00:00:02 John Daub: Greetings everybody. Hello and welcome to a beautiful sunny day in Tokyo. I'm on my bicycle going to one of my favorite areas to go to in the springtime to walk around. This neighborhood is so beautiful. Let me just turn it around. I'm about to park my bike and I'm going to give you an update on travel to Japan. The title pretty much tells you what it's all about. How you doing everybody? A little bit of wind here. A lot of news.

00:00:38 John Daub: So we're on the banks of the Sumida River and for many people that couldn't travel here to Japan, I'm here for you. That's what this channel is all about. We can leave our bicycles here at the base of one of the famous shrines on Tsukishima. We're also here to take a look and see how the cherry blossoms are doing. It's been really sunny and warm most of this spring. So let's just get right to it. As you know I've been giving you updates to help you out.

00:01:15 John Daub: I'm here to help people who are thinking about traveling to Japan and basically don't come. How do I put it more clearly than this? The travel warning has been updated for the United States. If you are coming to Japan, this is probably not... Ah! How dare you gimbal. Stay on target. There you go. At all. Anywhere. Let alone Japan.

00:01:53 John Daub: Despite it being the cherry blossom season, most airlines are now canceling flights from the United States. We're at a level four, which basically means do not travel. Do not travel anywhere. And for the last couple of weeks I've been telling everybody we're on the fringe of something. This is probably the best time to reconsider your travel and now we're there. And on this side of the river the cherry blossoms are not. Although Ueno Park looked really nice.

00:02:26 John Daub: One of the reasons why I came out here is also you get really good views of the boats going by. But because the tourists are gone, I believe a lot of the river boats like yakatabune (pleasure boats) and bus boats have really, really reduced the amount of trips that they make. All right. This side of the river is like a day away from breaking out. Beautiful. We're going to walk down here a little bit and have a talk here.

00:03:07 John Daub: There are a ton of people on the Discord server. One of the moderators will put the link in the description. We've been having discussions about whether you should be making this trip at all. A lot of people have decided to go ahead with their trip and they're here in Japan now. And I bet you, I think it's a pretty safe bet that we're going to see borders closed. We're going to see airlines cancel more and more flights. This is if you are thinking of making the trip and they do have flights, they might not have that return flight might not even be there.

00:03:38 John Daub: But you can be stranded. And I've been telling people on the Discord server this is now. It's let's just say do not travel anywhere. Stay inside. We are seeing it on the news. I don't have to reiterate what's going on around the world. You know what's going on here in Japan. We've perplexed a lot of the experts. We have people that are walking about out in local neighborhoods. People wearing masks only for hay fever and not so much for this. Which begs the question, why are we doing this?

00:04:09 John Daub: Either we've somehow dodged a bullet or look at this beautiful. We either dodged a bullet or this is something unique about Japan's culture that has made it impenetrable. I can't say that completely impenetrable, but where it's just kind of escaped it. We're having increasing numbers of people, but nothing like the rest of the world. Look at this is beautiful. And Kanai and I are going to go for a bike ride a little bit later. Yesterday we went for a drive. It's just kind of tough to be stuck inside of the city because we're still taking precautions despite. It's beautiful, isn't it?

00:04:41 John Daub: Hello. Hi. Yeah. See if we can get it from a different angle as we walk around here. But people are saying there's not enough testing going on here. But it also doesn't make sense with the amount of casualties from this as well are low. So it doesn't. So I don't think that we can go just on that figure alone. I just think that the number of people that are going to be tested is going to be a lot. The numbers are low here and there could be a lot of reasons.

00:05:17 John Daub: One, we don't touch. We don't shake hands anyway. We bow. We don't kiss unless it's your wife, you know, or something. But those kinds of interactions. We always practice social distancing anyway in our free time. And now that the subways are pretty much empty public transportation, people are avoiding it. So there's not a lot of close interactions. Everybody normally stays. It's pretty interesting, isn't it?

00:05:49 John Daub: The culture was everyone wears masks. Now you don't see a lot of people now, but the hay fever has been awful in the entire month of March and in February as well. So people have had masks anyways, protecting people that were possibly infected and people that were not. Everybody had that wall. So school was canceled early. Attractions were closed fairly early. Maybe could have been earlier. And countries that were not. But did that and we're a little bit more prepared seem to be weathering this a little bit better.

00:06:18 John Daub: We're seeing a lot of here in Japan news from the United States, which is really sad, as well as Europe. And the situation there is not very good. And I know a lot of people at home watching that are maybe they can't go out of their houses here in France. We're seeing the news all over the world here in Japan. We're getting that kind of view. And a lot of people are still very, very worried in Japan. It's not something that is by any means over with. And experts around the world say we've either dodged a bullet or we're about to get hit by one. And they don't know what.

00:07:22 John Daub: But today, the Olympic torch... the sound is low. It's not even windy. Hold on a second. Anyone wearing headphones, the audio level has just changed. Put this away. We don't have any wind. Everything OK? All right. Good. So anybody who has been following the news, the Olympic torch came to Japan today. It came off of an airplane and a little teeny lantern. I put some pictures on the Discord server in the sports section of the server. And it looks like we're very much going to go ahead with this anyways, because you just can't plan for it.

00:07:54 John Daub: China has had zero people with this. I don't know how and we don't know whether or not that's believable. Hey, we don't know if that's believable or not. But they have zero. They seem to have rounded the corner. Japan's rate has been like this. All right. Compared to the world that's going like this, we're like this. And this leads us to believe like why? Why? Why is the rest of the world saying that we're going to cancel this? It could be because there's not going to be any athletes.

00:08:25 John Daub: We're watching images in Japan of kids at spring break in the United States going out and doing things like nothing has changed. And we're scratching our heads here in Japan. At least I was last night. We're not very representative of the entire population, but we're like, what? Why are they first of all going out there partying in Florida and Georgia and, you know, all these places? And second, I think mom's going to be getting a present more than just a grandchild in a couple of weeks.

00:08:55 John Daub: We got to be really because we have to really be considerate of like what you do in public is it's going to affect the entire family because you're living together. So for me, for us, we're like, how come the U.S. has not locked things down? Like, why are people still going out and doing this and not like being very strong like we were here in Japan? This is just like a feeling that I'm getting here. And it's perplexing to many people. But at the same time, like, so we're not going to have the election. We're not going to have the Olympics because the rest of the world couldn't lock down their countries and people went out and were irresponsible and we were not.

00:09:25 John Daub: That's not the opinion of people here, but it's in the back of some people's minds, I think, because I've been wearing a mask in public crowded places. I don't do it when I'm practicing social distancing like right here. You don't need to. I'm not showing any symptoms. I'm not coughing. I don't have any fever. I have not taken any risks. Very little. Risks going out to the supermarket is always a risk. Now blaming. Hold on a second. Now you're blaming other. Now you're blaming other countries. I'm not blaming anybody. I'm not blaming anybody.

00:09:56 John Daub: But my point is, if you are in a country where it's starting to rage, don't take risks and go outside. It's not blaming anybody. It's just making our heads scratch like this. Like, why? Why not just stay inside and weather this out? I think it's if the world can come together and do this for two or three weeks, you just stay inside, get the food that you need, get it delivered, take precautions, wash your hands, all the things that I've been saying since January 29th. There's no blame. We're just like, if we could do this, this isn't over. The US said the government 18 months, 18 months. And we're like, what? If you lock this down, maybe we can beat this faster. Don't go out there. Don't take risks. And it's just hard for younger people to wrap their head around this. I think.

00:10:58 John Daub: I've been talking about this since January. We've been in Japan. We've had this since, you know, January when someone was first infected. And I don't know, we were pretty unprepared in the beginning as well. But quickly we got prepared. And when it did hit, let's go to the other side. It's interesting to see the amount of people that are here over there on the other side of the river is the Tokyo Skytree. We'll see that on the other side of the bridge. There's some wind down here. The blossoms are just opening. Tomorrow's going to be really big day.

00:11:33 John Daub: We're not going to be traveling too far. We live in this ward. Tokyo has 23 wards. This is Chuo Ward. So we live in this ward, which isn't too far away, Kanai and I. So we're just going to be staying local. I came out here to look for the space boat. I don't see any of them. Yeah, Argentina, France, the United States, a lot of countries are now locking it down. But, you know, we said the same thing here in Japan. Did the government do it too late? And we were questioning that a month ago. So it makes this question like, are we not learning from one another? That just is a worry.

00:12:05 John Daub: And it's hard for us to see why the Olympics wouldn't take place if infections here are not going down or not going up very, very rapidly at the same level. But at the same time, there's always going to be a shadow if it does take place. And I don't think that we're going to. It feels like it's going to get pushed back. But it's not something that people are very happy about. Especially when we see images of people in the U.S. on spring break, like partying and everybody in Japan for the last two months has been inside. Infections are down and now you see people not exactly practicing social distancing. That's a little bit worrying to me.

00:12:37 John Daub: But not a lot of people are wearing masks. But at the same time, I mean, we don't have the same kind of problem going on here as the rest of the world. At least that's what the feeling is. And that's also, I think, wrong. We should be very careful. A little bit stronger here in Japan, too, for a little bit longer until the all-OK. You don't just start to live your life. I mean, to me, it doesn't feel like we're in a very good, safe situation. But two months ago when it was really hard in Japan. Right. And a lot of decisions were being made. There wasn't really any infections in the Western world. And now that it has, we're feeling more. We feel what you feel over there. Very much so.

00:13:41 John Daub: OK, check out this map. Check out this map. Japan is not out of the woods, guys. Just so you know. That's where Kanai likes to dance here. I love to walk along here. It's a beautiful park. Kind of reminds me of Manhattan in a way. If you look from Itabashi coming this way, it's a pretty, pretty view. A lot of TV dramas in Japan are filmed on this bridge, which is one of my favorite bridges right there. That's Kiyosumi.

00:14:21 John Daub: Yeah, I don't want to get too much into it, although I have. But let's go take a look at this tree. But my point is traveling to Japan. Not a good idea right now, because if you do, probably even if they do have flights, you're probably not going to get a chance to get back. You're going to be here for a while. And that worries me. And that should worry your family. And that should worry your government. I was in Kenya. I was in actually. Yeah, I was in Nairobi when 9/11 happened. I was in a supermarket. I think I told this story not too long ago.

00:14:50 John Daub: And they were saying all the news in Swahili inside of the supermarket in a very panicked voice ran back. And I saw there was an Internet cafe. The Internet was not very good in 2001. But the Internet cafe and said the story. And they turned on the TV and CNN was there. And that's the story. And we quickly got in touch with the embassy. And we said we got to get home. My biggest fear is that I can't get home. Yeah. I'm going to be back. And I can't.

00:15:25 John Daub: I think not only that, it just now if you come right now, there's no quarantine for everybody, just a certain group. But I have a very strong feeling that this is going to change just based on the news that we're seeing every day, the amount of cases that are increasing. So traveling to Japan, not everybody has to do a quarantine, but it's looks like it's going to get there. So if you do have a flight, it's I think it's time to reconsider traveling.

00:15:53 John Daub: I don't see this. I see we're beyond the fringe. It just you can see, as I said in the description video, the writing is on the wall with this. So my recommendation someone who wants everybody to come to Japan. And I've been saying people look. If you're an adventurer, there's some nice opportunities here. But I would not book your trip. If you've got kids. Okay.

00:16:22 John Daub: Viewing it's very hard it's very hard not to have like parties like this but in the US this is not something that you could do just we're not seeing the same kind of infections that people are out and this could be dangerous too to be celebrating like that I don't know the Japan has discouraged it especially cherry blossom festivals to be cancelled no illuminations no blue sheets but people are coming out casually and you can see there is some social distancing you see between the groups there's about five meters and then five meters and five meters and five meters this is something just naturally and if somebody in your if you're holding hands with your wife you guys are going like I remember I saw CNN guy on TV looking at a live shot from San Francisco and saw two people holding hands they probably live together and if one gets it the other one does too you can't practice social distancing inside of your house so it doesn't make sense to not be you to to not hold hands when you are so when you're outside so I a lot of things like I think there's just a lot of unknowns going on beautiful I love it when it comes right out of the little blossoms here.

00:17:32 John Daub: Jess oh I plan on coming in two weeks and staying until July do you think I will have a problem with your return flight Jess you might have a problem with the flight in I don't know what it's gonna be like in two weeks I don't know if they're gonna have flights here at all if you're staying till July I don't even know the situation is gonna be better then it's there's a lot of unknowns and it really just depends on on the West's other countries abilities to get people to stay inside and not become infected.

00:18:05 John Daub: Cool fire 7-1-1 19 the Kobe international student here what about residents living here I love Kobe very much that's a great question I like you live here and my question to you is like if you're worried about your family a lot of people that I know they have they went home in January and February because they wanted to be with their family they didn't to be abroad when this happened um and that makes a lot of sense i i i think that our the chance of me going home probably is not going to be possible until after summer maybe it's just my feeling like i the way the situation is for us to be able to go back to the u.s looks like it's going to be very very challenging for a long time um if and as well as europe so that's a very tough call if you decide to come if you decide to come and i'm saying maybe you shouldn't that's not my call um you might be here for a while so i would get travel insurance if your flights are canceled or they're just down how how are you going to get back um forget about the quarantine what are you going to do how are you going to get back.

00:19:16 John Daub: Um right now travel attractions in japan were shut down some of them reopened and they're opening up slowly but if the numbers increase they will close down again japan is very reactive to situations quickly it's not something that takes needs momentum to build like they make a decision it's over it's done and that's the way it'll probably work to tokyo disneyland scheduled to reopen in the beginning of april probably with a lot of procedures in place like um checking temperatures and making sure everybody washes with alcohol before they go in this is something that um Huis Ten Bosch and a couple other amusement parks are doing right now it's a really beautiful scene here not all travel insurance covers it but you can't find some that do and upon arrival there's a tokyo marine and another one that's available on more information on the jnto site but you can get that upon arrival and it's pretty reasonable about 15 a day and it gets a little bit lower as the days go on beautiful scene isn't it.

00:20:19 John Daub: Dawn writes in her daughter is exhausted in seattle the we have to say thank you to all the people who are here today thank you to all the medical staff and professionals around the world that are battling this because it's we we saw the images in china people just on the floor die like exhausted and we're going through that um in other places around the world look at that there's a couple of blossoms here they're just buds they're very very close to breaking out you see that really pretty.

00:20:58 John Daub: Try to answer all your questions tigra hoff you said your wife dances there what kind of dances she's a contemporary dancer and now she teaches uh modern ballet and contemporary dance to students and two years ago after we got married she i introduced her to everybody down there at that point and she did a dance uh live for us it was really nice oh look at the guy's got a table that is hardcore right now everybody is camping in japan like all the campgrounds are completely packed we rented a car yesterday drove out to ibaraki prefecture in the north they only have a few infections because it was it was a little bit of a ride so we're gonna go ahead and go into the city of ibaraki and i was a big fan of this place it's the last place around the tokyo that didn't have anybody that was impacted by this and three people here's a story all right three people from hitachi went to italy in late february why for business and they came back with it and now the hitachi area of ibaraki is closed the offices for the company so yeah, people who don't take it seriously, travel could come up with it. You know, it's not a good thing.

00:22:16 John Daub: All right, let's walk down this way to the other side. It's very quiet on the river here. Look at the beautiful flowers on the point. Yeah, one of my favorite areas to sit on the river right here with a bento and just watch the boats go by. And I don't see almost no boats because the news has been reported that the yakatabune, which are these river boats, flat boats that cross the river, and you can eat and drink on them, are what they call clusters and places where people get infected a lot. So, yeah, a lot of places have very restricted hours in Japan.

00:23:00 John Daub: But as we're seeing, I have an itch. I've trained myself not to touch my face. But the thing is, like, if you don't touch anything, then we're just so used to it here in Japan. And I don't know why. After months of this. But it's nice to see families out and about playing frisbee, kind of enjoying themselves after... We've been stuck inside for a very, very long time. Paranoia was real right here. All right, okay, we got some beautiful trees over here. Let's keep walking.

00:23:36 John Daub: A lot of people are writing in right now that their flights were canceled, which means that you don't have to... You don't have to wear a mask if there's nobody around. All right, when you're outside in the daylight, unless you're showing symptoms, that's just paranoia. It's science. The UV light is pretty powerful. And it doesn't travel, what, five... I'm right now five meters away from people or more. So I came by bicycle. There are people about.

00:24:08 John Daub: If I was talking face-to-face with my friends, I'd say, yeah, you both should be wearing masks. But the only person I talk face-to-face with is Kanai. The other people, I take a step or two back. Oh, it's so pretty. Look at that. I take a step or two back. And that's smart. At Ueno Park the other day, people were... A guy asked me to take a picture of him and his girlfriend. I said no. I told him, sorry. I don't want to touch your smartphone. This is the times that we live in.

00:24:47 John Daub: You can give elbow bumps and stuff. But don't touch other people's smartphone. And in fact, you might want to wipe down that smartphone every now and then with alcohol. Just every now and then. But I felt... I felt very, very rude and bad and mean to say no to him. But my sixth sense popped in and said, this is something that I have to get used to doing. I have to say no to taking pictures and touching someone's dirty smartphone. Let's be honest. Who... And I asked this at Ueno Park. Who takes their smartphone into the bathroom with them? Who does that? All right. Maybe half. Probably closer to 80% and a third admit it. I don't know. But I don't want to touch some stranger's smartphone. And in this time. I probably would three months ago. But not now.

00:25:31 John Daub: Right? Guilty. Yeah, there's some guilty people. Always say no. See, Ray? I know that... I don't know that that means yes. Right? So, like, if someone hands you a smartphone, please take a... No. What? I didn't do that. I go... I don't know if they spoke Japanese or English. So I kind of... Sorry, dude. You're on your own. Try... Tripod. Right? Like, tripod.

00:26:03 John Daub: Lisa writes in here, I really enjoy your live streams and videos. I'm in Japan now and plan on staying until late May. I saw the news Americans are traveling abroad should leave. I don't know if I should stay or leave. This is... This is the reason why I'm doing this live stream for you because it's something that I'm thinking about as well. Like, if I don't leave, then if somebody gets sick, I'm probably not going to be able to go back to the U.S. for a while. So this is... This is like it, right? This is the decision time.

00:26:33 John Daub: And I don't know if May... If the situation is going to be better or worse. You know? These things, if it works this fast, it'll burn out fast. But if it's a... I think it's going too fast for the medical community to catch up with now. Just like we're seeing in Italy and it's devastating. People can't get the help that they need. And it's heartbreaking. I don't know. I don't know what to say. That's the thing. If you're worried, then go back. And if not, then don't.

00:27:07 John Daub: If you are actually here and you have everything settled and you have costs accounted for, it's just not a good time to be on the road. Japan is better off than a lot of other countries. But that doesn't mean that you're not without risks despite people here outside. This is a holiday, by the way. It's a Friday, but it's a holiday. It's called Shimbun Day (Newspaper Day). And I guess we celebrate... I don't even know. I don't know exactly why. I don't think a lot of people do in Japan. But I guess we celebrate the news. And the news is not good, so no one is watching it.

00:27:39 John Daub: No one is like, Yeah, you know what? You have your Shimbun Day, Shimbun people. We are not going to celebrate it with you. We're going to go outside and look at these. If you're in the boat, not the one on the river, like in the boat of you are here and you don't know what to do, my advice to you is if you are worried and you need to be with family in the next two months, go home. We don't know what's going to happen in the other countries. In Japan, we really don't know either.

00:28:10 John Daub: But we've been looking at the trends and we just don't see it. And as I said about a few minutes ago, like it's defying experts. Like they don't understand why, how Japan has not had the same thing that's going on. And it could be just the culture that we have here of not touching, staying home when we're sick, wearing masks, shutting down everything and everybody following the rules. When the prime minister says, don't go outside, we stayed inside. Like just Japanese, they're very worried about their communities and the people around them. And they follow the rules. And we're watching on TV kids going on spring break and partying. And we're like perplexed.

00:29:00 John Daub: All right. These Somei Yoshino trees haven't blossomed at all, which leads me to believe that we're going to see next weekend as well as a really good cherry blossom. I think Tuesday and Wednesday are going to be really good cherry blossoms. I think Tuesday and Wednesday are going to be incredible in Tokyo. That's about 72 hours away, 96 hours that there, that boat on the other side and you're going towards Monzen-Nakacho. Let me show you over here.

00:29:25 John Daub: That's the boat from the Edo period. The emperor, I believe rode that the emperor Meiji rode that from Hakodate back to Tokyo. And it's now, um, it's beautiful inside a super luxury boat from the 19th century. It's just across there. And you can go in there for a couple of dollars, take a look, and then you can go back to Tokyo. And you can take a tour of it. It's one of these things. I don't think it's open now, but it's one of these things that a lot of tourists don't know about domestically. We do just across the river towards Monzen-Nakacho. Beautiful. It's a beautiful, fun area too.

00:29:59 John Daub: All right, let's, we're going to go back into the sun in a second. I don't think we should blame anybody. I think it's just the culture, but young people aren't taking it as seriously. And you know what? There's some places where the young people are the ones taking it seriously. And it's the older people. I had friends, friends from Australia that said that, that the older generation is the one that's not taking it seriously. They're going out on package tours and stuff and said that the hell with this, I'm going out. I'm just going to go out. And the sons and daughters are saying, don't mom, don't dad. This isn't the time to do it.

00:30:34 John Daub: It just depends on your culture. And we're seeing like around the world that culture does matter. Beautiful. Isn't it? If we take the good things from everybody's cultures, we have a pretty good world culture, but that's really hard to do. And in no way, in no way are the things that some people say are keeping Japan safe. The things that should be incorporated in the rest of the world, like bowing and not a lot of people feel like the reaction that Japanese have of keeping a distance away from people and not showing themselves emotionally too much is a big negative.

00:31:19 John Daub: But we're seeing in this, I'm laughing cause it's ironic. That's such behavior is actually something that could be keeping people safe in these kinds of times. And I always wonder where that comes from, why people are so reserved in their own bubbles and don't go out and talk to strangers where when I'm in the U S I'm waiting in line, you can make friends with a lot of people by just talking to them. People are more open and friendly. That's what I love about America, but that could be the same thing that's making things in times like this more challenging to contain.

00:31:50 John Daub: I don't, it's hard to say, but right now when you read the news, a lot of people are asking questions why Japan doesn't have the same challenges that the rest of the world is having. And I really don't have the answers. All we can do is look at culture and we don't see the rate of deceased going up. So whether it's testing or not, there's no correlation. I don't see it.

00:32:25 John Daub: I love her. The 0117. When will the full bloom in Tokyo? That's the best question we've had. I'm guessing in 96 hours from now, which is four days and it depends on the tree and it depends how much light that they're receiving. So we're getting some wind in here so I can knock it down. It depends on how much light is coming in here. These trees don't get a lot of light because of the buildings. So they, they haven't blossomed much at all.

00:32:51 John Daub: But then if we see the ones where the light is hitting more often that are warmer and they're starting to blossom right now. So I would say 96 hours, Ueno Park looked pretty good. I was there 72 hours ago and it was, it was very few of them. Now it's about 30% some of the trees. It's a warmer area here. It's a little bit cooler because it's off of the river. They get more wind and you can just see it up there. There are a few, this is the early stages. I'd say it's 5% bloomed.

00:33:24 John Daub: Yeah, Ueno is a beautiful place generally, but I've told people that come here for cherry blossoms, get out of the city. It's just, it's nice for city park, but cherry blossoms are not a city thing. Cherry blossoms are a country thing. It's a local thing. It's a personal thing. Yeah, most of the branches are bare.

00:33:55 John Daub: The clinics in Tokyo are fine. We don't see the hospitals and clinics. We don't see a lot of problems or congestions. Um, you know, we've had the flu season early here when we had the Rugby World Cup come through. We can blame the Aussies. I don't know, but we had the flu season super early in Japan. It came in like October and November because the Rugby World Cup brought a lot of people internationally and hit Tokyo earlier and it wasn't really as tough and rough.

00:34:32 John Daub: Kanai and I got vaccinated in November for influenza and we, we didn't have any problems. I didn't get sick once this winter. So it was pretty mild. Actually the temperature, oh, there it is. There it is. I haven't seen this in like two weeks. How did this happen? Where did it come from? Just, I almost missed it. Straight in the front of your screen is what I call the space boat and other people call it by its actual name. But for me, it will always be the space boat.

00:35:10 John Daub: When I put a link in the description, if you've got lots of time, you might want to read it. The Black Knight on Discord has written a, so far 10 episode series on me and the space boat. So in space, that's awesome. Um, how could you not be a kid watching this thing cross? Is that the Himiko? They actually have names. I just looks like something that could go under water. It doesn't look like there's a lot of people inside. I see some people there's yeah, it's not as crowded as it usually is, but that's to be expected.

00:36:08 John Daub: They're setting up the deck on the top there. And as soon as it gets into the open bay, after the Sumida River, it gets into Tokyo Bay. Um, people can go outside onto the deck. The bridges are a little bit low there. It's going underneath. Tsukuda Bridge. He's beautiful. Look at that. We haven't seen many river boats either. I know the schedules are, I guess they seem to be reduced.

00:36:46 John Daub: This is called the Suijo Bus (water bus). Okay. The Suijo Bus. And if somebody wants to look it up, put the link in into the chats here, one of the moderators, but Suijo buses you can get from Asakusa, which is just about seven or eight kilometers that way it'll take you to Odaiba, meaning the whole length of the Sumida River here underneath. I guess it's like 20 bridges all with a history. And they explain to you on this tour, the bridges, the history when they were built. And then you get to Odaiba, you get into the open bay, go underneath the Rainbow Bridge and arrive into Odaiba, which has this futuristic TV building. The Fuji TV building has this big globe in the middle of it. It's pretty, pretty amazing site. And the space boat has left. It's a nice wake. There's some waves to it. Beautiful. It's a beautiful day.

00:37:46 John Daub: For those joining us just to reiterate, and I'm not going to do this too much. I always like to do these live streams to show you what it's like in Tokyo. I came out here for a reason because I knew that people, there's a lot of people in Ueno Park actually, but people are right now just want to go to someplace where there's sunshine. Not a lot of tourists come to this area and not a lot of people, but people who are living in these big high-rise apartments on Tsukishima. Do you see these, this is the original island.

00:38:15 John Daub: And then from Tsukishima, this is where the fishermen from Osaka would fish from, and they would send the fish to Tokugawa Ieyasu in 17th century, 1603 about across the river there. So to the Shogun and everything that the Shogun didn't want would go to the fish market in Nihonbashi and the fish market opened in 1603. That's in Nihonbashi. I was there just a few days ago. I showed you the marker. Where the original market was. What's that guy doing? That's one way to stay healthy. Beat the air. Beautiful day.

00:39:03 John Daub: Once again, don't, don't, this is not the best time to travel to anywhere, let alone Japan. And the situation is going to, it's going to lock down all the countries. So happy spring, everybody. Don't come here. I, I don't want to be the bearer of bad news. It just seems like it's pretty much written here. Venimo is in the house. It's like a butterfly. Everything distracts you. It's so funny to see. Love it. Please never change. I am who I am. And admittedly, my faults and my strengths are pretty apparent by watching the live streams, aren't they? I'm not a perfect person by any means. And it's true with live streams. You never know what's going to happen. Including what I'm going to say. It's beautiful.

00:40:30 John Daub: This kind of party that I was showing you is one that we should try to avoid. He's wearing the cherry blossoms like a hat right now. But let's get away from a crowd of people. The thing is this, yeah, family's family. And if you're in the same family, like I think that they are, it doesn't really matter. You're in the same house all the time. What's interesting is that that family is five meters away from the other family. And they're five meters away from the other family. Five meters is like 20, let's just say like 15, 20 feet. So even though it doesn't seem like it, social distancing is taking place here in Japan. It's just a natural thing.

00:41:17 John Daub: Let's go down here, back down to the riverside. If you do have any questions, absolutely write in here. I've been trying to do these over every few days, like four or five days. This isn't a video on this topic, a series on this topic at all. But I like to show and highlight Japan to everybody. And a lot of people are coming here because of that. And I know the disappointment and frustration a lot of people have as a result of what's going on worldwide. So I've been doing these to try to make people feel more comfortable about the decisions to either come or not come.

00:41:52 John Daub: And now I'm making it a little bit easier for those who are on the fence by saying, don't come. It's just, it's going to be, it is too many unknowns and you might have to be here for a while. If you're planning to come here for like six months, then you know, you might as well just come. Just realize that I think the policies are going to change pretty big by next week. After the weekend, we're going to see some big changes.

00:42:19 John Daub: Do you feel that the spread has slowed down in Japan? Jake, good question. I don't have an answer. Me personally, I do. I do feel that because it just seems like we're watching the news. Everybody watches the news here right now and looking at the numbers and it just doesn't seem like the numbers are there. It's increasing just a num, like a little bit. And the reason why it's because we hear on the news of really dumb people doing dumb things, getting it. And then the news will track back where the cluster started and then they shut that area down and they're doing a lot of investigative work on this, but it's very worrying. Yeah. Still. So by any, by no means are we out of the woods with this.

00:43:19 John Daub: But the feeling is the prime minister came out and said, kids should go out to the playground and play, stay in the sun, go out and play. Don't stay all the time inside. Mothers and fathers have a very hard time. Um, right now with the kids at home, it's just not something that they're used to. There was a panic when the prime minister did close the schools, mothers and fathers went to the supermarket and just bought the whole stores out so that they could get their kids out of the playground. They could feed. They didn't expect to have to feed their children lunch. The Kyushoku program (school lunch program), um, is very important for mothers and fathers to go to work and be able to do, be productive during the day.

00:43:54 John Daub: And if they have to be home to cook for their kids, then that changes the dynamics of the society. And that was a big change for Japan, um, at the end of February. But we've been doing this for quite a while now, uh, for more weeks than this has been infected in the United States. So while this is big news in the U S now, we've been doing this for quite a while now, but we've been dealing with this for a couple of months. So we do feel like it's, um, I think we're, if you discredit, if you take away that cruise boat, we're still under a thousand.

00:44:22 John Daub: All right. Um, and some of the countries and it's heartbreaking to see the numbers. They, they triple that in a day, but we've had in months and the numbers are going up in Japan, but it's where like, it's like this worldwide. It's like this in Japan and almost flat lining. It's chilling. It's so chilling to see it. And we're islands and we're what's perplexing for experts is that we in Japan did not lock down the country. We still had flights to China was going on in January. And yet the numbers are still as low and people are saying from lack of testing, but we still haven't had the fatalities. So that alone doesn't really put the story together. Um, just saying, don't say flatline. Okay. Thanks Keith. Thanks for that.

00:45:16 John Daub: That's what I like about these live streamings because this is a community. This is a, um, social media. YouTube is as much as social media as it is. Uh,