00:00:08 John Daub: Welcome to Shibuya in spring. That's the Yamanote line going over there and I'm in front of Shibuya Station. Yes, Shibuya does have some cherry blossoms. There's the Hachiko statue right in front of me and there are two beautiful Somei Yoshino (Yoshino cherry) trees that are in bloom at the end of March, probably around the first couple days in April. The first rain or wind is going to blow these blossoms away, I think. In fact, you're already starting to see white petals on the ground here in front of the Hachiko statue. There are already white petals if you can see that on the ground. How you doing, Ed? Hey, Joy. Bob Joe, welcome. Hachiko's doing good.

00:00:39 John Daub: There's not as many visitors as there usually is around Shibuya at this time of year, maybe because of the pandemic. There's also a shidarezakura (weeping cherry blossom) tree which is also really pretty. There's just a few blossoms left on it. You can see them glistening in the sun right now as the sun pops out from behind a cloud. The weather is warm. How you doing everybody? I'm going to take you on a very quick walk around the Shibuya area to look at the cherry blossoms. I'm hoping that the signal stays strong. This is a live stream so stuff happens but that's the exciting thing about being live and making sure you get those notifications. Thanks everybody.

00:01:11 John Daub: And by the way, there's a brand new emoji with little Leo who's one year old. It's his birthday emoji. Look at that doggy. Alright, let's circle around and get a closer look at these cherry blossoms here. How you doing PTG? Brandania! Arigato! It's really pretty. And you do get more of an urban feel around here when you're seeing the cherry blossoms. It's different. It is kind of cool because you don't see Shibuya like this except at this time of year. I'm really sorry if the quality's not good. Hopefully it hangs in there just a little bit longer.

00:02:50 John Daub: I love the urban feel with the nature here. It's kinda cool, isn't it? Alright, there's another tree over here. Hachiko's always gonna be the most popular thing, most popular doggy in town. Oh, you can start seeing the trees starting to sprout out. The green leaves are sprouting out. If you can get this angle where the sun is hitting it from behind, it really illuminates the sides of the petals. It's absolutely stunning, like snow. Hey, Michael, Susana's in the house. No, you're not gonna miss the cherry blossoms if you're watching Only in Japan Go. Even if you can't make it here, I will take you to some of the nice spots around the city that you probably would wanna go to. Alright, Christian, thanks for the update.

00:04:04 John Daub: Let's move to another area. I'm gonna come back here and try to film some of the 8K video footage as well and upload that a little bit later because this is one of the spots that I think all of you would like to see. There's the crossing if you could see it—Minecraft quality. Let's get outta here, move to the other side. Now, there's a really famous slope, a street that you can go up that I think is worth it. Maybe at night it's even better. I'm underneath Shibuya Station right now. I haven't been here in ages. Yeah, I filmed about 12 minutes in 8K yesterday at Yoyogi Park and I'll get about 5-6 minutes of Shibuya for you and then try to upload the day after tomorrow, April 1st or before.

00:05:01 John Daub: Let's see what happens. I'm still working on the monkey video. Oh, there's the Moai. If you're ever looking for the meeting point, it's behind Hachiko. There's a Moai statue that a lot of people say, "I'll meet you at the Moai" because it's less crowded. Oh, the last time I was here, I think Spencer was here. Spencer is our Tokyo Disneyland connection. He walked right by me, he waved. I didn't see him but he didn't wanna bring up the flow of the live stream. I'm live streaming so I didn't say hi. I didn't see him. It was like three years ago. Oh, you could just see it over there. Look at that.

00:06:15 John Daub: Alright, we're gonna have to go above ground. They've been working on Shibuya Station for a few years now. For a lot of you who haven't been here during the pandemic, you're gonna see a massively different Shibuya Station than you did the last time you were here or what you expected. These buildings are all new that you see up above. Shibuya Stream—that's where Google's new headquarters in Japan is moved from Roppongi Mori Tower to here, which I heard is wired with the latest internet. The speeds are insane, which makes me upset that, you know, 720p looks good when it looks good but for those of you that are complaining about live stream quality, I'm working on it.

00:07:29 John Daub: Alright, here's the back of the station. It looks so much cleaner now. It was just a mess for the longest time. The bridge is now a bridge that crosses across from Shibuya Station over to Shibuya Scramble Square, the new building here. Well, it looks like it's a renovated building anyways. I'm not sure how new it is. There's not much that I can do about the quality in a crowded space. It is what it is, which is why I'm gonna film it in 8K for you. Alright, let's move on over underneath the highway 246. I used to live down this road in Futako-Tamagawa about 15 years ago.

00:08:08 John Daub: You also can change your settings too from 360p to 720p—little housekeeping. Sometimes in some places around the world, they set it on the low one because there's bandwidth trouble, especially in Europe. You're gonna see lower quality YouTube videos unless you manually adjust it to 4K or 720p in this case. 720p is not that bad for live streaming. That's the standard. Oh, here it is. Check it out. Only at this time of year. And you're seeing models and all sorts of people taking pictures underneath here because it's just like this in full bloom for the next 36 hours and then it's gone.

00:09:24 John Daub: Alright, let's get down in there. The wind makes this real. I didn't set up the mic cuz there's no wind around Shibuya Station but it's a little breeze here. It's the elements that we're really in. There is a breeze. I want you to feel it on the other side. I want you to hear it. I used to have a client up that hill and I used to have to climb this hill very often. It stinks but I guess it keeps you in shape. Alright, let's go down and check out this slope here in Shibuya. That's very famous, very iconic for cherry blossom season in the city of Tokyo.

00:10:05 John Daub: If you're gonna see pictures of the city with cherry blossoms, you have the Meguro River. You have Yoyogi Park, which I think is a little bit generic cuz there's no real feel or statue that puts Yoyogi Park's cherry blossoms on the map, but the urban setting around Shibuya really makes these blossoms pop and give it a little bit more character than places like Ueno—I'm saying Yoyogi, but if you say it fast, it comes out Waino; you can't hear the U. Oh, you can see we're at the end of it. If you can see the blossom petals are on the ground. I guess I should come here like at 5 AM. That might be the best time to live stream here. These lanterns are sponsors because I guess you get a lot of photos of people but wow, this is a tunnel, isn't it?

00:11:32 John Daub: Everybody with cameras getting that photo. I think the best photo might be from above. We're getting a little bit of that petal flurry every time the wind hits—more falling down. There are millions of them. So one breeze won't knock them all out but it will do some serious damage to the coating that is this hill. Let's go up to the top of it. If the signal lags, let me know. I need you guys to be my eyes and ears because what I see is in like 12K—they say human vision is like 12K if you've got good eyes. I think my eyes are more like 720p really. Wow, there's so many people doing Instagram and TikTok and stuff. There's a lot of TikTokers here.

00:12:28 John Daub: Should we photo bomb them? You can see the petals coming down. This is so delicate. Look at it. I'm completely covered in cherry blossoms. You see that above there? This is what I'm talking about. Shibuya isn't a bad place to come. You just have to know exactly where some of the best spots are. I'm in everybody's photo. Taking it. A guy waving his dirty mask. Yeah, it's the way it should be. You need a photo bomb and it always adds character to a photo—until it don't. Don't try group photos though because then you have a group of people running after you. That's not good. Like some guy photo bombing a WWE group photo—gonna have two dozen wrestlers running after you. Not the situation you want to be in.

00:13:48 John Daub: Hey, Jennifer French is here. Hey, Jennifer. Bob Joe agrees with me. I think if you're looking for contrast, there you have it. The urban areas of Shibuya, that city background with the natural white blossoms is just such a magical. Oh, there's a flurry. Do you see this? You can see them just coming down in a flurry. I guess that's why those TikTokers are here because you can get the petals falling with each stiff breeze. Wow. Did you see that? Looks a lot better in 8K. Hey, no no, welcome new traveler. Say hi with some of those emoji in there.

00:14:53 John Daub: I'm gonna try to put a few more on when April 1st comes around and we renew the series a little bit. That's really nice. I really like this tunnel. I haven't been here during the day, I think ever. I never was able to come during the day so I made a little bit of time today to do that. I'll get some photos on Instagram for you. You can check it out and maybe if you are here at the end of March, that's probably the best time you're gonna see this. If you come too early, they don't quite blossom yet, but now we're at the end. This is what the cherry blossoms—no they don't bear fruit. A lot of people have been asking me. Are there fruit on cherry blossom trees? They're cherry blossom trees. They're not cherry trees. There's a difference. I'm not even sure why Westerners call them cherry blossom trees, but it's a sakura (cherry blossom) tree in Japanese.

00:16:53 John Daub: Alright, thank you, Joy. Let's go back to the end here. So you're seeing Minecraft white petals falling from the sky. I'll try to catch one. It's really nice. It's really hard to catch one. Sometimes trying to catch one, you just have to leave your hand out and they'll just land on it. Try to get more surface space. I got one. I got a petal. That's good luck. It's like ripping off an eyelash or something. And there are other sakura (cherry blossom) trees coming in because of all these new buildings in the area. There are a lot more cherry blossom trees. The new buildings are planting sakura (cherry blossom) trees. So you're going to see some young ones around but for Shibuya, there's really not too many but the ones that are here are pretty nice.

00:17:29 John Daub: Now you can walk over to Yoyogi Park, which is about a 20 minute walk from here. It's not too far. In fact, walking from Shibuya to Shinjuku is one of the walks that I love to do. Google Maps from Shibuya to Shinjuku through Meiji Shrine—it's really nice. Not good signal where Meiji Shrine is so it always goes Mojibake (garbled text) Minecraft but it's a nice walk if you don't want to live stream it for sure. You go through the Yoyogi Station area a little bit through Harajuku. You can pick your route there. Alright, I'm coming around here. Let me know how the signal is, Joy. Get one last look from the top here. That's the old Shibuya Station sign and the new one.

00:18:38 John Daub: If I can get a good shot, maybe I'll make this one of the Postcard Club pictures. Every month, we have a new postcard for the Postcard Club. Here's this month's—the snow monkeys—and episode I'm releasing: morning meditating snow monkeys. The only place in Japan where they do hot springs because these monkeys are not actually cold weather monkeys but in Nagano, they have no choice. So if you want to get that, you have two days left for March's postcards. This seems the position people like to take the photos. I can see why. You know, I think that fire hydrant and do not enter sign really adds to it, doesn't it?

00:19:38 John Daub: There's the wide shot with Family Mart around it and you can see there's not a lot. It's just this one street. You have to get context, right? You have to look at the ugly urban center behind it and then when you pan around, it just hits you. An island of cherry blossoms that go up a street making an amazing tunnel. You have to get down, I think. By the way, starting in April, these are back again: the You Found Me cards. I'm going to carry some of them but just remember I might not want to give you a hug. Just be cool. Alright, find me. Be cool.

00:20:38 John Daub: Johnny's got a baby. Let's get from another angle. This is nicer. You can see a little bit up the street here. Peso can hug me. I know. So it's different. If I don't know you, don't hug. Like I kind of know you. I don't know. So let's talk before we hug and swap skin cells and stuff. I took microbiology—it ruined me. College microscopes and I think it was a teacher that ruined it because he was really in depth with how gross the world was and he left that impression. Oh look at the Instagrammers.

00:21:34 John Daub: Instagram. I got an Instagram too. Check that out. Alright, do the twirl. Do the twirl. Three, two, one. Oh, come on. Really? Gotta do the twirl and the smile. I'm going to post a picture of Kanae's favorite cherry blossom photo. It's awesome. On Instagram. How about them apples? Ben Affleck. The contrast with a construction truck. Nice. Thank you Joy. Joy just shared on the live chat the Instagram. I'm going to be—if you haven't, go over there and follow there because you're going to get some nice photos.

00:22:35 John Daub: Alright everybody. Thanks for watching. I hope this was an informational episode. I'm working on getting the quality of the live streams better. Just give me a little bit of time. I'm working, meeting with a company called StreamYard to see if we can get what I'm looking for because the YouTube app hasn't really innovated since 2017 really. They added super chats. They took more money and they haven't improved the encoding and the video wrapper. They haven't improved the audio much. In fact, it seems to have gotten worse. The app. Our moderators—YouTube have—and by the way, I'm shouting at you because you're the YouTube office is right like less than 100 meters away from me up there.

00:23:12 John Daub: Like I've given you all suggestions and all I heard was excuses so I have to give my viewers excuses and I don't like that so I'm going to find a third party if I can but I'll keep trying to find better ways. If you guys keep supporting me, I'm always going to keep investing in this and trying to find better ways. Microphones, upgrade the camera. Thanks Apple. I bet you the iPhone 13 Pro would have a little bit better video quality but never received it. Apple sent it uninsured. Police—Tokyo police are still on the case. They just said it's going to take time to get the serial number. They've already contacted Apple to get the serial number but I contacted Apple Japan. I can't get AppleCare anymore because it's been a while. I'm not sure if they're going to get the serial but customer service maybe can do something about that. Hint hint, help me out here.

00:24:14 John Daub: The reason that, you know, my subscribers have diminished returns here is because they don't have a new phone that they paid for because I used money that I earned from YouTube to buy the equipment—it comes from you guys. So we're going to work it out. It's still going to keep getting better. Alright everybody. Have a nice day. Have a nice night. Thanks for watching from Shibuya. If you have questions about cherry blossoms in Japan or anything else that are coming up with the channel, I'm very happy to answer it. If you're a Patreon supporter, thank you. You can direct message me there and I check it three four times a day because that's our community on there and I love you guys. Take care. See you soon.