00:00:04 John Daub: There really is no better entrance to a live stream than just showing the cherry blossoms as they are dancing in the wind. This is Ninomaru Gardens, the second circular ring around the Imperial Palace here in Tokyo. Wow, it's really dancing. Hey everybody. So I came here last, maybe two years ago, to show you Edo Castle, the castle of Tokyo. There's a reason why Tokyo doesn't have a castle. It was destroyed in 1867. Edo Castle—so there's nothing there, but I'll show you the remaining ruins in a minute.

00:00:45 John Daub: But I just want to show you this is a nice place and it's a good contrast to Shinjuku Gyoen. You can see the cherry blossoms are right here dancing above me, the Sōmei Yoshino (Somei Yoshino) variety. Shinjuku Gyoen is now charging 500 yen to enter. This one is free. So it maybe doesn't have the same amount of variety of sakura as Shinjuku Gyoen, but it's really beautiful nonetheless. And you can see, as I was telling you earlier, when you have the blue sky and not as much wind here as out in the city, the white cherry blossoms just look so much more beautiful with the blue sky.

00:01:27 John Daub: I don't want to touch it because they're so delicate to stop the branch from shaking, but man, it's really beautiful. You can see that it's not at 100%. There's a lot that are really close to blooming maybe today or tomorrow. I bet you if I did a time lapse of them, we would see these come out in 24 hours. And then these that are already bloomed, they'll hang on for about a day and then they're done. This is Ninomaru Gardens. It's the main area. It's very wide and open just like Shinjuku Gyoen. So a lot of people are out here doing hanami (cherry blossom viewing).

00:02:37 John Daub: There's a tree over here that's getting a lot of attention because this one looks like it's in full bloom. And if you look, it's a little bright. It looks like it just has snow all over it. It's just all white. I'm gonna look back at the tree we were just at. There's the ruins of Edo Castle and there's the tree. It's not nearly as white as the tree that you [two?]. Nasha Broad writes in here, hana is a flower, mi means look, so hanami. I just like saying hanami because it's such a good word that takes in cherry blossom viewing or flower viewing, but hanami is more associated with this time of year.

00:03:32 John Daub: Wow, just the intensity of white cherry blossom flowers on this tree is amazing. That's why it's attracting a crowd that's in the shadows a little bit. Oh, now the sun's starting to come out. You're gonna see it sort of change a little bit. This is a different variety. I don't think this is a Sōmei Yoshino. Yeah, this is past full bloom. Already the green buds are starting to come out of the branches here and the petals are starting to fall down. You see the intensity of white sakura is really intense in this tree.

00:04:20 John Daub: See if I can get this from a different angle. That's what I'm talking about. This is what it's gonna look like in about two, three days from now. Different varieties bloom at different times. It's very hard to predict. Usually we use these Sōmei Yoshino trees as the main cherry blossom. But this one is past its peak already. All right, the sun is—this one's in the shadows a little bit. But if you come over here to this sun side, there's another photographer who's very smart to look over here at the sun.

00:05:12 John Daub: This tree is not a Sōmei Yoshino, is it? It's an Amagi Yoshino. Thank you. Amagi Yoshino. The flowers are a little bigger. Yeah, they're a little bigger. They're bigger than Sōmei Yoshino. The volume is amazing. It's like fluffy. Amagi Yoshino. It's good to ask to get the variety. I'm very curious about it. But these petals are very big. These petals are a little bit bigger than the Sōmei Yoshino. So it gives it more of a volume look to it. On this side, again, like you can see the blue sky. That's what I'm talking about. The sun is just illuminating, so they really stand out. It's so beautiful.

00:06:08 John Daub: Kodikura13, thank you very much. You did catch it indeed. You're welcome. We are live. This here is not the Sōmei Yoshino. It's a different variety. We saw from the other side. The blossoms are just bigger than the Sōmei Yoshino. So the intensity of the white is even more impressive. Everyone is taking... I mean the blossoms are the true stars, right? I kind of like the tree itself. I always come to the trunk of the tree. This is where the life has sprung from. We must give respect to this tree.

00:06:47 John Daub: And right here you can see. That's one of the reasons I love Japanese parks. They always wrap around the name. Almost always. This is Amagi Yoshino, the variety of this cherry blossom tree. And it blooms earlier than the Sōmei Yoshino. And this is the beautiful trunk of the tree. You've been at it for a long time, my friend. Thanks for giving us these beautiful white flowers. Some springing from the trunk. It's still alive over here. And when you have a blue sky day like today, this is what I was saying before. You have to take advantage of it. It might not be the perfect day. Maybe the blossoms will look better in three days. But we don't know what it's going to be like. When you have the blue sky like you do right here, it's so beautiful. I just don't have words right now. I'm just going to be quiet and let you absorb it.

00:07:38 John Daub: This side is so much more beautiful because of the sun. It's behind the clouds now. Sorry. Oh, it came from over there. Sorry. But you know, you have to come from the right direction to see the sun. Somebody should tell them. The signs there are more to keep people out of the photos. So it's just a nice clean background. But this variety of the cherry blossom tree, the Amagi Yoshino, is really really beautiful.

00:08:44 John Daub: I'm going to take you over a little bit to Edo Castle. And this is keep off the grass. There's no grass there. Typically you can go underneath the cherry blossoms. But you might want to look around for the signs. If you don't see the signs, don't worry. You can move away when you do notice them and apologize to those that you might have been in the way. Edo Castle was built in 1867? And they never rebuilt it. The Meiji Emperor did live here. But he now has—the Emperor has moved over to the palace, which is not too far away from here. It's a shame. I would love to see the city of Tokyo rebuild the castle. But in a way, they don't really need it.

00:09:37 John Daub: To the right of the castle, you can see there's another sakura tree that looks like another Amagi Yoshino tree. That's quite intense, the whiteness of it. Straight ahead, there's some beautiful pink flowers that are blooming. Let's go take a look at those. Again, I really love this park, Ninomaru. It's completely overshadowed by Shinjuku Gyoen. But since they've raised the price to 500 yen, I'm not going in there into the crowds. I think one of the reasons they raised the price was to keep the crowds at bay. But they're going to find they're just going to make a lot of money, which isn't a bad thing. Maybe it'll help with the upkeep of the park.

00:10:36 John Daub: This is really nice. It's such a beautiful contrast to the green, the fresh spring green colors that are out right now. And there's just a little bit of sun popping out of the clouds behind us. There's a little bamboo grove here. Bamboo are dangerous if you plant them around your house. They grow so fast and the roots start springing out. And the worst place you can get in trouble with your neighbors in Tokyo, because they don't like how bamboo grows so quickly. But it's such a beautiful grass, like a weed. It grows so fast.

00:11:34 John Daub: Again for those joining us, we're in Ninomaru Gardens, not far from the Imperial Palace in the center of Tokyo. We're going to make a turn around, see if we can find some other cherry blossoms. Very pink. Great contrast. But this park is so much freer than Shinjuku Gyoen in so many ways. Yoyogi Park is another place where a lot of expats like to go. I don't particularly like Yoyogi Park for cherry blossoms. There's not a lot of them, and the ones that are there, they're kind of abused. There's a lot of volunteers, and they are always making sure that the park looks beautiful. This park is free, so everybody is volunteering their time to keep it clean and I like that. It's like a community thing.

00:13:06 John Daub: We're looking back now at the tree that we were walking under before. There's the modern Marunouchi side of Tokyo Station, those high buildings over there. Hey Mr Dust, cheers to the silent heroes indeed. So we see some up ahead. Let's get a close look at these. I'm not sure the variety of that. I know the one on the left here is nada. Oh hey, Vikrista, sōka sōka, you were nearby. That's sort of why I came here. There's a surprise appearance by Kanae. Kanae has come to help us appreciate it. I illegally walked underneath the tree and someone got angry. I need a navigator to help me from myself.

00:14:06 John Daub: All right, this tree—this is not a Sōmei Yoshino. They usually write it on here, so I'm getting out of the way. I think they're taking a picture. Very beautiful. I'm afraid now to speak loudly. All right, let's take a quicker look at it. These blossoms, if you compare them to the one before, they're a lot smaller. This is not a Sōmei Yoshino. They're blooming right now, but I mean it could be. I don't know. I just think it's a different variety. For whoever 808 says konnichiwa Kanae-san. You got one back. That's really really nice. If I was a bee I would be so into that blossom, just pulling all the honey, whatever's in there to make honey. Very nice. I'm surprised there are no bees here. If I was a bee I would totally be here enjoying the blossoms. Oh there's one right there. Hey no that's not a bee. Oh that is a bee. Hey that's what we're talking about. Great minds think alike. If I was a bee I would be that bee's friend. I'm not gonna bother you bee, you're doing a great job. Keep up the good work sir. Oh Nigel writes in that's a wasp. It's a wasp. I thought it was a wasp. I don't know where the honey came from. Okay okay I better take a step back. Why would a wasp be hanging out in a blossom? They don't make honey do they? Wasp honey.

00:16:03 Kanae Daub: [inaudible] for the angle. Is it a good picture?

00:16:21 John Daub: Good picture. Not really nice. Just how they sit there on a branch. This branch is quite long and this is at the end of the branch and just one little breeze makes it dance. Look at that. And when the blossoms die, there's less sail to catch the wind so they don't move quite the same. They're like little sails. There's some professionals here. Let's go take a look at one more. I don't know what the variety is. That's rare that they don't have the blossom.

00:17:00 John Daub: Where do you like to go, ma'am?

00:17:02 Kanae Daub: Where?

00:17:03 John Daub: Yeah, where? Where do you like to go for hanami?

00:17:09 Passerby: Ueno?

00:17:10 John Daub: Ueno is very busy. Yeah, Ueno is very crowded. Were you watching the live stream and you found me?

00:17:25 Passerby: Yes. So I saw you went to the Edo Castle.

00:17:29 John Daub: Yeah. Then, oh! I came by bicycle.

00:17:30 Passerby: Really? Where is your bicycle?

00:17:34 John Daub: It's at the entrance. Okay. Kanae told me very strongly, do not ride your bicycle and film. She said you can get fined up to $10,000. So I had to write a disclaimer in the last video. Do not ride your bicycle. And it's true. Safety first. Oh, look at that white sakura. Yeah, this is really nice.

00:17:56 John Daub: Like once again, when you have blue skies, you really have to take advantage and get out there right now. Jump on a plane and get to Japan like right now. Just like PewDiePie. He's here in Tokyo right now. If India had cherry blossoms, PewDiePie would probably be in India right now taking on T-Series and battling it. But instead, he's right here in Tokyo admiring the flowers with his beautiful wife to be.

00:18:27 John Daub: Mr. Das writes in, I guess a GoPro is technically not a smartphone. And if it's streaming, technically it's not. So I think that might be okay, Mr. Das. Yeah, it's very nice. I can smell sakura.

00:18:47 Kanae Daub: Yeah, I can smell sakura too.

00:18:49 John Daub: These are—this is the same one, the Amagi Yoshino. And you can tell just the petals are so much bigger than the Sōmei Yoshino petals. Here, I'm going to blow it for you. I don't want to touch it. But I want to give it some. There you go. Amagi Yoshino, I guess. He was asking in an indirect way. Oh, there's a bee. Welcome. Have some pollen. Make some honey. Are these honey bees? Or they're just hanging out bees?

00:19:50 John Daub: Hey Araveen, thank you. Yeah. We got some lunch on Araveen. Eat some sakura. Eat something sakura. Thank you. Look, side beams got. Now everyone's chiming in. Feed Kanae. Uh oh. There's no street food here. There's nothing here. Okay, we just take a step back now.

00:20:13 John Daub: All right, the last tree blossom I'm going to show you is over there on the left side. These are low hanging fruit, so to speak. Like everybody, they do like the blossoms hanging down there and they do make pretty shots. But this isn't the shadow right now. I wouldn't say that this is the best tree. It's hard. You got to love UFO Bob trying to push in the light. Thanks. Wait, I've left Kanae behind. She's getting her photos. It's okay. She knows where we are. When is Kanae going to do a live stream on her own? Shogun. That's, you know what? We're coming up on our first year anniversary next month. So I'm trying to get her to dance for you guys with one of her friends. That would be epic, I think. So we're going to get a live stream of her dancing with all of her friends.

00:21:20 John Daub: Okay. She's right behind us. She's right there. See her coming. She shocked me. I turned and there she was. Wow. All right. Now this is a completely different variety. You can almost mistake this for ume blossoms, the pink color of it, but it's not. There's a sign down here. It explains what variety this is. Yakan. This one's called Yakan. Yeah. Never heard of a Yakan before.

00:22:05 Kanae Daub: I do.

00:22:06 John Daub: I don't know. But it's so delicate. Look at the pink. I love the pink on these dark brown branches. I just want to speak quietly cause I don't want to disturb the blossoms. So they're so precious looking, these blossoms here. Look at that. Oh, this is so cute.

00:22:26 Kanae Daub: I know. They're so beautiful.

00:22:28 John Daub: Now these aren't cherry blossoms. These are called Yakan and the blossoms are very inviting. I love that pink with the blue sky. Let me see if I can get up here. Look at that. It's really nice. Gorgeous. Look at that. I want to just eat it. I don't know why. I have a desire to eat these. I don't know why. Just something deep inside me saying to eat them. I can't explain it.

00:23:14 John Daub: Oh yeah. Look, those are nice. Can you eat these? Is that a crime?

00:23:22 Kanae Daub: No.

00:23:23 John Daub: Like if I ate it, would the police come?

00:23:25 Kanae Daub: Yes. They would.

00:23:27 John Daub: Okay. I want to—Superman will come. The internet's saying to eat it. I don't think they're edible. They are edible actually. You can't eat them and won't get sick, but people want to take pictures of them. So we should celebrate them and not eat them. If you do eat them, make sure no one's around to see you because it's not a crime. Although it feels like it. Oh, so these are kind of like sakura, but what's it called? Let me get the sign for the people. Rokkaku, which means June. The June pear.

00:24:12 Kanae Daub: The June pear.

00:24:14 John Daub: But they're blooming. Oh, so are these going to be pears in June?

00:24:17 Kanae Daub: What?

00:24:22 John Daub: Everyone's saying to eat it. I'm not going to eat it. Now when Kanae's here, if Kanae wasn't here, I might be eating it. I'd be gnawing on that branch. Bring some salt. Yeah. These, so these are the June pears. Rokkaku. Damien says to lick it. Can I lick it? Is that illegal?

00:24:43 Kanae Daub: No. That's not good either.

00:24:45 John Daub: She's laughing inside. She's got daggers. Look at that. But the Sōmei Yoshino blossoms are used in food. I've seen them in cakes. They're sometimes pickled, put inside of a salty sauce, a salty saline solution, and then used in cuisine. And it has a floral taste to it. So you can eat them, but they're harvested in different places. Don't go to the park and eat them. They're not good. And that's kind of not cool. Don't try to be, you know, a giraffe.

00:25:27 John Daub: Hey, Carlos Mitchell. Thank you. I will be taken out, can I, for a snack after this, before I go home. But look at that. Everyone starts liking the stream more when Kanae's in there. I've noticed that trend. The internet, when Kanae's in like Instagram posts, there's like an extra 3000 likes. Oh my God. And everyone, what, what?

00:26:05 Kanae Daub: Okay. Oh, show me, show me, show me. Follow Kanae.

00:26:12 John Daub: She totally should start her own YouTube channel.

00:26:14 Kanae Daub: She can't hear.

00:26:18 John Daub: Oh, look, there's oranges. Can you eat those?

00:26:24 Kanae Daub: Can you eat those?

00:26:25 John Daub: Wait. She can't touch them, but if they fall off on their own or you have a slingshot, technically. Yeah. Nathaniel writes in that the people are suckers for love stories. I like that.

00:26:41 Kanae Daub: Me too. I like that too.

00:26:44 John Daub: All right. So this—this is not a cherry blossom. This is an orange. It's nice.

00:26:52 Kanae Daub: Yeah. I like that.

00:26:53 John Daub: I've never seen—I mean, this is a weird looking orange. I wonder what it tastes like. Honestly, I really do have this curiosity of what these would taste like. Don't you? I'm not going to touch it. I totally will not touch it. Look, I'm not touching it. I'm not touching it. Look, don't push me. Can I? Then I'll break the law if you push me. She would never do that. Oh, there's just one on this one. Yeah. Oh, is this the one we put in the bathtub to take baths with on yuzu day?

00:27:27 Kanae Daub: Ah, it's yuzu.

00:27:28 John Daub: Yeah, yuzu day. You buy.

00:27:30 Kanae Daub: It's not yuzu. It's not yuzu.

00:27:35 John Daub: It's like a star on top of a Christmas tree. It's sort of just there. It's nice. I like this garden. This is nice. Yeah. Many kinds of plants. These look like kin kon.

00:27:49 Kanae Daub: Oh no. These are. They're past their due date. These ones are now.

00:27:55 John Daub: Yeah. These mikan now look like dried apricots. Yeah. These are from Kyushu?

00:28:05 Kanae Daub: Kyushu.

00:28:10 John Daub: All right. So there you go. Ninomaru Park. Pretty cool, huh? I like this one. As I said, like Shinjuku Gyoen is so popular. They raised the price for the first time in 20 years since 1994. Wow. They raised it to 500 yen. So if you got a family of four, it's going to cost you more than double, which is a lot. But you know, you don't have to go to Shinjuku Park. I think that this is pretty cool too. They got a really nice open area. I like Shinjuku Park too.

00:28:50 Kanae Daub: Yeah, but they've ruined it with the price hike.

00:28:52 John Daub: It's not a lot, but it's just enough to make it annoying. But this park is really nice too. And you get to see, it is quiet. Yeah. And in the distance you have eight or nine people. This is the Edo Castle. There's lots of history here. You feel close because you know the emperor who is abdicating next month and we'll have a new era. This is Tokyo. And in five days, we're going to know the new period's name. Yes. This is the Heisei period.

00:29:18 Kanae Daub: This is the Heisei period.

00:29:20 John Daub: And in five days we'll have a new period. What's it going to be called? It's a secret. Nobody knows what the next period is going to be. We've had the Heisei period. I came here in Heisei 10, the 10th year of the Heisei emperor's reign. And now it's Heisei 31. And I've been here for 21 years. That means it's crazy. And now we're starting—I'm in my second imperial reign starting next month in April, which is amazing. And I might do a live stream explaining some of the periods, but from the Meiji Restoration, which was in 1868, we had the Meiji period, then the Taisho, and then the Showa, and then the Heisei. And now we're having a new one. And it goes by the emperor. We really don't know. But we'll have a new emperor. The son.

00:30:13 Kanae Daub: What's his name? Tenno. The new one. His son.

00:30:20 John Daub: You forgot?

00:30:21 Kanae Daub: You forgot? How dare you? You're not—you're no longer a citizen. You have to give up your passport.

00:30:27 John Daub: Focus.

00:30:37 Kanae Daub: Focus.

00:30:38 John Daub: Oh, there we go. Kanae and I will be going down. Hey, he's out of focus again. The internet wants you to focus. There you are. That's beautiful. So we'll be going down to Miyazaki next week. It's next week, right?

00:30:51 Kanae Daub: Yeah, next week.

00:30:52 John Daub: We'll be going to Miyazaki next week and filming there for four days. I don't want to tell you what it's about, but if you saw the live stream when I was down in Miyazaki two months ago, you might have an idea. And if you saw Instagram, you probably know. If you're an Instagram follower, you probably know. But we're going down there for four days and I'm going to film an episode of the main channel. There's three main channel episodes that might be coming up. I'm going to film one of them at the moment before I even leave. So I got a bunch of them queued up. So you're going to get another Only in Japan main channel binge coming up maybe tomorrow. Right now they're just being checked and I'm having subtitles written in. So a lot of stuff happening.

00:31:32 Kanae Daub: Yeah.

00:31:34 John Daub: Anything to say?

00:31:35 Kanae Daub: I don't know. You're the star. The internet prefers you. Everyone's asking when's your channel coming?

00:31:42 John Daub: Really?

00:31:43 Kanae Daub: Yeah. It's impossible. I'm a genius. Nothing to say.

00:31:49 John Daub: Nothing's impossible. Nothing's impossible. So we'll be down in Miyazaki. I'm renting a car so we'll be able to drive around. Yeah, there'll be about four or five live streams then too. There's a lot of live streams coming. I'll probably see my man PBG sometime in the next couple of days. And we might still do an Only in Japan meetup but I've been under a lot of stress lately to get a lot of stuff done. The end of the Japanese year is March 31st and then starts a new year. So there's just so much stuff that just happens. It just came at me that it's hard to do stuff. This is a kind of a day where, I think I said at Yaesu Dori, you just stop what you're doing and you go outside and you run and you go and see the blossoms, especially when you have a blue sky like today.

00:32:36 John Daub: All right everybody, so what was your favorite place? Ichiban suki na hanami basho.

00:32:40 Kanae Daub: You didn't tell the internet.

00:32:44 John Daub: It's difficult. I liked Shinjuku Park before.

00:32:46 Kanae Daub: Before. Okay well you like what you like. You know how many queues? Nice. Yeah how many queue in your Hamamatsu? Yeah that's on the Yamanote line so it's easy access. Wayno park's nice. Yoyogi park's nice. It's a stew of Moses for social places. But the best place to go for cherry blossom is to go out into the countryside now. That's gonna start around April 2nd or 3rd to get out of Tokyo, get out of the city and find your own tree. Yeah, Yoshino in Nara prefecture is considered the number one cherry blossom spot in the country and it's so beautiful over there and it's so—it's nuts. It's not very crowded at all.

00:33:35 Kanae Daub: That's how I relax. To take off your shoes and completely relax. Just absorb nature.

00:33:54 John Daub: I love that. He's melting into the grass. They could use some fertilizer. Yeah he's taking a break from all his worries. Yeah you want to do that really. Yeah very nice. Yeah he gets stuck. She gets stung by a wasp. Nigel Wright he's got him. It could be. Could be. He's like so down into the grass. The guy's melting into the grass. Typically this is what it looks like. Hanami people get blue sheets and they'll just sit underneath the tree. It's a little bit cooler so you don't—people like to be in the sun a little bit. You've been inside. It's the day that you come out. So that's the Ninomaru Garden experience.

00:34:56 John Daub: Totally recommend. It's free when you enter. Your bag is searched and you get one of these plastic tickets, admission tickets. It tells you when it closes. From April first it closes at 5 p.m. Until then it's 4:30 and yeah don't lose this by the way. They won't let you out. You'll be stuck here. There's a couple of people who are still wandering the park trying to find ways to get out so they might try to trick this for me and so they can get out and you're stuck like them. I just totally made that up. That's the tree that we started with. Complete circle. And what does [inaudible] mean in Japanese? Yeah this is—you don't even know what this garden's called. Ninomaru Gardens. She—you didn't know. I saw what. Yeah I know but this is Ninomaru Gardens. This is on the east side. What? This is why you—you ask a local they have no idea most of the time. If you want information you ask me. You know I know Tokyo because it's my job to know it.

00:36:07 Kanae Daub: More than me. Yeah I don't know more than you. You probably know stuff I don't know.

00:36:12 John Daub: I know you know stuff I don't know. I don't know everything and nobody likes people who know it all. I don't know that much. I know more than most but not everything. Boys learning. Very nice. All right we're getting reports that the live stream may have ended. So anyways guys thanks so much for watching this cherry blossom adventure. I'm gonna end with a little bit of a story about the cherry blossom adventure and the last 20 seconds looking at the tree that we started with. This looks like a Sōmei Yoshino tree. Yeah I don't know but it looks like a Sōmei Yoshino tree. Yeah it just kind of bloomed a little early. Still looks good. Have a great day everyone. Thanks for watching. I'll be back.