00:00:00 John Daub: Welcome to the beautiful city of Tokyo! This is Yushima Tenjin. This is a shrine that goes back all the way to the year 458, I believe, which is like 5th century, which is just crazy. We're going to be taking a look inside of this shrine, which is very famous for the plum blossoms. Tenjin is the god of learning, and it makes a lot of sense because just down the street is Tokyo University, or Todai, Tokyo Daigaku. So a lot of students will come here to wish for success in their schoolwork.

00:00:33 John Daub: And we're going to be walking around, but I do have to tell you something. I'm going to get my mask on here. The plum blossoms are at the end of its cycle. I'm like one week too late, but that might not be a bad thing because there's also a lot less people here. So buckle up for a good 30 minutes as we just take a slow look around one of the most beautiful historical shrines.

00:00:59 John Daub: So we're in the Ueno area. This is in Bunkyo Ward, which is where Tokyo Dome is. It's right next to Ueno Park. Ueno Park is in Taito Ward, which is another one of Tokyo's 23 wards. And as always, don't walk down the center of the shrine. Some people forget about it. Ed Lee was here back in 2014, I see. A lot of the food stands are actually closed, but we'll see if we can find something that's available.

00:01:43 John Daub: There's a couple of ways to get in here. The main way that most people come is this direction. This is actually coming from Yushima Station, which is on the Chiyoda Line, which is a green loop on the Tokyo Metro. And there's two stairways. There's one for women only, which I thought was really interesting. But some dudes didn't really care and did it anyways. I was not one of them. I took the men's route, which is actually open to all.

00:02:09 John Daub: This is a plum blossom tree right here, which is called ume (plum) in Japanese. And you can see, unfortunately, it's past its prime. But the one next to it maybe is hanging on with about 30%, maybe 50%. Let's get a closer look at the plum blossom here. So this is a plum blossom, and it's very different than the sakura (cherry blossoms). The Somei Yoshino looks somewhat similar. They have a more pink center to it, and the blossoms are a little bit bigger. The tree branches are also more dull. They're delicate. The ume blossoms or plum blossom trees have a much stronger and darker color to it than the Somei Yoshino.

00:03:04 John Daub: You can see a lot of the petals on this have just flown away very recently. But the great thing about coming out and seeing the plum blossoms is it just makes you so excited for what comes next. The sakura or cherry blossoms, which I know a lot of you won't be able to make this year. I know that the cherry blossoms will be inaccessible, except right here on the top. But I'm going to be live streaming all of that, a couple of the spots. At least you'll feel a little bit more like you're with me. And we're going to be enabling 5G sometime this month, so possibly we get better quality live streams. Thank you so much for subscribing and being a part of this community here. Every year it gets a little bit better, the live streaming.

00:03:48 John Daub: Oh, check it out. There's a wedding going on over there. How striking. Let's wrap around and see if we can get another shot. Oh, they got some amazake (sweet fermented rice drink). Alright, we'll wrap around and get some amazake. Right now the kafun (pollen) is actually why I'm wearing this mask more than anything. It's really bad. And for the last two weeks I've been knocked out from it. But came by bicycle. We're outdoors. It's all good.

00:04:48 John Daub: Wow. Look at the way the light is striking it from the side there. It just really illuminates it with that dark tree, the trunk of the ume tree in the background. I do like the ume blossoms. Look at the way that they point out. They just add texture to the flowers, right? And this is where the petals used to be hanging onto there. They just, they all fall off in a different way. This is beautiful.

00:05:39 John Daub: Let's take a look on this side here. I can't go off of the trail. We have to be respectful of the rules here. Yeah, Tokyo probably is the worst place for pollen because of the sugi (Japanese cedar) trees that were planted after World War II. There's an expectation that there would be a lot of rebuilding, so they planted a lot of trees. But then it became way too expensive to use those trees. So they've gone uncut, just producing pollen like really badly.

00:06:19 John Daub: Oh, check it out. This is a new branch. Look at the green color to it. So it hasn't turned dark yet. And there's two blossoms just hanging on right off of the branch. They're just popping out. That's stunning. Really nice. Thanks, everybody, for being here. It's nice to share this.

00:07:09 John Daub: I get so excited for flowers at this time of year. They bring hope, don't they? They just make you feel a little bit better. In the worst situations, the one thing you can count on is Mother Nature. Unless it's Mother Nature that's putting us in a worse situation, which happens quite a bit here in Tokyo. Typhoons, earthquakes. Tsunamis. Mudslides. We've got a whole range of different reasons that make Tokyo dangerous. Crime and flowers are not one of them.

00:08:16 John Daub: It's the cycle of life, everybody. You know what this means? This means we made it through winter. That's sort of a big deal, right? We've kind of come through the worst part of winter. And I know it might be cold. Danny in Canada told me on Discord that he had a minus 30 degree morning. 30 degrees Celsius up there near Montreal in Quebec. It's crazy cold still. But here in Tokyo, with the sun out, it's quite warm. I'm actually wearing shorts.

00:08:51 John Daub: It looks like we've lost most of the blossoms except for this one right here. Hold on, little guy. You see him there? He's doing his best to just hang on. All his friends have gone. This one last blossom, the middle of it is sort of turning brown there. But he's holding on for dear life. You can make it. And you have been recognized, little blossom. The last one on this tree. It's crazy. Hang in there.

00:09:26 John Daub: There are lots of different kinds of ume blossoms. Don't ask me what they are. Maybe somebody who's watching the livestream will be able to chime in. But they come in different colors. This one has white blossoms that look very much like the Somei Yoshino ones that are very popular. That make up, I don't know, maybe like 80% of the cherry blossoms in Japan. The white with pink center. But the ume blossoms also have pink ones. They have purple ones. There's lots of different colors. And each one brings like a different feeling when you look at it. And that's what makes cherry blossom season so special. For me, it's about the trees. It really is about the trees. We see them 365 days out of the year. But only during this period do they look like this. And they metamorphosize. And it's something super special. And in years like we've had over the last 365 days, it's just nice to know that we've made it out of winter.

00:10:47 John Daub: Alright, there's not much there. But we do see a beautiful bride in the distance over there. Do you see? This would be a great place to have a wedding. Beautiful. Here are the ema (wish plaques) or tablets that you write your onegai (wishes) on. A lot of Todai, or Tokyo University students will write their wishes here. This is the year of the ox. Or some say ushi (ox). Oh look, that one's got ume blossoms on the back. Each of these ema has somebody's wish. Something that they really want, they're praying for. A lot of it has to do with studying. Sometimes they have art on there. So we can hope that everybody's wish comes true. I don't see any in English. Every now and then you'll have a tourist that comes. But because so few tourists have been coming to Japan, you don't really see a lot. Actually, there's none in English. Look, somebody drew a cow on their ema.

00:12:08 John Daub: Anna Direct writes in here, thanks for the stream, John. I've seen a tree with both light pink and dark pink flowers on different sides of the tree. Do you know what that's about? Sometimes, I've seen trees like that too. Sometimes they produce different blossoms. I don't know exactly. There's one beautiful one right here. Maybe somebody in the chat will be able to point this out. And if you're watching in the playback, in the comments, if you know any of these double-colored trees, you know the variety of it, let us know.

00:13:07 John Daub: This one is a smaller tree and later blooming. Again, some of the sakura trees are actually blooming. It just depends on the variety. You're going to get 720p in mobile live streams, but I'm hoping by the end of the month, this might change because of 5G and updates in the app. For most of you that aren't used to live streaming, most of the fun is just being here live. And if you can't be, playback's pretty good, pretty cool too. All right, let's see if we can find some amazake here.

00:14:03 John Daub: Support the local amazake salesman, right? I think the high season would be probably February 20th to March 1st. And now we're just past there. So we're going to get a couple of ume blossoms. I'm going to go back to the ume blossoms. Let's go get a cup of amazake just to say thank you to Mr. Das, who's definitely sponsoring this cup. Wow, a cup of amazake for all of you. Look at it. We'll have a seat here. Just kind of sit down for a moment. Oh, you can see all of the goodness inside of here. The chunks of rice in there. It was 300 yen for this. About $3. It's non-alcohol.

00:16:11 John Daub: Amazake is so good. It's not too sweet. Just more natural taste to it. It's very easy to put more sugar into the amazake than it needs to be. This is a perfect balance. Chunky. It's got chunks of rice in it, which gives it a filling feeling. You can get full with just drinking amazake. Good lunch. After this live stream, I'm going to take you over to Ueno Park and just get an update on the cherry blossom situation inside the Ueno Park and the protocol. Because I know that they have a different way to do it this year than last year because of the pandemic. So we'll go take a look after this. In another live stream on how Ueno Park is shaping up. So you're going to want to tune in after this.

00:17:41 John Daub: Alright, let's go take a look at that one tree that's just the outlier. It's like in full bloom. This variety has fuller, thicker blossoms. A little bit of pink to them. Do you see that? There's a tinge there. Again, the sun isn't hitting it. So it's not as bright as it should be. But there's some pink ones in there. Kind of a violet pink in there. They do very much look like popcorn, don't they?

00:19:14 John Daub: There's a backside to the shrine, too. Oh, there was Hiroshima okonomiyaki (savory pancake). It's closed down probably because of the end of the festival or maybe it opens up at night again. It's a weekday. All right, check this out. Look at all these ema. It is stacked on there. Extraordinary. Look at it from behind. That is a lot of ema. This place is famous for it.

00:20:28 John Daub: Check this one out. There's something attached to it. Oh, that's another wooden structure to it. Somebody's written their name in there. Takehiro, looks like. And some Spanish. Que la energia estudios, studying. All right, we're gonna go underneath this bridge here to the other side. I don't know what they have, but I believe there's a couple of other trees here.

00:21:09 John Daub: Yeah, here's some more ema. On this side is, last year, when, was it two years ago? Kanae and I came here and there were some artisans that were art students that were drawing portraits for a couple hundred yen, and Kanae and I got one drawn from them for 500 yen. Good way to support local artists, and we got a nice souvenir out of it. Loads of ema, check it out. They don't actually make plums. That's a great question, Zach. I guess they're just called plum blossoms because of the, it's actually, in Japanese, it's called ume, and they don't actually make ume fruit. I don't know. I've never seen them. But I know that the plum blossoms might have this name because they're more purple in color. And I guess the base ones, you can see there's a purplish in there. It gives it more of a plum look to it, doesn't it?

00:23:21 John Daub: I'm gonna go over to Ueno Park now and go check it out. Wow, that's pretty. Look at them arcing down at the top of the shrine in the distance. That's a nice shot. Nice angle here. Head over there if you wanna talk more about this live stream in Plum Blossoms, if you have any questions. Usually have a few hundred people jump on over there to discuss what we just saw today and the location and things that are around this area. It's a good way to prepare for your trip coming up maybe in the fall or next year early.

00:24:08 John Daub: Here's the exit. I'm pushing really hard Twitter right now. So I'm doing a Q and A on the new Japan Rail passes. Just recently, Japan Rail put out a press release that they're releasing a new Japan Rail pass. A couple of other regional passes too. What is interesting about this is that a lot of them aren't brand new, but they've been changed. Leaning more towards not just foreign tourists, but also to foreign residents living here in Japan. And on Friday, I'm going to Tokyo Station, gonna be doing a live stream there addressing some of those changes. So you're gonna wanna check it out. But if you have any questions, just hashtag me on Twitter, askOIJ, only in Japan, askOIJ to hashtag. And I will answer that question.

00:25:07 John Daub: The back of this is so beautiful. I'm gonna pan over. Wow, that is nice. This would be so much more beautiful if the ume blossoms weren't at the end and the sun was coming from the other side. Little things, little details. I'm happy to be here getting some vitamin D outside. The closest station to Yushima Tenjin is Yushima Station. Y U S H I M A. Or it's like a 15-minute walk from Ueno. Wow, the plum blossoms on this side are really nice. I guess because it doesn't get as much sunshine, so they bloom. It's a little bit cooler on this side, so they stick around a little bit. But you can see that purple tinge in there? That gives it, I guess, the plum blossom name for English. Because they have a plum-colored tinge to it, which makes it different than the sakura, which have more of a pink. And if you're in Tokyo at the middle to end of February, this is a great place to go. This is a great place to take pictures. You're too early for the cherry blossoms? No problem. You have the ume blossoms to fall back on.

00:27:34 John Daub: Yeah, umeshu (plum liqueur) or ume wine. It's not actually wine. It's so good. It's very sweet. I actually put a lot of sugar in there. But if you can't drink Japanese sake, you don't like the taste, almost everybody likes umeshu. It's very palatable. It's more of a dessert drink. Check it out. There's a vending machine, omikuji (fortune) dispenser. It's a robot. It talks. It's really cool.

00:29:12 John Daub: All right, everybody, I'm going to head over to here's a map of Yushima Tenjin. See there's a shrine in the middle. Tenjin is the god of learning, of study. So again, all the students in the area come here. It's a very important one. And again, this shrine dates all the way back to I think it was like 458, the year 458, which seems really, really amazing just to say that. 453 or 458. The 450s. That year.

00:29:55 John Daub: Hello. Oh, thank you. I'm sorry, you're on a lunch. Oh, yeah, it's all right. My friends are going to watch your lunch and they're going to laugh at her voice. Yes, it is. The signal's not too good though right now. Oh, yeah. How do you know about this place? I'm here. I'm going to go to a school called Koto. It's called Koto Academy and I'm learning. Oh, yeah. Sorry. That's all right. Yeah. How you doing? So my name's Sarah. Sorry. But we were tasked to come here and kind of explore the area and use Japanese. Cool. Yeah. I guess we should use Nihongo (Japanese). Nihongo is a little bit. It's a little bit. Yeah. But yeah. I think we're just a week too late here. Oh, yeah. It seems. Yeah. The other side has some nice, nice ume blossoms, but this one looks like it's at the end. Yeah. I live on a street with all sakura trees, so I'm just like waiting for sakura trees and it's going to be beautiful. Two weeks. Two weeks maybe. Yeah. Well, it's great to meet you, Sarah. Good to meet you too. Yes. Hi. Yeah. Lovely to meet you. Yeah. Nice to meet you too. Stay safe.

00:31:05 John Daub: Cool. She's studying at a Japanese school called Koto. So there's a lot of people here that are making it into Japan for study. That's good news. Wow. It's just a shame. I wish I could get, jump on here, jump in here and grab some food. But they're not quite open. All right. I'm going to go. I'm going to head now over to Ueno, which is just straight ahead. I actually don't have any cards because I've just discouraged people from coming to say hi to me because of the pandemic. But I think there was like less than a hundred people who got infected yesterday. So the numbers have been dropping so quickly. Um, so Tokyo is okay right now. I'm going to head over there to Ueno in this direction and check out to see how they're preparing and how they're setting up for the cherry blossoms. So come back in about 30 minutes to only in Japan go. And I'll take you around Ueno Park before we call it a day. I haven't gotten the vaccine yet. We probably, I probably won't be able to get that until maybe June, but we'll see. But the best thing to do is just to take precautions, stay outside. Don't go into tight areas with lots of other people and everything should be okay. All right, everybody take care. It was a good, nice live stream showing off the ume blossoms. And I'll see you over at Ueno Park in 30 minutes. Click that like button too, if you appreciate ume blossoms.