00:07 John Daub: Hello everybody, welcome to Tokyo. That in front of me is McDonald's Japan, one of the shops here in Monzen-nakachō. During cherry blossom season, they've done something innovative once again. They've taken a pie entrée and made it into something seasonal. I already bought the pie—the lady in there said oishii desu yo, it's really good. So even the staff say that, it must be pretty good. Let me sneak in here, take a look at the menu, and then we're going to walk over to find some cherry blossoms. There it is up there in the corner—historical reference, this did actually exist. You can see the Samurai Mac burgers are still there and they have some pretty unique offerings. They have a teritama burger with egg—that looks really good.

01:11 John Daub: You can't film here. Okay. These two pies we're going to be eating on the way over to the cherry blossoms. It takes a little bit of time to get over there and the wind is really bad, so I'm taking the side streets. I think I know the way. The wind should be better here. Let me break open this pie. You're not technically allowed to eat while walking in Japan—it's considered rude. I'm not too worried, especially if there aren't a lot of people around, but people like to be armchair critics of your bad habits.

02:02 John Daub: At this intersection, let's make a left and walk towards the cherry blossoms. You can see the wind is blowing pretty hard. Just have to be careful—straight ahead at the end of the street, you can see the cherry blossoms blooming. They're about 35-40% bloomed and I bet tomorrow it'll be better, although it was raining this morning. We don't have blue skies anymore—it's cloudy, overcast, raining pretty hard about an hour ago, so I didn't know if I was gonna be live-streaming at all. There's no real explanation why you're not allowed to walk and eat—it's just considered impolite. One reason is that food often drops and makes a mess. Also with smartphones, you're not focusing on walking. Maybe it's showing your food and making people jealous—there's probably a half dozen things.

03:21 John Daub: But nevertheless, here's a cherry blossom right here and this looks like a good corner. Look at that—it makes that building look like a place I might want to live, with a cherry blossom tree right in front. For anyone watching, this is Monzen-nakachō, about a 10-minute bike ride to Tokyo Station. Let's break this open—I can't not eat pie right now. Whoa, the wind is strong. Hide behind here—the wind is a little better in the corner right next to the fire hydrant. This is always the best place to eat. At least I got my drink taken care of. Whoa! It does smell different—it passes the smell test. Here it is. Took four minutes for the actual pie unboxing: Sakura mochi pie. In Japanese it's right to left, top to bottom. The English is left to right. You got cherry blossoms on the design of the package, which is pretty cool, and a QR code.

05:06 John Daub: What was really unique about this pie was that it was pink. Check it out—it's actually pink. Not sure if I'm particularly happy to eat this because of food coloring—it's not gonna be healthy or organic. But from McDonald's, you put an asterisk next to even the salads. The best thing is just to get into it. I'm waiting for notifications to go out—I started this with about 15 minutes notice on the YouTube channel. Thanks everybody for watching. If you want notifications, go into Discord—I put them in the alert section. How many of you would try this? It's about 150 yen, like a dollar fifteen—pretty affordable.

06:28 John Daub: Wow, you got to check this out. Inside there's anko red bean paste and on the right there's mochi. It's pretty good—salty, and cherry blossom as a confection is sweet but there's a touch of salt from preserving it, or maybe the cherry blossom leaf they pickle with salt. You have this floral sweetness with some salt. But the weird thing is, it's not really sweet—it's more salty than sweet. It's bizarre.

07:43 John Daub: I'm looking at possible lunch options right here in front of Yoshinoya—so this is Matsuya. Sorry about the wind, everybody—it's a windy spring day. Now you can see the mochi on the right side and the anko on the left. Let's make our way over to the cherry blossoms across the street. The signal is not the best—maybe the wind is blowing it away. I still got half the pie—I saved it. You're getting the full experience with the wind sound. I ran out the door so fast because it had stopped raining—we've had crappy weather today. As soon as the rain broke, I got my gimbal and ran out, but forgot the wireless mics with wind protection. This river is quite famous—I think I was here last year and the signal wasn't good either.

09:19 John Daub: It's a nice quiet area. Here's the mochi and red bean paste. My feedback: a little oily, which is expected because they deep fry the pies. More salty than I thought—lightly sweet, but you can tell the anko red bean paste is savory. It has sugar in it, so it's enhanced red beans with sugar—maybe not Japanese red beans, probably imported. The mochi is good—got that chew to it, but not too much. Interesting because sakura mochi isn't something you'd put in a pie—I've never had sakura mochi pie. But you put the two together—it's like the essence of Japan. The salt works on it, like salty caramel—salty red bean paste with chewy consistency. I like it—no complaints.

11:04 John Daub: Now that we've eaten the pie, let's go—my bicycle is right here. Let's take a look at some cherry blossoms on this Saturday. Put my mask on to be polite. It's real windy. They put a tag on my bicycle—ah, I should have parked somewhere else. We found where the pigeons go during cherry blossoms—Leo would go crazy if he saw this. That's a ticket or warning—I shouldn't have parked there. I walk slowly so they don't all fly away and attack me. They have their own little cherry blossom event with those flowers—I think they're breeding.

12:33 John Daub: The cherry blossom event here at the Fukagawa, Monzen-nakachō is really nice. These are older trees that swoop down into the canals—they used to have boats during the Edo period. This was the original way to get goods from place to place using canals, not trains—going back to the Edo period. We're still not 100% bloomed. Oh, and you're in for a real treat—check it out, one of those boats is coming this way right now. They're tourist boats—you can hear them cry out with songs to let everybody know they're coming. They have some kind of performance on there—this is the best boat ever, they got a party going on. They were waving to everybody—happy boating.

14:18 John Daub: Leo and Kanae are at grandpa's house today. They're going past the beautiful cherry blossoms right now in that boat—that would be the ultimate. I would love to do this for summer when tourism returns, get a bunch of people and do something down the canals in Tokyo. Not sure how much the boat is—whether you rent the whole thing or pay per person for a meal. Everyone has it a little different, but on the side it has 512—Fukagawa Cruises, F-U-K-U-G-A-W-A, that's the name of this canal area. You don't see a lot of cherry blossoms because of the wind—check this out on the ground, we're losing some. With rain and high wind, when you get to mankai full bloom, the first wind or rain brings a cherry blossom tsunami—that's amazing to see, but sad because it ends the short-lived beautiful season.

15:54 John Daub: This is another Somei Yoshino cherry blossom tree—a blossom storm! If you're using high shutter speeds, you get awesome stop action, or low shutter speeds and they stream across the screen—a sakura petal blizzard. Renting that boat is 45,000 yen according to the local government—that's about 450 bucks. If we get 20 people, pretty affordable. Let's walk around—I'm afraid the signal's not good in certain places, so I apologize if it goes out.

16:56 John Daub: There's a sakura mochi pie with some sakura—that's funny. Check it out, there's an event here. They have other cruises—you can see there's a boat. This cruise is 2,900 yen, about 25 dollars, with a discount for kids to elementary school—1,000 yen off, not bad. A little early—the next boat is at 3. The yakatabune are pretty interesting beasts. About 35-40%—tomorrow is supposed to be even nicer, fingers crossed for good weather. Whoa, this is so beautiful—I love the dark bark of the sakura trees with the white blossoms, such a beautiful contrast.

19:05 John Daub: For anyone joining, this is the sakura mochi pie from McDonald's—not bad, a little salty, sweet, oily, pink, and a little left. Here comes the cruise. Again, got that crispy crusty pastry end—that's nice. It's really crowded but everyone's wearing masks. Let's go around this bridge and come back before somebody throws my bicycle away—we'll see what the ticket says. It's telling people please don't do hanami—flower watching—because of COVID, preventing blue sheets and celebrating underneath. Typically there'd be a ton of people, but not today. This big tree looks like 25% bloomed.

21:11 John Daub: It had the salty taste of the preserved sakura leaves—what does sakura really taste like? There has to be a floral taste, but maybe too much sugar for a sakura confection—it should be delicate sweetness, a greenness to it. There's some people celebrating hanami on the right side underneath the canopy—guess you can rent that. Nice to see signs of normal life after two years—I'm not criticizing anybody for having fun. Get your three shots and be careful. This boat's going towards Nihonbashi—for 30-year-olds, $25 gets a pretty good cruise.

22:41 John Daub: I think this would be fun for Leo—I wouldn't want shoulder-to-shoulder like the last one, but this has space. There's the website: ss3.jp. Here comes another cruise—hey, they waved. I'll see if I can get Kanae and Leo tomorrow morning—usually they don't wake up till 11 or 12, so nice chance for the first or second boat. This is going to be spectacular in 48 hours. What's your favorite cherry blossom spot? If you've been to Japan, share in the live chat—Ueno is popular, but they're suspending events. Just let people celebrate—Japan's still not at the bottom of the sixth wave, but things are getting better. It stinks it overlaps cherry blossom season—maybe mid-April Tohoku will be best.

25:57 John Daub: One reason I'm asking for favorite spots is I want to do an 8K cherry blossom walk and upload it—some suggestions might be good. This one looks about 50%—it'll be better tomorrow. Just a couple notes—this postcard is going to Alabama, thank you Ash, with a kimono stamp from Monzen-nakachō. We've sold about 100. This is the Blu-ray for the 2017 hitchhiking trip—five years ago today I started from Kagoshima to Wakkanai, with dates and pictures of everyone who picked me up. Pretty cool—available on onlyinjapan.tv store, shipped in the U.S. cheaper and faster.

28:29 John Daub: There you have it—beautiful, getting closer to full bloom around Tuesday or Wednesday. I'll be there taking you to nice spots over the next few days. I'll have better audio next time. Looking forward to Q&A for Patreon at month's end—appreciate the support. Don't forget the postcard club—50 left, snow monkeys of Nagano, next main channel episode dropping soon. See you everybody, have a good day, good night from Monzen-nakachō. Happy spring.