00:00:03 John Daub: Greetings from Ginza. It's a weekend, which means the entire Chuo Dori (Central Avenue), which goes straight through the heart of Ginza, is shut down for pedestrian traffic only. And that means we have free rein over the streets. We're going to get a chance to try some sakura (cherry blossom) street food or just flavored foods. Usually they're sweets because sakura has a pretty sweet flavor to it. And yes, you can eat the essence of sakura, but it's not quite the same as eating the blossom itself.

00:00:40 John Daub: How you doing everybody? Yeah, it's true that there aren't really that many sakura trees in Ginza. You'll see some sakura in the windows if you're window shopping. Sometimes, every now and then, you'll find them right in front of the shop. Those are plastic. They're not real, but they do give you a feeling of the season. It is springtime here, and it is cold.

00:01:04 John Daub: Before I go into talking about my usual rants about Japan and all that, we're going to start off with some street food, which isn't really street food. It's just kind of food I'm eating on the street. In Ginza, that means you have to have high quality stuff, right? So what I have in my hands here is the brand new Kit Kat Sakura Nihonshu (Japanese sake) flavored Kit Kats. These just came out. It's cherry blossoms and sake. It's pretty weird, huh? I mean, I saw this on the news yesterday. I went to Don Quijote, which is over there by Shimbashi in Ginza Hachome (8th block). And I picked up a bag. It was $4 for a bag of about 12 of them. They come in little packages. We're going to open this up and see what it tastes like. And if you're a Daimyo level supporter on Patreon, I'm going to put these in the box for next month. Because these are pretty sweet. Literally, they're pretty sweet.

00:02:07 John Daub: All right, let me open these up here. So that's what the wrapper looks like. But it says here, Sakura Japanese Sake. And the actual Kit Kat itself is pink. And already I opened it up and I can smell the Japanese sake. It's like a sweet sake taste to it. Hey, Dan. Thanks a lot. All right, let's try this here. Japanese Kit Kat. I like the little castle on there. That looks like Osaka Castle, maybe. This is what I thought it would be. Very strong kind of Japanese sake. There's a sweet acidic taste to it in a good way. It's very pleasing if you like nigori (cloudy sake), your cloudy Japanese sake. You're going to love this. But there's a sweetness to it. It's spring-like sweetness to this Kit Kat. That's just so pleasing. Best Kit Kat that I've ever had in my entire life, seriously. And I've eaten a lot of Kit Kats. This is maybe the best.

00:03:32 John Daub: Now, you have to separate the bars. Megan, I'm a rebel. You can see here, they have actual chefs making this stuff. Kit Kat is hardcore here in Japan, and they do not hold back their flavors. The reason why Kit Kat is popular here is because the word Kit Kat sounds like "kitto katsu" (surely win) in Japanese to students. So a couple decades ago, students were eating a lot of Kit Kat before they took exams. They believed that by eating it, it would give them success, and they'd do better on their exams, and be able to get into the university they want. And Kit Kat, Nestle jumped on this. They're pretty smart. They jumped on this and just started to innovate and keep it going. And now every couple of months, there's a new flavor of Kit Kat. It's really cool. I love the way that they keep innovating. And then some of these ones that are in bags, they're only like $4 for a bag. But if you get the boxes, the gift boxes, the wasabi ones, they're like $8 for half the number. But the flavor's so concentrated in those. I love this, this sake one's pretty good. Thumbs up for Kit Kat.

00:04:51 John Daub: All right, so we're now still walking, walking down the center of the street here. Mario writes in, hey John, thank you for all the videos. I'm from Brazil, and next May I'll be on vacation in Japan. Awesome. May is a really good time to be in Japan. It's warmer. Right now, this is March 23rd. It's chilly today, and yesterday was really warm. And this is spring in Japan. We have an expression called "sannichi atatakai, yon nichi samui" (three days hot, four days cold). And they do this like in a pattern, maybe three or four times, and then it just breaks, and then spring is here. Like it's really, it really starts to get warmer and warmer. But right now we're in a chilly season. I got my winter coat on and a fleece, so it is pretty chilly. Everybody, I saw some tourists came here with shorts. They didn't realize that, yeah, it gets warm, and then in Japan it's an island, and then boom, it gets cold right away. So we have some people with jackets, and then there's some tourists with shorts. They're like hardcore.

00:05:57 John Daub: This right here is the biggest Uniqlo in the world. It's got, I think, 11 stories of just Uniqlo. And they have extra, extra, extra large on the seventh floor for men. I know that because my dad takes extra extra large just because he's tall. It's the only size that fits him like perfectly. All right, this is where I filmed the ebikatsu (shrimp cutlet) sandwich with Kanae Daub a few months ago in the fall. They put tables in the center of the street. And if you get here early, you can snag one and do a picnic lunch. But I don't think it's gonna happen today because it's just kind of chilly. The chill takes some of the fun away. And there's Ginza Six right above me. If you go up to the top of Ginza Six, there's an amazing observation deck that looks down onto the street, and you have this really nice view up and down Chuo Dori.

00:07:04 John Daub: All right, the street food tour continues. I have one more present in my bag. I always bring my own backup food. So Kit Kats are number one. So we're going off road here. A lot of Ginza's magic happens off of the main road. Going through the alleyways, you can find a lot of really neat stores. And there's a ton of satellite shops that'll open up for a couple of months, bringing in some unique food, some unique items to Japan. And Ginza's a name brand in itself. So you get some really big shops coming here. This is behind me. This is behind the Uniqlo. I always enter from the back. I never enter from the front. You gotta know Ginza in order to really take advantage of things like the back entrances to places. Yeah, Ginza's, this is behind Chuo Dori, so you get a ton of secret back doors.

00:08:03 John Daub: All right, the next street food place is coming up. It's not really, this was not really street food. It's kind of one of my favorite satellite shops here in Japan. Now, there are 47 prefectures in Japan, all right? Each one, it's like we have 50 states in America. We have 47 prefectures. And this one prefecture is one of the more popular ones. And because they're in a place that's very natural, they have some amazing cherry blossom food. Check it out. This is the Nagano Satellite Shop, where they have a bunch of stuff from Nagano. And the front of the shop, you can see, it's just really decked out in cherry blossoms. So we're gonna try to get some of that stuff. I'm gonna go in here and get some stuff. But before I go in there, I wanna show you what I did find. So I'm gonna come over here to the side. And there's a ton of people waiting right next door. Do you see that's tempura on rice? The tourists go to this branch. They don't know that there's another one just around the corner. There's a couple of better places, but this one's just so close to the intersection.

00:09:44 John Daub: I've got a bag full of goodies in here. Ah, here it is. Pretty nice. Right here, I bought this in the Nagano store. This is cherry blossom jelly, or jello. It looks like jello. And check it out, do you guys see that in the middle of it? Cherry blossom in the center of this jelly. I found it in here in the shop. I'm gonna kind of walk you in through here because there's some other stuff I wanna show you in the Nagano store. But first, before we do that, let's try this cherry blossom jelly. It's so cool, check it out. That lady who just walked by, she wanted to see it too. All right, let's try this. Let's try this cherry blossom jelly from the Nagano store. Eating the flower directly. Oh wow. Wow, it's very, very light. Just slightly sweet. It's got like a honey floral taste to it. Let's just get to it, right? That right there is the cherry blossom. Really good. It's got a, it's a little crunchy to it. It's got a taste of a little bit of honey. There's a floral taste to it. I guess it tastes like pink. Very natural. I like that because I know Nagano is a very natural area of Japan and they don't add a lot of preservatives. When I think of Nagano, I think of organic. Just a very clean place. They have the Japanese Alps there. Oh man, so delicate. This jelly. Really good. Travel with a spoon. When you're making street food episodes, travel with a spoon and a glass.

00:13:10 John Daub: When you asked if they have cherry blossom beer, Nagano makes really good beer and here's some of the cans. It's just mostly the packaging. I think that's wheat beer that they have there. This is Karuizawa beer. Karuizawa is famous for having an outlet, a natural place. They have waterfalls. It's a very chill place in the summer to go to so Tokyoites will escape there. They have here sakura liqueur. You see that? Konnichiwa. Konnichiwa. So inside of the liqueur, they have cherry blossoms. You can buy all this here in the Nagano store. And this one is Hanami no [?]. This is more liqueur and you can see the cherry blossoms in there. It's really nice. And it's got a slightly floral taste to it. These things sell out fast. So if you do want to come and buy, you probably want to get them before the season starts. Cherry blossom tastes, usually the packaging and the beers and all that stuff usually are sold out as soon as the season hits. Some of the other stuff that they have here. Check it out. They have Sakura Amazake. And this is kind of what I wanted to try. Sakura Amazake. So they put in the flavor of sakura into the amazake (sweet non-alcoholic sake-like drink). And amazake is Japanese sake without any alcohol. It's kind of before the fermentation starts, sort of. It doesn't create alcohol, but it gives you like kind of a sake taste to it. I love amazake. And they have really nice presents and gifts from Nagano. I'm going to come back and the last thing we do is probably go in here and try that amazake, okay? So I'm going to come back to the Nagano store. But I got the jelly from there. I think it was about $3 for the jelly.

00:15:05 John Daub: Here's the tempura shell. There's just so many people waiting for that tempura. I think I've done this corner before in another live stream with Kanae Daub. So I've got a thousand yen here and I'm going to buy some food with the wonderful super chats that have been coming in. Thank you so much. Here's a thousand Japanese yen. We're going to put this to some good use right now and take it to the most expensive intersection in the world. Like I like to refer to, at least it was in the 1980s. It might not be these days. But Ginza Yonchome (4th block). It's where we eat. And Wako is. And Wako is a department store with a lot of history. The bell sounds every hour. We'll hear it in about ten minutes. But before that, oh man, I'm smelling Belgian waffles. How dare they. That's not, it's corrupting the smell of sakura. Because these two shops have daifuku (mochi cakes) and I think they have cherry blossom taste of daifuku. Let me get in here. Yes, sakura mochi (cherry blossom rice cake). Exactly what I wanted. Sakura mochi. They sell out really fast. By the time you get here, if you're in Tokyo, they're probably all sold out. There's only five left. Please give me three sakura mochi. Oh, sorry. I didn't give you the change. I'll take this. I will take this one. Thank you. Thank you. We did it! We got one! Epic!

00:19:11 John Daub: Oh, this is cool. All right, let me put this up here. Oh, this is cool. We're on a high perch here. You can see the shop behind us. This is really, really nice! Check this out. It's like a jewel. It's like a jewelry case. Check this out. It comes in it's like I'm proposing to you. Say I do. This is pretty cool. All right let me take a look at it with the other lens. Let's get a good look at this. Wow that really is a beautiful sakura mochi. Now mochi is mochi everybody knows what mochi is. Sakura mochi is cherry blossom mochi and it usually has the essence of the cherry blossom in it and they always tell you eat it today. Aha oh I can smell it already how dare they make something so delicious in Ginza they're very famous for it and there is a cherry blossom on top of it oh this is gonna be great I'm looking forward to this sakura mochi in the sakura season everybody.

00:20:57 John Daub: Do you guys know Zubrowka? Zubrowka is a Polish alcohol that has a piece of grass in it. Zubrowka is very oh check it out I have to do this really quickly look at that cherry blossom bus with a Kate Spade cherry blossom us oh that was pretty random. All right let's go back down here. Now Zubrowka which is this Polish alcohol with the grass in it smell has a very sakura mochi smell which is why it's quite popular in Ginza and it's very popular here in Japan this is the sakura mochi it smells sort of like Zubrowka without the alcohol so everybody in Poland probably recognizes this now you can eat the leaf just as is like this the leaf the leaf is usually soaked in a saline kind of a salty solution so it has a little bit of salt to it so there's just so many different flavors I'm going to take a bite and then describe it but I always talk with my mouth full and the internet doesn't work like that so I will tell you that sakura mochi has sweetness it has chewiness it has saltiness and it has sakura-ness to it let's try this it's red bean paste anko really good it's hard to describe.

00:22:30 John Daub: I ate flowers as a kid because I was just hungry and I couldn't find anything else to eat so I would eat the flowers probably not a smart thing to do but it gives me the memory as a child eating flowers dandelions are you allowed to eat dandelions I don't know this is it this is sakura mochi it's a taste of the season this leaf again it's salty Kanae Daub my wife doesn't actually like to eat these leaves she'll take them off and I eat it she says it's not good for you but I eat it anyways it has a really really delicate sweetness to it and the red bean paste this anko it actually doesn't have much sweetness it's more like like sweet potatoes at Thanksgiving but it's beanie but not it doesn't have a bean taste this isn't a Taco Bell haha bean this is more like a sweet bean it's very very unique very unique and I eat this every time I come to Ginza when I go past this store I'll get like two or three of them and I eat two of them and I give Kanae Daub one she doesn't know I ate two of them so let's keep it between us she could be watching this and comment around the corner or any moment.

00:23:55 John Daub: Just one more sweet shop that I want to show you and then we're gonna walk down the street a little bit more fasten your seatbelts we get a lot more to come this is my sakura mochi face because there's a it hits the thing with Japanese food is it hits so many parts of your tongue it'll hit the back and the side and the front and as the taste moves around your tongue it's so pleasing this is why you don't need to eat a lot of Japanese food you eat it for the taste and the taste just moves around I don't know when I go back to the United States I love the food I love the volume and I love the cheesiness but this there's just a little bit too chemical chemicals to it I don't get that with Japanese food you taste more of the naturalness of it especially down in Kyoto so let's just take a second out of appreciation for Wako's clock Wako has been playing this for hundreds of years or four hundred and something years I think maybe also one I'd love to get a little more work done but you know we didn't get that sake rat is this a lot the sakura mochi there it is I was waiting for that one 1 p.m. I was waiting for that one bong we got it 1 p.m. in Japan everybody.

00:25:30 John Daub: Alright, it's time for some more. Now this shop is called Akebono. Akebono Ginza. It's got some really great ohagi (sweet rice dumplings). Ohagi are like desserts made out of that anko. And it's just so voluminous, so heavy. When you eat an ohagi, you're pretty pleased. Have it with hot tea because it breaks up the pastiness of it. But Akebono is a very, very famous shop here. Over here on this side is Roku Mekan. Roku Mekan has some cherry blossom looking stuff. Do you see that? All right, let's give this a try. Now to get out of that shop quick, I put everything in my pocket. Now I got to find all my coins again. Bear with me and stare at this shop while I empty my pocket coins. All right, there we go. I got some coinage. Let's go use it. Oh my word, that looks good. All right, let's try one of these. These are financiers (financier pastries). I guess it's like French or something. Let's try some French food. It's honey. Rich Ginza honey flavored sponge stuffed with buttercream. Enjoy three different flavors of strawberry, cherry blossom, and blueberry. All right. I'm not going to argue with you. I'll try it. It says it's new.

00:27:55 John Daub: Oh, wow. You can get a whole box of them. Nine for $18. That's a pretty good deal. I've got 500 yen here. I want my sakura financier. I'm so glad we don't have Jennifer here. She'd know this French stuff. I don't know my financier. I'm still tasting the jelly. The jelly was so good. I always go back to this sushi episode that I made with Mike Chen from a channel called Strictly Dumpling. He said when we were eating the maguro, he says it tastes like I was kissed by a mermaid. And I went past the sushi shop we ate at. And I was just like laughing at myself because of that comment that he made. He kept smacking his lips from the fat of the otoro maguro sushi. I'm next in line. Oh, can I have one sakura please? Yes. Oh, I can eat it now. It's okay. Thank you. We got it! We got it!

00:30:44 John Daub: All right. I'm going to snag this place right here. I'm on top of the subway entrance. Welcome. All right. They put it in a bag. I said I was going to eat it right away. They still put it in a bag. It's a nice bag. This is one of these things that you can check that out. They make really good bags. The bag's going to last longer than this food I'm going to eat in a second. All right. 800 people watching. We need to get to 300 likes before I get to the next place or else I might abruptly stop this live stream. It's up to you, people out there in the internet world. If you want to see more street food, lightly tap your like button. Do not smash it. I don't want you to break your phone. Here's what we got here. Oh my word. They put gold in there. All of a sudden I have the James Bond gold finger theme in my head. Wow. I can't believe this is only $1.50 for this. It's got white chocolate and cherry blossom buttercream with a cherry blossom in the center. Probably salty. Cherry blossoms, usually when they look wet like this, they're a little bit salty. But it looks really, really good.

00:32:35 John Daub: Oh wow. We got 300 likes. That was pretty fast. Oh, it's so delicate. I just touched it and it cracked. Look at that. Oh wow. I'm kind of excited about this now. It smells like butter. That's not a bad thing. Let's try this. The cookie is so good. It's so, it's between a cake and a cookie. It doesn't crunch, but the crust of it has a little bit of a nice consistency to it. It's a butter cake, like a pound cake, but the crust is, there's a little crusty to it. This is butter. This is sakura butter. Basically, it's beautiful butter with gold and cherry blossoms. Love it. I just ate the blossom. I have some sakura. Sakura taste. It's so good. That was really good. So there you go. This is Roku Mekan in Ginza Yonchome. Come and check it out if you want.

00:34:21 John Daub: Jonathan Rios, love your channel. Every day I learn something from Japan. A fan from Puerto Rico. Great. Thank you. Next one's on you, my friend. We're going to make our way to the other side of the street in Ginza. Wow. I'm so tasting sakura. And it's so cold today. This isn't a perfect day to go and stand underneath the, sit underneath the cherry trees. It's too cold today. So this is the perfect day to be in Ginza, watching traffic go by. But once we cross the street, there's no more traffic because Ginza shuts down the streets for pedestrians only on the weekends and holidays. And it's so nice. Just on a day like this, it's chilly. Matsumi, I'm totally going to get two for Kanae Daub. I'm going to get one sakura mochi at the stage. They'll have it in one of those pound cake butter things, okay? You've got to check that place out. Marvik next, we're going to go over to my favorite bakery and see if they have any sakura flavored bread. And I'm pretty sure that they do. It's my favorite bakery in Ginza. Anyways. I got a lot of favorite bakeries. Although in the basement of Mitsukoshi, there's an amazing French bakery and there's always a line. Go before noon if you do want a bakery. Oh man, bakeries in Japan are too good. I swear. I'd say the only reason I have any love handles at all is because of bakeries in Japan. They're just so good.

00:36:13 John Daub: All right. Across the street, we're now safe. We can go right into the center of the street if we wanted to and dance. Do a little sakura dance. Dance in the middle of the street. Hey Jim. Jim's one of our moderators. Thank you. I'll get Kanae Daub some sakura flowers with that. Kanae Daub's going to be spoiled now. You guys are spoiling Kanae Daub. It's too bad she's not here. She's got a busy day. She's a teacher. She teaches dance here in Tokyo to kids. Today's a teaching day. All right. This is the Ginza street and I'm turning to my left. Sound effects included. That is Kimuraya, which is a bakery with a really long history. Now this is the place where they served the first anpan (red bean bread) to the emperor like 150 years ago and the emperor loved it so much. He gave it a thumbs up like the emperor of Rome or something, you know, in the gladiator ages and the thumbs up, it's like a thumbs up from Johnny Carson for comedians, totally became very, very famous. And now, Kimuraya still has a very good business. They're located right next to the most impressive intersection in Japan or maybe the world in Ginza Yonchome, right in the center. It's crazy that a bakery exists right here, but I don't want this place ever to go out of business because it's nice to have something that's not a brand shop. Although it is. It's in itself a brand.

00:38:01 John Daub: A good evening from Peru. Oh, we got hashtag feed Kanae Daub. She totally should have been here with me on this one. Totally. I even called Jennifer and Jennifer's busy today. I called Peter von Gomm, but he's got a narration job to do. Everybody's busy except for you and me. It's just us. So let's go. What do you guys think? Let's go in here and get some sakura flavored stuff from Kimuraya. Okay. All right. Let's try this. I do like what they've done to the side here. They've added some sakura flowers to the stores. Gives it just that sweetness to that springness to it. I kind of like game pro gamer pros in the house. Hey John, coming to Tokyo in April. Can we meet up? Thanks. I'm going to try to do a viewer meetup sometime this week and I might do one again in April. Um, I got a lot of stuff I'm doing right now. So I will try to meet up though. Meetups are always on Facebook. So you can see the event pages on Facebook when I start a meetup. Hey, two otakus in the house. Hey. Spoiled Kanae Daub. Buy her presents. So does YouTube get $10 for this? Um, actually I think it does. That's why I like Patreon. Super chats are fun though. It's something that you can do spontaneously. That just makes these live shows so much more fun for everybody.

00:39:33 John Daub: By the way, the second floor of Kimuraya is a cafe and they have amazing sandwiches up there. Uh, definitely they have a, I don't think it's a wagyu sandwich, but they have a really good beef katsu sando and they have an ebi katsu sando, which is a shrimp cutlet sandwich in there. So it's really good. And they use their own bread. But on days like this. Hey Bizkit. 551. Thank you. And Derek Jumper. Keep up the fantastic work. Can't wait to go back to Japan in May. Good. We have, if we can get the 500 likes, I will continue. I will do one more street food if we can get the 500 likes. And I don't even know what it is. Do not like this because I don't want to get there now. What did I just say? I don't know what's next. All right. Let's, oh my gosh. I might have to get something from the outside. It's really crowded in there. You can see here that they have on the second floor. The anpan is that that's the one that was presented to the emperor. They have not changed the recipe since like a hundred and some years ago. And then there's the infamous original shrimp sandwich that I just love from this shop. What's here in the front that they're giving away? Oh, they do have a sakura pan outside. Okay. Kimuraya sakura anpan butter.

00:41:01 John Daub: All right, let's try this. I like it cause it's out here on the street. Sakura anpan butter. 300 yen. Thank you. There's a chill in the air, everybody. There is a chill in the air. I didn't even have to go in. Um, it's very hard to get permission to film inside of Kimuraya you have to sort of just gorilla shoot it they don't give permission even to the Japanese media I don't know why they don't need the press when you have a location like this you don't need free media all right this is a I bought it off of the street so it counts as street food this is sakura an butter I guess they really love to pair sakura cherry blossoms with butter and I have no complaints about that my cholesterol might have another something else to say about that oh check it out they just finished this new entrance to Ginza station which is really nice you see the glass there this has been under construction for like I don't know at least seven or eight months and now it's finished that's good that's what the old one looks like on the other side I prefer the new glass one all right are you ready now to unbox this let's do this all right thank goodness we didn't get the 500 likes that's good news because I don't know what other street food I would do I'm kind of out of ideas oh I got 500 likes I'd be freaking out all right here we go from Kimuraya this is the sakura an butter.

00:43:11 John Daub: Hey Terry all the best all the best to you and Kanae Daub thank you Terry check it out and in between there is a cherry blossom oh no no it's the cherry blossom custard all right we're gonna rip this apart oh wow look at that red bean paste is pink they've mixed the cherry blossom essence in with the red bean paste I have not seen this before and look at the custard or the butter in there has pink butter so they have cherry blossom essence like cherry blossom oil or something like that in there wow and that is a work of art. You guys seeing this? Oh, man. All right, let's try this. The bread has some chewiness to it. So it's kind of like French bready. The butter has that butter meltiness to it. So it does melt inside. But that red bean paste with the butter, very well done, Kimuraya. Very well done. Well done. Oh, man. So good. Kanai, where are you? Jennifer, come out of your house. Come to Ginza. Put down whatever you're doing. If you're in Tokyo, come and say hi. Come and say hi and bring some folks. I don't know what to do next. We just got 520 likes.

00:45:38 John Daub: Adrian remembers the rainbow cheese stick from Akihabara that I ate with Peter von Gomm. It was really, really bad. All right. No bread. Just the butter and the anko. Here we go. And I've been eating a lot of butter. A lot of butter. This is so good. Now, you're not supposed to walk and eat or walk or talk and eat for that matter. But street food is a hard thing here in Japan because most people in Japan will not walk and eat like a hot dog in New York City. They will stop wherever they are and eat it and then they'll go on. I don't know. It's just kind of bad form to do it. I've been living here for 20 years. People more and more are doing it. Some of these cultural rules are more of the older generation. The younger people are sort of globalizing and they're on the run now. So they're eating and walking, drinking and walking. More and more. But for the most part here in Japan, it's bad form to do that. It's not very bad. But it's not good. It's not really seen as a good thing. But no one's going to yell at you because nowadays in the cities, people are quite busy. They're doing it a little bit more and more. They'll just grab it and run. And more people are eating on the subway trains. And I'm not talking about tourists. People from Japan. So these really strict cultural rules are breaking down because people just either you eat on the run or you don't eat. So people are eating more and more on the run. Do not litter. Absolutely. I did an episode on where the trash cans are. If you take a look, there are no trash cans anywhere. You have to go to the convenience stores or you just carry it home like I'm doing. I've got all the trash in my bag.

00:48:23 John Daub: Oh, that was fantastic. That was so good, guys. I started this live stream eating Sakura Japanese sake flavored KitKat. This is a nice one. This is the new one that just came out. You can go back and watch. Go back to the beginning of this after the playback. But I have 12 of them. And if you're a Daimyo, a supporter on Patreon, I'll be buying 20 of these and be sending it to you from Patreon. So if you're a Daimyo supporter. It smells like Japanese sake. Very, very good Japanese sake. And it has that sweet floral spring cherry blossom. It's pink taste to it. Makes you want to dance on the streets. Which you could do here. You could do that here. It's so good. And these just came out. I don't think any YouTubers have done this yet. I challenge you YouTubers to defeat me and get to these before me. Because you cannot. Because I've already done it now. Haha. Very, very nice.

00:49:55 John Daub: I'm going to walk down the street a little bit and come through the back alleys. So my idea for the last street food is to hit that Nagano store. And I opened this up walking past there and I said that I'm going to go past the Nagano store. I might go in there and get some Japanese Sakura Amazake or something from the Nagano store. Unless we find something in route. Mikimoto, the pearl shop, has got a very nice cherry blossom display. Here's the season. I love Ginza on the weekends. I just bought a brand new bicycle. So I'm going to be doing more midnight snack runs because I can bike now to certain locations. After the train has stopped. Trains in Japan usually end around midnight. Hey, Noemi. Thank you. Noemi writes, I love your work. I love your chat. Thank you for that. So this is what it looks like. It's just such a, it's just so wide. The street. You have to share the street with these guys here though. Get off my street. What are you doing? Jaywalkers. Really working that piece of bread. Sometimes you'll see some interesting people. You'll see dogs with sweaters and Japanese owners, pet owners will bring it out to sashay down the main street with them. It's pretty fun to see. There's the Apple shop. Not really big fan these days.

00:51:53 John Daub: All right. We're going down the alley. The vending machines don't have any. There's no sakura flavored drinks right now. Just the amazake. And believe it or not, I brought a glass with me. So in case I do find a sakura flavored drink, I have a glass that I can pour it in so you'll be able to see what the contents are inside. All right. If you go straight ahead, just to give you some bearings on where we are, that straight ahead would be Yurakucho, which is one of my favorite areas of this Ginza Tokyo Station area. It's kind of fun there underneath the Yamanote line. And if you go this way, this way is Higashi Ginza subway station. It's about 300 meters or takes about five minutes to walk there. And then Yurakucho station, another five minutes, you could be there. So we're kind of in the middle, just right off of Chuo Dori, which is right there. It's closed down every weekend to the public. Get yourself some hot vending machine sake later. Oh, Anjin San 2020. Cheers for that. You got it. All I know is that when I finished this live stream, I was like, oh, I'm going to get a drink. I'm going to get a drink. And I'm going to clean up all these Japanese sakura flavored goods.

00:53:15 John Daub: I do like, I really do like these new taxis that Tokyo brought in. You see this one here. They kind of have an English taxi cab look to them. But inside, it's so much roomier than the old taxi cabs. And the back takes in more luggage. So whenever I hail a cab and I get one of these, I'm quite happy because it's just so much roomier. And it's good for tall people because the roof of those taxi cabs are pretty high. Oh, hey, sign switch. That's fun. I used to work in here, in this building. I used to work on the fifth floor. On the fourth or fifth floor was an English school called Gaba. And I used to be a teacher there back in 2006, 2007 and 2008. Just part time. And that was kind of a neat little job. And we would have, I would go through here to the east. And then we would go up the elevator and go up. But this is also a famous cinema that hosts a lot of indie films. So I always try to support local creators. And this is a good place to do that. To see some locally produced films. It's right in the back alley of Ginza. Yeah, you have to have a job. And I started my own business in 2005. And when you start a business, you have to build it up. And I worked at an English school part time. Just to make some extra cash on the side.

00:55:10 John Daub: Some cherry blossoms here in the window. They're not really cherry blossom chocolates. They're just sort of chocolates. For $120 for that. Whoa. Well, I guess you get two decks. It's got to be worth it. Right? Did you pay $120 for that? Oh, okay. They're crossing the street. Okay, we got to do this. Go, go, go. And run, run, run. We're going back to the other side. There's a cop. Go quickly. Not doing anything wrong. Just live streaming. See the police bikes. And we're going past the cherry blossom butter shop and the sakura mochi shop. So if you're just joining us now, we're hitting a thousand viewers. That's what I just ate about 20 minutes ago. It was so good. $1.50 for one of these. And then this always has a line. Akebono. Ginza has amazing sakura mochi. You have to try. Oh, they're sold out. Oh, no, no. They put more in there. This is the sakura mochi. $2.50 for one. Well worth it. This is the Belgian waffle shop called Manneken. And let's see on the side if they have cherry blossom tasted waffles. Not really. Do they? Yakitate waffles. So they have a pink banner, but no cherry blossom waffles, unfortunately. I do think that they do have green tea flavored. Sometimes they have a matcha flavored waffle, but nothing. Oh, there it is right there. They have an Uji matcha flavored waffle with sometimes I think there's anko beans in there. It's very nice. And then they have this waffle custard cake. Which is $2 for that. It's really good. But more impressive than the taste is the smell. And Ginza right now, what I'm smelling is just a sweet waffle maple-y taste to it all. It's really, really good.

00:57:37 John Daub: One of the things I'm going to be getting for Kanae Daub, putting your super chats to good work, is amazake. Because Kanae Daub does not drink alcohol. And amazake does not have alcohol. This is one of the things that we drink together. And they got it right here in the Nagano shop. And I actually have a point card for the Nagano shop. Because I am a full-time member of Nagano Prefecture's satellite shop. We were here about 30 minutes ago. I'm going to get my point card out. I'm a full-fledged member of Nagano Prefecture's amazing shop. Because I love the goodies that they have there. Oh, here it is. So if you if you I'm a member. I get like points. But I will never get enough points to earn anything. I just like to have point cards. In Japan, point cards are a big deal. There's a point card for everything. And Docomo, which is the cell phone carrier, just started their own point card to compete against T-Point, which is another popular point card. So, yeah. If you don't have a point card, you're losing out on points. And I don't know what I'm collecting the points for, to be honest with me. Oh, I only got a I only have 11,000 yen. So I've got a tenner. Hey, Kenneth, thank you. So this is from Kenneth. Kenneth, your Super Chat has been quickly changed into Japanese yen for quick use. All right, let's get this amazake for Kanae Daub.

00:59:33 John Daub: All right, there it is right there. Can I just take the one right here? All right, let's choose. I'm just going to take this one. This is the display one. Sakura jam. It's so good. Really? Yes. Thank you. Sakura jam. Wow, sakura jam. That was really good. I'm purchasing this for immediate drinking. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. We're next. It's the first time I see it, sakura amazake. It looks good. There's so much sakura in there. I see. They have like different organically baked breads. Okay. The first thing you need to do when you get to the store is to get your ticket and then you can start eating! Thank you very much! Thank you very much! Can I get a 340 yen ticket? No problem! You can eat right away! Thank you very much! The 340 yen ticket is 340 yen. Please take your ticket and start eating! Thank you very much! Alright, I got it! Oh, they have like sakura flavored soba! What? Sakura flavored soba! That looks really good! I'm going to Kanae Daub this too! I'm going to Kanae Daub this too! Thank you very much! Thank you very much! Always thank people! Be kind! Hey, Kenneth's in the house! Kenneth Johnson! Thank you!

01:03:03 John Daub: I think I didn't give you proper arigato as I said, always thank people and be kind to you! I do look at the livestream I try my best! This is pretty cool! I went in there and I got it! And they were okay with that! Alright, I'm going to go in front of the shop here and I got a glass! And we're going to do this proper! I got a glass! This is because you guys clicked the like button! Do not know how important that is when you click the like button! It makes me do stuff! Like buy more! I'm buying more! Good! Alright, let's do this! This looks so good! Amazake! Sakura flavored Amazake! I've never had this before in my entire life! So expectations are extremely high! But if you're going to do this properly I brought a glass to kind of, you know, drink it! Drink it right! So I'm going to turn this over to the other side here and give this a try! Because I only have one hand Oh, that's cool! We have the Nagano sign right here! I like this! So give respect to Nagano! Once again, this is Sakura Amazake! It's non-alcoholic! It says here, non-alcohol! And, uh, yeah! It's got some calories to it! But I'm going to buy another bottle to take home to Kanae Daub if this is good! It's good until July 10th of this year! Let's try this here!

01:04:55 John Daub: How do you open it? Oh, it is open! Okay, good! Alright, I got it open! Let's try this! Oh, this consistency is so thick! Look at it! Look at it, like, on the around the bottle's neck here! Oh, wow. It's got the chunks of rice in it, do you see? It's got the chunks of rice in it! Very nice! Oh, it smells like Amazake! Which is a good sign! Because it is Amazake! Amazake is like Japanese Sake before it's before it started to make alcohol. And it's so healthy for you! Amazake! But I've never had this sakura flavor! It's pink! This is pretty interesting! It's good! It hits me! It takes a second! I can taste the saltiness of it! And for some reason, cherry blossoms are slightly sweet, slightly floral, with just a bit of salt to it! And cherry blossoms will hit so many different places on your tongue! Which is one of the great things about Japanese food! It's about how it affects your palate! Um, this really affects my palate in a way that normal Amazake does not! You can see the chunkiness of it! Those are bits of rice! Bits of rice to it! That's really good!

01:07:00 John Daub: Alright! I have to say thank you to the Nagano store, that was really good! Um, I'm impressed with the shop! And if you do, if you are in Tokyo and you're staying around the Ginza area, hit up the Ginza, the um, satellite shops! It's not just the Nagano shop, a lot of shops in prefectures in Japan have a satellite shop in Tokyo! So even if you can't make it to your favorite prefecture, you have the ability to come to a satellite shop and try things like Nagano beer, Nagano spirits, Nagano wine, um, yeah! I just like Nagano! You know, what can I say? I just like Nagano! Alright, I will take any questions now, for the next two or three minutes as I walk back to my bicycle. That was really good! One last look at the vending machines, let's see if there's any cherry blossom drinks. I don't think so. But I can tell you two things. Peach Coca-Cola made a comeback, um, Peach Fanta is still here, and then, uh, Coca-Cola Lime is out. But other than that, I don't see any cherry blossom drinks. The essence of cherry blossom, and the cherry blossom oil, which is what I believe that they use, is a little bit more expensive. It's kind of pricey to have that. There's Ichigo milk, which is a really popular one. Strawberry milk. It's pretty cool. And they still have the red ones are, it says here, Atatakai means hot. And then, Samui tai means cold. So they still have it uh both the hot and the cold. And in the summer, they kind of give people a little bit of a they get rid of the hot, and it's just all cold. And the new machines just came out um two, three weeks ago. The new machines have um cold, hot, and in the middle, just room temperature drinks. Because there's a trend now where people are buying their drinks room temperature. They don't want it hot or cold.

01:09:42 John Daub: Alright, we're getting reports of lag. It's because I'm between the buildings. Alright, I'm gonna hang a left here. Go back to Chuo Dori. To my bicycle. My Bridgestone bicycle. And then I'm gonna go and buy Kanae Daub some stuff. Alright, this is the part of the live stream where you get to say where you're from! Where you're watching! What part of the world are you watching from right now? Let us know. Australia! Alright. Lots of groups of tourists. Here, Hong Kong, Chicago, Northeast India, London. Very cool. And as we get later and later, New York City, Aomori, wow, Sydney, Earth's core. I like the good reading. And Maharashtra, that's where Mumbai is. As we get later and later in the afternoon, the street gets more and more crowded. So it's, I always like to come at 12 o'clock. That's when they shut the street down at exactly 12. And I snag one of those very rare, hard to find benches where you can sit and eat. If you come with two people, you just put like a couple of bags there and you can save it for a couple of minutes while you run and get some street food. And now you know where to go. Because this Ginza livestream kind of points out all the really neat places that you can get some delicious Sakura street food. Because tis the season. Tis the season. Not Christmas, but cherry blossom season. And this is the precursor. And the reason why I love the cherry blossoms is because it means that summer is just a month and a half away. And Japanese summer follows the rainy season. And when the rainy season's over, we have this really humid season. If there's a best season to visit, I would say it would be early May. Right after Golden Week, which is the Japanese holiday week, which is so crowded. I would say the first and second week of May usually does not rain and the weather is just beautiful. Like 60, 65 degrees. Warm enough for shorts. There's just a spring in the air. And then the rainy season comes in June. So May might be my favorite one. But you don't see the cherry blossoms unless you go up to Hokkaido at that time. Cherry blossoms are gonna be here bloomed, full bloom, seven days from now. So if you're coming to Japan in seven days time, you're gonna hit the center of it. And then it's gonna be gone the first rain or first snow. So we've got seven days. I'm gonna be taking you to some wonderful cherry blossom parks, some spots around the city over the next few days because I'm gonna be