00:04 John Daub: Greetings to Tokyo Station. This is the Marunouchi side, a side that we've been coming to for the last couple of weeks. It snowed two weeks ago here. It's a beautiful spring day on the 26th of March 2020, two days after they've announced the postponement of the 2020 Games. And in this live stream, I'm going to be showing you a unique phenomenon that's happened, man-made, and also debate something with you that has been in the newspapers today, and something the IOC has not ruled out. It would be really cool. 2020 Olympics, not summer, but spring. How cool is that, huh? That would take place during the cherry blossoms. How you doing, Marty? How you doing, everybody? Hey, there's HelloHi2821.

00:50 John Daub: In front of me, on the Marunouchi side of Tokyo Station, was the Omega Tokyo 2020 countdown clock. Do you remember that? I think I've showed it to you in a live stream maybe half a dozen times. I love to come here. In front of me now is that clock, and it is counting up. That's today's date, March 26th. It's now 2:35 p.m. 2:36 in three, two, one. There you go. And people have been coming here for the last 10 minutes. I've been standing around taking pictures of it because it's weird. The clock has now officially stopped, and that's as official as it gets. If Omega is broken, then we got some problems. But it's not. It's telling proper time, which is great for people who want to catch the Shinkansen, which I heard will be reducing the amount of trains that will be going through to the Golden Week.

01:48 John Daub: On the other side, the countdown is actually working. So, sort of different here. If the games were to be held, it would be held in 120 days from now. Now it's the actual time. But what is the most exciting thing for me? It's not this clock. And I'm going to take you around this area just to have a look. We are practicing physical distancing, meaning to stay at least two meters away from people. I come on my bicycle. I avoid crowded areas and public transportation. You don't need a mask. It actually doesn't do much for you unless you're showing symptoms. So, the only people I've been in contact with is Peter von Gomm, my friend Simon, and Kanae Daub. That's it. Kanae Daub's dad. But that's all right.

02:44 John Daub: Literally, I'm doing slalom. And I'm going to the Shinkansen. I'm going over here to this post box because I have something that I want to deliver. So, going out is these three postcards with the Olympic torch stamp to Dave in Las Vegas, Ivana in Spain, and Senal in Vienna, Austria. How cool is that? And it's going from this post box right outside of Tokyo Station's Marunouchi North exit. That's where you would validate the Tokyo Station, the main course. That took Japan Rail Pass. I'm going to hide the address here, but you can see these are going to be collector's items. You see the stamp here? That's the Olympic torch. So, everybody who gets a postcard for the next four days, I think I have them for four days, is going to be receiving one of those. International mail from Tokyo Station to you guys. Spain, Austria, and Vegas, baby. Very cool.

03:55 John Daub: Now, the main course. It wasn't just the clock. That's sort of newsworthy though. What's the main course? It is obviously Spring Olympics. Do you think that's going to happen? If you are into the Spring Olympics and you think that this would be something that would be really cool, click the like button. Let's get the 250 likes real fast because the Spring Olympics, that has a ring to it. Like what? How cool is that? The Summer Olympics have turned into spring. A time of renewal, of hope. When the dark winter is over and flowers bloom, including the cherry blossoms. I think that's what's going to make the Spring Olympics the best ever.

04:36 John Daub: Now somebody, I don't know who, maybe it was a newspaper, maybe it was a politician, maybe it was an anonymous source, put out the dates April 16th and it would end on May 2nd. In Tokyo, the cherry blossoms would probably be done by then. But they would still be blooming up in Hirosaki, up in Tohoku. This would be great for Fukushima because this is the time of year where Fukushima is starting to bloom as well. I think this would be perfect. Think about, remember yesterday I showed you the image of the Olympic rings on Tokyo Bay from Odaiba? Looking over there? You saw the cherry blossoms with that? Can you imagine? I don't think it's ever been held in the Spring. Or was it? Was Sydney, was the fall which would have been the Spring? 2000 Olympics, I'm not sure. Well, the Tokyo Olympics in 1964, there's precedence, was held in October of 1964 because 4 years earlier, or was it 8 years earlier, it was so hot in Mexico City that they said look we're not going to hold it in the Summer anymore because people were falling in the streets.

05:48 John Daub: If they hold the Olympics in the Spring, that means the marathon is back on man. That means we're going to have the Tokyo Marathon in Tokyo because the weather is typically like it is today. It's pretty warm. It's about 20, 22 degrees every day, 24, somewhere between there. Very low humidity. That's the Golden Week in Japan which would have been the holiday for Japanese people. So most people that want to get out are going to get out. People who want to come are going to come and no one's really going to be jettisoning on the Shinkansen anyway. It's the Olympics man. I think this is brilliant and I really hope that the IOC makes this decision and they got to do it soon because there's like 100,000 tickets or something. Hundreds of thousands of tickets with the opening and closing ceremony and all the venues have been already distributed. People got tickets. Some of you might even have tickets. But I think it's really, for me, I'm really super excited about this. Spring Olympics.

06:53 John Daub: The question is will we the world? Will we be responsible enough to get through the dark tunnel quick enough? It's an answer that only time will tell but I think we can do it. But I think if the Olympics are coming in the spring, I will stay in all of March just so I would be ready for this. I would do anything to have a spring Olympics. This would be so ideal. I'm just really excited about it. What do you guys think here? I'm going to walk around to my bicycle. That's the Imperial Palace straight ahead. This is the Marunouchi side. You guys know this. You've been here before. That's the Shin Marunouchi building and there's the Marunouchi building. A lot of good restaurants inside there. It's mostly office space. What I like about the Imperial Palace over on this side is that there are no buildings. It's such a flat open area which is unusual in such a crowded expensive city like Tokyo. And this is real grass. The facade of Tokyo's Marunouchi side has been redone.

07:57 John Daub: Hey, Dan! Hey! I did a shout out to Dan and Lincoln when I was in Odaiba because I think that was the last time I saw you, wasn't it? Yeah, that would be awesome. You got to come for 2021, the Tokyo Olympics. Now according to the mayor of Tokyo, they've decided that they're not going to officially change the t-shirts. It's going to be Tokyo 2020 even though it's 2021. So you yourself will have to take a marker and correct it. If you want to destroy your merchandise. But I said yesterday, my friend Peter von Gomm, let's cross the street here. My friend Peter von Gomm went out and started buying merchandise because he said this is going to be collector's items. And I think it was like two hours later, the mayor said we're not changing the marketing for the Olympics, which is not 2020. Just a nice number. Yeah, that'd be really cool. Definitely come out for 2021. With the cherry blossoms. Oh, this is gonna be awesome. I think we're gonna make it. I think we're gonna get through there.

09:25 John Daub: Yesterday, the mayor of Tokyo. So just a little bit of news to everybody. The mayor of Tokyo has announced that one of the reasons I want to do a live stream. I wanted to do this live stream because tomorrow Kanae Daub and I are on lockdown. It's also serious lockdown because the mayor of Tokyo has asked us to stay inside. That's a good thing. There was a spike in Tokyo. Now it's nothing like New York. It's nothing like social distancing. Does it doesn't matter if you're leaning away from that guy? It's nothing. We went from like 12 to 41 in 12 the day before and then the next day was 41. So there's a huge spike which is an anomaly. And we're gonna see if this works.

10:18 John Daub: Last weekend, so many people went out to see the cherry blossoms. You couldn't stop them. And it was sort of the politicians' faults because they sort of said, you know, we are doing well go out and if your kids can go out to the playground, you know, you can go outside and enjoy the sunshine. Politicians said that and people took that as a mixed meaning like what do we really do? So when I took you in live streams around the city, you could see that no one was social distancing. Now they are. Even the tourists are staying apart from each other. Look, that's a very beautiful two meters apart. Well done. Well done with mask. There's the new Apple store across the street. It's closed as well. The Starbucks at Meguro River is closed until April.

11:12 John Daub: I got to go and get a new refrigerator because we have so much stuff for our self isolation that we can't fit it. But I hear that Bic Camera which is down there and Yodobashi is going to be closed soon. So I got to go and try to order a refrigerator and wear a mask and dodge people like slalom. The subways and public transportation ridership at peak times is down 30% according to data by the city and I'll put a link in the description. The mayor of Tokyo has put the city of Tokyo. I love this man. I love Mayor Koike. She's the one who delayed the move of Tsukiji market to Toyosu. Which is Tokyo. The new fish market because of contamination from the gas processing plant and the politicians had sort of hid it. But she said that she wouldn't move it and she bought a lot of love from the public from that and we just feel like we can trust her looking out for us. I think she's doing an amazing job.

12:14 John Daub: She has a website in English showing all the data now of what's happening in the city of Tokyo which will help ease some of the panic. I have not seen any panic shopping. Although yesterday after the announcements of the lockdown people did go to the supermarket and buy a little bit more than usual. The supermarkets all had announcements saying don't take more than you need for a few days. We have toilet paper. We have some of the supplies. It's not like in the West. People realize that it was an internet gag that said that supplies of toilet paper go down because of the China thing and that was not true at all. We still have it. In fact, I went to Costco with Kanae Daub last week and we saw bundles of like 50 and one massive Costco size toilet papers. We didn't need that much. We bought a small pack.

13:01 John Daub: And if you're wondering, I've already discussed this. Japan has amazing toilets with washlets. Why do you need toilet paper? Because you just kind of still need to clean up that area a little bit more. I don't think the water gets everything unless you get a massage feature that oscillates. I'm working on an episode on that with Toto's competitor. It's a long video. Social distancing. This would be considered, I guess, like the central business district. A lot of financial institutions. Citibank was here until they went away in 2008. Lehman shock is what they call it here. Beautiful building. There's a wonderful picture of Babe Ruth who came here and visited in the 1930s 1936. I want to say on a Major League Baseball tour. And he's completely plastered, smoking a cigar or something and a convertible with tens of thousands of Japanese welcoming Babe Ruth. Just I think the car from the picture was just right over here as he exited the station going towards the Imperial Palace. It's a pretty cool picture. And this facade has not changed.

14:29 John Daub: And for me as a Babe Ruth fan, Babe Ruth loved kids. He always had a tough childhood. And he knew what to prioritize. Food, women, respect the kids. Used to get a chair autograph until every kid got a signature. I don't know if it was a publicity stunt, but we're talking like 1930s. So beautiful station. This facade was 1912, I believe 1911 or 1912. And the same designer built the Oita Bank building down in Kyushu. Year later looks pretty similar with the brick facades. That's all I pretty much had to present to you. But there's a lot of stuff that's happening in Tokyo.

15:19 John Daub: So tonight I'm going to be going out to see the cherry blossoms today. That's right. Today, this is basically my home. I'm inside of the International Post Office all the time delivering postcards and packages. I just sent out some Hitchhike Blu-rays to some supporters on Patreon. So I'm here all the time. And the guy told me watching the news because the mails might be suspended between the countries as well we're kind of watching that right now. The other thing I want to tell you there's so much stuff going on it's moving so quickly besides the lockdown in Tokyo this weekend oh the cherry blossoms are at full bloom officially full bloom the news said it today everything is mankai which is 100% open the blossoms and we all have to stay home it's like what's up with that but we in Japan sort of look out for the community this is sort of taking care of the greater good don't get your neighbors sick think about the people around you like when you have to pour your neighbor's sake you have to notice that his glass is empty so you pour his sake and he pours it for you or she and that's the sort of kind of thing where you're looking out for the people around you and I think that's gonna it's gonna be pretty strong message that the mayor gave it's good a lot of people some Japanese celebrities have come down with it.

16:49 John Daub: There's my bike over there I'll take you through the building here there's the Tohoku Keihin-Tohoku line I'll just take you through the building real quick inside is always these alcohol pumps wash your hands with alcohol stay away from people this is the Keihin-Tohoku line and it's a very popular place in Japan inside is always these alcohol pumps wash your hands with alcohol stay away from the Kite building which is owned by the Japan post office there's a lot of restaurants in the basement there's an Okinawa restaurant I love to go to beautiful big sky big ceiling in here very few people it's easy to social distance in here oh and if you are here in the basement there's this amazing freeze-dried food shop that has freeze-dried everything it's kind of really cool oh it's out here oh there goes the Yamanote line.

18:04 John Daub: What do you guys think about that? The Spring Olympics? Are you as excited as I am? Or am I just a freak of nature and I get excited over like a piece of chicken or soup or steak with sauce or soba? Am I a freak or am I rightfully should be excited? I'm excited. JKO Adventures writes in here, yes, Spring Olympics would be sugoi. Nico Le writes in, yeah, I like springtime. Marty writes in, if it's true. We're not sure, it's not confirmed, but here's the deal. They have until summer to do the games. Until summer. So it's not going to be next October. It's not going to be in September. It's either going to be starting in like July or earlier. And if you have the choice, why not? Right? Why not?

19:08 John Daub: I think it's totally doable to do it in the spring. It makes sense. It's just too hot. Right? What are we waiting for? What would we be waiting for? Summer? No. That leaves summer for tourism. Summer, that means we can get more tourists to come in the summer and hotels will be available and the Olympics would be out of the way. I think it's perfect for me. The clock has stopped. This is old news. Tourists who visit then will definitely be in the spring. They will definitely return to Japan another time. I think, you know what you do? Buy your plane tickets in bulk. Okay? Go to Japan for the Olympics but you bought in bulk. Get a family of five. No problem. Just get ten tickets. Ten round trip tickets. Maybe get a discount. I think we can maybe swing that with Japan Airlines. If you come for the Olympics, come back in the summer. Come back in the fall. In fact, they should have four seasons. Start it off spring, summer, fall, winter. That makes a lot of sense to me. Buy your tickets in bulk. You rip off your round trip ticket off of a packet of ten. I like that. That works for me.

20:25 John Daub: What about tickets won by lottery? We haven't heard too much information about that, but I'm sure that there's people scrambling and panic to try to get that information to you. UFO Bob just shared the Discord link. We have about a thousand people always on it 24 hours a day talking about stuff, including the Olympics. Including travel to Japan, because I know you want to be here. There's a lot of people who had to cancel. I made the announcement saying cancel now. It was just, people kept asking me, should I come? The answer is no. The people who did come and defied my orders are trapped here. There's no way to get in unless you're quarantined. You know what? Japan yesterday also announced that they're going to be stepping up quarantine measures. So if you are coming here, they would just give you a piece of paper and say just stay inside and then that was it and people were just not listening now. They're gonna be doing it a little bit more strenuously. So that's gonna make a big difference.

21:27 John Daub: Yet is cute, isn't it? But not one person is riding the hot tub us and it is it is kind of sad. I almost want to ride it. I don't think it's worth it. They'd probably just look at me funny. Like what are you doing here? Can you wait for an hour while we get one other person? I'll call Kanae Daub? Let's see Shane's in the house. Wash your hands. That's right. Don't touch anything. Don't touch your face. My nose itches and I would just work through it by twitching it. That's why I moved the camera to the other side because it's better to see this than me twitching. Let's wait for another pass of the Yamanote line here she comes and I'm gonna walk over to Yurakucho and I gotta go look at a refrigerator any suggestions on refrigerators? Anybody know I hear she comes.

22:26 John Daub: It's a long train it's pretty much empty. Pretty much empty there. We don't have Samsung General Electric LG. We have Hitachi Toshiba Panasonic. Pick pick among those groups and one called Aqua pick among those four. We don't have the American brands. They didn't make it across I think Hitachi Panasonic is a little bit more expensive. Hitachi seems to be number one in the rankings. I don't go by rankings. I don't go by style. I go by what if the vegetables will stay for sure for a week, then that'll be the refrigerator maybe refrigerator where you can put speakers and it would be cool or having like an iPad on the refrigerator would be pretty neat, but the less refrigerators are supposed to last for 10-15 years right 20 years. I think my grandmother had hers for like since the war he had stories about it. So I don't know I want to get a refrigerator that can do that. That'd be pretty sweet.

23:41 John Daub: You see not everybody practices the social distancing, but they're doing a pretty good job. Everybody has a mask on not for this situation but for pollen because hay fever is horrendous right now. I'm I didn't sleep too well, the air is spicy with sugi or cedar pollen. And it's not pretty. Sharp right simply RC looking good in new liquor says lunch on me. Thank you. I'm gonna be eating lunch at home though because I like social distancing. Like if you eat ramen in Tokyo the person next to you is like right there. I think that they're going up. They're going empty seat now at a lot of the ramen shops. But still that's not a lot of distance.

24:36 John Daub: But one of the things I brought up in a live stream recently with the cancelling of the Olympics a lot of businesses are gonna go under there's a lot of people that are kind of worried about the economic time so if you are thinking of coming definitely come and travel to Japan and you might even say winters I think has a normal influenza season so that's gonna be tough but definitely in spring March I think people would really like that and believe it or not reservations for hotels some of them are opened up a year in advance now some of the hotels that have done that are booked. Alright, so that looks pretty promising for 2021. And I think that if there's as I said yesterday I think it was the IOC one of the chairman also said this that moving it to 2021 is a really good thing because it seems like we're all going through this really dark tunnel now. It doesn't matter if you're in Japan in the United States or if you're in Australia or Brazil everybody is locking down kind of even in Africa. We haven't seen much action there not much change in the crew, but I think it's gonna be a crisis over there. I'm extremely worried about India because of the dense population. But I have a family there. They're reaching out to my mom as well. Just giving her updates. So I think we're all going through this dark tunnel together.

26:05 John Daub: That I sent to our friends in Madrid and in Austria and Vegas, baby. That's the light at the end of the tunnel and you could still get that postcard until March 31st. I still have about 12 postcards left. Yeah, no, but the IOC chairman said that it's sort of like that this will be the light at the end of the tunnel and the dates are not decided and the possibility of the Spring Olympics is just too good to pass up i might even when they announce it do another live stream uh in it by the stadium like PBG did today and talk about it because my gosh that would be just so awesome that would just be so awesome to see olympics and cherry blossoms and spring and not having it in the summer i would definitely watch a lot more and would want tickets in the spring i don't know melbourne 56 rome 60 tokyo 1964 yeah um when they did it in australia i believe it was in april of 2020 i can't remember when exactly it was or was it in september of 2000 it wasn't exactly in the summer i remember um they'd done it at a different time in sydney i was in australia for in 1999 working on Bondi Beach shaving ice uh to girls and bikinis going to the Bondi Beach hotel every night good time married now i can't talk about that Bondi Beach was fun but that was also the year of the olympics and uh when the millennium hit i was at in front of the opera house watching the fireworks explode right just across from the bridge that was a pretty cool time everyone was in sydney for the millennium it's an exciting time.

28:04 John Daub: Tokyo 2021 looks like the time where just hope the light at the end of the tunnel. You're pronouncing it correctly well done why september 2000 was the sydney olympics thank you for that very cool so it's not there there is a precedence for not holding it during the summer you can hold it at different times there's a precedence for that and that's good i think that's really good our mcbee for the fridge one more went with three slices at one and i'm still cardboard in my bag on the fridge it's just tossing everything clean err några yakisoba [inaudible]. Right I just got an upgrade on the fridge thank you thank you very much. I'll post a picture of the fridge I decided to get I don't know I'm gonna get it I'm very picky with the technology I buy I like to kick it a little bit you know just make sure everything's working to think about it mull it over but I don't have a lot of time because things are shutting down now it's maybe now or never and Kanae Daub is not happy because the refrigerator is warm even it's on full blast so it's time to get the new fridge alright everybody Toshiba it's just I did that it's not decided I'm kind of into the Hitachi because they're from Ibaraki up north it's closer but Panasonic is a I love Panasonic cameras but Toshiba is a sponsor grand sponsor of Chibi Maru-chan I believe on Fuji TV so it's gonna be a tough one it's gonna be tough one alright guys thanks so much for watching very cool I don't know if there I'm gonna smart fridge thanks so much for watching a little bit of love from this side of Tokyo station from the clock that shut down to the possibility of a spring Olympics I'll be back sometime this weekend probably indoors but tonight I am gonna do my favorite thing I don't know if I'm gonna do it live the one thing I will do is I take a light and I go out when nobody is around and I shine the light at the cherry blossoms now that we're at mankai or full bloom it is so beautiful like snow because of the dark sky the black of the sky just adds this amazing contrast I'm really strong light like a very white light on a wonderland or one piece of sky so I don't know onto the cherry blossoms.

30:06 John Daub: Now I'm gonna take you, I don't know if I might just not do it as a live stream, but just do it as a kind of a pre-film stream, a strovie. That might be better because I want you to see this in like the glorious 4K that it deserves. Cherry blossoms in 4K are pretty sweet because a lot of you are trapped in your houses because of the quarantining, self-isolation mandates by your governors and presidents and stuff. All right guys, see you in the next live stream. This weekend, have a good day, have a good night. Leave me a comment below and click the like button. Subscribe.