00:00:06 John Daub: Hey everybody, it's always really special when I come to central Tokyo's Shiba Park and Shrine here, right above this tree planted by Ulysses S. Grant in the 19th century. He came to Japan. This is Tokyo Tower, a stunning view from right at this point. And this used to be where New Year's was celebrated. When CNN came here to celebrate the coming of the year on the 31st, this is where everybody was and they would light up up there—2016, 2017—and that's all sort of moved over to Shibuya. But at this time of year, there's something very special about this park. Well, not right here, but the one right over here that I'm going to take you to.

00:00:53 John Daub: And Japan in general, yes, there is something better than the cherry blossoms because they don't have any cherry blossoms right now. Right now it's all about the plum blossoms, the ume (梅, plum blossoms). So yeah, if you're coming in February, it's going to be way better than the cherry blossoms because they're not even there. They don't even have buds on them. Well, this year is a little bit warmer than most, so they might. But the point is, I'm now going to take you to a place in central Tokyo, one of several that is very memorable. And I hope you enjoy this adventure. If you haven't already, definitely click subscribe and the thumbs up button, because if you subscribe, you get to join us live. If you miss this, it's a lot more fun when you are together right now.

00:01:40 John Daub: All right. In order to get to the place where the ume blossoms are, we have to kind of go back to the main street. But sure, it's cool to show you Tokyo Tower in that scene. I'm still blown away that Ulysses S. Grant was here in Japan. I just get freaked out by that tree. That's the original tree. It's still there despite World War Two and everything else. And a good reminder that America and Japan have always been pretty good friends, except for that time. You know what I mean? I like to think so anyways. And anyways, these days we are the closest of allies. Just ask our current president and prime minister. They're like best buds, golfing friends, cheeseburger buddies.

00:02:47 John Daub: Yes, it is the ume blossoms. I might have brought something with me. I'm OK. I see some already. This is great. It's a wonderful time of year. And it's actually warmer than it is in April. It's kind of freakish. Look at that guy. So what I mean, do you see that? It's so warm. There's supposed to be 70 ume trees here. And I'm guessing it's over to the left. But let's look at this beautiful tree right here. And you can see it's photo worthy. There's someone over there right now taking a picture of it. Peso only in Japan. You know the story. Look at it. It's still budding here. If I let me get away from the light. The sun is right behind it, backlighting it. So if I can get from this side, it's a really nice shot.

00:03:50 John Daub: Smells wonderful. I do think that the ume blossoms, the plum blossoms that you see here, they're pink. So when you see on the emoji that blossom that looks like a cherry blossom—everybody has the Apple emojis—right, or the emojis, there's one with the cherry blossom on there. At least we think of the cherry blossom, but it could very well be a plum blossom. It is beautiful. Yeah, this is a live live stream. There's live chats there. But I always try to make our live streams playbackable, meaning it has some value. I'm just going to stand here and not enter. And you can see just a little bit closer the beauty of them.

00:04:31 John Daub: These are blooming all over the Kanto region right now and a lot of other areas of Japan. And you've seen them in the live streams that I've been bringing you, you see them in the background a little bit. I'm going to take you now over to where there's 70 of them, according to the Internet. And by the way, next weekend, if you're in Japan, they're giving a free guided tour of this area, explaining the history. Not me, some dude. It's in Japanese, too. But I think maybe if you listen carefully, you can hear English from your Google Translate app as he speaks. I do love Tokyo Tower. It's like one of those icons like Mount Fuji. When you see it, you know where you are, right?

00:05:32 John Daub: Mount Fuji, of course, is like omnipresent everywhere. You can see it from all over. But same with Tokyo Tower in central Tokyo. You can see it all over the city as our friend back there is trying to get a kite going. Spring fever, man. Oh, that's so funny. His kids laughing at him. If I ever have kids, I want them just laughing at me. And then when they get to teenager, they're embarrassed by me. I know how this plays out. But for those 10 years, it'll be a lot of fun until he stops introducing me to his friends. See, my dad's not cool anymore. I don't even have any kids. I know how it goes. It was the same way. Probably kids going to watch all these live streams and go, you're insane, dad. I don't want to talk to you anymore. There's a history of your craziness on the Internet.

00:06:28 John Daub: We are now here. I'm here as these two kids battle it out. They waved at me. That's nice. Yes, this is beautiful. And it's like almost nobody here. What's up with that? I know last year I took you with Kanae to a park near Wano. That is so beautiful. There's a temple there. Oh, my. But it's so crowded. And this is not. Now, each one of these smells so good, guys. You have no idea. Oh, there was smell-o-vision. I'm now pushing it through the screen to you. Because it's just extraordinary.

00:07:08 John Daub: All right. Look at this. I can't. There's a line there. I'm just going to step over the line for a second. You can see just how beautiful they are. It's nice, isn't it? Let me zoom in and I can get you look at the colors on it. It's just amazing. That's what I love about the plum blossoms, the colors of it, the pinkness, the lavender, I don't know what that color is. And then the black bark on the tree of the ume blossoms. You see it? The ume tree has this black, darker color, darker skin to it. And just it's just stunning. Very Japanese color to it.

00:08:03 John Daub: I think that the plum blossoms are highly underrated. And so many people come in for the cherry blossoms. Guys, maybe you want to reconsider and avoid the crowds and come for this. I don't know. Just putting it out there, especially if it's going to be this warm. Honestly, it is like 16, 17 degrees Celsius, which is like 60s today. It's I don't even need this. I'm sweating. That's mainly because I was rushing to get here. Some people at Tsukiji Market outside had wanted to take a picture. They go, oh, you're trying. Yeah. Peace and run. Sometimes it takes a little time to get to the locations.

00:08:43 John Daub: Check this one out. We can get a little bit closer to it. Through the miracle of the iPhone XS, we have some pretty good images and macro. Oh, wow. They're beautiful. And it's not the cherry blossoms. I know that. But it's for February. This is so exciting, isn't it? I don't know. I get excited about crazy things like flowers and stuff. I'm not even a botanist. And you can feel it. But you know why? Do you know why these are awesome? It's because it means that spring is just around the corner. And if spring's around the corner, so is summer and longer days. And that awful winter night period of coldness and stuff is almost over.

00:09:29 John Daub: They're not as pronounced. You know what I mean? They're not as overpowering. They usually come in covering just like 10 percent of the tree or something. Whereas cherry blossoms will completely fill the tree. But there's some humility to the ume blossom. I feel, you know, cherry blossoms are like, look at me. I'm all over the place. I'm all white and crazy. Look, but ume blossoms. We said, you know what? This is enough. We're happy with the few. We got we don't need to be all over your face and attracting bees and stuff. Yeah. Let's look at some other trees. There's 70 of them here.

00:10:21 John Daub: And Shiba Park history goes back quite a ways. You can Wikipedia that and actually go back and look at the other livestream that I did here. I do have some you found me cards. So if you do find me, you can get one. I take it out here. This is some information. I always like to read this to you. Silver flowers, the Mansion of Plums and the World of Silver. So as I said, this area is very famous for the plum blossoms. And you can see them on the trees in this picture here. Do you see them? I mean, it's been sitting in the sun for a while, but you can see they've been coming here to appreciate the plum blossoms for centuries.

00:11:05 John Daub: And they do have some English here. Looks like the birds have been here. So I'm not going to touch anything. This plum orchard comes from plums that in the Edo period were located in Shinjuku, Tsunohazu—present day Nishi-Shinjuku Sanchome—which was known as the Mansion of Plums and World of Silver. Interesting. In the Meiji period, the grounds of this World of Silver became the property of Tokyo Gas Company. Of course it did. And around 1908, 1909, many of the plum blossoms were transplanted to the grounds on the west side of Lot 16 of Shiba Park. In 1966 with the construction of the Shuto Expressway, Shiba Kohan, on the Shiba Maruyama ramp, they were relocated to the present day foot of the Shiba Maruyama kofun (古墳, burial mound) at Lot number one.

00:11:50 John Daub: The plums of the World of Silver were so named by the common people because of the way the white plum blossoms looked blooming at Umeyashiki, literally the Mansion of Plums at Nishi-Shinjuku Sanchome today. And there is a shrine called Ginsekai World of Silver Inari Jinja in a part of Shinjuku Park Tower. It's the only bird poop local remnant of the times past. Interesting, huh? So a lot of Tokyo has been relocated to other areas, but still, the history of Tokyo might be relocated, but it continues. That's the one thing like they don't really destroy history here. It just gets replanted, re-transplanted. The marker from where the old American embassy was is still in Tsukiji. That's where American embassy used to be, but it moved to Akasaka later on down the road.

00:13:03 John Daub: That's what makes Tokyo pretty special to me. The history of it, despite losing a lot in the fire bombing in 1945, March 10, which is considered to be the worst in the history of war. That history still remains in certain places. And these trees here still blossom. And if you go through in the back, you can see Tokyo Tower. And it's this is the kind of a day that's nice and warm where you can stop. And I think appreciate nature is the best thing to do because look, our life these days is so fast paced. We sometimes forget to smell the roses. Forget roses. Smell ume blossoms.

00:14:04 John Daub: Now, 70 plum trees is not actually a lot, right? There's other places with hundreds and hundreds. And the number one, I write this down and get a ball pen and a piece of paper. If you're coming to Japan, if not, just listen. You'll probably remember. Mito City is the best place, in my opinion, for plum blossoms at this time of year. Probably next week is going to be amazing there. And they have about I don't know, I'd say like a couple thousand feels like and that Mito Park is one of the top three gardens in all of Japan. The other one is in Okayama and Kanazawa. And this one in Mito is just like a day trip, half day trip from Tokyo. So anybody can get on the JR Rail Pass or just get tickets and go up there. I think it's about an hour and a half or two hours on the Joban line.

00:15:15 John Daub: Yesterday you want to go back and check out that live stream. I was at a famous spot to film Mount Fuji in the Shinkansen, and it was like it was just like spring out there. And you could see Mount Fuji did not get a lot of snow this year. It still looks really nice, but it looks like November instead of February. Most of the mountain is covered in snow. If you're a patriotic porter, you got the postcard from Mount Fuji covered in snow. That was just last year. Look at that. They're so well taken care of. They'll cut this out and it improves the blossoms on the other part of it. So they don't want it to grow too big. I'm assuming that's the reason why.

00:16:08 John Daub: Kono Moon, that's not a bad idea, but I feel like you never should pluck a flower off the tree like this, especially in a public area, because I know I want other people to enjoy them. And just a habit that I have. I want everybody to enjoy this. So who am I to destroy this beauty for the next person? And I think like that. That's the way we think in Japan. Pretty impressed with the autofocus on the iPhone 11 Pro. Let's see what else we got here. All right. There's some deep red ones over behind me. I'm going to take you over to that direction in a second. Nice. The sound of construction in the background. We are in the middle of a city after all.

00:17:15 John Daub: Look at the little one out. Look at the little one. Just probably tomorrow. She's going to come out and go, look at me. Well, my friends are so far away. Cherry blossoms are just, you know, one after the other. Ume blossoms are a little bit more spread out.

00:17:49 Robert: Are you John from Only in Tokyo?

00:17:53 John Daub: I call it Only in Japan, but right now I'm in Tokyo. So that's all right. How are you doing?

00:17:58 Robert: Awesome. I've watched all your streams and videos. They're great. Thank you.

00:18:01 John Daub: I'm actually live now. Do you mind? Where are you from?

00:18:06 Robert: Colorado.

00:18:07 John Daub: Okay. Very cool. What do you think of this weather?

00:18:09 Robert: It's crazy. It's great. Considering it was snowing when I left Colorado. I was just up in Okaio. It was minus 30. I come down here. This is like tropical to me. It's great. Don't get me wrong. For February, this is perfect.

00:18:20 John Daub: How long are you here in Japan for?

00:18:24 Robert: Till Wednesday.

00:18:27 John Daub: Oh, okay. Go back to the cold. Unfortunately, yes. It's pretty nice here. How do you know about this park?

00:18:33 Robert: Just YouTube websites. It's beautiful. So you're actively looking for the ume blossoms?

00:18:36 John Daub: Yes, because I know cherry blossoms are not a thing this year. I was down in Kyoto looking for them a couple of days ago as well.

00:18:42 Robert: Yeah, the cherry blossoms probably going to be super early.

00:18:45 John Daub: I don't know. I predict them this year. It's crazy. They could come out next week. I'm just kidding. Yeah, well, I don't know if you watch the live streaming show, but if people who find me, I give them a card.

00:18:58 Robert: Awesome. I appreciate it, man.

00:19:00 John Daub: What's your name?

00:19:00 Robert: Robert.

00:19:01 John Daub: Robert. Nice to meet you, Robert.

00:19:03 Robert: You too, John.

00:19:04 John Daub: Have a good day. Take care. Thank you. All right.

00:19:10 John Daub: Yeah, you know, I think it's tough when you have to leave this nice weather and go back home. I feel bad for anybody who has to leave Tokyo right now because it's just the weather. It's so nice. And with the blossoms here, it's just perfect. Probably can I go for a walk in our neighborhood a little bit later on? Is that a bee or a fly? I didn't know flies go around pollinating. It's freaky. It's a fly. He's over there. Toby (fly). See him? What's he doing in the blossoms? That's not a bee. Hey, hey, what is your purpose? Hey, you. You in the fly looking outfit. Hey, sorry, I don't want to bother nature, but shouldn't you be on some garbage or something?

00:20:24 John Daub: This one is very similar to the one that I showed you. I think it's a different variety. I'll take you as close as I can. But look at the colors on it, isn't it? It's stunning. Let's get this in focus here for you. It's pretty nice. It just. It's so red. It doesn't really it doesn't seem like fits, but it totally does. It's striking. I guess red could be one way to describe the color, but there really aren't a lot of them on this tree. That's really like they're not they're humble. Right. And the fact that there's not as many of them, I think, is even more special. What do you guys think? See from a different angle, maybe there's more crossing the path here. There's Tokyo Tower behind us. You can see it's kind of sticking out there.

00:22:04 John Daub: Oh, there's another one of those Toby flies. What are you doing in there, dude? Do you really in there? That's nasty. Like a cockroach fly really hard at work. You don't even notice I'm looking at you, do you? You got hair on you. That's nasty, dude. Like your glasses to wash us all day. It's enough of that. It's freaking me out. It's interesting. He's just hanging out in the flower. I guess if I was the same size, I'd probably jump in a flower and use it as a cot, take a nap in there. Hopefully it rains and washes them out of there. I don't know what he's took a bath before he got in there. Think about the next flight. Someone says it's the fruit fly.

00:23:29 John Daub: So I guess they're practicing music up here. You can hear that in the background. It's like festival music. Let's go up. Maybe get a better view from this deck here. Let's go up here. Maybe we'll get a nice view of the plum blossom garden. And it's a bee. Thanks, Thomas. Giving it real. I don't know what it was. It's not a bumblebee. Bumblebees are kind of have that yellow and black coat to it. So I'm panning across here. It's pretty, isn't it? And it's not as if they're cherry blossoms, there'll be more white to it. There'll be you wouldn't be able to see the tree as much when the cherry blossoms in full bloom. It is really striking. But the blossom is humble. You know, it's in a different way. And that's what makes February to me really special. After my birthday. What's next? And Valentine's Day Hallmark, all that. And then there's this. So me likey what I see. Not so much what I hear.

00:24:49 John Daub: They stop playing. And now the sounds of the city are evident. Tokyo is a city that's always kind of humming and moving along. And things are pretty good. This area is again like I've done a live stream. I'll put a link at the end of it. You can just click onto it in the end credits here. Go take a look at it. We had some people come and find me, which is pretty cool. And they walk with me all the way to Roppongi. That was really nice. Here's another place you can kind of overlook the garden. There's not a lot of people who come to this park. And when you look at the top five places to watch ume blossoms in Tokyo, this is not one of them. This is maybe in the top ten, maybe. But there's 70 really pretty trees here. And it's quiet for central Tokyo. That's pretty amazing.

00:25:51 John Daub: And, you know, I'd say up by Ueno might be the best place to go. And then there's also the Imperial Palace. There's a park right on the side of it that is free to enter. You have to get a little ticket that they give you a plastic ticket and you have to give it to them to get out. That's how they keep track of how many people are actually in the park. That's where the old Edo Castle is. Tokyo used to have a castle. And it was there. It was in the park by the Imperial Palace. I don't know exactly. I can't remember the story. I've told it so many times, but it burned down and they never really rebuilt it. Or they rebuilt it and it burned down again. It has a tough history.

00:26:33 John Daub: And Commodore Perry, when he came with the black ship back before the Meiji period and he opened up Japan, his black ship with guns, massive guns, was not that far away from the Imperial Palace and the cannons could shoot into the Imperial Palace. It just freaked everybody out because he could shoot them all the way across the bay. They didn't have all those manmade islands at the time. So Tokyo Bay came up a lot further. And I always thought that maybe Commodore Perry shot the castle, but he would never do something like that, would he? I do like the history that he had in Ogasawara, another island out in the Pacific. That's 24 hour ferry ride from here. Commodore Perry left a legacy there as well. Nice statues of him.

00:27:37 John Daub: Commodore Berry is a cereal that I eat. Is that like Smurf Berry Crunch? Like that one. Smurf Berry Crunch is fun to eat. Dun dun. Morning breakfast treat. Where's Smurf at? She was the one. Smurf Berry Crunch. I don't have that anymore. I don't know. When the Smurfs got all 3D-ish, I stopped watching them. I don't know who likes that stuff. Doesn't feel the same.

00:28:21 John Daub: So there you go. You can kind of get a feeling of what Tokyo is like. This park is really nice. It's an open area and there are people who live here. A lot of them are diplomats, people who work at the embassies. Most of that is located in this section of the city. Minato Ward, which is one of the... Minato meaning port. This is the port ward of Tokyo and one of the more pricier places. But it's where you'll see stuff like this. And the Tokyo Tower looming over all these people enjoying a really nice Saturday afternoon in the city of Tokyo. You're with me, too. So you're enjoying it as well. Probably at night if you're in the US on the West Coast, getting ready for bed. Tokyo is, I don't know, getting ready for late, early dinner. Talking about myself, really.

00:29:20 John Daub: Yeah. There was a time where I was doing an episode of Tokyo Eye and I was outside up on the top. Do you see that round bit right there? That's the top observation deck of Tokyo Tower. And there's a stairway where you can go outside on top of there, I believe. And I was out there watching the guy change the light bulbs ten years ago on a Tokyo Eye program that was probably really the one most coolest experience, except last year. The Tokyo Skytree, which is that way. It's now the tallest structure in Japan. I still think 634 meters. It's over 600 meters. And which is over a thousand feet. And I got to go on the very bottom of that, like underneath the entire structure where they have supporters. You can watch this online. It's Tokyo Eye, the number of world's number ones is what it's called. Ones is one S, I believe. World's number ones.

00:30:17 John Daub: And I was underneath there. Underneath the entire 1000 foot structure is held, is supported by one, two, three, four, five, six. I want to say five. I mean, metal coils inside of this special rubberized material. And when the earthquakes come, the coils balance out and anything to make the structure almost not even move. And I was sitting in the middle of it underneath what must be like a bazillion pounds, kilograms. It's all the same. It's freaked me out because if there was a quick hit the time, imagine the fear of having you. That's the worst place you ever see. Like those hydraulic press videos. That's what would happen to me.

00:31:13 John Daub: All right. And then we're back again. So that was a pretty good trip around Shiba Park. I hope you enjoyed that. That's the first ume blossom. This is not the park where you should be. This is the park before the park you should be at. The other park is just on the other side. And I wanted to come here. It's just over here on the other side. And I came there and the trees were all they were out of season last time. And I thought it would be nice time to bring you here this time. Hey, who to kick the ball to see how far he can kick out of curiosity. It's not bad. I kicked it further. I left my bike at the Prince Hotel. Should have left it here. All right. That's all I got. You have any questions? If you want to write something in, let me know.

00:32:19 John Daub: Cobra Bebop, some ume shoot with you made blossoms. Cobra Bebop, thank you for that. I'm not afraid. I'm not afraid. There's certain things you're not allowed to say anymore on this platform. Even if you say it, it can get in trouble. Symbols. Here's a map of the park. It's so small. Do you really need a map? I guess you do.

00:33:18 John Daub: Guys, if you're interested in the cherry blossoms and you're coming here for that I highly, highly recommend that you download our Discord server. It's free. It's an app that you can download and log in. If your Patreon came out there, your Patreon supporter, you get to join our. We have special chat groups that you can go in there and talk. It's a little bit smaller knit community in there. It's kind of neat. But we also have a cherry blossom 2020 group. And the reason why is because even I don't know all of the cherry blossom spots in Japan. It's a local. Cherry blossoms are supposed to be a local thing. We all know about the big places where there are thousands and thousands of people. But the best places are the ones that you don't know about that you find that are local. That's what makes cherry blossom special. There's a connection with nature that you don't know that you only feel in local areas.

00:34:10 John Daub: So this is kind of a place to exchange it. And also it'll give you a good indication of when they actually start to bloom. So we've got that open up right now. And if you're interested, download the Discord server. It's free. There's about 4000 5000 people in there. And if you're in Japan and you need people to talk to and exchange information, most of those four or 5000 people have been here multiple times. So all you have to do is write a question and then people will answer. It's pretty cool. And I think it's a go do place just for information. And when you're traveling the Discord server only in Japan, it's pretty cool.

00:35:10 John Daub: This is the part of the live stream where you write in where you're watching from. So, you know, then you become a part of the record. There's a lot of people who have never left a comment in a live stream. You might be afraid to, but this is an easy one. Where are you watching from? And nobody say that seventh planet because that's mine. Is it the seventh or eighth planet? Sorry, that could be years. And seventh planet is way Jupiter's. The fifth Saturn is the sixth. Neptune is the seventh. No, seventh planet. This way will take you to Diamond and Hamamatsu. Show Hamamatsu shows on the on the Yamano Delight. So it's not too far away. Neptune is the eighth. Oh, so it was the seventh planet. Yeah. You know, okay, I can be 46 and still laugh at the same jokes. Hello from Seattle. Hey, Brendan, thanks for showing us the plum blossoms.

00:36:28 John Daub: I think if I ever build a house, I'm going to want to have a plum tree as well. I want to have at least one ume and a couple of sakura (桜, cherry) maybe or the other way around, but I can't imagine not having a house and not having a plum tree. Ume blossoms. That tells me that spring is near so I could fall asleep for like half a year and hibernate and after my hibernation, I could look out my window, see the tree and know that spring is near. You don't even have to look at the calendar. It's like mid-February. That's what that means. Sometimes nature is a calendar. Sometimes because you have to know how to read the calendar. It's hard for me too.

00:37:14 John Daub: Once again, let me just give you an overview of the entire area because that map I showed you was not good enough. This is better. You can see the Shiba Park is also on the other side. There's a lot of older buildings. I'm going to show you that in a second. Just turn the camera around. This is Zojo-ji (増上寺), which is the main temple. Very long history. And there's some kofun, which are burial mounds. Also here, there's the Prince Hotel where my bike is. I can see it over there. And then there's other like branches of Shiba Park like here. There's also Shiba Park and Keio University, I believe, is just over here. Keio University. And this part, this is the second generation of A-Bomb, Atomic Bomb, Camp Four Tree. Really? I didn't know about that one. This is the second generation of Atomic. OK, I didn't know that.

00:38:11 John Daub: The maps will tell you that there's a lot of history here of stuff going on in the city of Tokyo. That's why I love looking at these maps. You can discover a lot of stuff here. Birthplace of Nurse Educational Palace. See what I mean? See what else we got here. Atago Green Hills Plaza. Oh, this is the area. This is near. What is the next station after here? There's that's the place where the rocky stairs are from. Rocky actually didn't come here, but it's very much like that. So maybe I'll take you there next time. It's pretty cool. And then there's Tokyo Tower up there. It's on the map. Shiba Park is actually Shiba Park is all around Zojo-ji. You can see. So that's sort of what it is. And then there's Akabanebashi. And if you go to Akabanebashi station along this highway here, there is a Nishi-Nishi Delicatessen, which has one of the go to places for expats to get food.

00:39:20 John Daub: Nishi Delicatessen used to be able to get all sorts of really good wines and deli meats and things like this that you can't find in Japanese supermarkets. You can find there. It's true story. All right. I know where all the places expats want to get their stuff, because after 23 years here, kind of have a database of food information. It's Thanksgiving. Where do you find a turkey? Yeah, I know all that stuff. I know all that stuff. This is someplace I might want to come with Kanae sometime. I saw this. It's a really nice outdoor terrace that they have. It's usually filled with Westerners eating outdoors. Like this is not so much a Japanese thing. I don't think they want to be washed when they're eating and they think eating out by the street is kind of dirty, said some of my friends have said. But as I said, there's a lot of foreign workers, foreigners living in this area because of the embassies. And it's a pretty nice place to kind of eat. It looks like it's a good bakery. A lot of embassies here.

00:40:33 John Daub: By the way, the post office is open downtown. They never sleep. The dime your packages from Patreon came in a record time. Six days from Sapporo. Insanity. It's impressed. And there she is. Hey, bike, you ready to ride home? Anything to say to the people? Oh, no cats to talk to. Talk to the bike. All right, folks. Have a good day. Have a good day wherever you are. I hope that you enjoyed the live stream. Leave a comment below. Tell me what you thought of the plum blossoms are. The question is, are they better than the sakura? Is it worth coming to Tokyo for a lot of people coming for cherry blossoms? Is it worth coming to Tokyo for the blossoms? Are they better than the cherry blossoms? What do you think? Sign up below. Make your voice heard and hit the thumbs up button.

00:41:25 John Daub: Because the reason why is if you hit the thumbs up button, it tells the algorithm that you like the channel and when it does go live, they'll get the notifications out to you earlier. All right. And you definitely want to subscribe because being here live is just a little bit better than watching the playback, although I think the play is pretty fun, too. I think it's pretty fun, too. By the way, I have I have this going out right now. Last thing to Tarjay in Australia. This is going out to you, buddy. And this one's going out to Danny. Thank you, Danny. This is coming out to you. Thanks for being a big supporter and a friend. I appreciate that. I'm putting that in the mailbox on my way right over there. There's a mailbox down there. All right, guys. See you later. I'll end with the last 20 seconds looking at the amazing Prince Hotel and Tokyo Tower just above it, some trees in the way. It's all good.