00:00:03 John Daub: Hey everybody, welcome to Tokyo Station. In front of us is the clock counting down to the days remaining to the Tokyo 2020-2021 Olympics. 400 days. It's pretty crazy. And I am John Daub from Only in Japan Go. How you doing? Yes, this is the new mask. Internet, I've heard you loud and clear. You did not like my government issued mask, therefore I changed it.

00:00:32 John Daub: Yesterday I went to Yokohama and this is 100% silk. I got a chance to film the owner and talk about how he's changed his business strategy to adapt to the economy of 2020. It's an interesting report coming soon on Only in Japan. So, I want to give you an update. This is a mini travel update of news that I have been collecting over the last couple of weeks. It's been a little while since the last update. Actually, this mask is great. It's so breathable and I'm going to have a public service announcement at the end that you won't want to miss. You can't make public service announcements delicious, can you?

00:01:13 John Daub: Alright, let's go over some of the news here. Travel to Japan restarts with limited flights to and from Vietnam on Monday. That's good news because traveling to Japan has been really bad. It's nice to have the backdrop of Tokyo Station here. There's nobody around. It's pretty crazy. Travel has been pretty much suspended around the world, but it's kind of neat to see that a flight leaving to Vietnam will be commencing.

00:01:52 John Daub: According to Kyoto News, a chartered flight is being arranged to fly around 250 Japanese business people. The sources said adding they will be exempt from quarantine upon arrival in Vietnam and when they return to Japan on condition that they test negative for the virus. And that's gonna be a really fun flight. Imagine 250 businessmen who have not been able to leave the country for months. Those flight attendants are gonna be very busy serving drinks.

00:02:27 John Daub: Travel for the month of May was finally reported in the news. How many people came to Japan? Last month in April we had 2,000 to 2,900 people visit Japan, an all-time low, and May broke that record. In May there were 1,700 people. That's pretty low but understandable considering the situation. US travelers in 2019 May. Alright let's a little game here. How many people from the United States came in May 2019? Just a guess. 10,000? 4,000? 20,000? 5 million? 4,700? 700,000? 20,000? 3.5 million? 15,000? No, 156,962 people from the United States came to Japan.

00:03:59 John Daub: And China by far is the country with the most visitors coming here, but 156,000 people came last month. It was 50. That reads a lot. 1 trillion? Really? There's not even that many people on the earth. Are you including insects? 50 people came from America yesterday. Question: how did they get in? If you want to visit them, we would like to know because then if I told you we could fix this number. Apparently I guess they snuck in and the refugees. I don't know. I guess they were family members with extenuating circumstances. Who are those 50 people? If you are one of them contact me. I would love to go home as well. That'd be nice to see family. My parents rent a lake house in the summer. It's nice. Can't go.

00:05:02 John Daub: Events for 2021 are already being discussed in Japan. And guess what? They're going to be downscaled, which is a shame. This year, Kanae and I went to the Sapporo Snow Festival just before the pandemic was really starting to break out. And unfortunately, that was the month where we really started to see increases in Hokkaido. We were pretty lucky. That's the ambulance that you hear. Hope that person's okay. I really hope that the Sapporo Snow Festival and Hokkaido can go back. They're one of the three places with the most infections in Japan. And it could be because of tourism. Hokkaido in the winter is just the best tourist destination to see the snow, the cold. They have a lot of attractions and a lot of open space up there. They were hit really hard. So organizers are going to be downscaling it.

00:06:02 John Daub: Sapporo Snow Festival, I'm guessing that a lot of other events are going to be downscaled in the winter. I participated in the Noboribetsu Onsen Matsuri (hot spring festival), which is probably the coldest naked man festival that you could possibly go to. I think it was down to like minus 13 degrees Celsius. And I was in a fundoshi (sumo loincloth), which is basically a sumo thong without the padding in the front. It's basically an eye patch sliver. You don't want to see it. Coming soon. I'm editing it right now. But anyways, that event will probably be canceled or downscaled as well.

00:06:43 John Daub: We're guessing that tourism will be coming back to Japan. As I said, Vietnam is the first flight that's going to be restarting because Vietnam's infection rate has been at zero for a very long time. They've done an extraordinary job of keeping it down. So I'll give you more updates and I'll have a longer update for you next week. There's talk that stage step three is coming in Japan. Tomorrow will be opening up. So I will be allowed to travel to other prefectures. If not, I do have a pass from a teacher that allows me to do that. So I'll explain that to you next week from Kanazawa.

00:07:26 John Daub: Work has continued for Only in Japan Go. The governor elections are coming in Tokyo. This is a big deal because on the forefront is how Japan has been handling, notably Tokyo over the last two, three months. Personally, I think that Governor Koike has done an excellent job. And her biggest competitor is Utsunomiya-san, who has failed to win the governorship two times before. And he's putting at the forefront of the elections the handling of the coronavirus and Tokyoites desire for freedom. And I guess that's a theme that could turn some heads here and divide up some people. But the elections are slated for July 4th. And thankfully, the elections in Japan are not two years long like in the United States. Even in the UK, when the prime minister calls an election, it's over in five weeks or something, right? Same in Japan. Move on with our lives. Two years is a very long time for elections.

00:08:45 John Daub: COVID-19 is the biggest topic right now on discussion. Vaccine trials start in Japan. On June 30th, a company in Osaka will be starting them up. And we will see how that goes. But as we've already seen in the news, there's a couple of other companies around the world. I think a British company is testing it down in Brazil, which is really hard hit with the infections right now. So let's hope that this goes really well, because if we can find something that bodes well for the Olympics in 2021, which is going to be the next piece of news. The vaccine trial is very important to how the Olympics is going to be held next year, but also to international travel and life in general as we get back into everything.

00:09:55 John Daub: Public service announcement: wear a mask. It's scientifically proven to do that. I know it's hot out there. This silk one is so nice. And okay, it doesn't protect you from getting it. I want you to think about the other people. If everyone is wearing a mask and thinking about other people, other people are thinking about you. And if everybody's wearing a mask and practice social distancing and good hygiene, it's very hard to get this. But if everyone is a cowboy out there like I am sometimes but if you're not surrounded by people you can do that. You're gonna be safe. So think about the other people in your community.

00:10:43 John Daub: Olympics 2021 things are moving faster than I thought they would because in Japan things move pretty slow. Very careful. It's all about building consensus. If the group agrees then they can move forward and getting the group to agree can be really hard. So the Olympics next year um will be simplified. I don't know exactly what that means but according to an IOC executive member it means do we need all of these services? I have to agree though because there are a lot of services that I don't think that we really need. What does a simplified Olympics look like? I guess it looks different. I guess there really wasn't a lot of things that we needed. You could probably cut a lot of spam out of the Olympics anyways. I hope they don't cut skateboarding. That's the way I want it. I'm still excited to see these new things as well. And I know I see that as a curiosity and I'm very much looking forward to seeing skateboarders coming to Japan and doing some rail stunts and other types of amazing feats that create accidents that make us all laugh on the internet. Please come skateboarders, we love you.

00:12:10 John Daub: This is a kind of a new story that came out last week. One are simplified Olympics. It's being defined but I do know that Tokyo cannot cancel. There's not going to be any chance of an Olympics in 2022. It's 2021 or bust. So vaccine makers, we're cheering for you in the form of dollars. America has given you like a billion or something, so get to work. Olympics needs you too. Any thoughts on 2025? You mean for the Expo in Osaka? Let's get through 2021 first. I'm not going to worry about 2025. I remember when I was living in Aichi-ken in Nagoya, and the signs for the 2005 Aichi World Expo were all over the city. I said, that's seven years away. So let's get through 2021 before we start looking at 2025, right?

00:13:22 John Daub: I thought that was a crow. I thought she was walking a crow. It's pretty funny. All right. I got some more good news. Mail has started up again in the European countries, most notably Scandinavia. Although hats off to Finland because they never stopped the mail at all. Finland is hardcore. And I really want to go to Finland. Yeah. The Japan Post Office finally released Doraemon stamps for lovers of Doraemon. Here's what it looks like right here. These will be going on the postcard club next month, I think. So you're going to get one of these if you join the postcard club for next month. Look at that. There's Doraemon on Mount Fuji, Doraemon with fireworks, Doraemon harvesting rice, Doraemon in Kyoto, Doraemon doing tea. Doraemon at Nihonbashi. These are pretty sweet. Postcards are 70 yen, these are the 84 yen stamps.

00:14:47 John Daub: Mail has started up in a couple of countries now in Europe, which is good news. Portugal is back. We have one person over there. Austria is back up. Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Switzerland. And guess what? I'm actually right now going to the post office to put your cards in the mailbox. You don't wear gloves, gloves are meaningless. Wash your hands. Come on. Right in front of us is the International Post Office. And I've been sending postcards here for a very long time. It's not that far away from my place, about a 10 minute bike ride. So here we go. Post office postcard dump. So this is this month's card for June. Shinobazu Pond in Ueno is up for this.

00:16:05 John Daub: I want to say thank you to the three members who joined up yesterday: Stanley in Louisiana, Dean in Canada, and Christine in Oregon. Thank you. Your cards are going out right now with this group. I'm going to send to the people who have been waiting for a very long time. I'm going to send April's cards to you as well as May's cards. So they're all going out at the same time. So it's going to be pretty busy. Hey, Jennifer French is here. She's the biggest Doraemon fan. Jennifer, we'll make sure that Doraemon stamp is on there real good. I think these postcards don't even need to go on airmail. They just mail themselves.

00:17:00 John Daub: The good thing about this is that mail is starting to resume. Viewers in America that are also in the postcard club reported that the June cards came in two weeks. So it used to take two months for mail to get to the United States. Now it's taking two weeks. So it's really good that the USPS is getting back online. Packages are only available through sea mail. Just a note for anybody's sending packages just to the United States. A lot of the local post offices do not know that you can send it by sea mail. They'll tell you all mail is blocked. That's not true. Sea mail is open, but airmail is blocked right now. There's just no capacity for it right now. There's no flights. Maybe like a few. There's not enough flights going to the United States to carry the packages right now. Usually there's hundreds. That's like four or something.

00:18:28 John Daub: So we got Switzerland, Norway, Denmark, and three people in the United States. Thanks for joining. Here's a nice shot of the bushes of Tokyo Station. Let's go inside here. Welcome to the Tokyo International Post Office. They told me that this actually starts tomorrow. But if I put it in the box today, it should be okay. And they're off. It is a Doraemon international cards in Japan right now. I do like this one here. It's a card in the shape of a fan. Senso-ji. Very nice. Japan does have some of the best greeting cards. Look at this one. It's got a fan in there. It folds out. Dog with watermelon. Japanese summer is here. And yeah, the International Post Office has some amazing cards. The staff knows me very well. They say John's here. We're good customers. Support your local post office. We love you, post office.

00:20:25 John Daub: In other news, trains are running on time. Shinkansen are still not at full capacity. People are still staying home. And although Japan has opened up again and we're going to be traveling around the prefectures, please do take caution if you are in Japan. It's not over. We've had several straight days with 40 infections. And the pandemic is not over. Tokyo does not look good. And it looks like we might be getting a second wave if we're not careful enough. So stay careful, everybody.

00:21:00 John Daub: I'm going to take questions for the next couple of minutes. So what do you guys have? What's on your mind here? Masks are required on public transit. The way that Japan works is that there's nothing that's required. Meaning if you go into a building, they may ask you, please wear your mask. Nobody refuses. There's no way that they can enforce it though. So if you try to be a jerk and go, I'm not wearing a mask, they probably will, the community will set you straight. That's usually what happens. You'll have a thousand people looking at you and you'll feel really guilty. Basically, it's very hard to enforce the laws. There's no fines or anything like that. But everybody's wearing a mask because everybody looks out for the society. Everybody looks out for everybody else. There's always one or two people who think that they're above society. But if you look at the people crossing the street right now, most people have masks on. Or they're a little bit too lazy. But you should have your masks on when you're crossing the street or in a crowd of people.

00:22:13 John Daub: Do you think spring is too soon for travel to Japan if the restrictions are lifted? That's a really tough one to answer. Look, if there's no vaccine, there's always going to be a risk. And if you are taking vitamin D, keeping in good shape, you don't have any pre-existing conditions, if you are okay with possibly getting this and knowing that there's a higher risk when you travel, then I think that traveling in the spring will be possible. But it's really going to come down to what is your feeling on traveling. I don't think the government should be held 100% responsible if people are not following the law. There's really not much you can do. But they can do their best to try to make it as safe as possible for us. And I think that Japan has done a pretty good job without having police officers fining people. Society enforces things. It's not just about rules.

00:23:32 John Daub: Places are opening up in Japan. It's amazing how many places that were closed a few weeks ago are now reopening. There are food trucks in every single corner of Tokyo. I've never seen so many food trucks. A lot of restaurants that have limited capacity bought trucks. And they've refitted them. And they now sell to people outside on the street. Imagine, you can sell the same food in a truck. Just cut down the menu and you can serve more people. Because the restaurant capacity was always not enough anyways. Imagine if the capacity was outdoors. Food trucks... It's amazing the amount of food trucks that I've seen pop up in the last month. We've been eating food truck food maybe once or twice a week. Support your local businesses. Everyone is falling into a recession. So I think by the end of the year or earlier, things will be open.

00:24:40 John Daub: One of the biggest problems is exactly what you said. There's the risk line and then there's also the economy. And if we all lose our livelihoods or those that are already out of work can't get back into the workforce, then everything's going to tank. One way or another, we're going to have to get back to work. We're going to have to get back into it. With or without the virus. We have to get used to living with masks, washing hands, alcohol, and social distancing. Staying away from people and not taking unnecessary trips or risks just because we want to. More because we have to and live with this. And even if we do have a vaccine, there's no telling that this thing doesn't mutate and then it doesn't work anyways. It's just a new normal.

00:25:25 John Daub: Yosh writes in here, glad you have a mask that fits better. I'd like to sponsor at least partially your haircut as well. Save it, Yosh, save it for the haircut. I believe it's either going to be tonight or tomorrow morning. I cannot live like this. If I take off the hat, I look like a floppy dog. Look at this. That's a good six inches. It's not good. Since I'm doing so many lives, a Persian outcast. Can I plus scissors plus John equals PBG with no hair and very, very not happy look. The slick back look does not suit me either. There's nothing that really suits me except ordinary John with hat, keeping hair down. I'm not shaving it all off. It'll look too freaky. So Kanai's going to do her best and the next day, I go to the barber's for real and fix what Kanai doesn't. Don't tell her I said that. She'll do a good job.

00:26:49 John Daub: Is there free testing for travelers? I don't really know. This is something I'm going to be doing in a longer update next week. I think we do need to keep these updates going. Before July, I'm guessing that lawmakers are going to be meeting and hammering down more guidelines for traveling to start again. If the first flights start on Monday, Japan is always a wait and see and react to that. They'll see how those flights go. And then probably by the middle of the next week, they kind of analyze it and give another announcement. With the elections for Tokyo coming up, it's very important to see what is on people's minds. Elections are a good thing for Japan. Although a very noisy thing because I really don't want to hear the speakers blasting anymore.

00:27:50 John Daub: Would you think about New Zealand getting new cases? Did New Zealand get some? That's sad to hear. I don't know how they did since they had closed the borders. But look, we're going to have to live with this for a while. So when things look like the coast is clear, it's not. Because it takes two weeks to a long time before something like this starts to show. Even with the testing. So when it gets down to zero, wait for about two to three weeks before you start having a party. There is no party until everybody is at zero right now. This is something that's going to be with us for a while. If you're thinking about traveling to Japan, I think put an asterisk next to it even when they do open. You don't want to be the people who rush into this situation because usually that doesn't bode well. I think Japan is very conservative though. And they're probably going to take the least amount of risks. But they also know that the economy is essential.

00:28:51 John Daub: When I went with Kanae to Fujinomiya, which was not a really smart trip to do, we saw people selling to tourists that were hurting so bad. It broke our hearts. We were in the car driving back. We just felt really down and didn't think that we were doing enough to help. But we can't. Because if you do travel, at least until tomorrow, with number plates that say Tokyo on it, Shinagawa or something, the locals get really upset that you're in even though we don't have anything. They still don't want to see travel despite the fact that most people are hurting very, very badly. So it's a tough time for everybody. Are you getting any snacks today? I'm going to just go home. I got a lot of editing to do.

00:29:53 John Daub: For those of you from Austria, Switzerland, Denmark, some other country, this postcard from this month will be sent on Monday. I don't want you to get all your postcards at the same time. Give a little space in between them to our friends in Austria who have been waiting for a while. The haircut stream is coming. It depends on how Kanai feels, but we could do that tonight or we could do that tomorrow morning. And we also got food ordered from Kochi Prefecture coming tomorrow. And we can't go to Kochi Prefecture. So we ordered Kochi Prefecture food, which is tataki (seared fish), which is this grilled fish that's just amazing. And they actually had it where they could deliver it. So we have that coming tomorrow. Maybe we'll have to do the haircut tonight. I can't live like this. Look at it. I look like a dog. Like with the ears flapping. Who lives like this?

00:31:15 John Daub: That's all I got, guys. If you missed the news and you're just tuning in, go back and watch the playback as well. Shout out to some of the viewers who said that there were too many ads in the livestreams. Sometimes it takes me several hours before I can get back to a computer. I can't prune them until I get back to a computer. It's also an incentive to watch these live. Because there's only one commercial. I don't have mid-rolls when you're watching live. But now that we have memberships enacted, I can prune those ads, which is a good thing. And also, just keep in mind that the proceeds for memberships this month is going to charity. All of it. We're looking at a few really good NGOs. One of them we want to work with. They have an office. But they're helping kids that are disadvantaged and having a really tough time. And we think that that's a really good place to give money.

00:32:30 John Daub: Some of the food banks don't need money as much as they need food. So I might be asking when mail starts up if people from other countries would like to send in boxes of food from their country to give to homeless here. I think that would be really good to brighten their day if they get some food from a European country or America tossed in the mix with what they usually get. How cool would that be? Because the community, not everybody, but a lot of people have been asking about that. I do really appreciate it. And because we have an amazing community here, we can make a difference, I believe. So thank you so much for the support. As I said, again, all of the members here that signed up this month is going to charity. And we'll see how it goes and maybe do this more often. Do like a charity month. And maybe give a percentage of it every month to organizations. This doesn't just help the organizations. This helps our channel. Because if we're doing good for our community, I'm almost positive that we're going to have more interesting stories and more opportunities for our channel to learn more about Japan. Sometimes doing good things comes back in a different way that you didn't expect it.

00:33:47 John Daub: Twitch, I have an announcement coming. I think it'll be tomorrow night or the next day. I got to pace this all out. But after that, once I have it rolling, then I'll be starting to get a little bit more excited. Settling down into Twitch as well and doing a more structured Twitch schedule. Because I know that we've had some pretty good... I think we had like 72 subscribers on Twitch. Which is incredible. And 1500 followers on Twitch, which is a good start. You don't have to be a gamer to do Twitch. When everybody is doing games, do something different and break out a new niche. I think gamers go where the eyeballs are and people are watching Twitch more. You can do something. A lot of games come out of Japan. You're going to want to learn about Japan. Twitch is a lot more than just games. And in order for Twitch to survive, it's going to have to diversify. There's no question about it.

00:35:03 John Daub: We've been looking for delivery ramen for the longest time, Kanae and I. And we haven't been able to find one in our area that delivers. But I think it'll be safe to go out to local ramen places soon. We'll go in off-peak hours and see if we can do a live stream from one of them. Thank you so much, everybody, for the support here. I got to go. I'm going to leave you with the Yamanote line going towards Shinbashi. I'll be doing live streams next week from the new Yamanote train station as well as maybe the new Harajuku station and a couple other places. Definitely leave a comment below if you have some ideas for live streams, because I'd love to hear from you. And see you next time. Stay safe, everybody.