00:00:00 John Daub: After 11 days of waiting—approximately from when they bloomed last year, maybe 15 days actually—they finally came out yesterday, and this is the first tree that has them. Check it out. Tokyo's sakura (cherry blossom) season has officially begun, everybody. On a beautiful sunny Sunday weekend. You can see that's also a Somei Yoshino sakura tree beyond this one. Not a lot of people here yet. Not a lot of blossoms out yet, but it's still early.

00:00:31 John Daub: How you doing, everybody? Welcome to Tokyo. It is a wonderful warm afternoon Sunday. After the couple of weeks that we've had here, I didn't expect it would be this nice—it was like winter really. I can understand why the cherry blossoms were delayed so long. The most interesting thing to me about this whole delay was the post I saw from National Geographic. It said this year's cherry blossoms were a warning sign, talking about a story that they are the earliest ever because of global warming. I thought that was pretty disingenuous and completely false—like the editors didn't even do any research, because they made the story sound like in the past tense that the cherry blossoms are already finished in Kyoto.

00:01:34 John Daub: They haven't even started yet. In fact, yesterday was the first day. So it was a weird post that came out at a weird time. But if you take a look at the trees here, most of the cherry blossoms are still in bud form. Check it out—some pink buds, some blue, green, and pink buds. Really beautiful with that sky today. It's not going to be for another four or five days until we see full bloom.

00:02:10 John Daub: But I can really see this thing. I'll bring you back to this park—it's going to be an amazing sight. This is such a unique place because we're at a corner on a man-made island in Tokyo. Part of this was originally in Tokyo Bay, but most of the rest of the island was filled in back in the Edo period. It was the first man-made island over there called Shinkawa across the Sumida River. Now we have like 21 bridges along the Sumida River. We just saw a space boat go by before I started the live stream, which is a shame because I'd love to have shown you it. Let's walk around this area and see if we can find some more cherry blossoms along the Sumida River on a beautiful day here in Tokyo.

00:02:41 John Daub: You can see some people out and about doing hanami (cherry blossom viewing). It's still early in the morning, but there are some picnickers out even though there aren't a lot of people or blossoms yet. The day is just so warm, and you don't get so many of these in spring where the wind is normal. Look at them—they've got chairs, a blue sheet, a table. Probably the patriarch of the family, or the oldest member who's retired, holding down the fort to make sure they have a place because it's going to get crowded. You'll see this at Japanese parks all over, in particular this year because the last few years no one was coming to Japan, and now we got a ton of people.

00:03:49 John Daub: This is going to be a little bit too early, but they're here. Looking at the trees, there's not a blossom on the ones on this side—maybe because it's cooler in the shade. But that's the thing you all need to remember, the most important thing I'm going to say in this entire live stream: Never plan your trip around anything that has to do with Mother Nature, including the cherry blossoms. The season is not set for tourists—it's set by Mother Nature and it is so unpredictable year by year. It's not a global warming thing per se; it's something that's always happened. Where the cherry blossoms were 15 days earlier than normal—yeah, perhaps that's why National Geographic queued this story up thinking they'd be early again, but this year they're 11 days later than normal, which is odd.

00:04:54 John Daub: There are so many Yoshino trees right there—the white cherry blossoms. Let's go see if there's a blossom on there. I was here a couple of weeks ago when they were supposed to bloom and they weren't, so I was pretty upset. But actually, now that I've gotten a chance, I released a video a couple of nights ago. If you haven't seen it, check it out. It's about a food tour in Shinjuku. A lot of you come to Japan quite intimidated by Japanese food—you can't speak Japanese. The tour was a good option, and I got a chance to work with a tour company, Magical Trip, to see what their tour was like. Even a local living here for 26 years learned a lot—you always have to have an open mind; you never know everything.

00:05:47 John Daub: You're gonna see what I learned, which was a lot, from a guy who was born when I came to Japan—he's around 26 years old too. Oh, look down there on the river. We're starting to see—it's still kind of early, just a little bit after 11 a.m., but definitely in about an hour we're gonna see a lot of people. Today Leo is with grandpa, and Kanae is at work, so I kind of get the day off because Leo and I spent the entire day yesterday hanging out, which was a lot of fun. I took Leo to go see the robot there—that was a lot of fun. So we had a good day yesterday.

00:06:35 John Daub: Wow, so you can see they're just buds here, but this is a promising sign because if you look at the live stream I did a couple weeks ago at this exact same spot, it looked dark and barren. Now we've got these beautiful buds. Actually, I kind of like this stage because the expectation is sometimes much more exciting than the actual event. And this is how you know you've lived in Japan a long time—I've lived here 26 years. Heisei 10, Prime Minister Hashimoto then Obuchi—it goes back quite a ways. The saddest thing for me is when it hits full bloom because I know it's over. So already I'm thinking about the end of the cherry blossoms just as they've begun. This is the most exciting time for me because I'm anticipating it.

00:07:46 John Daub: Alright, you see it right there? There's like two—these people are not out here for nothing. I see two popcorn-looking blossoms. Let's zoom in—there you go, two blossoms on this one tree. So we've got a long way to go. Happy Easter, Daniel—thank you for reminding me; we don't really celebrate Easter here, so we don't see the marketing and it's not marked on Japanese calendars. But to everybody out there, happy Easter. It's a wonderful Easter Sunday you're celebrating with blossoms, which doesn't happen too often, although Easter does move around from year to year. It's pretty with the color of the river—the Sumida River has actually cleaned up over the years. It used to be really dark, very polluted in the '70s and '80s. Kanae's father told me the Sumida River used to smell really bad in the 1980s, and the odor was very powerful through the city because of all the pollutants.

00:09:03 John Daub: Tokyo was an extremely polluted city back in the day. Oh, there's a couple of buds right there on the end of the branch—that's really pretty. It's hard to remember, but old-timers might know—there were times like down by Kawasaki, the Tamagawa River, very polluted. The city was just a nasty place. I remember seeing in a National Geographic magazine back in the '80s—in third grade, fascinated with the globe and the world, feeling the topography of the Himalayas. I saw traffic cops with masks and all the pollution around them standing in the middle of Tokyo streets. Now we've got traffic lights and a much cleaner environment, which is probably the result of a lot of factories going over to China. And now we get the pollution that comes over from China every now and then—we complain, but it wasn't too long ago that Japan was at the center of that pollution nastiness, which we don't have too often anymore.

00:10:20 John Daub: You know how I know that nasty stuff's coming from China? During those years when factories were shut down over there, the air was much cleaner over here, although we weren't allowed to go out so often with states of emergency. We were still able to see the impact of factories being shut down in China, which is really interesting. The yellow sand, Charles—you're absolutely right, it depends on the year. We haven't had too many yet; it could be pollen, but we also have a yellow sand problem from the Gobi Desert. The last year that was really bad was 2004, the worst—you had yellow sand coating everything, in the sky. The Internet wasn't as big then, no social media, but there might be some images if you search back—I think it was 2004-2005. The winds from the Gobi Desert were really strong and blew so much stuff here; the news was filled with theories that there could be diseases in the sand, bacteria attached to particles.

00:11:41 John Daub: I don't know why, but there's a lot of information that says something similar—more rooted in fear from what we learned on TV back then than anything else. Although today, you never know. Beautiful thing they've done with the flowers here. I was in Odaiba yesterday with Leo and we saw tulips right around DiverCity—looks like a little slice of Holland. It's worth going to Odaiba to check out the tulips next to that Unicorn Gundam over there. Pretty, huh?

00:12:18 John Daub: Folks, I want you to understand this: As I told you, the most important thing is Mother Nature does not work with your schedule. Also, the Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA) does these maps in many versions—this is like the 11th version. They start at the end of February, but they can't predict the weather for the next two months. It's not a science—mostly based on trends from last year. Everybody thought they were going to be early this year because it was a fairly mild winter, but it didn't end up like that at all.

00:13:14 John Daub: Now the cherry blossoms in Tokyo from March 29th—this is the latest from the weather map. Sendai April 1st, April Fool's Day tomorrow—how cool is that? Tokyo's the start; you're not going to get full bloom until maybe April 5th or 6th. Lucky for those who came a little later this year, who got tickets months in advance. Aomori around April 15th, peak around 23rd or 24th—not too far off schedule. But for the western part of Japan—and Japan is more east-west than north-south. We say east Japan and west Japan: Osaka is west, Kyoto west, Nagoya central or east, Tokyo east. Shikoku, Kochi started a few days earlier—the first places this year were Miyazaki and Kochi, then Hiroshima, Miyajima probably blooming because it's an island and warmer. Now we've got it in Tokyo finally.

00:14:52 John Daub: And you know, it's funny—all the media here now talking about how the cherry blossoms started late this year. According to this, they bloomed on the 29th at Yasukuni Shrine—five days later than usual, 15 days later than last year. Some say 11 days because of recent schedules. So who really knows when normal is? We just know it was late. Oh, look at that—we got these wave runners lighting up the Sumida River. Is that the sensei? A lot of them—is this some sort of event, a race? There's a double—that's a massive one, like a Harley wave runner. Sort of a low rumble. Holy speed boats, Batman—some sort of operation going on here. Wave runner club meeting, the posse's out. Eitaibashi bridge over there, one of my favorites, lit up with blue LED lights now.

00:16:30 John Daub: You know, Leo was born in Chuo Ward, and you'll find his name—they plant a cherry blossom tree for all kids born here, which is kind of nice. Chuo Ward is one of the 23 wards in central Tokyo. It's getting less and less every year. That's pretty, though it's kind of out of the sun now—not a Somei Yoshino. There are different varieties of cherry blossoms. If you come early, like February, you can still catch them—the Kawazu-zakura variety in Shizuoka, famous from mid-February to mid-March. Very beautiful. Aloha, Michael Sassano—welcome; you've come at a beautiful time.

00:17:37 John Daub: I love this point—such a nice view of the city. You can buy a bento—today it's the Brazilian churrasco food truck. Last time I saw them was with my friend Dean Newcomb walking from Ginza to Akihabara three weeks ago. So you can get a Brazilian churrasco bento, come here, sit along the river, watch the boats on a very warm day—I'm in shorts, maybe the third or fourth time, although I wear shorts in winter anyway. You can't really stop me—I'm not one for 100% pure Japanese etiquette. There are rules; I break them all the time, but it's good to know the rules first. Don't break them unless you learn them.

00:18:27 John Daub: One reason I have good connections in Japan, particularly Tokyo, is I used to teach at an English language school in Ginza. My lessons were popular because the CEO took them and recommended me to other CEOs. I'd network with them—still in touch with several. One was a marketing executive at a big ad company. He told me breaking the rules is important, especially for what he did, but first learn the rules. Live by them, then one day your senpai says now let's break them—that's when you make an impact in marketing. You need to know the rules to know how to break them, or you'll offend people.

00:19:50 John Daub: And if you're lucky, every 30 minutes the space boat makes its way—one of my favorite sights. These three ships created 20 years ago shuttle passengers from Asakusa, the cultural heart of Tokyo, to Odaiba, the beach of Tokyo—you could swim, but I wouldn't recommend it. Thanks for showing us the start of cherry blossom season, Ike—you're welcome. Alright, let's take a look at the tree that did it all for me this year. In the evening, Kanae came back from work, and Leo and I—the three of us were walking around this area. We love the river here; I think this is one of the best places to live in Tokyo.

00:20:44 John Daub: I don't think I'd like living in Shinjuku—you're away from the sea, air quality isn't as good, too crowded, lots of students. If you have kids, you probably want to be down by the river where air quality is better and not as crowded—not because it's more expensive, just less places to live. I moved here from Edogawa Ward six years ago and really enjoy Chuo Ward because I can ride my bike to Tokyo Station and Haneda Airport—that's pretty crazy. The first blossoms I saw were over here—this tree. Every year they plant sakura trees on the river; this one's from Reiwa 2, about four or five years ago. There were 2,080 kids born in Chuo Ward, and the ones that allowed them to write their name are here—Leo's got his name on one from three years ago, very cool.

00:22:22 John Daub: Oh, this is the tree right here—you can see little pieces of popcorn on the Somei Yoshino tree, some green buds, a beautiful sign. Life started springing out about a week ago; I saw the green, and with warmer weather the last few days, really starting to come out. It's exciting—the anticipation is even better than the actual event because I've seen too many seasons. But with blue skies, it's a stunning sight around central Tokyo. To be honest, for those coming to Japan, Tokyo is maybe the best or worst place for cherry blossoms—too many people, you don't get that connection with nature. I like it nice and quiet: birds chirping, warm breeze, just with family. You slow down.

00:23:43 John Daub: That's really special at this time of year. I can afford to because I just got two videos out—if you haven't seen the other one, check it out. This story doesn't seem wow, but it's really good. If you're watching the TV drama Shogun, you'll appreciate the history with William Perry opening the country and this man, Manjitro, a pivotal person. When I heard the story, I spent a year making it—it inspired me. This is the first tree—more have come up; this is the first bunch I saw yesterday. I put it on Instagram: "Hey, blossoms, you're late—better late than never."

00:24:42 John Daub: Around the moat at Osaka Castle, Kyoto Botanical Gardens is really nice—thanks, Ike. There are so many beautiful spots, but places with a thousand trees all in one spot are insanely crowded—you'll have stress, the opposite of what cherry blossoms should be: anti-stress. Jvlog, good morning—all the cemeteries are good, like Aoyama Cemetery, really beautiful. Zoshigaya, where Manjitro's resting spot from that video is, also nice. Ross saw the Manjitro story—thank you. That's going down as maybe one of my best life works, even if it doesn't get views yet—it'll grow, just like the blossoms, zero regrets.

00:26:01 John Daub: And this one, if you haven't seen it, will drip right in your face. I kind of cleaned up my face too much with Topaz photo filter—maybe one too many times; maybe I'll roll that back. But it's not AI-generated—that's really me. Some creators clean up wrinkles too much; it's a thumbnail, supposed to touch up a little. That cringy photo might attract people—it came out popular. Actually, I misspelled Shinjuku as "Shunjuku" in the title—at 2 a.m.—then got a message from my friend Greg from Life Where I'm From: "John, you wrote Shunjuku?" I fixed it quick—comments were coming in too. Good to have friends watching.

00:27:52 John Daub: This one looks like mint leaves—really pretty tree, no blossoms but vibrant green color. I love that with spring: a couple days of fresh green before it darkens. You see boats coming for a ride—this is going to be a cherry blossom tunnel in a couple days, a week—much more impressive. Cherry blossom tunnels are amazing, almost always in the countryside. Go at 5:30 or 6 a.m. with jet lag—you have it to yourself for impressive pictures, but not in Tokyo, too many people. Oh, tour boats starting too—domestic Japanese tourists. Cool to take a Sumida River boat tour—highly recommend. Like Amsterdam with canals; during Edo period, used for commerce and transport. The Kanda River was the Yamanote Line of Tokyo 100+ years ago.

00:29:31 John Daub: He's doing a mating call—watch out, crows coming. You guys know where you're mating? Fertile ground for Toby (crow) and his band of thugs. If you come here, see if you can find these two lovebirds making out. Oh, this tree's getting taken over! Boy, they're not going to be there in a few days because bees come to pollinate. A lot of these apartment buildings were from the late '80s—this is River City 21, very expensive then, so older celebrities in the neighborhood. Sometimes you see somebody from TV in the supermarket, retired in their condo. Condos gone down in value—the moment you buy one in Tokyo, price drops. Famous expression: ground worth something, house worth nothing.

00:32:07 John Daub: There you go, everybody—you're here live enjoying cherry blossoms. I'm going to see if I can do another livestream today, tonight, or tomorrow. Tomorrow Kanae, Leo, and I are heading to see a friend in the Tsukuba area in Ibaraki for half a day—I'll probably take you, share countryside; sort of a Tokyo suburb. Next week, chillaxing, see Greg again—maybe talk about a subject on my mind, couple news articles about Tokyo you should know. That's great about this channel: experimental, live, fun bringing you on trips. Couple new Only in Japan videos—trying to get content out more regularly. That Manjitro one dragged me down—hard—but it's here; hope you enjoy.

00:33:17 John Daub: I'll bring you around the next week as these blossom. Might make a trip to Hirosaki—cherry blossoms incredible. That's where I saw the motorcycle guy inside a barrel going around—I put 1,000 yen, he grabbed it from my hands. Coolest thing I've seen; want to see if he's still there. They have a haunted house too—might freak out Leo. But the motorcycle dude is so cool—greatest 1,000 yen investment. Can't wait to go back. See you guys tomorrow or later today—it's so nice out; might eat lunch and come back. Great for Hawaii, east coast US maybe not. Hey Dan—I'm in Asakusa, just arrived three days ago, going on cherry blossom tour Wednesday—appreciate your work. Perfect timing—maybe a meetup this week; haven't done one in ages. Welcome to Japan, Dan—matane. Bye, Senikor.