00:00 John Daub: Greetings everybody! Welcome to the Omiya Bonsai Art Museum. We have an awfully wet day. It's raining cats and dogs. But I have permission to film in here today. And I'm making a video for the main channel which is supposed to come out tonight. I'm really going to have to edit this pretty fast. Leave your umbrella in the umbrella holder. I love these things. You lock it in place, push in here, it'll lock, and then you can take the key with you.

00:28 John Daub: So there's not a lot of people visiting today. We cannot disturb the other customers, other clients, other guests. But the Omiya Bonsai Art Museum is one of the must-stop places, I think, to learn about Japanese culture that's near Tokyo. And I'm going to teach you a little bit about bonsai as well as why Omiya and not in Tokyo. So welcome.

00:49 John Daub: This is the main hallway. And one of the things I want to teach you right off the bat is bonsai trees are smaller trees. And if you look at it from a low position, it makes a small tree look like a grand tree, like a bigger tree. So that's a little technique that you can do to look at it from different points of view. Bonsai trees, at first, when I first came to Japan, I was like, oh, look, a little tree. That's cute. And I ignored it. And now I spend a lot of time just admiring them.

01:41 John Daub: This one is a momiji (Japanese maple). And you can see we're really close to autumn and the colors are about to turn a little bit of red in there. But what makes it special is you got to look down and look at the trunk of the tree and then look at the pot, the bonki (bonsai pot). The color of it really matches with the table, that blue color of it. Absolutely beautiful.

02:17 John Daub: So I'm just going to go over some of the things that I've learned about bonsai. There's different kinds of bonsai trees. And of course, there's different styles of them. This one is a cascading one called kengai (cascading style). And you can see it starts off here and it starts to drape down. It's really, really beautiful. This one I kind of like as well. It looks like a forest. There's several little branches coming out of it. And this small bonsai, if you get close to it, looks like a forest. It's pretty cool.

02:48 John Daub: And this is the typical style here. This is called moyogi (informal upright style). Moyogi trees have the twisting branches. They're usually evergreens like this and they look really beautiful. But a bonsai tree doesn't have to be an evergreen. It can be all different kinds of trees. There's an apple tree outside that I'm about to show you. Do you see the dead wood of the trunk? It's white. It's wrapping along. That's such a beautiful thing. And the colors, the green, the white, the black, I love that.

03:18 John Daub: All right, let me take you outside. Again, we have no time to waste. I don't have permission to film in here, but I recommend that you do not do it. This is a beautiful tree. Check it out. There's five main branches here. So it kind of makes it look, I mean, it's a small tree, but what makes bonsai really cool to me is that it looks like a big tree. They've been able to take something so small and make it look so big. It's all of the details of a big tree in a small size that you can hold. And that's very cool.

04:07 John Daub: This is a blueberry tree that's a bonsai tree. Check that out. And it's a kengai style coming out of the bonki like this. Cool. I think the signal will get better out here. So what they've done here is that they've taken like tatami rooms and they put in like bonsai trees. So you get an image of what it's like inside of a Japanese house and bonsai trees. They're very welcoming, right? When you walk into a house, they have a characteristic to it and it makes you stop and appreciate it. Some of them might look like they're bowing to you. It just depends on the style of the bonsai tree.

05:04 John Daub: This one is placed right in the middle like this. It's a very important part of this room. Kind of bright. It brings it out. Let's walk over here. There's a couple of other rooms that they put in the bonsai trees. Check that out. Here's a small one in the tatami room. This part of the museum smells amazing because the tatami (straw mat flooring), the fresh tatami smell is all over. And this one is just absolutely beautiful. I did the opening of the main channel show right here. You can see the shoji (paper screen) doors right there, a little circle, some of the sunlight peeking through there. A beautiful, beautiful bonsai tree.

05:38 John Daub: There's one that's a thousand years old outside. This one is a black pine. This one is a hundred years old. You can see it's just a really beautiful part of the room. The green color in here. Now, bonsai trees are usually not outside or not indoors like this. They'll be typically outdoors like right now. And look, this is we're kind of like a typhoon going on here. But bonsai trees are usually outside. They're usually outside where they can get sunlight and fresh air. If you leave them inside, they're not going to be very good. They're not going to live very long. It really drastically decreases the life of a bonsai tree.

06:40 John Daub: This bonsai tree is really nice. I was talking with the security guard who gave me a lot of information on this. And he said, hey, this is a tree trunk. It just looks like a pile of mud down there. It's really beautiful, the shape of it. The wabi-sabi (imperfect beauty), which is this imperfect Japanese style to it. And there's six trunks to it. Do you see underneath there? There used to be seven. If you look on the base of the trunk there, it was cut off not too long ago. But they said that was a big deal. So everyone in the museum was talking about that when that happened. Oh, we got to cut the trunk of the 150-year-old bonsai tree. That's a big deal.

07:18 John Daub: This one is Japanese maple as well, a momiji. And it's going to be in full color probably in two, two and a half weeks from now. So coming here in November is a pretty good idea. This one's a bigger one. Again, look at the trunk on that and the moss around it. It's just so beautiful. Another Japanese maple momiji tree. A yamamomiji, we call that. And the colors of it are going to be absolutely beautiful in a couple of weeks.

07:55 John Daub: Oh, this one here. Check it out. Do you see this? The pot is a stone, right? And it's just like a lump of the roots and the soil is in there, packed on the rock. Let me take a couple of steps back. You can get a better view of it. I love these bonsai open-air museums. This is the open-air part of it. Now, I've got permission to film. If you do come here, you can film here. I cannot film without permission in the other areas. There's an officer over there to make sure that, keep the tourists from filming parts that shouldn't be filmed. We're okay. We have a pass.

08:44 John Daub: Check it out here. Do you see the way the trunk, part of it is dead. It's white colored, but it's now been a part of the tree, just kind of grown in with the rest of it. Looking inside of the tree is pretty important. Looking at it from different angles. It's really, really unique. I'm going to take you right now to the 1,000-year-old tree. There's so many really nice ones. I could be here for like an hour, but I'm going to go straight to it.

09:23 John Daub: Right there, everybody. You are now in front of a 1,000-year-old tree that you could carry. It looks a little heavy, but you could carry this 1,000-year-old tree. Insanity, right? It's crazy. And says right here, estimated age, 1,000 years. A living thing has been, I mean, this is a living thing that's 1,000 years old right in front of me. That's just crazy. It's not a human. Trees are more important than humans, I guess. I wouldn't say more important, but trees live longer and have a great importance to us as humans. So, much love to the tree.

10:07 John Daub: Let's take a look at it from another angle. If you look at it from here, you can see it. It's seen some action. It looks like part of it died along the way, but the rest of it just keeps on growing. Let's look at it from another angle from down below. This is not the best day to be doing bonsai watching, but trees need rain. So, I don't need the rain, but the trees do. So, they take priority over me.

10:43 John Daub: It's getting cold in Japan. This is another Japanese maple. Really beautiful. I love the pot. Do you see the bonki? The bonki or bonsai pot is really nice on that. I like the natural colors of it. Again, sometimes you want to be more striking. You want a little bit of a red or blue. Just depends. The presentation of the bonsai is very important. Bonsai actually means tray planting. That's what the word bonsai means. Bon, tray, sai, planting. You can see right there the moss around it. It's just beautiful. Beautifully shaped, isn't it?

11:46 John Daub: I've come here just to film. I got permission to film about three or four days ago. The staff here is so nice. There aren't a lot of people here on a rainy day like this. Look at the bamboo. The bamboo and the wind. Check that out. Very cool. The bonsai trees are going to be fine. The pots are pretty heavy. We call this Typhoon Number 21, but I'm not sure what the English name is. Here in Japan, we don't name the typhoons. We just give them numbers.

12:24 John Daub: Again, I highly recommend that you make a trip out to Saitama, to Omiya for this. Because this is culture. This is how Japanese live with nature. That connection with nature is an important part of the culture. A place like Saitama, Omiya is a good visit. Not just for the train museum. I'm going to tell you the reason why Omiya, right? I'm qualified to tell you this story. I'm going to show you then a 500-year-old bonsai.

12:57 John Daub: So, in 1923, the Great Kanto earthquake happened. It was really, really strong. At the time, it was devastating because buildings were not built like they are now. The Great Tohoku earthquake happened in 2011. But the one before that, the big one, was in 1923. That's why Tsukiji Market moved to Toyosu. Because of the Great Kanto earthquake. It used to be in Nihonbashi. So, the bonsai people that were growing trees in Tokyo said, we can't live here. Let's move to Saitama. Let's move to Omiya. So then, they brought in 1923 all of their bonsai trees and bought houses here and started a bonsai community. And they're now at one station, one station away from Omiya, which you have to go and visit. It's a bonsai village. It's very, very cool. Even the manhole covers here are bonsai.

13:55 John Daub: Look at this one. It's kind of cascading, jutting out. I think this is the one that they call the blue dragon. Do you see that? Oh, man. Looks like a dragon. I guess it depends if you look at different angles. But this one is 350 years old. To me, I think America is how old? 1776. This tree predates the United States. That's crazy. When this tree was born, America did not exist.

14:40 John Daub: This one is 500 years old. This one is the biggest bonsai tree at the Art Museum. And it's spectacular. Look at that pot that it's in. It's pretty big. But I love the stone platform that they've built for it. It's very, very nice. Hey, Zato71 is in the house. Thank you, Zato71. Much appreciated. Let's keep moving on. There's a couple more that I want to show you before my freezing hands want to go back inside.

15:22 John Daub: This one is called... By the way, some of these have names. In fact, I think all bonsai trees are given names. This one is 300 years old. This is a needle juniper. And needle junipers are a little bit different. You can see they have a different style than the other evergreens to it. And it's hard to get in there and take a look. So you have to get down and look up at it. And you can see how grand it looks. Look at the details in the trunk of that. Very, very beautiful. 300 years old.

15:57 John Daub: There is a fee for this museum. Again, the fee of the museum is important because it keeps it running. And it's a beautiful, beautiful museum. It's 10 years old. This building is sort of new. It's a nice place to come for about an hour, an hour and a half, just to admire the trees. And there's a restaurant across the street, the Bonsai Museum Restaurant, where you can get some pretty good eats there. Look at the trunk on this. Oh, man. Absolutely beautiful. I love trees. These trees, you can't hug them.

16:37 John Daub: All right, let's keep on going around. This one also is growing out of a rock. I love it when the bonki is like a rock. Oh, sorry about the wind, everybody. It's really coming down. I'm going to go back inside in a second. Check it out. And this one is another Japanese momiji maple tree. And you can see the color just starting to pop through. Again, in two weeks, this is going to be so beautiful. I got to come back here with Kanae Daub. I need a big bowl of ramen after this exhibition. Look at the wind and the rain coming down. This is crazy.

17:23 John Daub: This one is in the center. It's a beautiful piece here. Check it out. Just a really nice view. I might have to escape this. Typhoon, go away. I love this little one down here. Do not ignore the small ones. This one is growing out of a rock. Is that not awesome? This one is 60 years old. But age doesn't matter. That's what I tell my wife since I'm 45 and she's a little bit younger, slightly.

18:24 John Daub: This one is an apple tree. This is the last one I want to show you. This one is aged about 40 years. And look at the little apples on it. It's autumn. And you can see the beautiful apples starting to come off of it right there. But even apple trees can be bonsai trees. This one is 40 years old. I'm not going to eat one. Hey, Top Shelf. Thank you. Shout out from Top Shelf and John Rudge. Thank you, John.

19:05 John Daub: All right. I'm going to take you one more place. I'm going to take you up to the second floor and look down on it. And then we might call this... I got to get some ramen, man. This is a tough, tough day. Check it out. It is beautiful, isn't it? All right. Let's go inside. I put my stuff in a locker. It's 100 yen. But you get your 100 yen coin back. So you can use the lockers.

19:47 John Daub: I wore the wrong shoes today. They sound really bad on the ground. Everyone knows I'm coming. I'm kind of chilly. Now, the air temperature might not seem cold. But when you're wet, it's not fun. It's cold. But this is so worth it to come out here. I don't have wet socks. I have Gore-Tex boots on today. But that's why it's kind of not my best ninja shoes. The enemy can hear me coming.

20:25 John Daub: I love the second floor that they have here. It's going to be even more beautiful in a couple of weeks because you can already see the leaves are starting to change. But from the second floor up here... You can get an amazing panoramic view of the city. Apologies for the wind noise. And this is where... Yeah, there's the thousand-year-old over there. And then this is the 350-year-old one. Very, very beautiful one. Look at that. I love the shapes of them. But this is where I did the closing of the episode.

21:15 John Daub: This is actually the Mainnet Channel episode that I'm doing as a collaboration with #TeamTrees. MrBeast is going to have 20 million subscribers. I don't know if you guys watch MrBeast. He's a very creative guy with his money. And I have a lot of respect for the stuff that he does because it makes you think deeper about stuff. It's a little silly. But what he wants to do is not silly. He wants to plant 20 million trees for 20 million subscribers. And he reached out to a bunch of creators and we're making videos about trees. And that's why I'm here. And I got to edit this video really, really fast and try to get it online tonight for the Mainnet Channel. I think I'll be able to do it.

22:02 John Daub: 20 million subscribers, first of all, is insane. Congratulations, MrBeast. But 20 million trees is also really, really crazy. And I love that. I love the fact that we could potentially do something in this collaboration like plant 20 million trees. For me, I'm going to show people about the bonsai trees because I think that that's a pretty special thing from Japan that gives me a segue to talk about planting more trees. Because Japan does not need more trees, actually. We've planted too many trees and there's so much kafun (cedar pollen) in the air that people wear masks in the spring to try to prevent it because we have too many of the wrong trees. So I'm not going to say like in Japan, we don't need to plant too many trees. But it's always a good thing.

23:01 John Daub: And this is Saitama right here. It's just kind of I like coming out here. It's a reason to get out of Tokyo. And it's also a reason to see a little bit of the Japanese suburbs. Again across the street, there's a restaurant where you can eat like, I don't know, there's like a bonsai named dish. So I might go and check that out. I think that's a great thing that he's doing bringing creators together. I think Casey Neistat is doing something and maybe there's a couple other Japanese creators that are doing it. But I thought it was a pretty amazing thing. I love trees. So it just seemed like, yeah, I'm coming to the Bonsai Museum and we're gonna make a video about this. The weather is awful. And I don't know how this video is gonna go. But as soon as I get home, I start to edit it and we'll see probably released at noon US time. And yeah, I hope it helps to plant some trees and people learn a little bit about bonsai.

24:03 John Daub: Here's the last one I'm going to introduce you to. This is the one at the entrance. Again, sometimes if you circle the bonsai, you get a really good impression of it. It really is like art. This one is a spindle tree. And I don't know how old it is. The age is not written. But it does look really beautiful. And I like like the wind has blown it right like hair is being blown this direction. And if you put it in the center of a lobby or something. Like this, you enter into the building and you get a really beautiful view. It just brings this room to life to have a bonsai on a pedestal. It really is art. So it's a beautiful entrance to the museum. And you can get here from Tokyo in less than an hour. It's just past Omiya one station past Omiya. And yeah, this is the museum right here. And then down here is the village. There's an Omiya bonsai village. And I think it's worth coming here not just for the museum. There's a lot of things to see and do at Toro station. T-O-R-O on the Utsunomiya line.

25:37 John Daub: Any questions on bonsai trees? I'm happy to answer it before I go home and warm up, get some ramen. Toro is very famous for the bonsai trees. So I think it's going to be celebrating bonsai, coming to the bonsai art museum, the Omiya Bonsai Art Museum, as well as Omiya Bonsai Village. You could buy a bonsai. I don't know if you can take it home with you, but you can definitely try to trim and make bonsai here. The manhole covers are bonsai design, which is pretty cool to me. And it's just a reason to go to the middle of nowhere, I guess. And there is a lot of stuff to do in Omiya as well. There's a train museum, which is very highly recommended. So you could probably spend a good day in Omiya learning about Japanese culture.

26:42 John Daub: Why Omiya? It's because of the earthquake, the 1923 earthquake. A lot of people left Tokyo when they moved out here. The biggest bonsai creator at the time. Yoshimura [?]. I think his name was. He came out here and he brought other bonsai creators and they created a village. And that's why the history of bonsai is here now for the last hundred years.

27:06 John Daub: Can you buy bonsai starter kits? You can. But actually, you know, the United States, if you're in the United States, there's a growing bonsai culture there. So you can find bonsai in a lot of places. I know in New York and in Florida and there's a lot of Japanese that have moved to the United States to promote bonsai as well. Is to find new markets for their art. So you can definitely find pretty good bonsai in the United States and California, especially because a lot of Japanese people living there. But anybody can make bonsai. It's not like a specifically Japanese thing. Finding the aesthetics and the artistic like feeling of it is all on you because beauty is in the eyes of the beholder. And what is considered art is in your eyes. The way you sculpt it and shaped it and care for it is going to be what makes it valuable.

27:52 John Daub: Now some of these are very, very valuable because they've been crafted by masters hundreds of years ago. So and they've lived they've tested gone through the tests of time. They've seen a lot of action, especially that 1000 year old one. But the bonsai trees value. There's so many of them. I'll explain it in the main channel video because I interviewed the proprietor of the museum and he told me some of the amazing things about bonsai. But I think it's like an heirloom that you can pass from like grandfather to father to son. And this living thing that your grandfather grew is still growing and you can pass that to your son. It's a generational object, which is crazy to think about. Right. A tree outlives five or six generations of people. That's kind of special, I think. And that's a way you can connect with your ancestors that have passed through a bonsai tree and then taking a piece of the bonsai and then growing a new one out of it is another way to continue it. So before the bonsai tree dies, you can maybe take a sprig of it and then you'll be able to grow a new one from it. And I think that's a good way to continue a family tradition.

29:13 John Daub: I might grow a bonsai tree when I have a child and I can give that to my son or daughter. And then maybe we can continue to live together through this tree because I love trees. And that's, you know, we can give rings and stuff or necklaces or jewelry. But I think a tree is also a nice thing to give. I used to feel bad about these being in pots because I said, oh, they don't have freedom. But they're so well cared for. I think that they're pretty happy with being in the pot. I would be from the love that they get. But being out in nature can be rough, man. Look, you hear that wind? I want my master to bring me in if I was a potted plant. So just saying all the insects and the mold and all the stuff that's bad for the trees are challenging for the trees. You don't get that with bonsai.

30:09 John Daub: So bonsai, typically one thing that I do want to point out before we end the live stream, they're outside. Bonsai trees are usually outside. And if you can bring them inside, but they should be put back outside. The bonsai tree should not live inside the house. They should be outside most of the time. So that's an important point. If you want it to live long, let it live outside in the elements.

30:42 John Daub: I hope this is interesting for you. I really wanted to share a little bit of not just bonsai, but of Omiya, some attractions outside of the city of Tokyo. Again, this is really close from Tokyo. I met four viewers. Like, who's going to come to the bonsai museum in a typhoon? Four viewers of Only in Japan were here. I got a chance to meet Cedric. And I didn't get the name of the other people, but Cedric from Canada was visiting and I was happy to meet him. And he was so nice. He offered to help me with the filming because it's really tough outside, but I didn't need it because I think I'm going to be just fine filming.

31:20 John Daub: I'll be here for another 20 minutes or so. But once again, thank you so much for coming. Link is in the description if you want to find out where this is. And if you're interested in planting trees, let's help out Mr. Beast and the other creators that are going to be posting videos tomorrow or tonight in like 12 hours. You can help this campaign out. #TeamTrees. And I'll put a link in the description as well so you get a chance to take a look at that and the main channel episode coming really, really soon.

31:50 John Daub: Ikebana would be a nice thing for the next episode as well. Thanks, guys. All right, everybody. Have a good day. Have a good night. I'm going to take you just to look at this really crazy weather out here before we leave. The wind is really coming down. Wow. The wind is really, really gotten a lot stronger. Just be glad you're in here and not out there. Bye, everybody.