00:03 John Daub: Hey everybody, welcome to Tokyo. What you see in front of you is a cherry blossom tree, a sakura that is blooming right now, one of the varieties around the city that bloom early. That's why it's so hard to predict when the cherry blossoms are going to bloom. When you say that, you're usually talking about the Somei Yoshino (そめい吉野) variety of cherry blossoms. This one here, they list it in the city of Tokyo. Usually they'll have a sign on it. This is the Okamezakura (オカメザクラ).

00:34 John Daub: The Okamezakura blooms earlier and it is spectacular. In fact, I think that emoji is this particular sakura tree. And it is loaded with bees. Bees can smell fear and I am not afraid. This is on the corner of the intersection in Hachobori. It is just absolutely stunning.

01:13 John Daub: And if you look at it, it's early. It's only March 7th. But that's how some of the cherry blossoms bloom early. It's supposed to be like that. Nature does not run on a calendar. And I know a lot of you might be upset going, hey, wait for me. I'm waiting for you.

01:38 John Daub: So I thought in this episode, I would take you around this area. For me, the cherry blossoms are something personal because I always like the trees in my neighborhood, the trees that are nearby. And this isn't my neighborhood. This is my backyard. Hachobori, Ginza, Nihonbashi area. And I ride my bicycle past this particular area for the last five years that I've lived in this area. Not always catch it when it's looking like this. In fact, the petals are already starting to fall off onto the ground. Look at the ground. It's all pink. Isn't that beautiful? Look at those pink petals all over the place. I don't think you need to clean this off the street. I think it just enhances it. And the way that the light is hitting it right now, it's just perfect.

02:43 John Daub: Wow. It's kind of a younger tree, looks like it might be 25 years old, which is fairly young for a tree. I'll walk from the other side and then I'll take you from the other direction of the sun. And then we're going to walk over here. I'll show you on the map where I am exactly. I'll show you a couple of other sakura trees that are a different variety that are blooming right now as well.

03:45 John Daub: Charlie writes in, is it normal for them to bloom this early? The answer is, as I said when I started this live stream, many varieties do bloom early. In fact, they're done by the time the Somei Yoshino variety starts to bloom, the white ones that you all know so well. Look at the way it's up with the blue sky. Wow, this is a treat, isn't it? You don't see it with the blue skies like this so much with the sun coming from this angle. Wow, it's popping. Wow, that's like a screensaver right there.

04:42 John Daub: We're going to go for a little walk here. Boy, this iPhone is really bad with focusing. But there you go. I think that's the emoji that's on all the iOS and Android devices for cherry blossoms, that pink one. I think it's this variety. It's just so beautiful. And if I stay here much longer, the bees might get me.

05:39 John Daub: This is one of the reasons they come to Tokyo. Although Tokyo is not my favorite for cherry blossoms, it is nice. Again, for those that are looking in here, this is the Okamezakura. So it's one of the many varieties of cherry blossom trees. Look at that truck. It's the same color as the cherry blossoms here. This is on Kajibashidori (鍛冶橋通り). And I'm going to walk towards Hachobori Station right now.

06:15 John Daub: Well, I'm glad that you asked. So this is Tokyo. You can see the Imperial Palace in the center of your screen. I am right there where that red blob is. It's on an island called Shinkawa (新川). This is the first man-made island in Tokyo. And yeah, they planted some sakura trees. This area was also very highly bombed during the firebombing of 1945. And we're getting up to the 78th anniversary. So you can see Hachobori Station there. Shinkawa is this island. And there's the intersection I was just at.

07:12 John Daub: And now we're going to cross the street. And I will show you another cherry blossom tree over here. Do you see them over yonder? There's a couple more white ones on the river. They're young ones. And I think they're a different variety. We're going to find out by walking in this direction.

07:36 John Daub: Tokyo is amazing. We're so central. And they have public restrooms all over the place, parks, vending machines, convenience stores. Just the city is so set up well. Light breeze today. So warm. It feels like spring is here.

08:02 John Daub: Now these canals here, this is the main way that people back in the Edo period got goods from one place to another. It wasn't the roads. It was using these canals, very much like Amsterdam. Of course they don't use it nowadays. We've got the roads for that. But this was the main way to get around. And the city's got canals all over the place. And it's kind of neat because the buildings are all around there. And some of these canals were drained to make way for highways for the 1964 Olympics. So we lost some of them, the rivers that went through the center of the city. But a lot of them are still here. And it's nice because having waters that cut through the city makes it so pretty, I think. This area is not as scenic. But usually there'll be sakura trees along the canals in Tokyo. And if you leave the city, you'll go to smaller towns. Anywhere that there's canals or rivers, you will always find cherry blossom trees. Because they're just happier around water like that.

09:15 John Daub: What's the difference in all the varieties? Well, I'm glad you asked. The color of the blossoms, the shape of the blossoms, the time that it will bloom, sometimes the smell. And I haven't gotten so deep into the taste. It's kind of a look, don't touch. But you can see on the right side of your screen, there are a couple of blossoms over there. And we're going to check that out. That bridge in the center of your screen is also an old bridge that goes back to the Meiji era. Shinkawa was the first man-made island in Tokyo. Now there's a bunch of them.

10:12 John Daub: How's the weather in late March? You know, weather is in the springtime in Japan. Right now it's warm. It's so perfect right now. But in late March it can be cold. In fact, it could even snow. So you have to really bring layers is what I tell people. Yeah, this is a slightly different variety. This is the Kawazu Sakura (河津桜).

10:52 John Daub: And you can see it's already finished. It's finishing up. Can you believe that? So this is another variety that's even earlier than the one we started the live stream. And you can see these blossoms here are already starting to come out with the green buds out of the branches here. So I've missed it. The last time I was here was about 10 days ago. And they were just budding. And they came out fast because the weather has been quite sunny and warm the last few days. It's a little cloudy yesterday. But the thing is, it's usually the sun makes it warm. And then when the night comes, it is quite chilly. So again, I say the best thing to do when you come in the spring is to make sure you have layers on. Because you can always take them off. You don't need to come with a big winter jacket. But there are times where you might wish that you had it. Except if you have layers on, then you stay pretty warm.

12:03 John Daub: So late March and early April, the middle of April, those are some tough months. Because the weather is just going back and forth between winter and spring. And then breaking towards the summer side. And there are times where you need layers for sure. So having a sweatshirt and a light jacket, that's very helpful. But having some Heattech, which you can get at Uniqlo, or some long sleeve shirts as well. And a couple of t-shirts underneath there, that usually will keep you warm. If you're from Scotland or Ireland or Canada or Finland or Norway, you're probably wearing shorts. But yeah, that's so beautiful. Slightly different variety. It's a little bit lighter than the one we saw before.

13:42 John Daub: It just gets more sun.

13:56 John Daub: More sun. Beautiful sakura trees. It's about 2:30pm Japan time. There's actually a cafe right there. But it looks like it's closed down right now. They also have a really famous banana juice place. So maybe I'll go stop over there for kanae. You can see some people do have boats here on the canal. I'd love to live right here on the canal side. Because you get all the little duckies. Ducks there. You can feed them from the window. Imagine being there. You could go fishing. Can I go fishing? Can you do that? Is that illegal? Can you fish from the balcony there? Just get the fishing pole and cast it in? Don't know. Don't see anyone doing it yet. There's one more over here. Yeah, it's done.

15:12 John Daub: Again, this is a sakura tree, this is a cherry blossom. Now the Somei Yoshino are just budding now. So you're going to be on time for that. But that's the thing I tell people. When is the best time to come for cherry blossoms? It is whenever you can come. You can't predict nature. But I would expect that the Somei Yoshino to be early again this year. Maybe by the 20th, you start to see them all over the place open. And by the 25th, 23rd, they're probably mankai (満開，full bloom), which is the full opening 22nd, 23rd. And they're gone by April 1st, I think, in Tokyo. But cherry blossoms in Tokyo, that's Tokyo. Japan's a pretty big country. You could just get on a train and go north for an hour. And you've got the cherry blossoms again a week later. So that's how you do it, right? You have to go where the blossoms are. The blossoms aren't going to go to you.

16:33 John Daub: This tree doesn't have a—hold on a second. Here's the sign back here. This is the same variety, the Kawazu Sakura. I like the way that they tell you the variety. So let's walk back to the main street here.

17:08 John Daub: A lot of people come out, locals, neighbors. They all want to catch their local trees while they're in blossom real quick. So you get your camera out and get some good shots of them. But this is everyday life for us, right? These trees are out here in the city in our everyday life. So we really want to take advantage. Take advantage of that.

17:48 John Daub: There's other trees in those big flower pots, but you see most of them haven't even started to bud yet. The great thing with nature is it's very much like people. We all bloom and blossom at different times. Leo's walking and talking, but he's in a class where there's people that are the same age as him and they're not even talking yet. They say Leo says more. And there's kids that say more than that. So everybody just blossoms and blooms at different times and breaks down in different times. But if you're coming in for the cherry blossoms, you can't go wrong if you aim for March 20th to 27th. You can't go wrong in that week. Anytime before and after April, you're going to have to go up to Tohoku, which is not a problem because I think that Tohoku is more beautiful than Tokyo.

18:49 John Daub: We cross the street here. I think that Tohoku is way better. If you're going to cherry blossoms here, you're doing it just for the drinking. It's nice, but just if you go to—oh man, I can't tell you just on this channel. I've been doing these live streams. This is like the sixth year of the channel, right? Starting this month. So congratulations to Only in Japan Go, six years old. And in that first year, I took you to the greatest trip. And I'm going to try to go back up there. I'm going to try to go back up to Aomori to the greatest cherry blossoms festival in the world. I love that one up there.

19:44 John Daub: And you can go and see it. In fact, I want to see if I call him my friend, but there's a motorcycle dude. You were there, right? Some of you were there right here. There is a motorcycle dude and I never seen anything like this. He rode his motorcycle inside of a big barrel. He's inside the barrel and it's going around the barrel like this like with his motorcycle two wheels and he's inverted. And then I don't know what to do, my mouth is open, I'm probably drooling on the track like in shock. So I took out a thousand yen, which is like what, 10 bucks at the time. The guy deserves it. So I stuck the thousand yen out and he took it, the money just like this. How did he do it? He was going so fast. This is on this channel, the Hirosaki (弘前) cherry blossom live stream is a classic that is one hour of pure entertainment. And seemed though the signal was better six years ago than it is now sometimes. So it's funny. But he grabbed it right. That's the most awesome moment I think, one of the top moments of the live streaming channel was the excitement. I remember that. And then I went into the cherry blossom festival also had like a haunted house. And that was the scariest thing walking around there. They were really good at scaring people. And I might have had a drink or two at the festival and may have been more scared than normal. Could have lost my lunch and dinner.

21:31 John Daub: So we're back where we started. So it's those festivals I love. And this year they're all restarting. Masks, there was a lot of people trying to get in there. They're all trying to wear masks, you know. There's a lot of people. So it's the same thing with the rules, but there's never a mandate. But the rules or the guidelines, I call them the guidelines, have changed starting March 13th. You don't have to wear masks anymore in almost all public settings outside only if it's a special event or something. So you know there's no mandate or anything. But it's kind of good that the government say hey, you really don't have to wear your mask anymore. Start getting used to not wearing it.

22:07 John Daub: Hey, Jeff Kennedy's here! It's awesome buddy to see you here! Jeff, I'm bringing these blossoms to you from Tokyo right now, brother. Here you go, I'm sending it through this camera to you right now, ready? Alright, Jeff, open your hand, here you go, ready? Did you catch it? Did you get it?

22:53 John Daub: It is a totally beautiful day. I'm back where I started. I'm gonna try to cross the street. I think that there's one more cherry blossom tree down the road, and then we're gonna call it a day. But man, I love this time of year. Maybe not on the pollen that I get, it's really a little bit too much from the system. It's hard for me to sleep at night. But you can see here with the sun breaking through, that color, oh my gosh, it's just stunning. Look at the backlighting on that, wow.

23:45 John Daub: Larnie Rivera, hey! New channel name, thanks for the livestream. I love the channel name. Kind of fits with today. Today's live stream. There's a ramen place right there with gyoza. They were closed during the pandemic as well, for a lot of it, this ramen place. And there's a really wonderful Thai restaurant that Kanae Daub makes me get on a bicycle and go get her for dinner every now and then. There's the bridge that I'm at quite a bit. That's Chuo Hashi (中央橋), and it leads across the Sumida River right there to River City 21 with these old buildings constructed in the bubble era. Alright, let me take you there. I'm gonna head straight to the one other tree that I found down the street here. Shinkawa. Once again, this is the first man-made island in the city of Tokyo.

24:45 John Daub: But yeah, the final answer is cherry blossoms are blooming right now. Right now! You can see it straight ahead, can't you? There's a couple of sakura trees. This area, again, was hit quite hard in the 1945 firebombing, and everything you see around us is all really new buildings. I mean, new in the sense like just a couple of decades old. They had this stuff that they constructed really quickly in the 1950s and 60s, tore that down and then the urban planning kicked in right around the Olympics of '64. But a lot of those have been knocked down and now we have some really nice looking city.

25:44 John Daub: I'm gonna walk over, let me walk over to the other tree here. Is this the same variety? Hold on. Oh wow, this is—no, okay, that's those flowers there. I don't see the sign for that one. Let's go check it out. This is also the sixth anniversary of that hitchhiking trip and I do have some Blu-rays in high definition that you can get from that trip. They're still on sale in the merch store and they'll be sent to you from the United States so they should get there pretty quickly. I don't know how many more, I think we have only less than 100 left. So get yours now. It's like a two and a half hour adventure. I guarantee you, you're going to see and learn so much about Japan. And at the director's track where Kanae Daub and I are talking, it's mostly me but Kanae Daub pops in in Hokkaido to talk about the experience so you can watch it twice.

26:55 John Daub: Look at the bee going to work there. It smells so good here! Wow! Sometimes you can see these little young branches popping out. Those are some of my faves. Right there. Look at that. Welcome to the world guys. Get some beautiful sunshine. Peace in Japan.

27:24 John Daub: Let's just go around the block and see what we can see. This is still Shinkawa and the island ends right where the buses are straight ahead. See that bus that goes over another bridge. It's kind of a neat little island. I remember I met this dude in a live stream five years ago in Ningyocho nearby and he told me something funny. He said to me, I live on an island. I was like, what? Look at this cafe here. The rent is probably pretty high here. It's a little cafe. Kind of looking for something sweet though. He told me that he lived on an island. I was like, what? And it didn't dawn on me until I moved to the area the next year that he was talking about Shinkawa, which is an actual island. We're on an island in Tokyo right now. Basically back in the Edo period, they filled in part of the bay here.

29:27 John Daub: All right. This is in the center of Shinkawa. If you look on the Google maps, you'll find me. I'm right in the center. So here's a park in the center. Let's scope this out. Maybe I'll bring Leo here. Tokyo, you know, this is central Tokyo. Chuo ward, which is the center ward. My hood. And it's just really different than Shibuya and Shinjuku, isn't it? That's a nice looking—oh yeah, I got to bring Leo here to this like tree stump looking slide thing. And there's some good slides here. No camping though.

30:27 John Daub: All right, I got about a minute left here. If you have any questions here, you can write them in the chat. This is also the time where you can write in where you're watching from. If you've never left a comment before, you don't have to wait until you have a question. You can just write in where you're watching from. It's kind of fun for everybody to see that we do have such a global show so it makes sense to do these live streams at different times. Look at this little teeny burger place, looks like they're closing up. It's uh three o'clock is usually past the lunch time.

31:22 John Daub: Hey sakura we have a message here is that from Carrie? Please please stop opening up right now and wait for Carrie to come. Look at this oh now we're talking hey now are you kidding me original donuts. All right who says I get one? I wonder what they got. All right here I gotta put my mask on here we gotta get one here. Um get two writes in Ron Ron. Really Marcelino writes in here when does sakura blossoms usually gone might not be able to make it so I'd say in April 4th or April 5th but like the Somei Yoshino will start to blossom around the 23rd or like around the between the 18th and the 23rd and then um just got my mask on here between the 18th and the 23rd um and then around the 28th and April 1st they do mankai which is they're all fully bloomed and then after that the first wind is the majority of them away and then it's gone the green comes through.

32:47 John Daub: Hey Raymond by the way I have your postcard buddy this is the one that didn't make it to you so I'm putting that in the mail you can see a post box I can put that in for you. All right look all right it seems to be that I have to break my diet here now thanks a lot I'm gonna do it gotta work on that third chin here. Champagne sumo here we go Raymond we all say get one oh Brandania Brandania you in on this too do this I can't say no what's the menu.

33:58 John Daub: They've got a lot of really unique donuts I've never seen before I'll have to get one for Kanae Daub.

35:08 John Daub: I'll take 90 yen. Here's your change. Thank you. Thank you.

37:43 John Daub: I'm not fussy much. I rarely complain. Except, you know, when I complain. You get the picture. Maybe you don't. I don't know. But I would not mind half a donut. I say that now. But it's such a nice looking package here though. I mean, it's so—look how beautiful this is. Look. It's so pretty. How could I eat half though? How do I cut that and then maintain it though? That's a good question. That's the hard part. And then this one. This is chocolate chips. It looks like they're making—constructing a road and they're gonna get a—one of those asphalt presses on there. Oh my gosh. What do you do? Half the donut, half the calories. That's true. But Jason, if I eat—wait. Okay. Does that work for both of them? That's true. Hold on. I wish Kanae Daub lived like right here. I could yell at her from the window. Kanae Daub. Do you have a donut? I wouldn't mind. Here, Saiya writes in here. I wouldn't mind half a donut if it means I get to taste two different flavors. That's my excuse. I don't think she'll be a—you know what? All right. Charles Affright's in here. Don't upset Japanese wife. Okay. Charles. If I bring her a donut, I think she's gonna get a—so maybe, strategically, it's better to eat both of them. I'm not sure. She—I brought her an apple—actually, I bought her an apple pie for breakfast that she didn't eat yet already. So she's already got junk food at home.

40:00 John Daub: All right, let's try it here. Homemade donut. Oh, it's good. That's a pretty creative way to do it. Ian writes in here, cut with your Suica card. That's not a bad idea. Although it might be kind of dirty. It's not too oily. I guess what makes it taste good is it's not too oily. I need coffee with it, maybe. I didn't know this place existed. All right, you know what? I'm thinking like I can't, if I open it, I can't give her half. It's just too pretty right now. I can't open this. I'm going to save it, okay? I can't open it. I'm just going to eat this one. I can't, I can't open it. I think I can't do it. I don't know where my Suica card's been. I can just say none of the places my Suica card has been is probably a clean place. There are laws in place where you can't carry a knife concealed in Tokyo. Just, I made an episode on this. I think pocket knives might be okay. But there's laws on the length and if they ever find it on you, it could be something that they just charge you with. You have to know the rules. Japanese police won't let you off, they're very rule driven. If you break the rules, you broke the rules. That's broke the rules, which is the law, baby.

42:32 John Daub: Yeah. I think I made the right choice. Let's keep this in pristine condition.

42:50 John Daub: It's good donuts. I'll be back. Well, they got some basketball courts here too. Can anyone just play? Cause I have, I have a basketball and I'm always looking for a place just to shoot around. That's kind of neat. Come here with Leo. Play some basketball. He's, he's American, you know, he's in his DNA basketball. Although I'm, I'm not that bad at basketball. I got game enough. I could score on you most of the time. Some of the time, half the time.

44:01 John Daub: All right. Raymond, I gotta get your card in the mailbox. So let's go find a box here. I'm going to keep this for Kanae Daub pristine condition. So put it in the bag there. Wow. They even got like an archery. I could sink some three points. That kid left the ball there. That's his ball. I don't want to use his ball. He left his ball there. Can I just play? Is that like the playgrounds ball? What should I do? I'm conflicted. You know, I'm just, I'm not going to do it. I think his mom's watching. I don't know. I know just a few shots. I don't know. What if I missed? I don't know. It's maybe it's a community ball. It's going to be a community ball with some donut juice on it. Donut oil.

45:12 John Daub: I'm going to cross over. This one looks like it's just starting to bud. And this is a, this is an ume (梅，plum) blossom tree. You can tell because of the darkness of the bark here, but these blossoms, ume blossoms are done. There's just a couple hanging on. So ume season is gone. It's now the full on cherry blossoms.

45:48 John Daub: All right. I'm heading back to my bike now. I'm glad that I walked through the center. We found a burger place that is mostly takeout and a donut place. Which is definitely takeout. I will be back here.

46:30 John Daub: No, that was my old neighborhood in Shinozaki. I don't think I was that sorry. It was more like I felt sorry for me. Cause I put it out there. You don't want to put that out there. All right. See you later, Kevin. Just walk to the end of the street here. Again, I'm investigating for any kind of food. You never know what you're going to find in the alleys here. But I'll tell you this right now. Tokyo is undergoing so much construction for super tall buildings. Buildings over 200 meters, buildings over 300 meters now are being constructed all over the city. I don't know if this is one of them right there. That looks—that's probably a—knowing this area, this is probably a mansion or a high-rise mansion building. Mansions being apartments or like condominiums. That's a nice looking one. This is a good area to live. The rent is maybe a little bit high because it is close to Tokyo Station and Sumida River. It's in the center. Hachobori. I would say, yeah, rent for a two bedroom apartment somewhere around $2,000 a month. Maybe $2,300 a month. If it's a newer place, maybe $2,500. A lot of these apartments here are actually you would buy them. So they're not available for rent. You have to purchase them. Does everybody know where you are? There's the Bangkok restaurant that Kanae Daub loves, Bangkok Pony. It's called. We ate there during the pandemic quite a bit. Take out. Keep them in business. We can't lose our local Thai food place.

48:43 John Daub: There it is. A tree that we started off looking at. That is absolutely stunning. How does live stream get to be an hour long? Just having some fun, I guess.

49:10 John Daub: And Luang Prabang writes in here. I'm watching from Bangkok now. But isn't Luang Prabang in Laos? He actually was. I went through that city. I wrapped around from Vientiane to up the Mekong to up to Chiang Mai through Laos back in the year 2000. Drink a lot of Lao beer. It was a good time. Look at just the way it just makes the urban landscape so much more beautiful, doesn't it? And we end where I started. I love that beer. Lao. Yeah, good stuff.

50:30 John Daub: So if you liked it, that's a great button and I'll see you in another adventure. They take you to every corner of this amazing country. That's what I'm editing right now. The channel video new episode coming this week. See everybody.