00:00:03 John Daub: Welcome everybody to Ueno Park. Are the cherry blossoms blooming? Well, it kind of depends where you're looking and the variety of cherry blossom. But the one right at the entrance of the park seems to have some blossoms on it and that is a pretty good sign. When you see these cherry blossoms, you know spring has arrived. And it's a sign of positivity here.

00:00:37 John Daub: And it gives you hope, a restart of the new year. Greetings from Ueno. I've come here because I cannot stay inside anymore. I must check up on the progress of the cherry blossoms. Many of you who can't come to Japan because of this situation are with me on this. If you're on the west coast of the U.S., you're about to go to bed. Here in Japan, we're about to have dinner in a couple of hours. So, thank you for joining me.

00:01:20 John Daub: I'm going to take you around Ueno Park here. Maybe a little bit of the city. I'm not sure how long this live stream is going to be, but definitely hit the thumbs up button to encourage me to keep doing more. This is the entrance to Ueno Park. That's where we saw the sakura (cherry blossom) tree. There's really not a lot of people. It's a lot more subdued compared to years past. They still have the lanterns behind there, but no celebrations, no blue sheets.

00:01:52 John Daub: Let's take a look at how much the Somei Yoshino cherry blossoms are actually blooming. This is a different variety, one that blooms a little bit earlier. Right now, it's about 3:30, 3:45 p.m. on March 17, 2020.

00:02:20 John Daub: Let's get one more quick look here. We can see there's some still in the bud formation. Look at the beautiful color to it. It's hard for me to get them in focus. Come on now, there you go. That's really nice. There's just a slight breeze enough to make them dance and come alive. See, you can't hog it either. You take your picture, get away.

00:03:13 John Daub: We're practicing social distancing from everybody. Just about five minutes ago when I came up here and was scouting the area, a Japanese guy asked me in English, "Could you take a picture?" He handed me his smartphone and I said, "I'm sorry, I can't. If I touch your camera, I'm gonna have to wash my hands with alcohol. But to start this live stream, I'm kind of in a hurry. Sorry." And his wife said yes, so done. She kind of understands it, but a lot of people, it's hard in practice to practice social distancing. Meaning, if you like right now I have "You Found Me" cards, but if you come and say hi to me, most likely I'm going to say, "Whoa, slow down there. Keep your distance. Put the card down on the ground and say step away from the card. Now take it." But it seems pretty extreme. I'm telling you right now in practice you have to get in these kind of habits and so it's not uncomfortable. It is an uncomfortable situation. So when people ask you, I'm like yeah no. I think about my family. I think about the people around me. I can't. It's just a risk to be outside.

00:04:41 John Daub: This is the path down this direction so there is stuff going on, but right now we're looking down the main avenue towards Ueno Zoo. You can see first on the left and right there are no blue sheets. In fact, do you see here on the ground? It says it is prohibited to sit on the ground here. This is by order of Ueno Park management office, so they put in here restricted. There are no blue sheets, there is no partying this year. That in itself is pretty interesting. I had not seen that. But still these Somei Yoshino trees are in budding mode. There are a few varieties out. Up ahead we see a striking pink blossom on the tree over there.

00:05:40 John Daub: It will take you up to go see the Saigo Takamori statue, which is something you got to always see when you get in Ueno Park. You got to make your pilgrimage there, go see the last samurai. That's who Saigo Takamori is, the statue of him walking a dog in his later years. You have this one, that's another variety, and with the blue skies that we have in Tokyo, very striking. See that? Can bring you in a little bit closer. There you are. It is pretty nice. It's nice to be outdoors, get some fresh air for a little bit. So I came here by bicycle. I'm in my 16th or 17th day of not riding public transportation, keeping social distancing. Everybody's pretty polite about that.

00:06:38 John Daub: Here we go, here's a Somei Yoshino tree right above me. Let's take a look here in the sunshine. There's maybe not that many blossoms. There's one right here, do you see right there? Wow, this is going to be a big weekend. There's one here as well, there's a little cluster. This time we can use cluster for a good meaning because on the news this has been meaning something else.

00:07:15 John Daub: I'm gonna take you around here, we're gonna investigate. I know maybe there's not a lot of cherry blossoms but I gotta be honest with you, I simply cannot stand watching the news non-stop and hearing numbers changing and closures and all this other stuff. It is very pretty. I think it is time we go on some adventures. On Thursday, Kanae and I are going to rent a car and get out of here, hopefully the weather holds up. That's our plan on Thursday. We're gonna rent a car and go on another trip. Last week we went to Fuji Yoshida to Mount Fuji and we offered some pretty amazing views live. This week we're going to be going the other direction. It's going to be nice to rent a car, kind of get out of the city. Everybody is avoiding public transportation. Just not a lot of people riding it. It depends on the time but most workers are staying home.

00:08:19 John Daub: This is what Ueno Park looks like probably this weekend. It's striking. It's just the white blossoms, the Somei Yoshino are so beautiful. And this has been a very popular place for a long time for cherry blossoms. But I'm telling you, Tokyo is far from the best place in Japan to watch the cherry blossoms. It is by far not even in my top hundred. The cities are cool and all that, you know, mostly for meeting with your friends. But there's nothing that beats the beauty of Japanese countryside with the cherry blossoms and local people. People who live here in Tokyo, many of them are not from Tokyo. They will tell you their hometown is way more beautiful than Tokyo. If you're from Tottori, you're from Niigata, you're from Hokkaido, you're from wherever, from Kochi, from Miyazaki, you're always going to say your hometown is so much better than the city. It's because there's a lot of feeling, there's a stronger connection to nature. And that's what the cherry blossoms really mean to people in Japan. There's a strong connection with nature that people here have, and the cherry blossoms is one of it. There's to see how fragile beauty is, how fragile our lives are. We're here one moment, blossoming, and then we fall to the ground and it's over. And then it starts up the next year. That could be the generations. There's so much symbolism in them.

00:09:59 John Daub: But if you really want to know something deep, you can ask this guy, Saigo Takamori, aka the last samurai, aka Ken Watanabe playing Saigo Takamori with Tom Cruise. There's this doggy. He was born in Kumamoto, I believe. He's a Kyushu man, was part of the group down in Kagoshima and fought the Meiji government, stood strong. A lot of respect, a man of principle. I wish we had more leaders like him. I don't know if he was brutal or tough, I'm not sure, but he was a leader people followed him and he went out fighting. That's very respectable. Last Samurai was a good movie except Tom Cruise when he goes in to see the emperor, he wears his boots on the tatami mats. No cultural sensitivity whatsoever with the Hollywood production team. There's no way they didn't take off their boots to come and walk on the tatami mat to go meet Emperor Meiji. That's just insane. Like I'm watching it cringing the whole movie at some of the things that Tom Cruise was doing. But in general did a lot to boost tourism to Japan and give you an understanding about this man Saigo Takamori. He's even more striking when the sun is illuminating him and backlighting his silhouette.

00:11:41 John Daub: The weather has chilled a little bit here in Tokyo. It was 20, 21 degrees Celsius, like 68, hovering 70 degrees Fahrenheit last week. It dipped to minus one about three days ago with some snow, and then it's a climb back up to 10 to 12 with some wind. It's spring chilly right now, which is the right weather for spring. I kind of have a jacket on here because the thing with spring is it's deceptively cool. It's sunny and warm but as soon as the sun goes away it gets chilly and you need to be warmer than usual. Dress a little bit warmer in spring when you come to Japan. Here's some tapestries, some paintings of this area going back to another era. As we hear in the distance the jingle for Yodobashi Camera. There's nothing in English, I'm feeling too lazy to translate everything for you but it's pretty neat. I love looking at these massive tapestries or paintings. This is a reproduction but you can stand there just looking and walk across there and just see the details in it and see what life was like back in the 17th century. And this is Ueno Park, really really green. No snow kyo today.

00:13:11 John Daub: This is the museum where I came last year or the year before for the paintings, the episode that I did on the insane Japanese otaku who discovered secrets inside of a Dutch painter's world. He was an analytical mind. It was all that exhibition was here in this museum. Unfortunately all the museums are closed until further notice although some of them are starting to open up a little bit. I announced yesterday Matsumoto Castle will be open on the 24th. You can see here there's some lanterns so there is some lighting, there is some festivity. I guess you cannot not do it but it's interesting to see. I thought that maybe they wouldn't have anything here but they do, they have some lights. So after dark they're probably going to turn that on.

00:14:23 John Daub: Hello Elena from Mexico, how you doing? Thanks everybody for joining me. It's pretty cool to have you all with me now. This is also interesting. Now they're not supposed to be any festivals but they realize that you can't not have them so they have the recycle bins and there's a gentleman there making a living from it. Japan is pretty clean with separating the trash. Here's another nice specimen right here. It looks like the same one that we had in the front. No it's a little different. Just take note everybody, do not touch the cherry blossoms. That dude's not touching and he's pinching it. I don't like it when my grandmother did that so I don't think cherry blossoms are gonna like it either. Never had your grandmother pinch your cheeks? Oh you're so cute, you're adorable. Nobody likes that except your grandmother. Where how did that start, the pinching of the cheeks? That's like child abuse really. I mean it's demonstrated right there, that's abuse to the cherry blossoms. I think it's abuse to children everywhere. Don't pinch their cheeks, leave them alone.

00:15:51 John Daub: Beautiful. Michael writes in, Michael said I was never cute. That's so sad. So if you have a MP3 player or whatever you could start putting in your Sakura Sakura song. That's the song, the cherry blossom. You can Google it, you'll come up with a lot of renditions of Sakura Sakura. Just write it in twice because it's so nice. But when you get them with this it's nice right now because you have very little wind and you have blue skies and the cherry blossoms. In the fall you get a lot of clouds but when you have the blue skies like we do right now it is just so really pretty and just enough light, it hits it from the sides like this so delicate. People have their smartphones out snapping away like the paparazzi here. It's pretty nice. See them, it's hard not to stop and then take pictures right? It's hard to be self-contained. Oh look at that, the classic shot. It's nice. I think it's better up close. You can see you have to get up there. Just don't touch, look don't touch.

00:17:18 John Daub: Now my mom came about five years ago to the cherry blossoms. Oh here's a Somei Yoshino tree, we can get closer to this one. Let's look at the buds on here. Oh yeah there's a little ways to go before we get there. They're really just budding right now. Hard to see because it's not... I touched it, I'm sorry, but trying to get the focus there. Yeah they got this Somei Yoshino's got a ways to go. Maybe this weekend we'll start to see some blossoms. The bigger ones are not even close. Oh no wait, wait, I'm starting to see them break out. Do you see the pink on the end there? They're just starting to break out. The phone's not doing a good job of focusing. We'll take you around and take a look more. This area was so beautiful, it was just filled with white like a Fantasy Land. And a lot of places are like that around Japan. For you know decades they've been planting these cherry blossoms in places to make these beautiful parks.

00:18:23 John Daub: Let's go take a look here, this is a map of Ueno Park. That's my shadow. The Saigo Takamori statue is right there and we're gonna walk around this area. I really feel your pain and Kanae and I are gonna go out and we really all feel your pain so much. In fact so much so that they've made this mascot. This is what the cherry blossom is like if you touch it. This is the do not touch mascot. See, don't pinch it. They must make a mascot, nosh nosh. I gotta take a picture of this, this has to go in our Discord emoji. That's too awesome.

00:19:40 John Daub: These Somei Yoshino tree, it looks like they're gonna bust out any day now. The index tree at Yasukuni Shrine is pretty, it's always a little bit earlier but this one yeah it's just about to bust out. Do you see that? I give this about 48 hours before it's like popcorn. Sunshine light the flame, flame on, burn these things. Well no don't burn them but get them out. Sakuya is blooming on the 20th here in Fukuoka, that's good to know. You know the cherry blossoms start to bloom on the 20th but that's when they start. We get to the mankai (full bloom) probably five or six days after that and then five or six days after that they're gone. So at maximum if they can hang on and the wind is kind, cherry blossoms can hang on there for a good 10 to 12 days. Once it rains after they get to full bloom it all washes away and then on the ground it's just all white petals. It's one of the most beautiful things to see in waters, lakes, things like that, just millions and millions of petals.

00:21:10 John Daub: I think I took a picture of my mom right here looking this way and we had an amazing view. I'll see if I can put that onto Instagram later on and put it onto our Sakura. We have a Sakura on our Discord server. We've got a Sakura chat room just talking about the best places that people who have visited Japan have seen. That's pretty cool. So if you want to get more information and you are in Japan, you live here, you're a resident, maybe not so much as a traveler, you can go into the Discord server and check it out. About people sharing pictures. Yeah right from here. I remember she walked up the steps here and I think she was leaning up against this tree or something. And then we looked back and all these trees here were just white like a fantasy world. And they're all pretty much in bud phase right now. They're all kind of just budded out and they're going to be breaking out in about 48 hours. It just looks like that close for some of these trees. This weekend is going to be insanely beautiful. I'd say Sunday is going to be the breakout day. So Fukuoka is on the 20th. The index tree had enough blossoms to designate a forecast. So it looks like we're pretty much close to that.

00:22:40 John Daub: I'm back on the main path going towards Ueno Zoo. Let's go take a look-see at the main road. I do like the manhole covers. The ones in the park are different than the ones in the rest of the city. And the manhole covers in Ueno Park, they represent the cherry blossoms. Do you see that? It's really nice. And if you bring some tracing paper or you can do a rubbing of this one, this is a good one. It's a classic manhole cover. It's not the new style, it's classic. As a manholer—that's what Japan has designated as people who go around the country searching manhole covers—they're manholers. For manholers such as myself, we look down as much as we look up. Manhole covers are really interesting in Japan because regional towns and locations have put their culture into a metal circle that is in the ground. It's supposed to make what's underneath it more beautiful. But the purpose of why they made the manhole covers so beautiful like this in Japan, it's not just because it's Japan but maybe a little bit. It's also because after World War II and a little bit before that, Japan started putting in modern sewage systems. And to get people more aware of that, they did this as a publicity stunt. And now it's really cool to go around the country. Now they're getting into 3D printing of manhole covers and it's getting into another whole world.

00:24:37 John Daub: I'm walking down here and talking, but a lot of you are noticing behind me, you can see the trees just don't have the white yet. But right now it looks like they're mostly budding. Let's go take a quick look at this one over here. It looks like we get a closer inspection. We look up there. They're just starting to break out right here. Yeah that's how close we are, in about 72 hours you won't be able to see much blue sky through the buds here.

00:25:24 John Daub: I love this snapshot right there. Boom, that's so cute. And yet it's so authoritative. World leaders can learn from her. Excuse me sir, could you take a picture of us? I don't think so. Social distancing. So behind us got a group of girls not practicing social distancing. Not everybody's as cool as I am. Yeah, loner rebel. I have a cause: global health. Budding, a lot of budding. So what do you guys think? Do you feel as though you have a sense that this is about to just get incredibly beautiful?

00:26:38 John Daub: That's not social distancing, one meter apart. People one meter like they're almost touching hands. It's crazy. This is one reason why Japan is also so clean here. A lot of people that are starting to watch Only in Japan Go this live streaming because they don't cut it. I show you the streets, right? So a lot of times I'm taking you around and showing you the streets, places that people would cut out. You just see it. There's no trash anywhere. It's incredible. It's because they do have signs here. It's in Japanese. They should probably put it in English as well. But it says please take your trash with you. Anything that you bring into the park, take it out yourself. Don't throw it onto the streets or something. This is a sign to remind people that. And finally we have a happy cherry blossom authoritative figure. She's happy: take your trash with you. I did an episode on this, kind of explained why there's not a lot of trash on the streets, why there aren't a lot of rubbish bins, trash cans, garbage bins. So a lot of different ways to say it.

00:28:07 John Daub: So this one is a Somei Yoshino tree, one of the varieties. And this one's an early bloomer. Photo Hawaii is not too far away from me right now, just across the tracks over there. Beautiful. And these buds, I told you, they're like right on the verge. They're right on the verge of something big. He makes me really happy to see these here. And then over here there's some more. This tree looks like it had enough of all the warm weather last week and said it's time. I don't think the trees communicate with one another because the one next door decided that he wasn't ready. Could be a she. These buds aren't even... That freaked me out man. You came like within a meter. Social distancing, Toby (crow). He's got a stick in his mouth. Or is it a snake? Was it his mouth? Toby, do not try to drop that on a human. Hey hey, he's gone away. Alex wrote in Toby's cute. Alex you're on the fringe too man. Don't encourage him. Don't empower crows. Stay away. He came like right over my shoulder. It was really not good.

00:29:49 John Daub: Melissa writes in here, Melissa Moody. How you doing? I'm devastated that my trip to Japan was canceled but so happy to be able to watch the live streams and live vicariously through me. Thanks. You're very welcome. Can I Melissa? I'm really sorry about the trip but we're going to try to bring you as many live streams as possible. We know that a lot of people can't be here but we have to be. So I'm going to do what I can for you. Thanks so much. And David Kim, thank you so much. Always. I am going to stop. It's like about seven or eight kilometer ride. That's about 10K to ride out here. So I got to pick up some stuff on the way back before the shops get crowded. That's another thing. I go out to the supermarkets and off peak times. Just things that you got to get into good habits of doing.

00:30:45 John Daub: This is the main walkway from the empty circle. That is Ueno Park in the center there. The entrance to the zoo has moved. I'm going to take you around there. That's like news to people. But in about 72 hours this is going to be more colorful. Announcement telling everybody to be careful. Yeah and cherry blossom viewing blue sheets has been prohibited. Park administration office would like to remind. It's in English. It's smoking and walking is not only a nuisance to other visitors but it is also very dangerous. Smoking and walking is dangerous. The discarding of cigarette butts not allowed to put cigarette butts on the ground. Smoker message. It's in Chinese now. That's interesting. Look at this one and it's blossoming right over a bunch of trash. Let's go take a quicker look, see while practicing social distancing. This is an early bloomer.

00:32:59 John Daub: All right let's go take a quick look around and check out Ueno Zoo over here. It's hard not to want to go into the zoo but you can't because it's closed. I believe the hours are pretty early and they have not reopened. So be interesting to look at the signs to see what they have said. But I'm checking out these post boxes here and these are so cute. So we've had a lot of people sign up for the postcard club and I'm trying to send these live. So this is for Tan Jin in Singapore. This one is yours. It's going out right now. I have an Olympic stamp on it and I sent out like us and Gabe's and Roberts and a bunch of other people's postcards yesterday in an Instagram post. And I put it on YouTube as well. So there you go, there it is. It's on its way to Singapore from a panda's eye. I guess it could be the eyes. The right side is always international, left side is domestic. I hope so. If not it's going to make a trip around Osaka or something before it gets to Singapore. I'm just always fascinated by how the mail works. I put something in a box, five six days later it arrives on the other side of the world. How cool is that? Two centuries ago it took like months to get around. Now it takes five days. Awesome.

00:34:37 John Daub: Right in the middle you see that round circle declaring Ueno Zoo is closed. And I'm just going to shift around here. But I want to see if there's any signs announcing the reason why they moved the entrance. It used to be this retro looking entrance. For those of you that have been to Tokyo before, retro looking entrances right here. It's been like that for a very long time. Now they moved it over to the side which is also a retro looking entrance but it's obviously closed. Here's a sign declaring it's closed from 2/29 to 3/31. They get pretty descriptive in the sign here. The pandas are being well taken care of. They were on the news a couple of days ago how the zoos are coping and they're all doing pretty good. There's zoos all over Japan and they're all doing quite well. I think some of the animals might miss the people and the attention. You can see it's been closed since the 29th and it's written the 31st. I think that's a safe thing to do. So we'll see if it opens up in a couple of weeks. Because I would love to come to the zoo. I would love to get back to normal life. I would love to be able to go out to some of the attractions and not have to do social distancing, tell nice people I can't take your picture, sorry I can't touch your smartphone. Because smartphones are really nasty and people take them in the restrooms. I mean do you? Does anyone want to admit it? Does anybody admit that they take their smartphone in with them to the restrooms? It's more convenient than a book right? And who takes books in there? It's nasty. It reminds me of that episode of Seinfeld where George took the book in and they flagged it at every bookstore. He couldn't return the book. How did they know it was in the system? And then George was flagged as a book bathroom taker or something. I forget. That's a hilarious episode.

00:37:18 John Daub: This is famous, this is the famous Starbucks. One of the more beautiful ones in Japan. Somebody wrote when I walked by there, do not dismiss Starbucks. This is a lot of people's offices. I can understand that. Butterscotch is not a flavor that's very well known here in Japan. That's interesting that they've got butterscotch coffee jelly frappuccino. What do you think? It's good to see the staff wiping stuff down here. Butterscotch. I can't do a Scottish accent but if I could just imagine I just said it like that. On the other side is the Parkside Cafe which is not as popular as Starbucks but you can get more than just a coffee. And this is the museum over here. I've been in all the museums of course. They're closed on Monday but they are closed anyways. This is such a beautiful location. Just sit in a cafe. I remember when they opened this up about six seven years ago and I was like what? It just kind of sprung up. And it's nice in the summer and just to grab a table and just sit there. And you have all these trees around and you had the zoo entrance and such a relaxing place. I'm tempted to go in here and get a butterscotch frappuccino. Very very tempted. But it's going to be hard to practice social distancing.

00:39:16 John Daub: Oh there's those people who wouldn't. They're a cluster. It's like a cherry blossom. There's five petals on a blossom. There's like five of them in the blossom formation. Do you see that? They're in blossom formation. Moving along. We're on a hunt for pink march, like the hunt for Red October, hunt for pink March. Wasn't this so funny? Because I'm practicing social distancing nobody can laugh at my jokes. There are some picnickers and they will get busted. Actually they will get busted hard. But there's not any cops. I'm not the cops so I'm not going to bust them. I'll just video them as an example. Make an example out of them. You're not allowed to sit and picnic. They got a lot of booze. They're from Korea so they don't know that the park's been closed down. And I'm not going to tell them and break their spirit. That's not my job.

00:40:18 John Daub: It's really nice isn't it? This is just the beginning. I'm going to be taking you around for the next ten days. We're going cherry blossom crazy on this channel. And the reason why is because the news and just nothing positive. Not that much positivity to talk about. Sporting events are done. We're seeing panic and craziness and stores selling out of toilet paper. And you know what? I need something to happen that's positive and this to me is it. This is an amazing feeling just to walk around without any of my friends. Look at that lonely blossom, do you see that? She came out way too early and she popped out and go hey where's everybody? It's like the space movies where people on like 1000 year sleep capsules before they get to the other side and then somebody wakes up early and then everyone's still asleep. I feel bad for that one blossom. You know don't worry they'll be here soon, hang in there. Literally hang in there. That tree there's oh there's one over here, her other friend's on the other side. It's a little popcorn. Hang in there all you early bloomers. Here's a closer look at some cluster. It's so close. What do you guys think, 72 hours? Are we gonna have a bet in our Discord server? 72 hours, 48 hours, we're getting there.

00:42:19 John Daub: Again like this signs are all over the place. Just saying for those joining us now, signs are all over the place saying there's no seating here. You cannot have blue sheets on this area. You can't celebrate. So it's the mood is somber but people are still out. Here's a very nice cluster. It's hard with the backlighting to get it to pop out. I need a light. Let's see if we can get a little bit closer to some of the other blossoms. It's going another direction here. Again this is the main and they've put cement down. So it's a lot brighter than in years past. Used to be a dark asphalt color. And even on this side they have signs declaring do not even try. Don't even put blue sheets. And typically you would have—and this is a weekday—you would have salary guys. And this is the way it works okay? It's kind of sad to see this. They'll be massive blue sheets from company workers. Well one of them will set it up. And then that one guy, usually the freshman or the new guy who's entered into the company, he has to sit there all day. And these guys set it up at like 5 a.m. and they sit there till like 6 p.m. when they get off of work. And then everyone starts to trickle in. And then he's so exhausted and everybody gives him a pat on the back. Thanks for taking one for the team right? And it's sad to see these guys. They're like spiders in the middle of a spider web just waiting to attack anybody who tries to step in or they're just passed out because the night before they went out with their company workers at another party. But company workers that's part of their job. When a company hires you, a big company in Japan, they're like all right welcome to the company. Here's a blue sheet. First job, protect the blue sheet for the company boss who's gonna be making his way there at 6, 6:30 to 9:30. And you can see here it's roped off. A sign of the times. No one is as disappointed as the Ueno Park mascot saying do not do that. Don't put your trash here. Don't put a blue sheet here. Do not break the law. I'd like to see that mascot walking around pointing at people who are abusers of the rules. Like the pinching. They've established grandmothers everywhere, blossoms and children do not pinch.

00:45:19 John Daub: Let's go take a look at the pond. Make a right up here, go down the steps towards the pond and see how everything is doing over there. But you can see it's just not a lot of people. It's very easy to keep a distance from other people. A lot of people have masks on, a lot of people don't. It's not necessary unless you're going into a crowded area or you have symptoms and you're sick and you just don't want to spread it. And if you do have symptoms stay home. It's not worth it. It's just a sign of the times, 2020. Anybody have any questions? I'm happy to answer. And I'm happy that you're here with me joining a really nice late afternoon in Ueno Park to just check out the situation of the cherry blossoms here. Kanae will probably join me in one really soon. This is another one of the trash stations. So clean isn't it? Good job. People are separating their trash confirmed. Oh it's a tunnel. All right let's go through here. Let's keep our distance. Let's wait until she comes through here. Who wants to go through a tunnel? If you want to go through a tunnel raise your hand. Come on guys get with the program. Love these torii gate tunnels. These are the foxes, a symbol of Inari, good for business. Bow to the kami-sama. Let's get away from that cluster. Ah beautiful lighting on this side. This is where you would wash your hands upon entering the temple or shrine. So we've come the long way around. Gonna keep a distance from the young cluster. Escape escape. Red alert.

00:48:30 John Daub: All right here's the backside of the park and the zoo. How do we get in here? I'm gonna go take a look at the pond. We'll go around this way, walk through here. Beautiful smell. These have a very aromatic smell. Anybody know what those are? Following me. Why the hell dare they come this way? I don't want what they have: smiles and happiness. Bah humbug. They are following me. Well guess what? I'm gonna make a right here and if they follow me to the right how dare them? All right we're onto Ueno Pond. It's not what it's actually called but beautiful blue sky today. The winds have gone away. Got some runners. There are some street food here. That's unusual. But people love street food. People have to make a living. This is ikayaki (grilled squid). You can take a look see. Ikayaki. Ah wow. It's such a shame that the festivals are not gonna be here this year because the smell of grilling food wafting into the air towards you as you're downing a few beers is so nice. This makes me so happy to see but the smell of roasting soy sauce on squid. Very very nice. This is the time of year I really look forward to cherry blossom season.

00:50:52 John Daub: All right good news everybody. We do have one blossom straight ahead. This is like Pokemon Go but it's for blossoms. We found one. It's Toby's cousin over there. It's a creepy crow. See that over there? Let's get it. Let's go around this yakitori stand. Very nice. Some colors of spring right here. Let them get their picture. We can sneak in there and get a closer look. This variety of cherry blossom here very nice. Some of them are still budding. So this tree has just broken out in the last 72 hours it looks like. Again people ask me when is the best time to come. The different varieties are blooming at different times so it's really hard to pinpoint it. But Japan has different areas that are blooming at different times as well. So there's no one best time to go and see the cherry blossoms. But the main time would be around the 24th and 25th, 23rd. March 23rd to April 5th is where most people are going to be looking at them. Really beautiful. Thanks Jim for sharing the Discord link. Join us over there for more discussion and to see some pictures of the cherry blossoms. We have a dedicated group on Discord.

00:52:59 John Daub: Look at this little teeny... I thought it was a shrub. I almost walked into it. And look at her. Look at that. On the tip of this branch we got some little cherry blossoms. Hold still little one. Hold still. That's so nice to see. She's gorgeous isn't she? Beautiful. And then there's one blossom on what looks like a stick and she's just popped out. This is a young variety, a young version of the one we just saw. And down here in the center looks like actually it looks like it's done blossoming. The blossoms have been pushed out. This variety is at the end. So these blossoms some of them are still blooming but for the most part it's turned green. Look at that. These are the leaves, the ha (leaves) that are busting out after it's already blossomed. So we're not too far away. Here's the one that we just went by. It's backlit a little bit but it looks really pretty. This is at the center of the pond here in Ueno. It's karaage (fried chicken). But nobody's buying it. I would be very skeptical eating that. I don't know when it was fried. Karaage's got to be fresh out of the fryer. So people should order it and then you fry it.

00:54:28 John Daub: Alright let's walk around back here. From this angle though what we do get is a nice view into the park. And they do have security going... This is inside of the park, the zoo. And there's security patrolling it. You can see they have the cart on the right now in the center of your screen going through the zoo just to make sure that everything's good. The penguins are right there. This is where the penguins are. And I don't see them wandering around. If I was the penguins I would just escape and start walking around the zoo and say it's ours! We've taken it over! Not gonna happen. Humans will clamp down. In the end humans will take back control. Penguins will have their day. Those are delinquent kids.

00:55:34 John Daub: Alright we're gonna go back up the steps, wrap around and take one more look to see Ueno Park and say goodbye to each other. There's the Ueno Zoo's back entrance. A lot of you will come out this way. If you do get tickets you don't go back the way you came. And it's closed unfortunately. Well fortunately it should be until the 31st of March it'll reopen. Tickets are pretty reasonable. I think it's like 400 or 500 yen, like 4 or 5 bucks to get in. You can buy an annual pass for 20 bucks I think. So if you're a resident it's not a bad thing to have. I might get one with Kanae. But once you've been to Ueno you don't really need to go there every day. Like once a year maybe is enough. Let's take a quick look at the map here for the thousand people that are watching us right now. There's the pond that we were just at in the center there. That's where the tree is. We just walked back across. We're gonna go back into the park and take a quick look around there. And I might take you over to the city of Ueno, into the Ueno city park just to see the tree that we started at. So let's do that. Let's go back up. I'll take you to the entrance of Ueno Park and then just take a quick look around the city there. So you can get an idea. If you do have any questions I'm now looking at the screen.

00:57:15 John Daub: Look at the dude struggling. He ditched his wife in the lake and then took off. It's like a crime scene. Why would he be doing that alone? Everybody gets a rowboat. You take somebody that you love with you in there. Unless you did something like mafia type and ditched her. Like a scene from Godfather. You rowed in real quick. That's what that looks like. And he's not even smiling. He's got like an escape mode look on his face. Suspicious right? It's not just me right? Yeah see? It's other people. Unusual suspect. This is the walkway now going back to the entrance of Ueno Park. And in the distance on the right side of your screen you can see that's where the city starts and we exit. So let's go back over there. I'll show you where Saigo Takamori statue is. And if you come you're going to be ready, more than ready for a trip to Ueno Park. If you look behind me no one is following me. But the trees are not quite there yet. It looks like it's about 72 hours away from being even more beautiful. And then another 72 hours before it's completely gone. It's completely like wow. And it's nice to take us to stop and just walk around the park before the amazing explosion happens. You see this one looks like it's another variety. It's not a Somei Yoshino but it's got blossoms on there. Yeah these blossoms are a little bit different than the Somei Yoshino. People can ride the boats when they're open. You can absolutely ride the boats. In Kichijoji the park there is so beautiful for riding the swan boats as well. That's another amazing place to go to see the cherry blossoms in Kichijoji. And there's a lot of parks where you can ride the boats and take a look at the cherry blossoms.

00:59:47 John Daub: Up there is the samurai with the dog. You can go in the playback and see that about an hour ago. Ueno Station is over there to the left. And in the front there we've got some blossoms, different variety. This one in front of you looks like it's at the end of its blossoming. And then the famous frog regurgitating into a bowl statue. Amazing aim. And you can do that for hours you know? Right in the center. He's got like a 100% rating here. He'll never give up. Perfect aim. And here's the tree in the front of Ueno Park that always blooms first. It's one of these, oh I forget the name of it. It's one of these droopy willow-like trees. And if we get to the front of it you can see it better because the sky is so bright. It's backlit a little bit. There are the lanterns in the background. I believe they'll turn them on. Maybe they'll turn them on now. Three two one now. Now. Do it now. No. Sometimes they do. These are a little bit smaller and more delicate of blossoms you see? A little bit more delicate looking. There's so many different varieties of cherry blossoms. There's not just one. There's so many Yoshinos that white one that we know all too well. But this one is a different variety. And yeah I mean when people say will I see any? I think the answer is yes. You'll see something because they bloom at all different times. They're never blooming all at the same time. You'll see them in Shinjuku Gyoen. Jim has cited my arch nemesis Toby (crow). We need a Toby icon emoji I think which will be coming this week. Arch nemesis. It's a true story.

01:02:55 John Daub: All right folks let's take a quick look. I just want to see as an update what Ameyoko (Ameya Yokocho, open-air market) is like. So I'm going to cross the street and we're going to just take a quick look. I want to give you an idea of what the situation is now. So travel update. We've turned over another leaf. Keep your one meter distance. So this is Ameyoko. This is the market that I love to come to, loaded with street food. Typically at this time it will be pretty crowded. So I'm interested to see what the foot traffic is like right now. And if you couldn't make it to Japan this is a little shot to make you a little jealous maybe. But there's always something fun when you come and make your way to Ameyoko Market. It has to be on your top five ten places that you got to stop off at when you come to Tokyo just for the street food, just for the sheer variety. And yeah the foot traffic is way down on this market here. Not a lot of people. There's Ameyoko. What do you guys think? Do you want me to keep going and walk down the street here? Let's see if we get a thumbs up and get to 700 likes real fast. If you haven't already pushed the like button I encourage you to do that because it encourages me to keep making these live streams. It's up to you. The community must react. I react off of reactions of you guys.

01:04:52 John Daub: Yeah a lot of the things are off the shelves here. People have been asking me what's available. See there's many things. Everything's been restocked. But masks and toilet paper and alcohol are hard to come by. This is Febreze which is a company that's come out with antibacterial stuff that people aren't buying yet. These things are so good. They actually taste like grapes. If you've ever had these they actually taste like grapes. 70 yen that's on sale, that's a pretty good price. These kids shouldn't be doing that. It's dangerous but I would do it if I was a kid too. So yeah our moderator is going to put a link to the Discord server. I'm going to be doing a giveaway. I do a giveaway to our nitro supporters. If you're a nitro booster give us one of your boosts and there's a good chance you're going to win something. I say good chance because we've got only 31 boosters right now. I send postcards to our boosters. I think once a year I'll just send a postcard to all our boosters. I did that last August. Any booster who boosted our Discord server received the postcard. So if you're a Discord user and a booster we respect our boosters. In fact our boosters have their own group. There's a booster group on our Discord server. If you boost you are loved. We love our boosters. How many times can I say boosters before it gets creepy?

01:07:00 John Daub: I'm going to take the next right and get out of here because my bicycle is on the other side. But it's interesting to just take a look through on a local market to see how busy it is. And it really isn't. I can keep a pretty good social distance and not get close to people. That's pretty important because sharing is caring except in a situation like this. I don't want what you guys got. Positive. Think positive. Ah the roar of a pachinko parlor. You can see inside there. Anyone else ever play pachinko? It's one of these games that I just would never never got into it. I've done it a couple of times out of curiosity. A good friend of mine she's a reporter for one of the news networks in New York. She actually she's an anchor now. Yeah she came here and visited Japan and spent about $30 trying to play pachinko after her. She lost all her money in like 10 minutes. She couldn't figure out why she lost the money or how it all happened. It was funny. I think if you're going to hook people pachinko is a hard game to hook people because you got to know the rules. It's very very spread out here. Not a lot of people. I'm just going to loop around here. Let's go back take one more look at the market and then make our way towards my bicycle. Yeah I'm not really doing the You Found Me right now kind of suspended that a little bit because I think it's not good that people are rushing to get to me as well. I do have the cards. If you do come and say hi but I'm probably not going to do a stop and talk. I like it just kind of taking a little bit of a break from that. The best place to keep social distancing is in the center of Ameyoko market. Maybe not right now. We're underneath the Yamanote line. That's along it. And again this is by far one of my favorite markets. It's just sad to see like there's almost nobody here at this time of night. There'd be a lot more people. There's just not the foot traffic's way down.

01:10:04 John Daub: Last five minutes. Questions. Anybody got a question? Hello from the Philippines. Tokyo Drew. Hey hey Andrew I was here four hours ago. What? It was different. It could have been. For those that are thinking to travel my level's at level three. The State Department might be level two. I'm just not recommending it. But if you do I'm also telling people in the Discord server you are not irresponsible for going. But I want you to take all the precautions because everybody has different situations. Everybody has a different reason why they have to come. They can't cancel they're going to lose money that they've been saving up for years. It's just different for different people. But again the State Department has the warning at level two. And if you're not careful you're not going to get the insurance. And if you are you take precautions. I think that's it's just a situation that's really hard. Just realize you have to get the insurance and be ready for anything because at a moment's notice the flights could be canceled and you could be stranded here. And that's why my level's at level three. We're not traveling anywhere. I don't even take the subway. I ride my bike everywhere.

01:11:37 John Daub: And Betty C writes in here. Many things are closing down in the United States. That's why I'm out here guys. I simply have to share with you something beautiful. And that's what the cherry blossoms are all about. This time of year it's supposed to be happy. New beginnings. Maybe one of the reasons why April is the time of the new year in Japan businesses. The new fiscal year starts April 1st. And that's around this time. It's time you can start over. They did not. Geraldo don't say that. They took my bike. They did not take my bike. The bus is pretty empty too. They did not take my bike. Who's they? I'm not sure if I could park the bike where I parked it. But if it's not there the whole world's going to know because you're going to hear the scream that echoes through the city in about two minutes from now. Now I'm like a little bit worried. Look what you've done. I'm walking a little bit faster towards it. Freak me out. Toby (crow) did not take it. It doesn't have thumbs. How does he wrap his? Actually they do kind of. I guess. You know what? I think it could have been a group of them. If ten of them two of them could be on the pedals two of them steering one of them ringing the bell one of them on the brakes. It's possible. Three of them riding in the back. This is like a gremlin situation. You ever seen the movie?

01:13:33 John Daub: I'm not going to make that light. Wow nice car. Yeah I said if I ever get the money to buy a car I'm going to buy a convertible. We call them open cars (open car) in Japan. The word convertible does not exist. It's open car. And Kanae said absolutely not. So what's she got her an open car? There's a car. I'm going to get one with a roof that opens. She said absolutely not. She doesn't want to be paraded around. She wants privacy. And I guess that's why people like their cars with hard tops. I guess also if you get into an accident you don't want to have a convertible. I can kind of see that they're just safer with the hard tops. Maybe I promise not to drive fast. I don't know. I'm not heavy on the metal on the pedal. For those joining us we're at Ueno Park sort of just outside the entrance. And I'm walking back to see if someone has snatched my bike. I think it was this way. I didn't have to walk too far to get to the park entrance. I'm figuring it's on this side of the street. Oh OK yeah I remember now. So people here are waiting in line for masks. I believe that's crazy right? The mask line. What is that for? What are they waiting for? Look at the line for masks. Look there's some people looking in like what are you waiting for? Not so sure. Interesting. Not a lot of masks. They're hard to find. How could it be free? They're not going to be free. Are you kidding me now? The thing is they're just made out of paper. They're water resistant on the outside. They're absorbent on the inside. There is a mask. I don't understand the panic the desire need to need one of those. If they are free the people will jump. Well you know this is Japan. People don't jump on each other. There'd be a very orderly line. And when they're sold out there'd be some disappointments. They wouldn't even make a sound and just walk away.

01:16:03 John Daub: There's where we just were. That's where we started the live stream right there. Do you see? Beautiful. The blossoms are open in the front. But as you experienced those joining us now the park itself they're just starting to blossom in about 72 hours. They're going to be a lot more beautiful than before. My bicycle was here at the end and it is still there. How dare you say it was stolen? I know this bike. Happy ending. I can go home again. Thanks so much for joining us on this adventure. We'll be doing some more live streams. I might be doing some more indoor because of the situation. Don't take it for granted. Stay healthy stay happy everybody. And Kanae and I plan to go on a trip driving a car on Thursday which is Wednesday night I think for people in the US. If you have any questions leave it below. I do appreciate it. It's always nice to share the experience with you and see you soon.