00:36 John Daub: But it's a weekend so it's all kind of tied together and these Japanese national holidays—I don't know, about 20 years ago they were all kind of all over the place like random days—but they found a way to boost the economy by putting those holidays together. Let me show you a list of the major Japanese holidays here in the corner. We start off, I guess you could start off in winter here—this is shōgatsu (New Year's), which is December 28th to January 5th. These are the holiday times where people are traveling. The official holiday might be a little bit different than this—perhaps oh shōgatsu goes to January 4th—but it seems to be extended to the fifth, and if you have a weekend coming up sometimes they even connect that and they can get even longer, just depends how it is. So this isn't official; this is just like the travel times that are the most busy and most congested.

02:02 John Daub: Spring has Golden Week and that's where we are right now. You'd think this might be around the cherry blossoms? No, you'd be wrong. This is the time where a lot of the offices let out and it's April 28th—which is today, which is usually a Saturday. It could start on the 29th as well, it just depends. The 29th is an official holiday but sometimes it starts on the 28th when you get a Saturday like today, and then it goes on till May 5th which is Kodomo no Hi (Children's Day) and I'll talk a little bit about that. That's Child's Day and you'll see a lot of koi nobori (carp streamers). Do you guys know what koi nobori is? This is what they look like here—koi nobori. It's really pretty. You see these carp flying in the sky all over the place. I just started seeing them a couple of days ago; they've been put up now. So from about the end of April to, I don't know, most of May during the windy time, you'll see koi nobori all over the place here.

02:55 John Daub: Obon (summer holiday honoring ancestors) is a summer holiday. This goes on for about a week as well. It seems to be the middle of the month, maybe the second weekend—August 13th to 20th although the actual Obon festival is on August 30th this year—but the time that people be taking off holidays and it'll be busiest will be August 13th to 20th, time to avoid in the summer but you won't. A lot of you won't. And then there's Silver Week, which has done a lot. This is sort of a new holiday. This is a time because people are working during Obon—there the Silver Week is a time where people can take an alternative summer vacation, which I think is even better. It's less crowded although recently it's become more crowded because the weather is cooler during Silver Week. Officially it is September 16th to 23rd and I'll show you a little bit. I'm gonna keep this up in the corner here for a little while so you can get accustomed to it.

03:47 John Daub: Silver Week—let me break this down for you so you can take a look at how the holidays typically work. Now Silver Week starts up on the weekend, right? Of course they want to make this as long as possible. So it starts off on a Saturday, Sunday—which are, you know, weekends holidays. Then the Monday is an actual holiday traditionally, which is Respect for the Aged Day. I'm not sure what they do but I sort of do this—respect for the aged, nod to people that are older than me. Like I nod and they go, oh yeah, I know I'm older. The 19th is a weekday but that's these days are typically off because it's Silver Week so your holiday—the country will usually give it so it's a three-day weekend for sure: 19, 20, 21 to 22. Typically you can take these holidays off; companies will allow you to do it because it's expected to be slowed down. And then Saturday is the equinox which is a holiday here in Japan and then you got Sunday which is the 24th and then the 25th you probably could take that off and then things get back to normal on the 25th and 6th. So that's sort of how the holidays work. You can see they've done a really good job of combining days together.

05:03 John Daub: Golden Week is actually a combination of several holidays and the 29th is a holiday which is tomorrow and then the third, fourth and fifth are holidays but they kind of just scrunch it off. Technically some people have to go to work on Monday and Tuesday and then the third, fourth and fifth they have off because they are national holidays but most people just shut off for the week because they know that this is Golden Week and Golden Week is pretty crazy. How do I know this? All right, check this out. This is Shibuya right now. So this is the Hachiko Crossing that's quite famous. This actually doesn't look too bad yet and maybe it starts to get even worse as we go over the holiday—Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday. It's gonna get way more crowded but you can see it's pretty deep in there. It actually doesn't look too bad. It's similar to some of the other weekends that we have. You can see more people than asphalt sometimes. But this is also kind of gray. Things start to pick up between 1 and 3 or 4, I guess because people are waking up at this time.

06:46 John Daub: There's loads of live streams of Hachiko Scramble so if you want to check out what the situation is like outside you can go to those. There's also live cameras in Ikebukuro, in Shinjuku, Tokyo Station area, and maybe even here in Ginza but maybe not so much. This neighborhood's kind of exclusive in a way. This is what Kiyomizudera looks like. I like this photo. This came from Twitter actually from several years ago. This is Kiyomizudera and it's just busting. They just let in way too many people. I think they're doing a better job but this is several years ago and you can see that it's just like—it's almost dangerously crowded. But this is the Golden Week that I remember from my years living here. It's like this. It's uncomfortable. The Shinkansen is standing room only. These are reasons not just to come to Japan at these times especially—you know, for starting from today and maybe even last night we saw that the airport news was reporting the airports were quite busy.

08:11 John Daub: But if you're interested in just the experience of going through Golden Week and that's a reason to come here—I mean why not? I'm walking down the street a little bit. I love the fact that they closed down this Chuo Avenue. In fact if you go in the opposite direction—go straight—you'll eventually get to Kanda and then to Akihabara. It cuts right across and I think if you go straight in this direction you get down to Shinagawa area. We used to run the Tokyo Marathon; we take a right and then a quick left to get to Shinagawa but you can—I think—get there going down this road as well. All right, it is pretty crowded. I've noticed here a lot more security presence I guess this is because—you see there's an officer over there on the right—I think it's because there's a—the G7 is going on, is that right? There's a lot of diplomats and important people here checking out Japan so security has been tight almost all over the country, in particular Hiroshima I believe that they shut that down for people visiting.

09:18 John Daub: I'm gonna take some of your questions now. That's my opening statement I've done. Why do they have Golden Week before? But I'll tell you this—why should you come at this time? The weather is so nice. All right, I have very few times in Golden Week that it has rained for more than just a popcorn shower. You also feel the beginnings of summer in a way because of this sun—it's cool in the morning and it's cool at night and it starts keeping warming up because of the sun during the daytime and it's very comfortable. I'm maybe too casual for jeans; I've got shorts on and sandals walking down here. You see some people posing out in the middle of the street which is kind of the benefits of closing down this place.

10:07 John Daub: I purchased a JR Pass from the website so I was able to book all my trips and reserve my seats online. Yeah that's great. I think that the pass has gotten more expensive starting in October so you might want to book that in September before the October price hike. Never ended going to Kiyomizudera. I took one look at the crowd waiting to get in and noped it. I don't blame you. I remember Kiyomizudera being shoulder to shoulder and couldn't wait to leave the deck. I know—the best picture is away from the deck. Just not even go to the deck. Well you go for a quick view—do one of those Clark Griswold Grand Canyon three-second looks and just move on.

11:02 John Daub: My only vacation time writes in Daniel will be June to August—always the hottest time indeed. Do the crowds die down right after Golden Week? I don't know about this year but typically it does. It tends to be quite a major drop-off but I'd say the second week in May is one of my favorite times of the year to travel because you get the benefits of the warmer weather. Never mind the cherry blossoms. I think people are sometimes too fixated on that aspect of Japan. I think the cherry blossoms are pretty but if you actually want to see Japan, get around. You don't need the blossoms to do that—to see the attractions and the sights and eat the food. If you want to be outside, May is way, way better. Less rain. The weather has broken towards the warm side of things and you can really feel it. The days are longer as well which is another benefit. And the prices go down. The cherry blossoms—everything seems to be just more expensive.

12:04 John Daub: You get a live view here of Ginza. The crowds are starting to pick up again as I get to the yonchome. But it doesn't look too much different. There's also some wind here. It doesn't look too much different than any other Saturday to be honest with you. But things will pick up probably starting tomorrow and over the course of a week. The next week it's going to boom. The live camera as well will pick up. The airports are expected to be extremely busy. I've seen—you know, Japan does a good job of shuffling people; they're used to it. But because they've laid off a lot of workers at the airports, the result was that it's not as smooth as in years past.

12:45 John Daub: The government was considering getting rid of the border restrictions that they had—like you needed an app and you needed to register your vaccination stuff online and all this. That goes away on May 8th; it's official now. But it's still in place which I think is a huge mistake. I think the government could also see that it would be a huge mistake just to end it right away because they'd also have to tell workers not to come in. There could be a lot of issues. When you tug in one direction, pull in another. So I think maybe the May 8th making it official is a good idea. The only issue I think is for passengers because it does complicate things. It makes it a little bit more painful to come in through the airport. Wait times, I was told, can be somewhere between 20 minutes—which is really fast to get through Narita and Haneda—to three hours just depending on if there's other flights and how many workers are actually on the spot there to get you through there. But Japan will not take shortcuts. So sometimes you just got to wait. But from May 8th I would expect that to be halved—all the times. I expect it maybe 15 minutes to like 30-40 minutes to get through.

14:10 John Daub: They'll be screening at the major airports for people with fever. And if you are then they'll pull you out. I think it's really important because then you know what happens—they'll pick you up and pull you down; there's no end to it. That's why we're not seeing this in the airport. The border control measures have been rescinded earlier—yesterday okay. So apparently the border measures have been—hello, how you doing? Slightly awkward. Who was that? If you take a look at me right now it's kind of ridiculous—I'm standing in the middle of the street holding a stick with a camera on top of it so everybody knows what I'm doing. That was pretty crazy—who was that mask, that unmasked man? Uh, so the restrictions—apparently are off now and it's very easy to get through. I really don't know if you want to be for sure—you know, check the website of MOFA and Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare and you'll see that.

15:10 John Daub: If that was Peter it would be—it would still be awkward—slightly. You never know—you never know. That's a great thing with live streaming; stuff just happens. Linda—where in Japan? Hokkaido to Hiroshima are dramatically different. I suggest googling the dates. Yeah you know if you're asking about where to go—get off of the Golden Route which is between Tokyo and Osaka and extended all the way to Himeji and Hiroshima these days because a lot of people are going to Hiroshima. I would say avoid—try not to do the same thing as everybody else; switch it up, go explore Gifu Prefecture which I think is one of the most beautiful sort of off the beaten path—which is probably going to become the beaten path. Hokkaido is off the beaten path; exploring up there is definitely great although a lot of Japanese go up there—not for Golden Week because it's still quite cold but for Obon for sure. Summertime up in Hokkaido gets a little bit crowded as well as the mountain areas but right now—really beautiful place. I'd say Miyazaki and Kagoshima and Oita—Kyushu in general is probably the most delicious food thing.

16:27 John Daub: On Twitter which I got—I posted on it just yesterday; it was kind of funny to me. Although maybe I can bring this up here—this is a—let's see here—I just took a screenshot of this post. This is our Instagram—it's the best soups in the world; check this out here. So if you look at this—number seven which is Hakata ramen is number one and then if you take a look at number 36 it also says Hakata ramen. And why do they have different numbers? Because Hakata ramen is tonkotsu ramen. That if you look at number seven—what the heck? Number seven is just ramen. Ramen is not just a soup okay—it's like, you know, it includes noodles and stuff. So I'm confused at how I got a 4.6 and then there's miso ramen at 14—how'd they get less than just ramen? Miso ramen is a type of ramen and then 17 is shio ramen—is a type of ramen. What does that make sense to you? Was it just me? I was just kind of confused. So some of the other soups look pretty good but tonkotsu ramen won.

18:00 John Daub: I found it really disappointing—ramen really? I guess depends where you go. I guess it really depends—you know which kind. If there's a line out the door the ramen is usually quite good because locals know that that's really good or it's been in the news and people know about it. If there's no line out the door and it looks like an old place I'd be pretty wary of going in there. Don't think that all ramen is the same. This is what's like why that guide is not that great for the best soups in the world because it varies so much. I've had really bad and very bad tonkotsu ramen. Tonkotsu ramen is not my favorite by any means because it's good and it's thick and it's a meal in itself—the soup in itself is a meal but oh my gosh—it's kind of stinks. If you have authentic tonkotsu ramen it doesn't smell so wonderful—it's pork bone ramen and it doesn't smell so wonderful even the kitchen. I can't do it so much. I'd rather have udon.

19:39 John Daub: Some really good questions here. Does anybody intend to travel during Obon, Shogatsu, Silver Week this year? Let me know in the comments below. The holidays are listed up here in the top left-hand corner. These are times to avoid but if you don't there are options. Just make sure you don't come here and you don't want to miss out on the food you're going to eat here without accommodation plans or else you're going to have to stay in a capsule hotel and expect some capsule hotels to be full because there's more tourists here staying in capsule hotels—because capsule hotels typically are not places you would normally stay in during a holiday season so your options are more limited. Don't come here without accommodation plans. Please have a place to stay especially your first couple nights. Don't come here without accommodation plans please—I'm begging you. I don't want to see anybody get stranded without a place to stay. In the summer it might be okay—you could sleep in a park—but not in the winter or the fall or even now where it's kind of cold at night.

20:43 John Daub: All right everybody, great questions. I'll be back tomorrow to take some more of them. I guess there's a midnight snack run coming in the future—I'm trying not to eat after 8 p.m. but I might once. Where can I find the best donuts in Tokyo? Really you probably won't find them in Tokyo but there's a lot of craft donut places and I had donuts that Jikin the Donut is pretty good—Akihabara. Um, personally I'd get a shūkurīmu (cream puff) because there's something about those cream puffs that I prefer over the donuts. Mister Donut is always a good go-to and then there's some craft donut places, local places. Peter took me to a place near Itabashi—right in Kagurazaka; he found an incredible place. It's a little pricey but those donuts were amazing. And also consider a melon pan—the place in Asakusa is very famous and you're going to really enjoy that one with whipped cream. I don't like it with ice cream so much; I prefer with the whipped cream but you can't go wrong either way—it's still really good hot out of the oven.

22:01 John Daub: Around here this side of the street is a lot more open. Uh you can go down—there's eight blocks of Ginza's avenue which is shut down and you could only pretty much walk from this direction—which is near Tokyo Station—all the way to Shimbashi Station above ground on the road. This wide road, which is a lot of fun. Shout out to my Patreon supporters. Up there is the restaurant that Kanae and I like to eat breakfast at. It's called Eggs 'n Things. It's a Hawaiian restaurant. You might find us there outside on the balcony with Leo eating pancakes every now and then. They're not the soufflé pancakes but they're pretty good.

22:47 John Daub: And this is the last day—or tomorrow—is to get this particular postcard. This is the 1,000-year-old sakura tree, which is an episode coming on the edited channel really soon. I'm just about finished with this one as well as a chicken namban episode down in Miyazaki, where I explored a free-range chicken farm. And just finishing up the edit—actually, that's what I'm going back right now to do. This postcard could be yours if you join Patreon. And every month there's a new postcard from a new area of Tokyo. This is outstanding. This is a shining tree that hasn't changed much in the last several hundred years. Samurai used to go and celebrate the cherry blossoms underneath that tree, and now today we do. So it's kind of interesting when you look back on it in that way—that samurai with swords would be out looking and contemplating life before they go into battle. Whoa! Same thing, except instead of battle, I'm battling a bowl of ramen and chopsticks.

23:49 John Daub: All right, everybody, thanks for watching. Thanks for the questions. Leave some comments below on your experience traveling around Japan during the holiday season. And hopefully it's not too bad for you. This year starts the first time in three years that Golden Week is going to be crazy again. They said that the Tokaido Shinkansen platform is completely packed right now. So do—if you are in Japan—travel safely. And I'll see you in another episode really soon. Mata ne (see you later).