00:00:01 John Daub: Hello, greetings and welcome to Tokyo. This is another I'm on my balcony and giving you an update about travel to Japan video. It's been a couple of weeks since the last travel update. A lot of people are still wondering what they should do with their summer travel. A lot of people have vacation plans for July, August, September, and they're left in limbo. Like what should we do? Should we cancel? What's going on? And hopefully that this video will give you some insight. I'm going to be doing these travel updates.

00:00:31 John Daub: For the next few months. Oh, there's a little bit of wind. We're in the middle of the rainy season. The weather is very unpredictable at this time, even on your balcony. I'm going to be doing these updates every 10 days to two weeks just to give you an update, give you a feeling of what's happening here in Japan, how maybe you might want to plan your trips for the future and such. And the questions in the comments that you leave below are really important to me to figure out what you are thinking as well. Check out our Discord server. The moderators will put a link in the description for you as one of the resources where you can exchange information with other people that are also here already in Japan.

00:01:31 John Daub: All right, let's get started. I typically this is a live stream, by the way, sometimes it's a little bit longer, but I will get to some of your questions in the live chat about every 5 to 10 minutes. I'll stop and take a look and see what you guys are thinking. July 1st, 2020. Always say the date because these things get outdated a little bit.

00:02:01 John Daub: Today, this is good news, especially for our friends Soler's Spencer, who is a Disney fanatic. Tokyo Disneyland officially opens today. It's pretty crazy, right? I mean, I think it closed around the end of was it the end of February. It's been closed for four months and the opening of Tokyo Disneyland is sort of an indication that things really are open again. Japan is open for business domestically. And we'll get into more of this soon.

00:02:31 John Daub: But the tickets for Tokyo Disneyland went on sale online only and I think it was to really restrict the interaction with the staff. You had your tickets online already. They were scanned and you could enter into the park. They made little circles, I believe, or little spaces for each person to wait on so that there was social distancing. You have to have a mask to get into the park. I have all of the information here. Operating hours for Tokyo Disneyland is shorter than usual. It's 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. So that means is that shorter? I guess so. Adults full day tickets. An adult full day ticket is $77. So it's still pretty pricey. Maybe less than Tokyo Disney World. I'm not sure. 8,200 yen. And then from that they'll be sold. That's 7,300 yen. So if you want to go there three hours early at 8 a.m. and get there maybe two hours early, you have to pay an extra. It looks like thousand yen for the privilege. But, you know, the rides usually get pretty crowded at Tokyo Disneyland. Getting there early is not a bad thing.

00:03:32 John Daub: All visitors are required to undergo body temperature checks and wear face masks to enter the park. Face masks. It's a good thing. My friends in America. Speaking of face masks. Yeah, I have the PETA mask, which is really good for summer. Very breathable. But when I went to Yokohama, I got this. And this mask is made of silk. It looks pretty nice. It covers my face pretty good. It's very comfortable. Silk is really good for face masks for summer. It's very breathable. And I want to say thank you to Ray Ogawa for sending this mask as well. We received these. Much appreciated. Friend of Richard's. Appreciate it.

00:04:33 John Daub: Okay. So wear your face masks, everybody, when you go out because they work. If everybody's wearing one, we all stay a little bit safer. More on that in a minute. Japan opened up on June 19th for domestic travel. That means that all the prefectures before June 19th were pretty much closed. That means like we couldn't leave Tokyo technically. We shouldn't have been traveling around. And I have been holed up here since the end of March. We didn't go out basically at all in all of April and most of May. We pretty much stayed put. Two lost months, I guess we call them. But everybody in Japan was pretty much doing the same thing.

00:05:03 John Daub: And this led to ridiculously low numbers. This could be also as a result of testing. I mean, people are going to make that argument. But here's a graph from JNTO, Japan National Tourist Organization. You see the United States has really spiked and Brazil as well is the next line, the red one with in Russia and India as well. They have very large populations. Japan is right there at the bottom. So in total, Japan is 18,476. United States has 2,500,000. So Japan is doing pretty good comparatively. Yeah, I — we can debate whether or not the numbers are because of lack of testing and whatever. But the mortality rate is extremely low here in Japan as well.

00:05:36 John Daub: So I think we've had five straight days in Tokyo, 50 or more infections. So there's something of a second wave right now. But it's nowhere near how tough the situation is in the United States. And I just want to say to everybody in the US, just please take care. We in Japan really feel for you. We know the situation is going on. I'm going to talk a little bit about this on whether or not you're still banned, though. But I do. I do wish you and your family. Please stay safe. Okay. Wear your masks and social distancing. These things do work.

00:06:36 John Daub: Trevor Beck. Hey, John, I wanted to help out with the donation that you're doing to help the families and kids in need. Thank you, Trevor. I'm giving all of the memberships and I'll put that towards there as well. I'm giving all the membership fees for this month to MPO Florence. Thank you. We started looking into this and I think that's a good thing to do because there's a lot of families, there's a lot of organizations that really needs some help at this time that have been doing really good work during the pandemic. So thank you for that very much.

00:07:25 John Daub: Rashad Matthews, hi John, glad to see you're doing well. Nice haircut. You notice that? Yes. Are the temples open? Did you get to visit any yet? They never really were closed. A lot of the shrines and the temples, the tourist ones maybe in Kyoto were, I think were closed. But in general, even in times of hardships, there are places of worship. It's like saying, would a church close too? Maybe yes, but they wouldn't — temples like — but you wouldn't hold like a mass, right? You wouldn't have a lot of people coming together. But out in the countryside, these places never really closed because they only get one or two or three people every hour coming in there. So, and a lot of them had no people at all because they're out in the mountains and people weren't traveling. So it's hard to say whether or not they were closed or not, but right now that they're, they're open and everything is open. If Tokyo Disneyland is open, everything is open now. And I'll get more into that at the end of this here. But with Tokyo Disneyland open, it's pretty exciting actually. But we've already talked about it. Kanae and I, we're not going. We'll let Spencer do that and give us the report on his website, TDLR, I think it's what it's called.

00:08:46 John Daub: But the operator is just, some of the facilities are still closed and restaurants are for smaller numbers of visitors than usual. Entertainment shows and parades, including nighttime Tokyo Disneyland electric parade, dream lights, will remain canceled. Heartbreaking! They let us in and they canceled the parade. How dare you. But we love you. Kanae said, Kanae, what did you say? Kanae said to me, he goes, Disney is open. Who go to Disney? It's rain, it's the rainy season, it's raining, and there is a pandemic. Who would go there? She does not know Spencer. And can I also ask me, is Mickey wearing a mask? He said how would I know? Probably, I think so. So we're not going to Tokyo Disneyland for a while. Don't ask. You can ask. We're probably not going to go for a while.

00:09:45 John Daub: But Tokyo Disneyland is owned by the Oriental Land. And they initially planned to open a new part of the theme park featuring the movie Beauty and the Beast in April. But said they will decide when to reopen after monitoring the situation. So Beauty and the Beast is still closed there. This is coming from Kyoto News, by the way. Kyoto News is where I've been getting a lot of my information about what's happening here in Japan. It's a great news source. I'll put a link in the description as well. Theme parks have been closed since late February, right? And actually, I have a live stream at the gate the day after they closed Tokyo Disneyland, or two days after. And it was really creepy to see when they closed it. It was real back then in February. If Tokyo Disneyland closes, you know you're in a tough situation.

00:10:37 John Daub: Universal Studios Japan actually opened a few weeks earlier in June, which was an indication that Tokyo Disneyland would. I think Tokyo Disneyland did not open as early because the situation in Kansai is a lot better than the situation here in Tokyo. We have still have not been able to control it. But it's a lot better. Again, five days of 50 or more we've had straight. So we're both a little bit worried and taking more precautions. And we did a few weeks ago because we know that the situation when Japan opened up on June 19th, it also opened up more travel, which also opened up more infections. So let's hope that we can keep them down here in Japan.

00:11:17 John Daub: Japan is in a recession. This is definitely as a result of the pandemic recession is three straight quarters of negative growth. I have a degree in economics. I can't do that. I can say that it's true. Business sentiment within Japanese community is down as well. And manufacturers are going to be producing less of stuff just because people are buying less right now. Since the country reopened, I'm hoping that the sentiment will turn around a little bit. But in Japan, people are typically conservative, meaning they don't go to the beach like and not wear masks and not take precautions. Everybody probably is not going there unless you're a surfer. And you're hardcore. You probably will still go. But families are much more conservative and going out and doing stuff. They just don't want to catch it, which is understandable. So we don't have a problem too much of travel.

00:12:19 John Daub: I want to show you right now some video that I took. First of all, a picture from Narita Airport. This is the thumbnail. Thank you, Betty. That's Kanae and I. A couple of weeks ago, we went to Narita Airport to take a friend from Canada back home. He flew off and had to do 14 days quarantine. But I want you to look at this. There's nobody there. And behind me, most of the flights are canceled. It was pretty incredible to see this. And it was sad because Narita Airport, I really like both the airports. For me, it's a place, a gateway to travel and unlimited possibilities, flying in the sky. But it was so quiet and there's so many precautions that my friend was one of four people on the flight, okay? And he flew business class. I don't think he needed to do that. But it was really really quiet.

00:13:26 John Daub: This is a video that I took on the Shinkansen last week. I traveled there for a job. Here. Are you ready? How do I play this thing? Go. There it is. It was empty. Completely empty. Except for, I guess, maybe there's one guy back there. That was the Shinkansen. So if you're worried about catching something on the train, chances are there's nobody there to give it to you. People are still... This was when the country was open, so I could travel. Just nobody was traveling. I think that's really smart. They're not... All non-essential travel is off. I was going for a job, so I had to go. But it's nice to see just a few business people and non-essential travel people are still staying home here in Japan, keeping safe. That is good news. So hopefully the numbers here will stay down. If Japan's numbers stay down, that means Japan will open up to the rest of the world.

00:14:46 John Daub: But the title of this is Are You Still Banned? Americans, we love America. I am American. Can I — Met me in America. And we are struggling seeing the numbers and the people hurting over there that can't go out and do this stuff. And the ones that are, we see the images, they're not taking the same kinds of precautions, but we know in Japan, the sooner we can get this under control, the sooner we can get back to international travel. It looks like the United States is not going to be on that list for a very long time.

00:15:18 John Daub: Japan released a list of countries that will have limited travel into the country. They're limiting numbers to 250 per day into the country. I believe it's into the country, not just at each airport. So most of those are limited to four countries, I believe, initially, which were Vietnam, Australia, New Zealand, and, um, I think it was Thailand? And that's expanded to other countries as well, but there's still not a lot of people coming in here. Europe opened up, I think, to the rest of the world. It opened up just recently, so travel to Europe is possible, but the Japanese government has recommended that citizens do not go on vacation to Europe right now, because if they come back, they won't be allowed in. There's still many of these countries are banned from entry, meaning if you have been to those countries and you come back to Japan, you will have to have not just PCR screening, but undergo quarantine. So that's not good. So, traveling for Japanese traveling abroad, we're not, you're not going to see too many of us in other countries for a while, just because the government is taking a more conservative approach than some of the other countries.

00:16:38 John Daub: I'm going to get to some of your questions in a second. Thank you so much. I see the, see them coming in like, uh, like hot fire. Is that a word? Heh. Uh, wow, we got a lot of news here. Traveling is important to the economy of Japan. Look, last month we saw, April, we saw 2,900 tourists came into Japan. I don't know how they got in and who they were. May saw 1,900, which is crazy, tourists come in. A month before that, it was like a ridiculous, well, a year before that, if you compared, there was no comparison. It was like a million and a half tourists had come in, and now we had 1,900. That's where we are, and we're still there. The tourists coming in for June will be reported in about a week or two, and probably it's gonna be around the 2,000, 2,500 number. The people that are traveling are most likely expats that are permanent residents here that had to go home for a funeral or to visit friends, or somebody was sick, or an emergency, and they had to, and they came back into the country and had to do a 14-day quarantine as well. That's what those tourist numbers are when I asked somebody who knew more about this than myself.

00:17:53 John Daub: Tourism is going to trickle back into Japan, but from a global perspective, not to travel to Japan than just a select few countries. JNTO has a site of all of the countries banned. The chances that you are banned are high. United States is on the list, Brazil, India, I think India's starting to come off of that list. A few other countries are starting to have, are in talks to starting to travel again between the countries that are doing well with controlling the pandemic.

00:18:22 John Daub: The other thing is the postal system. Japan's postal system is not delivering packages to the United States except by surface mail, by sea. Postcards and letters are the exception. You can send letters and postcards, so our postcard club, welcome, you're going to be getting a Kanazawa postcard in about 10 days. But the parcels are still not being sent to the United States. Australia is still closed. Meaning, you know, you're still not able to, um, we can't send anything to Australia. And, I mean, I wish I could send it to Singapore and then my Singaporean friends could send it to Australia. But I think just, there's certain countries that are just closed right now to mail. So we'll get a chance to get that back on. But the US is still taking mail. They're taking postcards and letters and packages by sea only.

00:19:14 John Daub: It's a tough one because I have packages that I want to send. The good news is that Japan has officially stated, the government has officially stated that they want 60 million international tourists by 2030. Okay? So by 2030, if we can have that number, that'd be pretty cool. That means I'm gonna still be in business because if people are still interested in coming to Japan, they're still gonna watch the series. So I'm quite happy about that. Japan's gonna be pushing for this for the next 10 years to try to get the 60 million tourists. I'm with them on that. I don't know, Japan has a shrinking population so they kind of need to rely on bringing people here because there's not enough people here to pay to keep the economy going. So thank you so much for coming to Japan. Keep, put that in your plans for 2021, 2022. Come here on your honeymoon and you will definitely have an adventure of a lifetime.

00:20:22 John Daub: Ah, um, masks. I showed you some of the masks. I'm using this one now. I've officially retired my Abe no mask, which is the government issued mask that looked like an eye patch. I've officially retired it. It's in the box of things that I never really look at ever again. Somebody found the emoji of me with a mask on. That's my Abe no mask. Eye patch mask. But I got pictures for you, okay? It's interesting stuff. One of the biggest problem spots in Japan right now is Tokyo and the reason why is nightlife. Over 40% of the people who are getting the viruses coming from nightlife as the cluster zone, being identified as where they picked it up. So the hostess club industry, which is where men go for entertainment, especially to entertain clients, has to keep going too because they got jobs as well. You can't just, you know, shut, if you're going to open up movie theaters, why not open up, you know, that. The problem is that they get really, really close and it's spread there.

00:21:33 John Daub: So hostesses came up with very sensual masks, so to speak. Check this out. These are being sold, these masks are being sold by a company in Yamagata made out of silk and you can see here she's drinking a glass of champagne. Let's see, I got another picture here. Here's a nice white one. She looks like a bride in another country. I don't know. But these masks allow the hostesses to eat, protect themselves a little bit, but also protect the clients because we know that by talking you really spread this one. Barry says this looks ugly. Nemesis loves the masks. Seems like we have a very varied opinions on this. Masks do work, alright. It's not for catching it. I've seen some of the comments. Masks are not about you catching it. It's about you giving it, alright. If you can trap in and limit the amount of droplets with the virus that you give off, if everybody does that, and social distances, it goes down. This thing will go away quick. Nobody is doing it. It's not about, oh my gosh, we need N95 masks. No you don't. Everyone wear one.

00:22:51 John Daub: This is UniQlo masks. Look at these. They're finally out. I tried to get one. They're not on sale. You know why? Because they're getting really bad reviews and I don't know if they've been pulled from the shelves or not. But Airism is the name of the brand here. Let me see here. Yeah. Airism. This is actually an Airism shirt by UniQlo. My friend Greg and I went on a bike ride. He goes, why don't you have the UniQlo t-shirts? They're really good. I go, oh I didn't know. So I bought one. But I went there and looked for the masks. They didn't have them. But these masks have been getting very very bad support. No I'm not, I don't support any political talk here. So let's just let's keep it onto the information at hand. These masks have been getting really bad reviews because they're not breathable. And even UniQlo writes in here, don't wear this doing exercise. Which has confused a lot of people. Why they use such a thick material. People are not quite sure. But the reviews for the UniQlo masks have been not stellar.

00:24:28 John Daub: I'm trying to get a pair to try them out. But after seeing the price and then hearing the reviews, I'm like, you know what? I don't know if I'll buy them. Because this silk one is so darn good. And does a great job of not letting things, letting stuff out. Or you can make one yourself that's even better. I don't see why you need to buy the UniQlo masks if the material is not breathable. You know what I mean? So there's that. The mask situation in Japan is really good. Almost everybody — when you're by yourself, you don't have to wear one. But when you're in a crowded place like a station, a train, a department store, a supermarket, everybody has a mask. And they're not being told to wear one. Just everybody has one on. I see every now and then maybe one person. But it's really incredible. It makes me feel good to see that people are wearing them here. And they do that because they're thinking about the other person. They're not thinking about themselves. That's why people are wearing masks right now. Nobody wears a mask in July. Alright.

00:25:07 John Daub: Japan has started doing the vaccine testing here. So a lot of people know that it's happening in other countries. It's also happening here. Japan wants to make sure that the domestic supply of the vaccine is here when it is discovered. Japan wants to be one of the countries that has the supply too for the citizens. So they've been investing heavily in it. Anges, I'm not sure how you pronounce it, A-N-G-E-S, started the vaccine clinical trials on humans. Just recently, on Tuesday. And they're aiming for a fall target date for its sale. So it looks like autumn if this works out. And there's no guarantee at all that the wakuchin, which is how we say vaccine in Japanese, wakuchin, I like that. There's no guarantee that this wakuchin is going to work. But it's from Osaka City University Hospital began injecting the DNA vaccine into 30 healthy adults in early July. Through early July. So this month is going to be the test. I think they should have picked Tokyo instead of Osaka because Osaka has like almost no infections there. It will assess their data over eight weeks to see whether they have side effects from the vaccine or have developed antibodies against the disease. So this is really promising and I think that if every country is looking for wakuchin, then we're going to come up with one really quickly. I hope. So we can get so you can all come back to Japan really, really soon. That's my greatest hope here. That we can have people back here in this country.

00:27:06 John Daub: Remdesivir is the treatment for the coronavirus right now. It's actually a treatment for Ebola. However you pronounce it. Which is scary as heck. But the cost is $2,340 per person for the six day doses. You can get that in Japan I believe. Now it's, but it's still that expensive. It's like what? $400 per vial or something like that. It's pretty expensive but if you're suffering bad from it maybe it's worth it. I don't know.

00:27:29 John Daub: I'm going to look at some of the questions now. Hey Benji. Benji P writes in here, I've been an avid fan of OIG since 2014 and would love to meet you in Kanai someday as well as visiting Japan again. First visit 2017. This is my first super chat. Hey! And can definitely say that there's more to come. Thank you Benji. Thank you and welcome to the OIG community. That's so cool.

00:27:51 John Daub: Going to look at some of these questions here. Gerald Augustin. Thank you. I like Pearman. WX Turbo is here. How you doing? Gordon Williams. Thank you from Australia. Paul McClure. My wife and I donated part of the wedding. Hiki Komori to MPO Florence. Good! And they are great. You and Kanae are amazing. We picked them because I think they're going to really do a lot with our community donations so it seemed like it was a really great. We're actually going to be going in there, Paul. We're going to go in there and talk with them when I get back from Kanazawa and interview them and maybe we'll be able to broadcast what they say about what they're doing because I'm really interested. They're not the only charity by the way. We're going to look for other ones but this is one that came very highly recommended and I'm glad that you donated to them as well. Michi B. Keep it up. I'm trying. I'm trying. Tony P. Go get lunch on me for you and Kanai. Tony, actually we're thinking there's a lunch truck down the street that we go to so we're going to put that to some good use. Kanae likes lunch truck. She goes, is it lunch truck time? But maybe we'll put that towards Kanazawa. Actually that's might be better. We might save it.

00:29:11 John Daub: Betty C. Is international shipping getting back to normal? Want to order stuff from Japan? Also thanks for your live videos. Betty, to address that directly, I would hold off on ordering anything from Japan for a while unless you're in Germany or certain countries. Japan's, Japan post on the website in English tells you what countries they're sending packages to. So I'll see if I can put a link in the description after this live stream but the international post from Japan is dependent on just a certain amount of countries. Bryson Nakamoto, welcome, you're an insider. Thank you. Awesome. I've been doing secret live streams for the insiders there. It's not actually that secret. It's not. It just sounds cool. Shane, how you doing? Thanks for Canada. Shane Pache. Brenda McSee, nice haircut. Thank you. Yeah. It's pretty short. Kanae went really to town on taking her down a little bit but I think it's nice and cool now.

00:30:15 John Daub: Here's something for you, Shruthik Kandizawa, Irvonne, thank you. I might be going there by Rent-A-Car or Shinkansen. I'm not sure yet. I'm working on it. Let me go back here and say hi to some new members. Paulo is a traveler and Nicholas, thank you so much. You're a traveler here. Welcome. Tony P. Thanks for keeping us updated. Hit the like button. Hey, Jeff Kennedy's here. Buddy from Philly. Love the haircut. Great. Trevor Beck. We got that. Thank you. Hey, Jennifer is here. Jennifer used to live here way back when. Thank you for the travel updates. Thank you for the updates too, Jennifer, and sharing the information about what Harajuku youth was like in the 80s. Punk. Here's another addition to your generosity. Thank you, Ramzi. Ah, that's so nice. That's really nice. We have an amazing community. Yeah.

00:31:13 John Daub: Alright, let me go into the live chats now. Everyone like. Lewis, thank you. Christopher Wilson writes in here, we just canceled two week trip to Florida. Not worth the risk and don't want to quarantine upon returning to Kansas City. That's interesting that you have quarantine by interstate travel. It's kind of sad as well. Imagine if the Griswolds could not go to Wally World. You know, the summer vacations, canceling that is really hard for me to imagine. And Kanae and I were going to go to visit our family. We rent a house on a lake. And we can't do that this year because we can't leave Japan to go to the United States because we wouldn't be allowed to come back.

00:32:02 John Daub: Yeah. I had to cancel my Olympic tickets on flight. Have to wait until 2021. That's a given. If you came for your Olympic venues, there'd be nothing there. Although the venues are finished, but there'd be nothing there. They should have skipped Wally World. They totally should have. And Clark shouldn't have brought a gun. Crazy. You know, that movie is still always going to be a classic. Chevy Chase is a little bit wacky these days, but you have to love the guys' characters. One of the funniest people from the 1980s and 1990s.

00:32:41 John Daub: Earl Kun, welcome to The Travelers. I'm still scared to get a haircut, Varun writes. Hey, listen, Varun, just I don't know if you're married or not. Ask your wife. They usually take that as a compliment of trust. Or you can do it yourself. It grows back, they say. Philip Carter is a traveler. Welcome. You guys have unlocked some pretty crazy emoji in there. Is it true that the unemployment rate is increasing significantly? In Japan? I'll tell you this, okay? I know that it was a problem because after grad — well, it was a problem for grad here in Japan, but after graduation, a lot of companies, they didn't know how to do initiation and recruiting and a lot of these things had just stopped. So, because as I said to you, the country's in a recession. It's in three straight quarters of negative growth. The job market here is not good, but it's not as bad as the United States.

00:33:46 John Daub: What people are doing is they are finding ways to become entrepreneurs, selling masks online. I bought this from a silk scarf company that can't sell the silk scarves and the silk dresses. They started to make masks. So I bought five of these and I've been giving them to friends. And I probably will buy some more to support local businesses. People are adjusting and if you can't find a job, maybe it's time to become an entrepreneur and start thinking of ways to squeak an income. That could turn into a revenue stream for you as well as a job that you find down the road. A lot of Japanese are turning to entrepreneurship more. But many of the freshman kids that would typically go in to start at an office job are just staying at home with family. And I'm not sure what they're doing. Using the time to study. I don't have any friends that were looking for jobs right now. Most of my foreign friends, a lot of them have left. So Peter's still here. Jennifer's still here. Kevin is still here. I've had a lot of friends that left as well that didn't really have much establishment in Japan.

00:35:01 John Daub: Any news for us international students? I'm coming to MEC Scholar for University of Tokyo. I'm stuck here in PHL, Philly. Would love to hear your update. Danilo, I don't — first of all, it's very hard to get any visas to come in for students. So getting a visa is going to be really hard. I have a friend in Ecuador who has a very handsome son named Kobe. And he's going to come here to study. But to get the visa I think is going to be really challenging. If your start date is in September, there's some hope. But right now, you can't really come into Japan. And I believe if you look at the JNTO website, it says that the visas that were issued have not, I don't know if it's been cancelled, but it seems like they've been suspended. So I would highly recommend if you have a visa to come to Japan that you call the embassy and get some information or the consulate so that you're clear on where you stand so you can plan accordingly.

00:36:08 John Daub: Right now, it seems that I don't see Americans coming into Japan in this foreseeable future. I don't even see fall right now. Because the numbers as I showed you, just keep the numbers keep going up. I mean, the U.S. has not overcome its initial first spike and now it's going up even faster. So that's something that worries us. I don't even see a spike. I just see whoosh. So, you know, I'm not a religious person but I do pray and I pray for the U.S. and for the families there because it's such a tough time. It's unfortunate. But I do pray. That's the right word.

00:37:00 John Daub: My husband is supposed to be in Japan for about two to three months for work. Is there anywhere he should go? Missy, I don't know where you're from but it's going to be really hard to get in to Japan. But if it's for work, there's a possibility that some of the first travelers that are coming into Japan are going to be business people who are doing business with the government or with Japanese businesses. They can get special visas to enter. I would say stay out of Tokyo. Go to places where there are no infections maybe. I don't know. Kanazawa is a place that I'm very attracted to right now because I have access to make a video on food over there. So I'm going to be filming all next week in Kanazawa which means that you're coming with me if you're only in Japan. Go, you're coming with me. I make it sound like a song and that's kind of cool. So you're coming with me to Kanazawa next week and we're going to be doing a lot of stuff. We're going to be there for four nights, five days filming. It's going to be pretty cool. I'm looking forward to this and we have access to some pretty cool places. So look forward to some neat streams.

00:38:11 John Daub: Omichi Ichiba. I'm going to be doing a live stream in Omichi Ichiba which is the fish market in Kanazawa. So that should be pretty cool. It's very, very quiet there. Almost no tourists in Kanazawa. I'm going to be doing a live stream that I did last week in Higashichaya which is the tea house district where the geishas traditionally entertained very wealthy men back in the Edo period. It's like empty there. It's empty, which is crazy. So we're going to have some pretty cool live streams from Kanazawa to give you... Maybe you want to put that on your radar. It's like a mini Kyoto. A lot of you have been there. It's like a mini Kyoto. In Kyoto, everything is really close by without the really heavy crowds of tourists. Because everybody is so attracted to Kyoto. Not as many people go to Kanazawa. And I don't know why. They have everything that Kyoto has. Temples, shrines, tea houses, geisha, history. Kanazawa was not bombed during World War II. Kyoto wasn't bombed either. So both of those cities have very old buildings and architecture that has remained throughout history. So it's a really cool place. So that's a good thing.

00:39:22 John Daub: I do have some news that I want to share with you. Let me see if there's anything else here. Yeah. So the department stores are open. I showed you in a Ginza live stream about 10 days ago that when Mitsukoshi department store opened up, they had... Everybody had face shields. The staff was... People were asked to line up. They weren't really social distancing, which was scary. But there was a staff member there to pump the alcohol into everybody's hands. He's the pumper. And I thought that was really interesting. Very Japanese omotenashi, kind of a hospitality type of thing. Going that extra step to make people feel welcome. They also had heat sensing cameras. And there was a staff member checking to make sure nobody came in that had a high fever. So I thought that these steps were really good precautions to try to keep the citizens safe as we move back to an opening economy.

00:40:22 John Daub: Alright, some news everybody. Wow, we got some members! Whoa, check this out! Hey, Benji became a member. Insider, welcome. Ana Santos, welcome. Oh, this is awesome. I'm so happy to see this cool mic is here. How you doing? Andrea, welcome. El Lupitas, welcome. Dark Zaku. Hey, Dark Zaku! Long time no see. Insider, awesome. The mic is the word of the day indeed. Alright, two big, three big announcements.

00:40:56 John Daub: First announcements, I did start a new channel that is open. The new episode is coming this week. I always want to make my episodes perfect, so I'm double checking stuff. The animated opening is done. It's in there. Our good friend PVG has added in a new title call. So we have, that is ready to roll. And the channel is not monetized yet. So I'm just waiting a couple of days because I can't even do live streams. If you go check out the Instagram, my Instagram feed, we got to 1,000 subscribers so fast that I got the notification to 10,000 subscribers. I got the notification that we got to 10,000 subscribers before I got the notification that we'd done 1,000 subscribers from YouTube. It's crazy. The first one that came in, they sent it at the same time, but the 10,000 one came before the 1,000 one. That's just a testament of our amazing community. It's going to be really hard to start over. I'm not going to get into the specifics why, but the first episode is going to be in Noboribetsu, which I filmed in February before everything was shutting down. It was the last festival that I believe was really held at the same time as the snow festival. And you'll see. And Benji, thanks for signing up to Patreon. I just got the notification, Benji. That's funny. Yeah, the snow festival is coming up. The channel, in 48 hours, we had 20,000 subscribers, which is crazy. I did not expect that. We went from 250 to 20,000. So if you want to be in the first 100,000, to be the crew, to be in the first 100,000, you will be remembered. We will always remember the first 100,000. Anyways, thank you for that. That's one announcement.

00:43:06 John Daub: I have a video of how I'm going to be, what I'm going to be programming on that channel. Thank you. Welcome. Awesome. And Thunderbeard. Thunderbeard, I like that. Hey, Marty. Awesome. Okay, announcement number two is for the new channel, I'm going to be doing a video with our community in mind. I'm kind of lucky because I do have an established community on YouTube that has found me. So I'm going to make a video for you guys. And what I'm asking is if you do have a smartphone and you have a family or you're just alone, I don't know, you want to send me a 10-second video of you waving and saying only in Japan or saying hi, I will put you on an episode in Only in Japan and put that as one of our first episodes because I think that I can't forget what makes this channel special and it is you. If no one is watching the channel, then I don't have any reason to make content. I don't make this for me. I make it for you. For you.

00:44:53 John Daub: I put a link in the description here. You can upload 15-second videos. You're only going to be on the screen for maybe 3 to 5 seconds. But if you want to wave to the camera, say hi, I'll write your name and where you're from. And you have 36 hours to send the video. Do not send vertical video. Do not take your video like this. Take your video like this. If you send it vertical video, you won't make the cut. Probably. And MP4, MOV files, and M4V files will be okay. Anything else, I'm not even going to open it. They'll end up being deleted because it could be a threat. I don't know. I don't want to open this. So you can send this link. Send it to me. Just make sure the lighting is good. Maybe go outside. Do not stand up against the wall. Give yourself some distance between you and the background. And it's going to be perfect. You can just wave at the camera. I might even say your name and say where you're from. But we'll make it really fun. I want you all to have a chance to be on the show. I know that you can't come to Japan right now. You can't meet me. You can't get a You Found Me card. But I can put you on the show. So that's what we're going to do.

00:45:29 John Daub: Thank you. So video submissions are open for 36 hours starting now. So use your smartphone. Use a camera. You can use really good video. Just wave. Say hi. You can say only in Japan and wave if you want. You'll have about 3 to 5 seconds on that. So move quickly. Oh! This is really good! This is really good. Okay.

00:45:36 John Daub: So I've been working on a secret project. Top secret. And this is something that's very, very important to me. I'm somebody who loves fireworks. I made a lot of friends with the Japan Fireworks Association. And now we've known each other for almost over a year now. Really good people over there. And when I asked them if there were going to be any fireworks festivals going on this year, and they said practically zero. I thought about what I could do to help because fireworks manufacturers have nothing to make. They don't have anything to do. They're not making fireworks. So I wanted to put on my own fireworks festival. It's the only in Japan Hanabi Taikai. That's right. And I'm going to be doing a campaign with viewers that we're going to self-fund our own Hanabi Taikai. That's sort of what I wanted to do. And if we can't raise the money, I guess, you know, one way or another I'll find a way to raise the money. But I'll be... We're thinking of things that we might want to give as rewards for this. And I think we might do a Kickstarter. Heaven forbid. I'm not doing anything like 2017. I'm keeping it very, very simple. No physical DVDs or anything like that. Nothing like that. We will be doing digital downloads of the videos only. We're going to have Hanabi Taikai posters. Which are pretty cool. Like Japanese looking posters for the fireworks festival. You can't get them this year because they've all been cancelled. But we're going to make our own. And we're also going to be having postcards. Commemorative postcards. And probably sell t-shirts and stuff on another site to raise money. Just not on Kickstarter because my experience says, Tread lightly. Don't make Blu-ray videos. That's it. However, alright.

00:47:42 John Daub: What I'm going to be doing. Irvan, don't donate yet! Oh, God. Okay, we'll put it into the kitty. But the fireworks festival is very, very... It's based in history. What I wanted to do. I'm somebody who has a great deal of respect for history. Where we all came from. And learning from that. Japanese fireworks started in 1733. They've had it since the 17th century. But it really started in 1733. In that year, there was an awful plague in Japan. A lot of people died in 1733. And that summer, they had 20 fireworks makers made 20 fireworks. They made 20 fireworks. And they launched it in 1733 as a memorial to people that lost their lives from the plague. Or had starved because of the drought. I think that the world now has — we've never seen anything like this. Well, we haven't seen anything like this for a long time. And I think we need to have our fireworks. Not only just to support the fireworks maker. But when I can tie it to a story like this. Of historical significance. I think that's what I'm going to do. I think it's something that we should do.

00:49:04 John Daub: Maybe just to remember this time as well. Maybe we end up doing this every year. I don't know. But if it's born — if the idea of doing an only in Japan fireworks festival. Fan-funded, viewer-funded festival. Is born from this. As something we're seeing as a tragedy. As a pandemic. Then I think that we want something good to come from this. All I know is that I want to help my friends that are doing fireworks. That don't have a job. And we can do that.

00:49:30 John Daub: I'm going to live stream the fireworks festival. Okay? First of all, I'm going to live stream the fireworks festival. I'm going to sell the video in 8K if I can. Canon R5, please give me access. 8K video if I can. And put that up for people who want to see this in a playback. You will be supporting the Hanabi makers. This will be launched not in Tokyo. In Akita prefecture. We found a site. A spot that will allow us to launch. And if you want to support, that would be really great. We're going to be opening up the Kickstarter pretty soon. And I'll give you a lot more information when we do. Here on Go as an update. But as I said, the economy looks grim right now. We're in a recession. Recession. There's not a lot that I can do personally. Except maybe bring our communities together. And do something good. And if anything I learned from this year. We need to do something good. We need to think about each other. And I know that you guys are taking really good care of me. And I'm so grateful for that. A lot of artists and creators. Are not doing well at all. So we need to do what we can to support other artists and creators too. And that's what I'm going to do.

00:51:04 John Daub: This fall. I've been thinking about and working with this project. For about six months now. It's not an easy thing to put together. Launching fireworks in Japan of this scale. You need like permits and stuff. This is not an easy thing. But we're going to put on our own fireworks festival. I think it's a really good thing. And I'm really excited about that. That's going to take place in October. After the summer. So I'm looking forward to that. Live streaming it. Access postcards. We're going to do this thing. We're going to make sure that this happens. If you have any questions, you can leave them in the comments below. I'm always so thankful.

00:51:26 John Daub: How big is the fireworks festival? Tasty. The minimum buy-in is $15,000. That's the minimum price to pay to start one. $15,000. I believe that the balls — I'm going to see if I can get one bigger than the one that's allowed in Tokyo. I can't buy that Yon Shakudama. Forget it. It's not going to happen. That thing probably costs like $100,000. But we can get really decent sized ones, I think. And Akita is a place with a very small population where we're going to be shooting it. Which allows us access to shoot off bigger ones. So we're going to talk and see what the sizes are. But it's going to take some... It really depends on what kind of support we receive from this. But the smallest buy-in is $15,000. And if we don't get that number, probably I'm going to have to shell it out myself. But it seems like — it seems like — it's something that we would want to do anyways. Because, geez, we need fireworks. Right? I can't imagine a year without fireworks. It just — it doesn't seem right to me. So we're going to do it ourselves. That's the way — that's the way we do it. Right? If — if other people aren't doing it, you got to go and do it yourself.

00:52:44 John Daub: Jennifer French, is Earth Day celebration — Thank you so much for asking about this. Yes. Yes, yes, yes. Kodo is — I'm going to interview with Kodo. Staff. A little bit before the Earth Day celebration. But Sarugashima is kind of closed. Meaning there's not a lot of people going back and forth there. They're limiting it because they don't want infections to spread on the island. It makes sense. Because things spread fast on an island. But Kodo is going to be putting on the Earth celebration. And they're going to be live streaming it to everybody. You don't need to buy a ticket or anything. Anybody can watch. And there's reasons behind why they're going to be doing this too. And I want to share that with you. Through Kodo's words. I don't want to be the one to have to tell you that. So we're going to have an interview with Kodo. They're really good friends of mine. I got to hang out with all of the members. And they're like celebrities too. It's their big time taiko group here. And hang out with them. And stay at their training center. And see how they gel together as a community. And what makes their music so good. Is the fact that they know each other so well. They're going to continue. And do that Earth celebration Taiko Drum Festival live. So you can't go and see it in person. And you couldn't come to Japan anyways. But they're going to bring the Taiko to you. And I believe they've hired a really professional company. That's going to make sure that the audio is really, really good. I hope it's like surround sound. But you'll have some Taiko drums, which is really exciting.

00:54:18 John Daub: Oh, the sky got so dark. The rain's coming. But that's good news. Thank you so much. For asking about that. That means a lot. And I'm going to keep you updated. Most of the festivals this summer are shut down or canceled or suspended. Just because they don't want people coming together. So ASMR is Irvan. I'm going to be filming our Hanabi Taikai in ASMR. We're going to be renting a special microphone unit that Peter told me about. That allows you to take the audio in such a crisp sound. So we're going to be trying to do that as well. So anyone who supports will get ASMR fireworks. It's pretty bad arse. Didn't say a bad word.

00:55:08 John Daub: I'm a bit late, but can I get a quick recap? I'll give you a recap. Japan is doing okay. Kanae and I are doing well. My dad said to take vitamin D3. He said that people who lost their lives, as a result of this, had deficiencies in vitamin D3. One of the reasons is that everyone is staying inside now. They're not getting enough sunshine either. So try to get as much sun. But take D3 supplements, he said. So Kanae and I are taking D3 supplements to try to make sure that our immune systems are boosted and doing well. The older you get, the harder it is to produce the D3, I think. And I'm a little bit darker skinned. Kind of a mocha. My mother's from India, so I tan well. Hey, Paolo, welcome. And yeah, it's harder for me to make vitamin D3 because of the darker skin in the summer. So we're taking supplements, which should keep us a little bit safer. If there's any science behind there. I'll try and do that, writes in Olam Drob. I'm pretty sun sensitive and don't get much vitamin D as is. Definitely. I think it's a good thing to keep your vitamin D up in a pandemic. Eat well, John. You can actually produce D. Yes, we can't actually produce D. That's right. I've been taking it through the pills. But what is it like these seeds have? There's some sort of little black seeds that I bought at Costco that have vitamin D3 in them or something. So, yeah, it might be a supplement that you want to take. I'm always trying to find a way to help our community. So that's my information to you. That comes from my dad, who's not a doctor, but he plays one at home.

00:57:07 John Daub: I feel like a Palo Tokyo stroke your model for making videos. I don't know. I don't know. Hey, you know what? Let me put it to you like this. If anyone wants to copy the style of videos that I do, they're going to have to work their arse off. OK, this is not easy. And if you're going to if you're going to try to snake it, all the power you can. It's not a — you know, it's not. I got to know. So I encourage good creators, right? It's if you if you're willing to put in the work on YouTube. And this is my final thing. If you're willing to put the work on YouTube, work really hard, be consistent, not give up when when nothing happens and you keep on doing it and you tell stories that that people want to watch and you tell them well so you can get people to watch. You can't get people to subscribe unless you put out worthwhile stuff that people want to watch. It's just that's just the way. It is. And if you if you can make a career copying somebody else or their style. And I'm not saying he does that. I just think he's really creative and he works his butt off. OK, and he's got a son named Wolverine. How awesome is that? Seriously, power. OK, all the credit, all credit to him. Nothing but love. Nothing but love.

00:58:27 John Daub: Yeah. When is Japan going to be open to tourism? This is like, what do you think I'm doing? All right. Everyone says, why do I make these live streams an hour long? Now you know why? Because everyone's joining us a little bit late. Tourism probably from the United States. Don't — don't book tickets for a while. Canada, maybe you can think about it. Australia, get your suitcases ready. Vietnam, you're already here, probably. Although the first flight. NHK had videos of it. Get this. They made people wear like like patient outfits that you wear at the hospital. Pants and shoes and coverings for your shoes, your pants and your clothes. They made you wear that to get on the plane. Gloves, mask, shield. And then you sat on the plane from Vietnam to Japan. On arrival, you had a PCR test. If you were negative for antibodies, then you were allowed in without quarantine. That seems to work for me. Is that the future of travel? I'm not sure. I don't know if NHK, if that clip is still up. But the travelers who came from Vietnam, they had they had full patient wear on. It looked really ridiculous. Vietnam. And that was the first flight where Japanese businessmen flew to Vietnam. Japan flight open. It was it was pretty funny. I'm kind of kind of giggling at the steps. And how far that they went to to do this. But I don't see the video. I think you can find it if you Google. If you Google it, NHK World had this about a week ago. I think a week ago they opened up flights to Vietnam. It's a good sign. Who has a son named Wolverine? Paolo. Paolo. Our friend Paolo, he has a son, very cute little baby boy, was born. I believe it's been it's been a month now. And that made me really happy to see because, yeah, it's like a bright spot in this pandemic when you when you have a friend who has a baby. That was really good.

01:00:53 John Daub: WRX Turbo. This is for the fireworks. Hopefully you will be sending some CB19 off with a bang. WRX Turbo. You got that right. That's going to we're going to put that towards something pretty good. I want to say thank you to everybody. This is a great way to end. We are in July 1st, by the way. You are still in June 30th. But I'll tell you this. July 1st is a little bit cloudy. It's a cooler day, but we're going to be OK. Stay safe, everybody. Take care of yourself. If you have a question, leave it in the comments below. I usually will answer them. I'll give you more information on the new channel. New episode coming there this week, a couple of episodes. I'll be kind of filming next week. Thank you so much for for being an awesome part of this great community. We have a Discord server where you can talk about this, the after parties on Discord. Patreon postcards are of Kanazawa's Higashichaya district. They're going to be going out in a few days from Kanazawa. I like to send it with the postmark and the stamps. Try to pick the best of all of that. And that's what we do. Stay safe, everybody.