju (sake steamed bun). Let's get one of those.

00:26:31 Kanae Daub: Okay.

00:26:43 John Daub: Do you still have the 500 yen? Oh get two then. Do you still have the 500 yen I gave you? Oh yeah okay. Kanae's gonna get two for us. There's a crowd. Can you fight the crowd? Yeah I should own lines. Oh get in the line. One of the biggest sins in Japan is line cutting. Society will just tear you down if you ever cut in line in Japan. Never do it. Hey Jose. Jose writes in, hey John I'll be in Tokyo in two weeks. How's the weather looking? Jose that's a great question. The weather in March is pretty, it's kind of between winter and spring. So dress in layers. Nights are cold. Days can be warm with the sun. But it's deceptively warm meaning it's still cold. We have something in Japan called sankanshio (three days cold, four days warm). And there was an old guy who told me this. Someone in his 80s. Sankanshio is, it'll go like three days warm. Three days cold and four days warm. Three days cold and four days warm. And it goes in this pattern where there'll be a really cold spell and then it gets really warm again. And then it does this like several times and then spring breaks.

00:28:04 Kanae Daub: Oh you got it. Spring breaks and then it's warm. Then spring is really here. Oh wow. Which one is mine? I guess the one I just touched.

00:28:21 John Daub: Oh it's soft. They feel like implants. Oh look. It's nice shaping. I wouldn't know what they feel like. Look at that. It's so soft. It's like a soft, soft skin. Yeah. This looks really good. Smells good. So this is sake inside? You don't think so?

00:28:37 Kanae Daub: No.

00:28:37 John Daub: Well what is it? What's the flavour?

00:28:40 Kanae Daub: It's anko (sweet bean paste) with beans inside.

00:28:42 John Daub: OK. I think they put sake. Yeah. For this. I just like feeling. I just want to touch the top. It's so. It's like one of those squishies.

00:28:56 Kanae Daub: Mmm. How is it? How is it? Food. It's very soft. I like it. I like it. Very fluffy. It's sweet. It was 100 yen or like 90 cents.

00:29:14 John Daub: I'm trying to go with exact conversion rates for the exchange rate. I think it's 111 yen to the dollar. Very nice. Very, very nice.

00:29:40 John Daub: For those joining us right now, we're at the Ume Festival in Yushima Tenjin, very close to Ueno. We're out here visiting someone who just got out of surgery. There's a hospital nearby, so we're going to go there. Then I get back to work. Look at that. She's wearing a hat. I'm a hat guy. I like that. So she's wearing the hat to promote the product. What is that? Like a wiener? Like a hot dog? What is that?

00:30:25 Kanae Daub: It's a sweet rice cookie.

00:30:29 John Daub: Sweet rice cookie? So her hat represents the... Is it soft?

00:30:37 Kanae Daub: Oh, crunchy.

00:30:39 John Daub: Okay. I've never had that. There's so many things I haven't had in Japan. I've been here for 20 years and I'm still a beginner. This is why when you come here and you come to festivals, try everything. Just start buying stuff. If you don't know what it is, just buy it. If there's a line, it's got to be good. Alright, let's go underneath the bridge here. That's where the Ume Festival is. The bride and groom walked about 30 minutes ago in this livestream. I'm going to walk underneath there and take you to... I think that's where the stairways are. It is a really pretty little shrine. Wow, our friends from Aomori are here. Aomori representing. Nice. Aomori apples are the most famous in Japan. Those big, big Fuji apples. Oh, look at that. Yeah, I think I've got to make a trip up to Hirosaki to see that. I'm going to get some apples. A little apple episode. These are San Fuji. $202.50 for one of these apples. Delicious. I'm always afraid to take a free one because then I want to buy it. But I can't carry the apple. I already know what they taste like.

00:32:07 Kanae Daub: Yeah.

00:32:09 John Daub: They've got the Hirosaki... Oh, that's not Hirosaki. That's... Hirakawashi's Cherry Blossom Festival going on there. I know. Aomori apples are huge, but they're so good. We are now underneath the bridge. There's a lot of them.

00:32:29 Kanae Daub: Yeah, yeah. There's a lot of them.

00:32:31 John Daub: Wait, what's this here? There's a lot of stuff I don't know. What is this here?

00:32:36 Kanae Daub: It's a fire.

00:32:39 John Daub: Oh, after a year, you return it for destruction, I guess, right? They burn it? So you bring the charms back to get a new charm. After a year, you can make an offering. It's a good business they've got going on. There's even more ema here. More onegai for studying. This is again for people joining us. The plum blossom festival. The first festival of spring. It's the rebel flower. It's the one that... It's not the cherry blossom, but it's the first one in the line towards spring that comes out. I call it the rebel flower. Oh, this is the one. Look at these. Yeah, you can see the purpleness of these. These will turn white like this. This is a rebel right there. This one popped out before all the other ones. But for me, plum blossoms are the rebel blossoms. They're like in that movie Braveheart. You saw the line, the first group of crazy people that go running in in battle. They go, ah! You know they're not going to make it. These plum blossoms don't make it either. They last so, so quickly like the life of a samurai. Life is precious and short. We're here just for a moment. The beauty's there and then it falls and drops. And that's the duality. Of life. If I could say it like that. It's hard to be poetically, give poetic justice to the beauty of something in a live stream. You have to rely on copious amounts of sugar from amazake and other foods. You can hear the koto (stringed instrument) in the background. Someone's playing the koto, which is a traditional Japanese harp.

00:34:41 John Daub: Hello. How you doing? Oh yeah, this is beautiful. This is not the right way. This is the right way. Oh, this one's pink. Check it out. Oh, wow. There's so much beauty in nature, isn't there? Little boy just ran underneath it. Shook the whole thing. So much beauty in nature. Kanae's getting her shot. I bought her an Olympus camera last year with a 20 millimeter 1.7 lens. Established. I got a 1.7 for that nice creamy bokeh.

00:35:38 John Daub: Hey, where's everybody watching? Why don't you write in here at this time, the live stream, where you watching from? We've got a very global audience sharing a lot of interest in Japan. Coming here to visit. Here's the performer playing the koto. Wait, was that a recording? That's a good recording. I thought there was somebody there. This is a recording. Wow. Georgia, Malaysia, San Francisco, Pluto. Bonsai. There's always one person who names a planet. There's always somebody who set the eighth planet.

00:36:33 John Daub: Let's take a look in here. This is the Tokyo University Manga Club. I was saying manga like an American. Manga Club. That's crazy. How is it the Todai Manga Club? Where's Kanae? Some guy's asking her about what I'm doing. That guy stole my wife?

00:37:11 John Daub: What did he say? What did he say? What did he say?

00:37:16 Kanae Daub: He said, where are you from?

00:37:20 John Daub: Would you tell him my typical joke? I'm from my mother.

00:37:23 Kanae Daub: Yeah, I said he's American, but he's living in Japan 20 years. He's almost Japanese.

00:37:31 John Daub: Yeah, that could be. It's very confusing to people when they look at me. I look Japanese. This is a Tokyo... Tokyo? The Todai Manga Club. Wow. And they will draw you for charity. I'm up for that. We're running out of time, though.

00:37:49 Kanae Daub: Oh. We try face portrait.

00:37:50 John Daub: Yeah, let's do a face portrait for 500 yen. We'll do two people.

00:37:58 Kanae Daub: Really?

00:37:59 John Daub: Yeah, it's for charity.

00:38:02 Kanae Daub: I have it.

00:38:03 John Daub: You have it? Okay. Let's do it for charity. All right, guys. I don't know if we're... If we're gonna do this. That's pretty good. This is something maybe we should put this just on Instagram, right?

00:38:26 Kanae Daub: Yeah.

00:38:27 John Daub: We'll put this on Instagram, I think. So, let's do this. So, we're gonna do this to support... Just for fun and support the... Tokyo University students are drawing portraits for charity. I think that's a pretty cool idea. So, we're gonna do that. I hope you enjoyed this look around. Okay. So, we're at a shrine called Yushima Tenjin. This is a shrine that's very famous here in... Very famous here in Ueno. And a lot of university students come here to pray for success getting into school. And, at this time of year, in the end of February, it is also famous for having the plum blossoms. There are some events here. There's a lot of street food and festival food. And if you're in Japan right now, you might want to make your way here. Enjoy a little taste of spring and what it's gonna be like in a couple of weeks.

00:39:13 Kanae Daub: Are they gonna play the drums? How dare they right at the end of my live stream?

00:39:17 John Daub: All right, so we're gonna end with some drum playing I guess. Just kids. Local kids they have a future. Will you dance for us? Can you dance to this?

00:39:54 Kanae Daub: Oh.

00:39:58 John Daub: Hey, hey Jim. Thank you. So Jim just bought us the drawing. Jim that's too kind of you buddy. That's too kind. Thank you. All right. All right, so let's go get that drawing I'm gonna put I'm gonna put the picture of it on Instagram because I think we should ask permission for them in order to for us to film it, but I think it'd be something cool. We can see the final product just check out the Instagram if you're not always following there. What is it? Instagram.com/onlyinjapantv one word you can find it there. I guess have a really wonderful day or night wherever you are. This is the end of the end of the weekend for us tomorrow starts Monday. We're 12 hours ahead of the United States. Depending on I guess like 13 or something, but have a good weekend everybody. See you in the next live stream.